“I” is the prison of life.
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Trying to drink water from oasis mirage?
There is no lock you try to pick on!
K says, “There is no wall… no division. Looook at it!”
Your ego stands firm, to keep and strengthen its space which is strictly within the mirage, as the ego is itself a mirage or a part of it!
My job is to find out when and how it took a hold of and got on a freeride… in my life…
Fear is avoidance or movement away from anything that’s perceived (potentially) painful.
All sensing beings have inherent mechanism to avoid pain, but only cognizant beings move away from the potentiality, which is the root of suffering.
Naming fear a type of suffering is doing yourself a disservice, for fear is merely the process or structure that maintains suffering.
Fear is sustained by our lack of direct observation. We don’t see fear for what it is. Instead, we resist it, justify it or try to escape it. By naming, categorizing, or intellectualizing fear, we separate ourselves from the process of fear, creating division and perpetuating suffering. In this sense, fear can be neither avoided nor conquered but only understood through choiceless awareness.
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There is another aspect of fear to keep in mind: neurochemical. This kind of fear (general anxiety, for example) might not arise from resistance to potential suffering rather from the imbalance of neurochemicals swirling through the body-brain. I’d say the two processes (resistance to dukkha, chemical imbalance) are mutually dependent, drive and snowball each other. For the majority of people, resistance probably precedes brain neuro-imbalance.
We are a physical, chemical, biological, cultural, psychological process - I don’t how we can separate those parts, apart from conceptually.
We can consider them as separate for certain purposes - if I work in the pharmaceutical industry maybe - but how does looking at them individually affect our inquiry here?
For example someone once said that the bliss of accepting death was merely due to chemicals flooding the brain - sounds like a reductive and incomplete model to me.
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My slimmed-down version:
Fear arises from resistance to the thought of potential suffering.
This version sees fear as arising from rather than being synonymous with resistance (avoiding, moving away). Krishnamurti would probably go for synonymous.
I think the looking from different perspectives enriches the exploration and understanding. There is a body and a mind (and perhaps a spirit) aspect to things. Deep down perhaps there is just _________ (brahman) but it has aspects that matter.
Jein?
Do you mean to say that fear is “resistance to the thought of potential suffering”, or that it’s a reaction to that thought?
I think of fear as alarm in response to what may be harmful or dangerous. Since false alarms are common, the alarm must be taken seriously until it is clearly a false alarm.
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I mean the latter, fear arises in reaction (repulsion) to a thought (suffering).
The alarm sensitivity is tricky. Too low and you miss threats, too high and you’re paranoid.
Getting back to the problem of being prisoners of time…
Is our problem that we are stuck in the third dimension because we think time (the forth dimension) is measurable; because we haven’t realized that time is relative?
If time is relative, relative to what? To how fast and continuous one’s stream of consciousness flows? If that’s what determines our sense of time, and we really want to find out what time actually is, then all we have to do is stop our streaming…but we can’t.
All we know about time is that the streaming consciousness of the conditioned brain does not stop for longer than two seconds before it resumes, and it’s those brief gaps that give rise to insight into what time is, and how the conditioned brain deals with it.
That’s the body’s neuro-chemical reaction, physical experience of fear. Psychological fear is the result of thought projecting an imagined future based on past experiences.
Psychological fear is the continuous movement of thought in time (recalling, comparing, projecting). There is no separate psychological entity reacting to this process; it’s all one and the same flow. Body is the one reacting, not fear.
“Time is relative” means that time does not have a fixed, universal flow. It can vary depending on speed, gravity, or even perception. In physics, it is a measurable phenomenon tied to space and motion; in life, it reflects the subjective nature of human experience. In any case time is measurement.
Would you clarify what is the problem?
Clarification would be good. Is there a ‘problem’? Or is this just the way ‘things go’? Killing each other, war, pollution, racism, classism, nationalism etc seem on a personal level to be a problem …especially if me or mine are the recipients of these activities, beliefs, structures, … But if I’m rich, respectable, reasonably happy and secure, is there really a problem? If someone says “ you are the world” and I don’t feel that, is that a problem? And if that is true and not just poetic, why can’t I see that? What is the ‘problem’ that keeps me from seeing that?
Could we clarify the ‘problem’ as we see it or don’t?
K. Said “Don’t make it a problem”…is that because then we have to ‘solve’ it?
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Labeling something as a problem creates division between the issue and the self, reinforcing a fragmented way of thinking.
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Viewing challenges as problems binds the mind to psychological time, postponing resolution to the future and perpetuating effort and conflict leading to non-action.
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Thirdly, which might be most observable here, the ego gains identity by framing itself as the solver of problems, keeping the mind trapped in cycles of creating and resolving issues.
Instead, by observing challenges without judgment or seeking an outcome, one can access deeper clarity and intelligence. This allows situations to be met with presence and understanding giving access to right action.
Killing each other over this or that, we are taught, is not good; it is bad. That would be a judgement. Bohm introduced the words instead of bad / good : coherent and incoherent… So if it IS a fact that we ARE the world, killing another would be incoherent because we would be killing our self. Not seeing that we ARE the world then IS incoherence . A form of blindness. A mental deficiency. A source of great suffering.
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Is it possible for the conditioned brain to observe anything without the observer? Or does observing without judgment or seeking an outcome occur only when there is no judging, seeking, observer?
If you are saying that the conditioned brain can suspend the observer for the sake of observation, why can’t it eliminate it or put it in its place?
If I can remove something from where it doesn’t belong, why would I let it return to that place?
Observation, in the truest sense, is not an act of doing but of being, simply seeing without interference. The conditioned brain, with its accumulated experiences and judgments, typically operates through the filter of the ‘observer,’ which is itself a product of conditioning. Observation without the observer means perceiving without projecting past conclusions or seeking future outcomes.
The question of ‘removing’ or ‘eliminating’ the observer implies action taken by thought, but thought itself is the observer. Any attempt to remove it reinforces its role. True observation arises when this process is understood, not resisted. In this understanding, the observer naturally quiets, and observation happens without effort. It is not about control but clarity.
The reader needs to know what “understanding” actually is because what you’re saying is understood, and of course there’s no way to remove the observer, but isn’t it enough to be aware of the observer?
Understanding is not an intellectual process or a conclusion reached through analysis but a direct perception of ‘what is.’ When you truly see that the observer is the observed, this insight is not the result of effort or reasoning but of a clear awareness that has no agenda.
Awareness of the observer is a significant beginning, but awareness alone is not the same as understanding. Understanding unfolds when awareness is free of judgment, resistance, or the desire to change ‘what is.’ In that space, there is no separation between the observer and the observed, and the fragmentation dissolves naturally, without any action by thought.
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Yes, so I is both culprit and victim. The victim suffers the culprit’s intransigence.