Yes
Any insight partial or complete needs to be refreshed in the moment.
So when K said this would you say he was having a partial or complete insight in that moment ? He says “something new”, what is that ?
PS
So, is there such a thing as complete insight
K speaks about stepping out of the stream though …so I admit I am puzzled now
Yes, but it seems to be what most people consider the purpose of life: to grow in knowledge and expertise, improve one’s condition (an ever expanding prison with all the amenities), the approval and support of others, etc.
It seems to me that to understand “that knowledge can never go beyond itself as knowledge” is to be aware of a quality of awareness that is beyond knowledge. I say this because, I can’t imagine anything beyond knowledge because knowledge is all I know.
If, however, I was aware (how ever briefly) of what is beyond knowledge, I would know how limited knowledge is and couldn’t settle for confinement in the prison of knowledge wherein one can always improve one’s condition.
As I understand it the perception of truth is moment to moment. Truth or insight is not a continuous thing like memory is a continuous thing. It is creative, and so needs to be constantly seen anew, afresh, in the moment or creative perception.
But to live in this creative way of moment to moment discovery of the new, is not possible so long as thought and memory are the general background of perception. Because it means that thought and memory will continually prevent the new, or will take the new and continue it in memory, thereby limiting it to the old.
As I understand what Krishnamurti has said, total insight, total transformation of the mind, the revolution in consciousness, is to wipe out this background of psychological memory, so that the brain is capable of perceiving afresh moment by moment.
Krishnamurti was obviously still capable of using thought and knowledge, still capable of drawing on memory. But, from what he said about himself, it seems that he was not acting from the background of memory in the way that we ordinarily do. So in this sense his brain was transformed, as I understand it.
Obviously some people say that Krishnamurti was only like this because he was a special genius from childhood, because his brain wasn’t conditioned at its core. Maybe. But this doesn’t detract from the fact that he taught the possibility of psychological revolution, a revolution in consciousness, to everyone, and assumed that this is a real possibility for a human being who has not been born a spiritual genius.
This brings up the question (for me at least): is it that thought must see for itself that it is limited? Or must there be an awareness of the limitations of thought?
If we say it is thought that must be aware of its limitedness, how is thought aware when it is just a mechanism?
And if we say it is awareness which sees the limits of thought, are we saying that there is an awareness ‘outside’ the brain that can look ‘in’ and see that thought is limited?
I don’t think Krishnamurti ever made this point completely clear.
To assume that one is acting from an awareness ‘outside’ the brain is clearly a dangerous assumption to make (because it allows the mind to believe itself to be making spiritual progress).
And yet to think that thought can be aware is a little odd.
I recall Krishnamurti saying that thought has its own intelligence, which is limited. So maybe he was suggesting that the limited intelligence of thought is able to perceive its own limitedness?
There is also the fact that it is relatively easy to look at something - an apple tree for instance - without thought (momentarily). This means that one can perceive ‘beyond’ the limits of thought when one’s senses are actively perceiving.
This is why I wonder if it is not the combination of acute sensory sensitivity, with the awareness by thought of its own limitations, that is the ground for insight?
The mechanism of thought can acknowledge its mistakes and correct itself - it can learn - so it may be able to acknowledge its limitation. If it can, it can be quiet, I would think.
awareness and thinking
there is awareness and a quiet brain, capable to perceive directly, moment to moment; this is one mode of operating or observing
there is thinking and the mechanical brain, both live and die, in time
occasionally, thinking is suspended and awareness takes over, so I am tempted to say that awareness is the actual ground, even for thinking, but thinking being a noisy and mechanical process, is louder than awareness, like a constant background ( man made) noise in a silent forest.
where is awareness located ? it seems it is not only in the brain, but in the body, in the senses, in the actual object that is observed, all that it is observed and that which is doing the observation are one unit; awareness may be unlocalizable and unbound-able
I think the issue is that so long as thinking - which is memory, which has created over time the ‘me’ - is active psychologically, it will inevitably piggyback on anything that the brain discovers through perception or awareness.
The question of evolution, achievement, advancement exists only for the ‘me’, which has been put together by thought, by memory. Evolution, progress, achievement, etc, do not exist for awareness or attention.
The ‘me’ picks up anything it regards as new, special, expansive, and hitches its identity to it. But the ‘me’, as I understand it, is purely habit. It has come into existence through inattention, through habit, through the accumulation of experience stored up as memory.
The brain has made the mistake of identifying itself (chemically, neurologically, and so emotionally) with this mental configuration of memory, the result of which is ‘me’ and ‘you’.
It is this ‘me’ that wants to achieve enlightenment, expansion, evolution, progress. Not attention or awareness. It is this ‘me’ that is energised by identifying itself with awareness, perception, insight, etc, and so destroys insight.
So the question for us is: can the mind act without the ‘me’? Which is the same as asking: can the mind act without psychological thought and memory (which is time)?
If it can, for whom is this an achievement? For the ‘me’? For the mind that is free from the ‘me’? Or is there no achievement at all - but only living, acting, perceiving, from moment to moment?