You are speculating 
right?
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Gee, I understood that Sean had split, but no, lol
Considering that the word is not the thing, but only a referent - something that only points to a fact, the problem is not the word per se nor is it the choice of the word, but the fact that whatever word one uses, it is the conditioning that is the problem that must be faced.
Dan, good to see you maintain a sense of humour about all of this, too funny.
I never said I had split Charley. I said the following:
I’m happy to engage in dialogue in a civilised manner with anybody really.
Also, Dan, too funny - also because I have also seen this happening in various posts on this site, so not really speculation.
I would consider you fortunate to live among nature Dan but your description here doesn’t sound like one made by a fortunate man. How do you feel when you are in nature? I mean, when you’re walking along a forest path or looking at a mountain if there are any near where you live. This isn’t a trick question, rather a genuine enquiry.
Well, if you engage me Charley, I will reply.
I’m interested in words and language in general. In order for communication to take place, we must have a common definition of what a word means. If I say “horse”, and you speak English, you will understand what I am referring to. If I say “caballo”, you may not understand that I am speaking about a horse unless you speak Spanish. So this common understanding of a meaning of a word is important if communication is to take place. Now, you may say the word “conditioning” and I might say the word “conditioning” but we may not necessarily be talking about exactly the same thing. On a forum like this, where communication is limited to written text with some users not having English as their mother-tongue, it is important to try to express oneself as clearly as possible using illustrative examples if necessary. So, “the word is not the thing” but it is our only means of communication here.
After so many years in the woods by a small river has given me the chance to be in relationship to all of it. Always learning new things about the relationships between the birds and animals. Walking I’ve been though the gamut of elation to boredom and the impossible question: “what is all this for”? Here you see everything eating everything else. Strange arrangement… and even stranger to be a witness to it. As presented to the senses it is what it is, life and death. Pain and suffering, Fight or flight. Appearance and disappearance,etc. But this what comes through the senses, may not be the whole ‘story.’ I was , in relation to all this, very struck by JK’s lament before he died that he felt sorry that we would die without ever knowing the “Immensity “.
I suppose these were the same unanswerable questions Gauguin was asking living in his ‘paradise’, when he painted “Where did we come from? What are we? Where are we going?”
Dan,
When you say it is “unanswerable”, you are blocking yourself, you really don’t know whether or not it is answerable… So don’t say that… 
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Clarification, what I meant earlier was that when one has no more questions to ask of oneself, the mind is silent - hence, I state again, A truly silent mind has no questions. The clever, conditioned mind is full of questions, which in finding someone to provide them with “answers”, dissipates the energy of the question. An impossible question - for me, it was “What do I do?” - drove me absolutely around the bend, having worked my mind with thought for more than a week, as to what to do - I was literally exhausted from all that thinking. It was like a river rushing rushing down and finding no place to go. Luckily (fortunately), there was no one around to “help” me (impose/share their viewpoints) etc. and the fact that I had allowed the words of K to saturate me deeply inside. So I was stuck, completely unable to resolve the question. The magic words were “I don’t know… what to do”. And that’s about how the meditation began, and so began the reading of the book of myself; and hence, answered all the questions I had.
You do indeed sound like a fortunate man Dan. Some of my earliest memories are of being in the woods near our house in rural Scotland. I recall looking up at the green canopy of leaves above me seeing a wood-pigeon on her nest. Seen through the innocent eyes of s small child, the forest is a truly magical place.
Hiya Dan,
I was unaware that K had said that. For me, it had never been a question or even an interest to “know” the “immensity”, that which he referred to as that which is “immeasurable”. I had always believed that if one couldn’t touch anything, if it wasn’t solid, it wasn’t real. My skepticism knew no bounds. Meditation changed that, changed Charley, and I had to drop that belief, and realize that it is important to be wise with skepticism. It is curious to be on a site, where suspicion seems to have taken the place of skepticism in quite a few. The suspicious mind always starts with a premise - and that is their conditioning. Such is the degree of those who’s conditioning does not even understand goodwill. I can go along with such people to quite an extent, because of my patience. But it is obvious from the get-go, even while going along with people for quite a while, how transparent their agenda is - unfortunately, with dire consequences for them. I call that acting out, acting out their conditioning, without being aware they are doing that. As I am not responsible for another’s conditioning, I don’t mind. Hence, I am not at all surprised that there are those who can never “know” (I am not sure that is the correct word) as you said that which is immeasurable. Here, I will say that one can never go to that which is immeasurable, it must come to you. It all depends on one’s integrity.
Well, not knowing is not a bad place to be Dan.
“A man who says he knows is already dead. But the man who thinks, “I don’t know,” who is discovering, finding out, who is not seeking an end, not thinking in terms of arriving or becoming—such a man is living, and that living is truth.”
Jiddu Krishnamurti, Think on These Things
So, to continue with the theme of this post, relationships, as I was saying (before being interrupted) relationship are the key to life. And I say that without a correct relationship with oneself, which is the correct place to begin, it is impossible to have a true relationship with anyone else. So, I say, it is important to begin with awareness - of what is happening outside of oneself, firstly, and then what is happening inside oneself, what K referred to as passive awareness. This is crucial because it is this passive awareness that awakens intelligence. And it is this intelligence, when fully awakened, that can lead to the meditation beginning. When I say beginning, I mean beginning without the “I” process interfering - in other words, beginning unconsciously. It is intelligence which (unconsciously) is the bridge between reality and truth. And because it is such an intermediary, it is this intelligence that can initiate the beginning of meditation, and the seeing of the unfoldment of the entire “I” process.
I also say that it is important to lay a good foundation, prior to all this, and I am using the word “good” in its pure meaning. So, having laid a proper foundation, the mind is now ready to see itself, to confront itself; and the self, which is full of layers of conditioning, fearful of anything that threatens its security, will now yield to the mind, so that the “I” process can be seen. Hence, all the discoveries one makes one will own, and such discoveries will lead to an understanding of oneself which is complete and meaningful.
Reading some posts on here is interesting. I had no idea that Bohm suffered from depression, and I didn’t know that he had never had an insight as K spoke of what insight was, as I understand what insight is. Someone had mentioned in a post (forgot who or where on this site) that Bohm questioned whether ‘the word was not the thing’ much later on… In some respect, apart from Bohm’s intellectual genius, I never really got why anyone was really into the Bohm/K discussions. However, that was just because I didn’t have that yellow layer of consciousness.
I live in an area of Canada where the winter season is one in which it rains a lot, and many of the British heritage suffer from depression, all of whom have that yellow layer of consciousness, from what I have seen. It is referred to as S.A.D. (seasonal affectivity disorder). Those with that layer who don’t have money and end up on welfare are labelled as “bipolar”, because of that. Those with that layer who have money travel usually travel south during that season. I knew someone, a Buddhist with that layer, that I asked about his layer - quite some years ago - who mansplained to me that the reason he was attracted to Buddhism was because of that layer of consciousness, the intellectual part of that, which he explained to me was something called “narcissism”.
Reading a part of The Limits of Thought earlier today (as it was brought up in a post), I can now understand the why of the appeal, although it still seems as though K is forever correcting Bohm - boring… unless of course, one finds it interesting to see these dialogues as a form of intelligence vs. intellect.
Living as a female in a patriarchal, sexist, misogynist world, it was relatively easy to break away from all of that, especially the mansplaining that is part and parcel of such a world. And it is this mansplaining that is usually part of the old boy’s club of conditioned behaviour and male bonding, especially when the agenda of those that exhibit such behaviour is to silence or alter the very words of what a woman might say. Remarkably, I never sensed any form of condescending behaviour that is typical of mansplaining in any of K’s words. Can’t say that about many who are allegedly into K, though. Highly unlikely that those types will ever be able to be aware of that, let alone apologize, drop that and move on.
To me, that layer of consciousness is due to childhood abuse, usually abandonment, but always a sense of a lack of care, and is held together by fear. Thought/thinking is the fearful response to just about every thing. In other words, thought/thinking is the expression of fear in the world we all live in.
So, to continue, intelligence uses the words, but Charley was never verbal. Presently, one could easily say that Charley’s verbal ability is just adequate. When one had the insight from “the word is not the thing”, that was the only insight where the explosion and release of energy did not start from the feet going up, mainly cause I was forced by circumstances to use words only much later, as a teenager, so not in childhood (under age 7), so the energy that was trapped moved only from just below the head and then up - not sure, don’t recall exactly where the explosion began. Words are such strange things in the world, so back to the same understanding I had before circumstances altered that understanding. Necessary for communication, but not for relationships, where only love is necessary.
One writes a line (a sentence) using several words - truth was one of them, love using that word - and for fun, one does a search on https://jkrishnamurti.org/teachings using some of the words in that sentence, and finds a similar sentence that K had spoken. One puts up that sentence as a quote by K, and surprise surprise, one is chastised for having put up a quote by K. It was a quote about truth, but that is all I remember. Curiously, no one responded to the point that I was making. Ya know, I am not at all surprised by that omission.
So, one is interested/curious by reading many posts in different topics, and some posts are so intellectual that Charley had to read some posts over and over again, and intelligence read between the words and couldn’t make heads or tails about the posts, and others seemed to understand what was written, even praising the form, and urging others to praise the form. Okay, I get it, form is more important than content here, right?
There are relationships, but it is a question of what is relationship? Not what does a relationship mean to you and me, him and her, but what is the relationship, for anyone, in life? That is I have to find out for myself, and see how I am relating to the world. This is not the relating we have in romance, in family, in business, in society, in tradition, in religion, in culture, it is the relating from me. These are the outcome of my life. It is different to satisfying myself, or someone else. This is not going to sound very helpful to someone who only thinks of relationship as making good associations and affairs with people. My question is, ‘How do I operate in life?’ (not the how to do it; the way I work) and actually see for myself. It is my relationship in life, in actuality.
So, to continue with the theme of this topic, relationships - quite innocently, Charley wondered whether the mind can (after the conditioning is gone), (the mind being love) can have a relationship with the brain. That would be one of the finest of relationships one can have. So, Charley’s mind wondered whether the brain can never record any more conditioning, and only use the brain for real needs - food, clothing, shelter. Done.
Now, K said:
“Krishnamurti: Do you approve of group formation, round what we have talked about, and do you think it is worthwhile? Is that the question Sir? Do whatever you want to do! If you want to form a group, form it. If you don’t, don’t form it. If you want to understand yourself through a group, form a group. And if you say, “Well that will not help me to understand myself, to live a different kind of life”, then don’t join a group. You are responsible for yourself and for nobody else. It is your life. You stand completely alone, never asking, never begging, never seeking truth, because truth does not come to the seeker. You cannot invite it. It is like the wind, or the breezes that come if you leave the windows open you cannot invite the breeze - and if you are lucky it might come and I hope you are lucky.”
November 23, 1967
Charley was lucky
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Whatever thought/thinking does is limited. And because it is limited, there is always conflict when one uses thought/thinking. Now, if one doesn’t mind living in conflict, live in conflict, but when one lies about it and tries to invent a kind of relationship that seems to have no conflict on the surface, one only exacerbates the conflict, the lie within, the separation, the division between truth and reality. And that is because thought/thinking creates reality. So, whatever you do, whatever you work for, whatever you can imagine, whatever you think that you can create between yourself and another, all that is in the field of reality. Thought can even imagine or invent or think that it can create truth between oneself and another - any kind of perfect world, a perfect state. However, this state is still in the field of reality. And being in the field of reality, then there is no truth.
So what I am saying is that conflict is always part of the field of reality. The very nature of reality is conflict. So, to get back to the theme of this topic, relationships, what I am saying is that as long as one operates within the field of reality (thought/thinking), truth will elude the one who lives in that reality. And that is because truth has no direct relationship to reality. So as long as one has not explored all the illusions that thought/thinking have to reality, as long as thought/thinking does not end, there will always be conflict. For conflict to end, thought/thinking must cease, and only then can there be truth. And that is because truth has no relationship whatsoever with reality. And that is why a person who is anchored in truth has no relationship with those who are caught in the web of reality. And the stronger a person’s attachment/dependence on thought/thinking, the less likelihood of moving away from thought/thinking, and the less likely can anyone who is caught in the reality of thought/thinking can have any kind of relationship with anyone living in truth.
Now, having said all this, it is only a person who is anchored in truth, who in seeing the truth or the falseness of any statement - insight meditation (as K talked about) - can effect a change in reality. So, in the end, it is only when one has come to end of one’s conditioning, when one has seen and understood all of that conditioning, is it possible to have a relationship with truth. I hope that I am correctly stating all of the above.
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