SAT DIALOGUE Apr 15, 2023: SENSITIVITY

Saturday Bimonthly Dialogue
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Saturday Kinfonet Question:
Are we aware of the minute observation that is sensitivity?

To get us started, here is a quote on the topic of sensitivity. Look forward to seeing you Saturday. John

Krishnamurti on Sensitivity:

Just listen, watch all the activities of yourself: the way you talk, the way you eat, the way you walk. Don’t correct the walk, don’t correct the way you eat, just watch it, so that by the very watching, you become astonishingly sensitive. This requires great sensitivity and therefore great intelligence. Not conclusions, not experience, but intelligence. To be intelligent you need tremendous sensitivity. There can be sensitivity only when the body is also sensitive - how you observe, see, hear. Then, out of that minute observation, without any choice, without any evaluation or judgment, condemnation or comparison, just to observe - out of that observation, you will see that your body becomes extraordinarily alert, sensitive, and therefore the whole of your brain, the mind, the whole of your entity becomes sensitive.

Saanen 1966, Public Talk 2

Zoom Link:

Date: Saturday April 1, 2023
Time: 4 PM UTC
(HST 6 AM, AKT 8 AM, PDT 9 AM, CDT 11 AM, EDT 12 PM, BST 5 PM, CEST 6 PM, EEST 7 PM, IST 9:30 PM)
Duration: 2 1/2 hours
Join: Launch Meeting - Zoom

Meeting ID: 899 4119 3018
Passcode: 641528

@sdg

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I photographed her few days ago, at Filoli Estate.
While she was watching me, her body and senses were alert and still.
This extremely shy animal, displays beautifully high sensitivity to her environment.

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This question was asked of AI and its answer was given in 10 seconds:
“Can one just listen, watch all the activities of yourself: the way you talk, the way you eat, the way you walk. Don’t correct the walk, don’t correct the way you eat, just watch it, so that by the very watching, you become astonishingly sensitive?”

"Yes, it is possible to just observe oneself without trying to correct anything. This is a practice that is commonly referred to as self-awareness or mindfulness. By observing oneself without judgment, one can develop a heightened sense of sensitivity and intelligence.

As you observe yourself, you become more aware of your actions and behaviors, which in turn makes you more sensitive to the world around you. This heightened awareness can lead to greater clarity of thought and a deeper understanding of yourself and others.
It is important to note that this type of observation requires practice and patience. It is not something that can be achieved overnight, but with consistent effort, one can develop a greater sense of self-awareness and sensitivity.

Ultimately, the goal of observing oneself is not to judge or criticize, but rather to gain a deeper understanding of oneself and the world around them. With practice and patience, one can develop the sensitivity and intelligence necessary to achieve this goal.

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I realize that AI didn’t get the K memo on time, goals and effort. But maybe with enough questions from here, it will.

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In the K quote above, he mentions that sensitivity increases from the act of watching.

If we are not watching for some future goal, if watching takes no effort, where does the impulse to watch ourselves come from?

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AI’s response: "The impulse to watch ourselves can arise from a variety of sources, including our natural curiosity and desire to understand ourselves better, our desire for self-improvement and personal growth, and our need for self-protection and self-preservation.

Even if we are not actively pursuing a specific goal, the act of observing ourselves can still provide valuable insights into our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, which can ultimately help us make more informed decisions and lead a more fulfilling life.

Additionally, self-awareness and self-observation can help us identify areas of our lives that may need improvement or attention, allowing us to make positive changes and progress towards a more desirable future state.

In short, the impulse to watch ourselves can come from a variety of factors, and can ultimately help us live a more conscious, intentional, and fulfilling life."

Clearly, AI is not in sync with K on some of this.

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When you ask generic questions, you get generic answers. If you ask GPT to answer your question from the point of view of K (or some other specialist) you get more specific answers.

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Considering that next time we will continue with this theme here is another facet of “sensitivity”

“To be religious is to be sensitive to reality. Your total being – body, mind and heart – is sensitive to beauty and to ugliness, to the donkey tied to a post, to the poverty and filth in this town, to laughter and tears, to everything about you. From this sensitivity for the whole of existence springs goodness, love; and without this sensitivity there is no beauty, though you may have talent, be very well dressed, ride in an expensive car and be scrupulously clean.”

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Krishnamurti: You started this conversation by asking about beauty, by saying that you do not feel it. You also said that in your life there is no beauty and so we are inquiring into this question of what beauty is, not only verbally or intellectually but feeling the very throb of it.

Questioner: Yes, that is so, but when I asked you I wondered if there isn’t something beyond the sensitive looking you describe.

Krishnamurti: Of course there is, but unless one has the sensitivity of observation, seeing what is infinitely greater cannot come about.

Questioner: So many people do see with heightened sensitivity. Poets look with intense feeling, yet in all this there doesn’t seem to be any breakthrough to that infinitely greater, infinitely more beautiful something which people call the divine. Because I feel that whether one is very sensitive or rather dull, as I am, unless there is a breakthrough to some quite different dimension what we perceive is simply varying shades of grey. In all this sensitivity which you say comes about through observation it seems to me there is just a quantitative difference, just a small improvement, not something vastly different. Frankly I am not interested in just a little more of the same thing.

Krishnamurti: So what are you asking now? Are you asking how to break through the dull grey monotony of life to some quite different dimension?

Questioner: Yes. Real beauty must be something other than the beauty of the poet, the artist, the young, alert mind, though I am not in any way belittling that beauty.

Krishnamurti: Is this really what you are seeking? Is it really what you want? If you do, there must be the total revolution of your being. Is this what you want? Do you want a revolution that shatters all your concepts, your values, your morality, your respectability, your knowledge - shatters you so that you are reduced to absolute nothingness, so that you no longer have any character, so that you no longer are the seeker, the man who judges, who is aggressive or perhaps non-aggressive, so that you are completely empty of everything that is you? This emptiness is beauty with its extreme austerity in which there is not a spark of harshness or aggressive assertion. That is what breakthrough means and is that what you are after? There must be astonishing intelligence, not information or learning. This intelligence operates all the time, whether you are asleep or awake. That is why we said there must be the observation of the inner and the outer which sharpens the brain. And this very sharpness of the brain makes it quiet. And it is this sensitivity and intelligence that make thought operate only when it has to; the rest of the time the brain is not dormant but watchfully quiet. And so the brain with its reactions doesn’t bring about conflict. It functions without struggle and therefore without distortion. Then the doing and the acting are immediate, as when you are in danger. Therefore there is always a freedom from conceptual accumulations. It is this conceptual accumulation which is the observer, the ego, the “me” which divides, resists and builds barriers. When the “me” is not, the breakthrough is not, then there is no breakthrough; then the whole of life is in the beauty of living, the beauty of relationship, without substituting one image for another. Then only the infinitely greater is possible.

Meeting Life

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The beauty of a living and dying tree

  • As I sat by this tree (last year, November 18) I realized there is no way one can find where or when the living of this tree stopped and it’s dying has began;
  • living and dying are inseparable

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That’s the thing about processes, the deeper you look the less clear it becomes when a process begins and when it ends. Even for ‘polar opposites’ like life and death. Ultimately, perhaps, each of the universe’s zillions of interconnected processes ‘begins’ and ‘ends’ with the beginning/ending of time itself!

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The Anonymity of a Rock
Near the creek, there is an infinite number of rocks, which can’t be known.
I happened to choose to hold this rock;
I feel its temperature and texture;
I bring the rock into the sunlight and my eyes discover, in the uneven blue surface of the rock, the my-NOOT-est sparkles; no one has ever seen them, except my eyes, nor will they be seen in the future.
This rock has been seen once, by me.
In this seeing I realize the entire nature is Living and Dying in anonymity, and solitude.

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The story continues

One River Rock, out of many pebbles living by the creek, happens to be chosen by me, and held in the heart of my palm. No human before me and after me will ever look at the anonymous and solitary River rock.
Who’s the “lucky” one ?
Me or the river rock ?