But what is the fact of conditioning you refer to. Conditioning is much more than just my conditioning. I am the new kid on the block, but the block has had an age in which to form itself, so why do I not learn everything there is to see about conditioning. Given conditioning is a fact, when I am not seeing it as deeply as it goes, I am avoiding or escaping from the fact of it am I not?
Nothing is mineā¦
Beyond what is felt to be mine or particular is that which is general in nature which upholds the particular and gives it its power. The general is the real power in the land.
Conditioning is a relationship with authority
Authority, which is really fear, is an outcome of conditioning certainly in that it is the attempt at manufacturing certainty or security, which then adds to it all, but it is the deeper layers of conditioning which brings life to that authority, such as the authority offered by my experience of a material world. There is the authority invested in my senses which hundreds of thousands of years of conditioning have had a say in, and whereas the issues raised by that are not problematic in the way psychological content is, the ability to question the psychological content is tied to the authority invested in my reality as a whole. Loosening the bonds on the one is loosening them on the other, just as holding to the one helps in reinforcing the other. So the fear of losing my mind, losing myself, losing touch with my reality, are all in play, but as Krishnamurti pointed out, the fear is in the idea I am of it all, not in actuality. This of course does not make the fear I have to deal with any less real.
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Looking as carefully as one can into this business of psychological fear, a ādecision / questionā comes about: is it necessary to continue to have any psychological fear at all? And if is to continue, why is that? K has said āthought is fearā, which was original to me because I had generally thought that psychological thought / images, created fearā¦first the image and then me being frightened. But is that so, that āthought is fearā.? I had an intense experience with all this and Iām interested in what others have found. The bottom line for me is that psych fear āspoilsā the potentiality of the present moment. Itās a pollutant. And for it to end demands an awareness that I may be to lazy or old or both, to meet (be awake to) the fearful thought / images as they arise. Before they create the reaction known as āfearā. It does take an energy to ābe thereā as it emerges and that āseeingā does diffuse it. The seeing is the doing. But it seems generally the āseeingā is absent.
So yes there is a āgoalā here, to be rid of all psychological fear because it is unnecessary, useless and a poison to all humanity. Iāll ask the question K does: Can thought be aware of what itās doing with these images, and can it stop doing it?
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Am I necessary? Can I choose not to be? Can I see myself? The answer may well be No.
There may well be no revolutionary, liberating insight for those without the desperate energy of youth.
We will be gone soon - our bodies back to the ground and our image merely a memory in the general confusion.
So how can we prepare for our dissapearance? Is it possible to touch the mystery of emptiness before we dissapear?
Rather than some amazing imagined explosive liberation - how about familiarity with its perfume? Instead of observing - how about being?
Did you sit down today and experiment with silence? Today and everyday - is it possible to not be, without trying? Is it possible to be the rain falling on your face?
Sit down and surrender. Sit down and know that all thought is just you complaining, or trying to amuse itself.
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Looking at fear I see that I do not have fear, so much as I am fear, and that I am the thing poisoning the brain. I am so used to thinking the brain to be my brain, when in fact it is I who am the occupying force.
Loneliness is having less interest in what-is than in what-should-be. When oneās interests extend beyond oneās sentiments, there is no loneliness.