The Brain Must Have Complete Security

Kinfonet Discussion
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Aren’t we all at times conceited, boastful, domineering, pretentious, rude, crude, opinionated, unkind, calculating, selfish, angry, afraid, looking down at others from our high horses, and so on? And it is all based on thought - what I think, what I know, my experiences, my desires, and so on - isn’t it? In those divisive moments, aren’t those behaviours the expressions of our need for security? Don’t they point to the brain’s need for security?

Isn’t thought/emotion a movement within the brain which is rooted in memory? Where there is fear, doesn’t it affect the body’s well-being? Don’t extreme emotion and pain diminish the brain’s ability to function sanely, rationally, effectively - to remember, think and perceive clearly, to regulate bodily functions?

It is clear that there can be no “awakening” - clarity, mental stability, sanity, maturity, compassion, sensitivity, and so on - so long as the brain is worried, anxious, confused; attached to its “feelings”, beliefs, ideals, conclusions, experiences, and the desire to become; a slave to its compulsions, to its dependence on pleasure and entertainment; and so on. All these activities or processes of thought constitute fear, and there is NO security for the brain where there is fear, is there? There is no peace, stability, sanity, and so on, where the brain is a slave to fear.

In pointing out the brain’s need or demand for security, K is not really saying anything different than when he points out the need or importance of awareness, as I see it. The brain is fragmented psychologically by the illusion of the observer separate from the observer, the thinker separate from thought. And it is this fragmentation which is the root of fear and conflict, isn’t it? Where there is fear, the brain cannot be secure. It is through awareness of the thought processes which produce both the thinker and fear that there is understanding of those processes. Understanding those processes puts them in their proper place. That is, it nullifies the importance we have been giving them. No? More or less? And that understanding is the action of intelligence, not of the thinker, isn’t it?

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Do YOU know the difference? And I mean the difference between living as a conditioned person - a graduate in science, a citizen of some country, member of a particular group or family - and living in freedom from all that psychological baggage? This doesn’t mean I can’t live like you do as a specific individual with the ability to discern what is mine and what rightfully belongs to another. When I am in Rome, I do as Romans do – at the bank, in the office, or on the golf course hitting my own ball and no one else’s. But when I am in silent mode and the mind is absolutely quiet, there is no division. Then, there is no me, no you, no Krishnamurti, and the mind encompasses everything ever uttered by mankind. Am I being clear?

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All this seems right to me, that where there is the possibility of psychological fear, the brain can never complete its development. It is stuck. In posting about the contradictions in us that are walled off from each other for the brain’s ‘comfort’, there is always the possibility of one’s ‘hypocrasies’ coming front and center…The ‘buffers’ are there to protect the brain’s feeling of security, though it is a false security that can fall apart at any moment…hence the undercurrent of dis-ease. This is important because unless the brain, a normal somewhat damaged brain, is rid of its source of fear, it cannot seemingly move past this point. It is stunted and that seems born out by the unintelligent situation man finds himself in. K. has said over and over that it is thought that must end. As long as the movement of thought continues in the psyche, there will be fear. “Thought is fear” he has also said many times. Can thought be aware of what it is doing and stop, cease? As you say through awareness of this situation, understanding emerges as to the situation and the inevitability of the presence of the ‘fear’ that stifles the brain’s freedom… The awareness and the understanding are one, not first the awareness and then the understanding…

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When awareness is choiceless, there is awareness of what thought is doing, and if there’s no emotional distortion, thought can stop and question its movement.

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Yes, it’s clear that when the brain is muddled and confused, it can’t function at it’s best…can’t function sanely…and that’s a threat to the body’s physical security. We see this in the world, obviously…the effect of confused and muddled brains. Not sure if this is what K was pointing to however with his statement about the brain needing complete security. He may have meant that there’s a need for complete physical security…something he pointed out at times…food, clothing shelter…all our physical needs need to be met. As he pointed out, the man who is hungry is only concerned with putting food on the table…he’s not interested in the ‘teaching’.

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Isn’t putting food on the table the whole - and only - point to the teaching? Feed the body, not the ghost inhabiting the body.

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The brain’s need for physical security is perfectly clear. It is seen that the brain cannot carry out simple daily tasks or make its usual self-centred demands for pleasure, and so on, as it is dying of thirst or cancer, or being tortured, for example. But it is also clear that even though the brain needs physical security, it CANNOT guarantee security. There is simply no such security and no such guarantee. The brain cannot overcome earthquakes, fires, crop failures, droughts, floods, wars, torture, pain, disease, death itself. In such circumstances, the brain cannot function optimally, can it? Circumstances can be unfair, unjust, painful, and it is simply so. In those moments at least, it is clear that there is NO security, no guarantee, no method, belief or spell by which the brain can overcome or end these dangers. In those moments of extreme duress, the brain is impaired, the scope of its abilities is reduced. The brain needs to function optimally, but there is no security, physically. So in those circumstances, there is nothing to do about it but live through it, or not.

The distance between meeting the need for physical and making demands for psychological security is very small. That is, one actually requires very little in order to survive physically: air, water, food, comfortable clothing, shelter, hygiene, basic health care, and the work skills necessary to get them. But once having the necessary basics, man/woman immediately demands more - much more - to compete with the neighbours, to impress others, to have a pleasurable self-image: gourmet food, exceptionally nutrition-rich food that is only available to the rich; shelter that is a mansion, a status symbol, that requires servants to maintain; couture clothing, status clothing; travel to exotic places, entertainment, season tickets; a career that provides riches, power, domination, status; and so on. So one sees that the demand for physical security becomes the demand for psychological security. No?

So isn’t it the responsibility of those who are NOT under immediate physical duress or danger to look into these issues? The man who is starving, exploited, and so on, cannot do it.

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Yet, in the present moment, if we’re well fed and clothed and have a decent roof over our head …if we have physical security…we don’t need to feel anxiety …we can relax and perhaps live fully. Even if only for a few hours. But only if there is this complete physical security. Without that the brain is in turmoil unless we’re mentally damaged in some way. Little children must have this feeling of complete security or they become neurotic and anxious and even physically violent. If they grow up with the feeling that the world is a threatening place their brains become warped in one way or another, as I understand it. K once was talking about the brain of the whale. The whale doesn’t have to be constantly on the lookout for predators and doesn’t constantly need to seek food… and perhaps because there is such physical security, K felt the brain of the whale could go very deep. I remember distinctly him talking about this…and relating it to total physical security. And how with total physical security the brain can go very deep into itself…or something like that. Sorry if I’m totally off base about this security issue, but I’ve felt this way for many years…that as long as man must struggle to make ends meet, he will remain as he is…in fear and conflict and being in fear he will be violent.

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No, don’t apologize because I feel you are right on target. Absolute security is the whole point to the Krishnamurti teaching, in my opinion. This is not a goal to be attained. This is the heavenly state of our natural being. What happened that brought about the “wrong turn”, that fall from Paradise, as Christianity puts it?

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Perhaps a better starting point may be to ask what psychological insecurity is, from where does it stem and what maintains it.

Obviously, even physical insecurity has psychological implications. The body and the psyche are one thing, one movement, not two. It should be clear then that when we refer to specifically psychological insecurity we are referring to something that is different, part of the whole that has differentiated itself in some way.

When we talk either of ‘the body and its mind’ or of ‘the mind and its body,’ we seem to have already accepted that the differentiation is actual. Is this imagined separation and the alienated self it gives rise to one of the causes, perhaps the primary cause, of insecurity?

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Yes…good starting point. There’s insecurity when the body’s needs aren’t being met, or there’s fear that they won’t be met in the future. If I’m hungry and have been hungry for days, insecurity arises. But I may be very well fed and still feel insecure. There may be fear that I’ll lose my well paying job in the future and be hungry and/or homeless. Then there’s fear that I’ll lose my status…or lose something else I’m emotionally attached to. Just laying out some stuff that comes to mind when pondering this question of psychological security/insecurity.

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Between body and mind, the differentiation is actual, but the separation is imagined. The organism is a whole composed of different organs with different functions, coordinated and interdependent. The self is alienated because it isn’t actual but imagined.

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Isn’t the body imagined also? By this, I mean that it’s existence as something real is constructed in the field of consciousness. The self, is also in the field of consciousness but its substantiality cannot be validated by the senses. The body’s image can be seen in the mirror. The self is pure imagination.

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The body is not imagined. It is objectively real.

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The body is as real as a toothache…or a rattle snake. If you come across a poisonous snake walking it the woods, it would be best to acknowledge it’s reality, yes?

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The body is reality. As is nature - the universe.

It is all the theories about everything that demand questioning.

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Haha. Have you gone into the nature of perception? What do you mean by “objectively real”? Do you believe that the object you see is something physical outside your body?

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What do you mean by that?

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Forget the snake, focus on the toothache. Is sensation (of pain) the criterion for concluding that something is real?

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Sree - if one hits one’s finger with a hammer it will really physically hurt.

That is reality.

The body physically exists - it is not of the imagination.

Psychological pain is the hurt felt by an image. It is of the imagination. It is illusion, as is the ‘self’ who built the image, and who therefore feels the psychological pain.

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