…Amen.
It seems that the truth of K’s words deeply resonates with us and that we’re highly motivated to keep coming back here. Having said that, most of what Krishnamurti says just seems to kind of wash over us and we find it extremely difficult to put what he says into practice. Is this a fair description?
If it is at all true that we are in our present state like an ‘enclosure’ surrounded by the pure energy of the universe and what keeps us from the possibility of resonating with it, is our self. We are not ‘empty’. We want to partake of whatever is ‘out there’ but the ‘wanting’ is part of the obstacle to it happening. It comes back for me to observe this movement of ‘becoming’…the ‘wanting’ what is to be other than it is. The desire to reach a state that we imagine is out there in time, if we just knew how to get there…even ‘surrendering’ implies a surrender-er! Just more of the same.
**So what’s the obstruction? Is part of it the impulse to “tell others” what they should do? Is part of it the compulsion to quote K? Is it the psychological thoughts, the beliefs, we feel compelled to express? Is it the defense of the accumulated beliefs? Is it what we think ‘I’ know? Is it a resistance to looking from not knowing, created by thinking we do know? Why is the mind not dying to the psychological known? Or, why does it even create psychological beliefs, and attribute the thoughts to a thought identity?
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Yes, and it’s an understatement. We can’t do what our conditioning precludes, so we can’t free ourselves. The most we can do is acknowledge what we are intellectually and emotionally in the moment, and be mindful of when and how we escape this quality of self-awareness through distraction. Self-knowledge is all we have to go by, and the only way to gain self-knowledge is to be attentive to the conditioned mind as it operates. If we want to be free, we’re interested in how we enslave ourselves.
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As for putting into practice what he says, as Sean mention. Isn’t it the good old self that is still active, the practitioner ? Observing , as mention by Inquiry, is of another nature. The mind is conditioned. Our mind, the human mind, as it is.
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I don’t know. Maybe these are symptoms rather than the cause. Presumably, if we really “got” what K was saying we wouldn’t do any of the above.
That all seems to make a lot of sense Dan.
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There are moments of seeing the conditioned mind operate, are there not?
Like when? Could you give an example, with a description of what happens psychologically at that point?
**Is it a matter of ‘getting’ something, or ‘seeing’? And if the mind is ‘presuming’ something, is it able to observe choicelessly? Isn’t presuming something belief? Isn’t that clearly obstructing any seeing? Not a symptom, but an actual obstruction to seeing without the interference of memory? The “observer” belief structure?
Why “moments”? If you’re aware of your impulses, feelings, and thoughts as they arise and pass, you’re aware of your conditioned response as it occurs.
We talk a lot about the conditioned mind, but if we’re not always mindful of what it is doing, how it is reacting, we’re not interested in self-knowledge.
Krishnamurti is said to have said “Nobody got it” near the end of his life so that’s why I used the word “getting”. I understand “getting” to mean “understanding” which is indeed similar to “seeing” but not exactly the same. I also used the word “presumably” in the following sentemce:
" Presumably, if we really “got” what K was saying we wouldn’t do any of the above."
From that, you seem to have concluded that I have a belief. I would say that my use of “presumably” was to introduce an element of doubt which could lead to an interesting discussion. However, you equated that to me not seeing as far as I can see.
Howard, do your beliefs block you from seeing? Is this something you have observed in yourself? Or do you arrive on this forum with a mind which is clear and unpolluted by thought? Do you have an image of me as a blocked person full of beliefs? Or is your mind free of such images?
Personally, I am not watchful enough to always be aware of thought as it arises. Are you saying that you are?
**But I was asking about what ‘you’ see, not what did K say. “Getting” appears to be an intellectual understanding, and seeing appears to be a different kind of understanding, a direct observation.
**Isn’t a presumption a belief?
An interesting discussion? Possibly so, but that’s generally an intellectual endeavor using the already ‘known’ isn’t it? Is the mind occupied with thought open to insight?
**“Howard” doesn’t have any beliefs. ‘Howard’ is merely a label, or ‘thought identity’ that only exists in thought. It’s a useful label to distinguish one human from another. But words aren’t the thing. Beliefs, opinions, assumptions, etc., etc. are just thought imagery. They never reveal what is occurring now. It’s just limited past abstractions.
I sincerely have no interest in forming an image of “Sean.” The interest is to observe together the ‘commonly shared’ conditioning. The patterns of thought humanity is conditioned with. The conditioning “isn’t personal.” It’s the conditioning that falsely says, “It’s about a me or you.” But me and you is thought imagery, that’s commonly confused for what is. Where is a ‘me’ or ‘you’ without thought-imagery? We don’t generally notice that this ‘you’ is just an image, not the human being.
K: This centre, the me. My house, my family, my wife, my children, my bank account, what my impulse is, I want to do this, I am impelled to go to India to find truth, and so on so on so on.
Would we agree on that verbal description of what we call the self? Not only the
verbal description, but the feeling, the me and you. We, and they.
The me and the you.- Brockwood Aug.1979
**This ‘me’ and ‘you’ is the core of the self-image, ego-thought-structure. This imagery is available for observation in relationship, and available for an observation of the limited nature of this divisive imagery.
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**For anyone here who has recorded this commonly shared idea as part of what “I know,” who don’t have Mark Lee’s first book, here’s what those present felt about this comment:
“Several times Krishnamurti met with groups made up of a few trustees, who stood at the foot of his bed. There were publications and organizational issues to talk about. Some of the meetings were tape-recorded by Scott Forbes. At one of those gatherings, Krishnamurti said: No one has understood the teachings…" The seven of us present there conferred later and agreed he was talking about us rather than the whole of humankind in a regretful dismissal of his life’s work. He had made this pronouncement before, but obviously he could not have known whether or not among the millions who read or heard the Teachings there was even one person who understood them.”
I’m not saying it, but it’s implied.
If you’re interested in your conditioning you’ll be watching it.
Awareness of the delusion does not stop the delusion? Can we be aware of our delusion and continue being deluded ? Maybe you are conflating judgement/interpretation/fascination with understanding/seeing?
As I have asked many times before : who is the you that is watching you?
As I have answered many times, the mind is watching its own reactions and responses. It’s a mechanical process. There’s nobody there. The mind’s cultural conditioning personifies the process, creates characters and plots, but don’t let that deceive you.
Is this a part of the mind that is free from conditioning - in the sense that it is seeing clearly?