The third definition of “corrupt” in the dictionary is: a departure from the original or from what is pure or correct.
Why can’t the conditioned human brain see itself as corrupt? Is it because corruption is a matter of degrees? Can one’s corruption be so trivial, so harmless, so inconsequential as to be funny, a delightful source of amusement?
Oh, She loves ice cream! Oh, he’s a gamer!
Aren’t we all corrupt to some degree? And isn’t there only an imaginary line between one’s harmless, amusing corruption and one’s crime against humanity, and every other living thing?
I can be openly, shamelessly corrupt when I believe my crime is not against anyone or any living thing but myself. But what happens when I realize that believing in myself is my corruption, and that belief is harmless?
How harmlessly corrupt can I be when I know I can justify whatever I choose to do by believing I am harming no one but myself?
The ‘me image’ is the center in the brain that everything collects around; all the 'me’s: the saints and the sinners…without the ending of the me and the mine and the me and the mine’s ‘borders’ the ‘purity’ of the brain isn’t possible, as I understand the situation.
K. “Knowledge is necessary, but when knowledge is misused by the centre as the ‘me’ who has got knowledge, and therefore I feel superior to the man who has less knowledge, then I use it as status for myself. I am more important than the poor chap who has no knowledge…”
And not just knowledge but money also, if I have enough and a decent place to live, I can feel superior to those who have less.
We have all those! But it’s the image of myself as existing, as being an individual that creates the disharmony. That’s my guess. Our problems all stem from that ‘seed’. With that illusion entrenched in the brain, the brain can never be empty, free, pure, silent, etc. We can’t ‘achieve’ silence because we don’t know what it is, so understanding the ‘me and mine’ process, seems to be the only ‘sane’ approach.
And that understanding can’t come from the ‘self image’ of itself but from awareness that is beyond it. It seems.
I think of it, the self-image, as more like a ‘virus’ in the brain and that when and if it’s dissolved, the brain unless it’s damaged physically can operate normally.
No, there is no you! There is a brain that has been ‘conditioned’ (hacked?) to create and perpetuate an apparently sometimes angry sounding version of a self, or center. You are illusory, you don’t exist…that is this brain’s interpretation. It is not necessarily so!
Its like a scar that keeps refining itself.
We are constantly reliving the trauma of our ancestors and our own traumas.
Humans are an experiment in survival based on thought.
It works like this : the brain makes images of the world (eg. me and the other things) in order to know how those images can best interact.
Sometimes it doesn’t work very well, but if on the whole the species survives, the human brain can continue its work.
We’ll probably ‘survive’ given our ingenuity…but survive for what purpose? We can ask such a question but can there be an answer? Why any of this? Is there a purpose? All these different ‘experiments’ of creation’ : the dog, the bird, the flower, us? What’s it all about?? But a question we may be able to tackle is: since we’re here, can we end our misery and fear and stop the organized killing of each other as well as our individual violence and cruelty and disregard for the environment? The K/Bohm theory as I get it, is that the brain in its evolution made a misstep; a wrong turn.
Bohm said it did it because “it could”. The previous versions didn’t have that possibility to veer from the path of better survivability. We did…and we did. And this is where we are: eight billion of us, walking around, each one of us thinking / feeling as if we are individuals…are we? What do you all think?
Human beings are creatures of thought: homo sapiens.
Thought is infused in almost every aspect of us, thanks to millions of years of evolution.
Given this, is it intelligent to try to transcend thought, let it go, be free of it? Is being free of thought as much a fool’s errand as being free of gravity?
We’re not talking about practical thought are we, medicine, science, the Arts? Can we be ‘free’ of the thought that allows war, pollution, classism, poverty, starvation, brutality, etc?
Dividing thought into practical and psychological looks good on paper, but the boundary between them is, in reality, often hazy at best. Practical and psychological thought are intimately intertwined. The organism is supersaturated with self (psych thought), it seeps into pretty much everything, even the most mechanical mundane events like driving to work, giving directions to a stranger, asking a friend a question.
If a self-image is divisive, can the brain think without it? If the self-image is a construction based on the past can the brain be free of it and meet the present without it? As @Inquiry asked: Why does the brain do it? Why does it allow itself to be occupied by a ‘center’, a ‘me and mine’?
Given our mental and physical reality what else is the brain to do but posit an individual semi-autonomous entity? Experience tells us our brain and body are unique. What tells us they aren’t?
As ‘you’ are thinking this through and recalling K’s idea that there is no ‘thinker’, no you thinking, just thought itself that has projected itself as a ‘you’ doing the thinking? And ‘me’ as well… So if that is true then what we have here is thought talking to thought. Is there a benefit in the brain going along with the separate entity business: you Rick the individual and me Dan the individual (except for practical purposes of identification)? Is there a benefit if this psychological separation as ‘Rick and his’ and ‘Dan and his’ is at the root of mankind’s divisions, nationalism, war, etc?
The survival algorithm sees that its fear, resistance, cunning and desire for self-centered pleasure and security is successful. I am still alive.
Is it wise to question the authority of fear? - an existence such as this is precious, its mine, it is all I have ever known.
Whatever the answer in our hearts, then that is the answer.
Life has been free of gravity for a long time now, even us humans have gone to the moon - because we go where we are driven. Maybe subservience to suffering is my full potential.