To try and make a parody of Genesis is risky and can be outrageous. Anyway, if god is the creator of all there is including human beings, all there is has to obey the laws of this energy which is manifold. Genesis explains that these human beings didn’t obey the laws of nature and suffered the due consequences and we human beings have inherited all the package and have been trying to mend the damage - the disorder - caused by our ancestors. Putting it in Krishnamurti’s context, trying to put the house in order.
I don’t think it is right to start a thread by speaking of the ‘conditioned brain’ when one knows so little about what the brain can do. The brain is the brain, it’s its condition, not conditioned.
Yes we are most probably being silly
Why is it risky? Are you suggesting that God really is like the highly powerful and dangerous entity described in the bible?
If so we should pray for Inquiry (blood sacrifices are no longer required)- and maybe me too if God is not clear about what I have said on this thread (He won’t be the only one - Dan thought I was accusing Him of being a nincompoop) - anyway, He can read directly into my heart, so He will see that I have not managed to believe that the Bible story is a true facts history book.
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Hello, macdougdoug!
I’m talking about the Bible, specifically about Genesis, being the Bible the most read book in the world. It’s a book of wisdom and its compilation is absolutely remarkable. I think most serious people these days accept it isn’t true facts history, it speaks to the world about humankind in general, it is there to be understood by those who care to listen. Yes, maybe it is silly, as you suggest, to speak so lightly about it all.
All the sacred books of religion were considered to be revelations directly by God to prophets of the day. In that sense Krishnamurti’s writings could be an ‘update’ on them for humankind today? As was the New Testament to the Bible for example?
Its also full of strange advice on how to treat your women, children and slaves. What to do when you meet a homosexual etc that we wouldn’t agree with today (some stuff being actually illegal in many countries)
I do see one very important message in the Bible if I squint and look sideways at the Genesis story and the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. But I’m not sure if thats just conditioning on my part (from listening to teachings from K and buddhism) - because actual christians don’t seem to see the same messages as me.
What do you think are the most remarkable teachings from the Bible?
Oh, well, Dougdoug, I was brought up studying and questioning the Bible, so it’s difficult for me to say which passages have had an impact on my education, but certainly many were very relevant in the way I related to my experiences as time went on. I don’t squint at anything, all have positive and negative aspects and all you have to do is to try and make sense of it all. You know most parts of the Bible have different interpretations, some even conflicting with each other. Human beings are very complicated and the Bible tells us about all human dramatic relationships. And if you have seen the film Clockwork Orange based on a Burgess’s book, maybe you remember (actually it’s nearly all I can remember about it now having seen it many years ago) the last part which shows the delinquent reading the Bible very quietly which pleased his tutors very much, but then we come to realize that in the boy’s mind he was rejoicing incarnating the soldier that was torturing Jesus in his painful way to the calvary! Yes, I’m sure it can happen!
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Why do you believe you are not conditioned?
Hello, Inquiry!
I’m not just my brain, I’m sure you know that. I said the brain, a common brain, is not to be conditioned, we simply don’t know about all the potentialities of the brain in general, not even your brain or my brain, just some brain that is not damaged.
We seem to have lost interest in the question of whether the brain is corrupt, deliberately self-deceiving, or just a confused, muddled, fearful, hopeful mess.
One thing we know about the human brain is that when we’re awake, it never stops thinking, whether it’s thinking deliberately or automatically.
Most people are alright with this condition because it enforces and reinforces their sense of self, for better or for worse. But some people see the sense of self as the problem - not something to accept as normal, but something to question.
Is the brain better off with a constant stream of thought, or with silence that can be thoughtful when necessary? The only way to find out is to be silent. But to be silent, the brain’s need to be silent must be greater than the brain’s fear of ceasing to be what it has been.
Says the brain. The often-deluded. Should we trust its theories and conclusions?
No. We should examine its theories and conclusions.
When this brain asks itself why it doesn’t allow for silence and emptiness, its answer is that it’s afraid of being awareness itself instead of awareness of its imagined self.
Exactly what the ‘deluded’ brain/thought wants.
Explain why the deluded brain wants its theories and conclusions examined.
I will try. Freedom from the known is not the result of examinations. etc. It has nothing to do with any of that. They are part of the ‘smog’ in the brain.
It is the conditioned idea, that freedom is anywhere else but now. The ‘theories and conclusions’ are just more of the same ‘stream’ that one has been in all one’s life. They obscure the fragile awareness of the moment that is always there. But there has to be a ‘stepping out of that stream’ to see and feel its presence…
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These are unsubstantiated assertions. They are not self-evidently or demonstratively true statements, and they explain nothing.
there has to be a ‘stepping out of that stream’ to see and feel its presence…
How can anyone who hasn’t actually stepped “out of the stream” honestly make this statement?
Good now ask it why it’s afraid of being awareness.
It’s afraid of being what it can’t choose to be.
The self-brain is afraid to stop being in control. Why?
Let’s say that the brain is confused about ‘what is’ with respect to the existence of a self and all its manifestations in everyday life because of its conditioning.
That said, the brain, being conditioned, is either confused all the time about ‘what is’ (i.e. the self), or it is confused only occasionally. There is no other possibility, because if there were a third possibility, namely, that it is never confused, that would mean that it has never been conditioned and this conversation (and K’s ‘teaching’) would be absurd.
Now, if it is confused all the time, the term ‘confused brain’ loses its meaning somewhat, as you say. But if the brain is only confused sometimes (even if it can be most of the time), then what happens to brain conditioning at the times when that confusion supposedly doesn’t exist in the brain?
And also, if the brain is only sometimes confused about the self and its manifestations in everyday life (even if it can be most of the time), then that would somewhat call into question many of the claims made about it on the forum…
Claims like (*) …
- The brain can never be empty, free, pure, silent, etc.
- The “centre” is the frightened, confused, conflicted brain
- Conditioned human brain can’t see itself as corrupt
- A conditioned brain may behave as an enlightened one
- It (the brain) is afraid of being what it can’t choose to be
- The brain can’t rid itself of the structure of the ‘I’
- The brain is the problem
- [the brain] does nothing to free me from what I know
- The brain lacks self-knowledge.
- the fact that all my beliefs are brain dependant
…and so on, so forth
(*) note that there are no names of authors in the quotations as I am not talking about them, but about the answer to your question ‘why are you asking’ that follows, and see if it is possible to inquire into it.
For it could be that the brain, through thought, is misinterpreting Krishnamurti’s words (and thus self-conditioning itself) about the actual role of the brain, the self and thought in the whole process of confusion, by taking Krishnamurti’s words at face value (literally).
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Are you saying brain is afraid of being silent because it can not choose to be silent. Why it can not choose to be silent? Is it fear of unknown in silence or is it because it lacks the capability to be silent.