In 1980, Mary Lutyens asked Krishnamurti to capture the essence of his teachings, and he responded with The Core of the Teachings. This topic explores the opening teaching: Truth is a pathless land. The full set is: Truth, Images, Freedom, Thought, Negation.
The Core of the Teachings :: Truth is a pathless land
The core of Krishnamurti’s teaching is contained in the statement he made in 1929 when he said Truth is a pathless land. Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophical knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection.
Perhaps it’s like the metaphor of the eye not being able to see itself directly but only as a reflection in a mirror. The truth of you (your true nature) cannot ‘see’ itself directly but only as a reflection in the mirror of people you interact with.
Is the reflection pristine or distorted?
I’d say it’s as distorted as the sum of the distortions of the minds involved. Only when the 2+ minds involved are crystal clear will the reflection be undistorted.
What I mean is (staying with the eye/mirror metaphor), for the eye to see a clear reflection of itself in the mirror, both the mirror and the eye need to be 100% clear. If the eye is distorted and the mirror clear, the eye will see a distorted version of the clear reflection; if the eye is clear and the mirror is distorted, the eye will see a clear version of a distorted image. Either way: distortion! You have a different view?
Is the mirror distorted like a fun-house mirror, or is the observer distorting the reflection?
If we say the reflection is always pristine when there is no observer, then when there is an observer, the pristine reflection is distorted by the psychological contents of the observer.
Reflection is pristine, but the conditioned brain can’t help but project its confusion, conflict, reaction, etc., on to the mirror.
I feel there are two key components to this paragraph, the second of which can be unpacked into two further component elements:
That truth cannot be discovered through organised belief, organised thought (such as philosophy, psychology, religion, etc), or through analytical thought generally;
That truth can be found through observation.
This observation takes place both privately, and in the context of relationship.
a) In relationship there is an opportunity to see our own thoughts, feelings, reactions, attitudes, behaviour reflected back to us in the reactions and responses of the people around us, and in the reactions and responses we have to people and events. This could be considered indirect or mediated access to our own psychological contents. Krishnamurti brings out what these contents are later on in his statement.
b) There is also the direct or immediate access we have to our own psychological contents through direct observation, direct feeling (or experiencing), choiceless awareness, etc. This is touched upon later in Krishnamurti’s statement.
In practice there is no really fundamental division between the observations we make of our minds in private and the observations we make in the context of our relationships, because all our reactions take place in the context of relationship - whether this be our relationship to people, things, or ideas (ideas being the outcome of other people’s thinking).
I would guess that all members of an interaction bring some degree of distortion to the mix. When even the tiniest sliver of self- or other-image is present, distortion is present. ?
Krishnamurti is being pragmatic and listener-friendly here: He poses the Big Question (What is truth?), says we must discover for ourselves, warns us about what won’t work, then points out what will.
In practice there is no really fundamental division between the observations we make of our minds in private and the observations we make in the context of our relationships, because all our reactions take place in the context of relationship - whether this be our relationship to people, things, or ideas (ideas being the outcome of other people’s thinking).
Good insight there! “Life is relationship” Krishnamurti said. I.e. relationship is ubiquitous, foundational, the ground (or nearby). Brings Buddhism’s dependent origination to mind.
I agree there may be no ‘really fundamental’ distinction between introspective/solitary observation and relational observation, but I think there is a sometimes very strong felt-sense of distinction.
I think it’s significant that Krishnamurti chose to open the article with the statement “Truth is a pathless land” and characterize it as the core (of the Core) of his teachings. Did he feel it is the fundamental understanding Truth explorers need to explore ‘successfully’?
Man cannot come to it (Truth) through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophical knowledge or psychological technique.
This statement is wiggle-room-free. No organization, no religion, no dogmatic ideas, no priests, no rituals, no philosophical wisdom, no psychological method, NO aspect of the known, period, will do the trick. Neti-neti. Abandon all hope (for Truth), ye who follow any path!
Fortunately that is not the end of the story, failure is not inevitable. Krishnamurti provides us with a sense of what may in fact nudge us towards the Truth:
He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection.
The mirror of relationship, understanding the mind’s contents, observation rather than analysis. These all deserve a good looking at.
If relationship is a mirror distorted by its psychological contents, it reflects its reactions, itself, and not the direct perception of anything.
But because we are aware of our reactions, our distorted reflections, we are aware of how dysfunctional we are. This awareness of our reactivity is naked and raw, whereas our reactions like right/wrong, good/bad, like/dislike, should/should-not-be, true/false, are comfortable clothing, the usual cover-ups, of conditioned response, i.e., the past reacting to the present, our lack of self-knowledge revealing itself.
That makes sense, the distortion reflected (naked and raw) by the ‘mirror of relationship’ is a valuable learning tool. It’s may be the closest we get to truth, recognizing what isn’t true.
That’s not what I meant, though it may be true that everything is naked and raw when there’s no psychological content to dress it up.
What I said was, awareness of our reactivity is naked and raw, whereas our reactions like right/wrong, good/bad, like/dislike, should/should-not-be, true/false, are comfortable clothing, the usual cover-ups, of conditioned response…
There are six ‘entities’ in an interaction between two people: Person 1’s image-free self, their self-image, and their other-image of Person 2. Same for Person 2, for a total of six entities, two real and four images. (Don’t take the 2x3 entities thing too strictly, it’s just a model to make a point.) Only when 1’s and 2’s image-free selfs are ‘in control’ will the mirror of the relationship reflect accurately. Any presence of self-images or other-images will distort the reflection. This doesn’t mean the mirror of relationship is only useful when all images are absent, rather you need to take the distortion into account, you need to know the reflections are flawed.
understanding of the contents of your mind
observation rather than intellectual analysis or introspective dissection
Instead of over-thinking things, why not ask why, if relationship is a mirror, I can’t face the reflection without defacing or refacing it? What is it about what-is that I can only react to and never see clearly? Isn’t it that I am a fabrication created by thought over time, and must continue as such until/unless it is obvious, self-evident?
One knows oneself is an accumulation of notions, prejudices, biases, beliefs, fears and desires acquired over time, and that this content distorts what the mirror of relationship reflects. But is this self-knowledge or knowledge acquired from study of K’s teaching?
I think it’s the latter because if the brain was actually aware of its psychological content, I think it would revolt by disgorging it.
The brain also needs to be aware that its psychological content can cause great harm to itself and others. The brain has to see the snake, understand the dangers of the snake, and care enough about the dangers to be willing to avoid the snake. ???
Assuming we are related to everything (in varying degrees of directness/indirectness), and assuming we may learn about what makes us and others and the world tick through observing these relationships, would it be fair to say that we may learn from ^everything^ :: ourselves, other humans, animals, plants, stones, the sky, laws of nature, and so on, ad infinitum? Endless ubiquitous learning through observation of (our relationships with) all-that-is! I wonder if that’s the realm Krishnamurti inhabited?
I feel this is an unhelpful gloss. It goes very much against the spirit of Krishnamurti’s outlook, and is implicitly dismissed in the paragraph which follows the one being focused on here.
The key point being made in the paragraph, to repeat it again, is that observation is the key - observation in the context of relationship, observation both inwardly and outwardly - which reveals the contents of our mind.
These contents - as the next paragraph in the complete statement points out - are various images that our thinking has created and with which the brain is currently identified.