What struck me immensely was the K statement that “thought is fear”. No ‘thinker ‘ being afraid, there is only thought. You could say the same for psychological conflict: thoughts/desires striking up , colliding against one another…creating a ‘minding what happens’ in the ‘minder’…which K said was his secret, he didn’t have one of those.
Yes, that much we “get”, but it doesn’t make much difference because we’re still conflicted; still the problem we know the solution to, but cannot dissolve. We have more knowledge than we can implement, actualize, put to use. We are bodies of knowledge bound by what little we know about what we’re doing.
Is not psychological knowledge the main factor of division and conflict? The Brain is overloaded with psychological knowledge therefore it gradually loses it’s capacity to solve problems.
What is psychological knowledge again please? Is it just what I believe about myself?
I would say not just that but the almost constant movement of thought when it is ‘musing’, reminiscing about the past, worrying about the future, etc basically when it is not necessary…the line between its necessary, appropriate functioning and its unnecessary movement is blurry. When involved in a project that has a beginning middle and end, ‘time’ is involved. But musing about ‘my’ past or my future (“becoming”) IS fear…the line is blurred but if “the thinker IS the thought” then that false duality created by the thinking process ‘must’ come to an end. The ‘thinker’ can’t stop ‘psychological ‘ thought obviously since he is thought itself. There is no method. Only thought itself and its awareness of its own movement and the discernment of when it ‘should’ be operating at all could bring it to a stop, it seems to me. Isn’t this the main issue? The brain’s conditioning, the “stream” that must be “stepped out of”?
Hey! I have been wondering whether what we really mean by this misleading expression - which includes a separation between so called “psychological knowledge” and the other kind of knowledge - would be better served by the word “useful” as opposed to “detrimental” - useful and detrimental with regards to relationship. (Big word at the end of the sentence there, but we’ll ignore it for the moment)
Yes, but only because of our inability to discern the difference between psychological and practical knowledge. If it wasn’t for K’s use of the term “psychological thought”, would we even know there is such a thing? I know only after the fact that my thinking was psychological rather than practical, and only after K informed us that there is such a thing as psychological thought. Had I found out for myself that my thinking was a melange of practical and psychological thought, that insight would have been the end of it. We think we know things that we really don’t know. We’re weighted down and confounded with second-hand knowledge.
You dismiss his discovery because you didn’t discover it first? By experimenting with what was shared by him, you find if it’s so or not so. If you find it’s not so you disregard it but if you find it might be so then if you’re interested you explore it in yourself…and that is first-hand knowledge.
I didn’t “dismiss his discovery”. I accepted it as fact and, although I can’t always tell when my thinking is psychological, I know it often is.
My knowledge of psychological thought is just knowledge - it’s not operational; it’s passive rather than active. I’m constantly reminded of what I’m doing, but that isn’t insight or understanding or comprehension of how the conflicted mind malfunctions. It’s just having some knowledge of what’s going on without seeing and understanding the totality of it.
You don’t know that would have been the “end of it”. He said “the thinker is the thought” for example, second-hand knowledge when you read it, heard it, etc but haven’t you made it ‘your own’ by exploring it in yourself?
The muddled, confused mind does what it can to find clarity and comprehension, and it makes everything it holds and hoards its “own”, including the darkness and confusion that keeps it going. It’s a self-perpetuating process. It can entertain itself with hope and proof of making progress, but it’s just buying time.
Knowledge is consist of experiencing, naming and registering from which thought arises, right?
When you insult me or kick me that experience is named as pain or hurt and is registered in the brain which becomes psychological knowledge. Next time I meet you that psychological knowledge responds as thought and comes between you and me and creates further conflict or division. Is that necessary or useful?
That sounds more like practical knowledge. I need to know who to be wary of, who wants to hurt me.
My understanding of what psychological knowledge is, is any thought that supports or sustains my imaginary self, my chosen identity. Because I lack self-knowledge, I pretend to know things about me that are not true, lest it be obvious how naked, lost, and confused I am.
I would guess that in the ‘new human’ a defensive reaction would be limited to a ‘real’ or physical threat. Determined by intelligence which would be awake and discerning. Now in us it seems it is dormant and our reactions can be like a crazed animal. Not to the fact that the ‘house is burning’ but to…
Does it necessarily create conflict? If I remember you from the last time, it could prove useful. Or does this only work if my attacker was a dog (ie. not a human)?
Again how does this work in relation to cooking or mechanics? Aren’t there people who think that they know how to cook or repair cars, but obviously don’t?
PS - I’d love to move this part of the conversation to the Psychological Knowledge thread - but I don’t think I have the necessary tech ability.
PPS - I’ll repost these questions on that thread - and see how that works
Happens all the time ,you insult me last time therefore I insult you. This has been going on for thousands of year. We merely react to an image that we have built through psychological knowledge about each other. There are people who say that the world is alright and look the other way. But the fact is that the world is indeed on fire.
Are you equating Psy Knowledge with emotional exigence? The problem with Psy Knowledge is that it is knowledge that is attached to an emotion, which forces me to react accordingly?
"… there is this, each one, living it may be for a week, or a day, or years, has built an image which becomes knowledge. Follow this, please follow this - knowledge about each other. Knowledge - may I go into it a little bit? This is serious. Knowledge is destructive in relationship. Right? If you once understand this: I say I know my wife because I have lived with her, I know all her tendencies, her irritations, impetuosity, her jealousy, which becomes my knowledge about her: how she walks, how she does her hair, how she moves - you follow? I have collected a lot of information and knowledge about her. And she has collected a lot of knowledge about me; so the past - you follow? - knowledge is always the past. Right? There is no knowledge about the future, predictable. Predictable - you understand? So, I have knowledge, we have knowledge about each other. Right?
So we have to enquire a great deal into the question of knowledge: what place has knowledge in life? Are we together in this observation? Will knowledge transform man? What place has knowledge in the mutation or in the ending of conditioning? This is conditioning: I have conditioned through knowledge her, and she has conditioned me through knowledge. You are following all this? We are together in this? We are observing together? Please, I am not teaching you. You are observing with all your energy, with capacity to see this fact: that where there is knowledge in relationship, there must be conflict. I must have knowledge how to drive a car, how to write a sentence, how to speak English, or French, or Italian, whatever language it is. Or I must have technological knowledge; if I am a good carpenter, I must have knowledge about the wood, tools I use and so on; but in relationship with my wife, or with a friend, whatever it is, that knowledge which I have gathered together, put together through constant irritation, constant separation, ambitions, this knowledge which I have acquired, that knowledge is going to prevent actual relationship with another. Right? Is this a fact, or is this merely a supposition, a theory, an idea? An idea is an abstraction of a fact. Right? The word ‘idea’ in Greek means to observe, to see, to come very close to perception, not make an abstraction which becomes an idea. So we are not dealing with ideas. But we are dealing with the actual relationship, which is in conflict, and that conflict arises when I have accumulated lots of information about her and she has acquired a lot about me. So, our relationship then is based on knowledge; and knowledge can never be complete, about anything in life. Please realise this. Knowledge must always go with the shadow of ignorance. Right? You can’t know about the universe. Astrophysicists may describe, but to be aware of that immensity, no knowledge is required through information; you have to have that mind that is so vast, so completely orderly, as the universe is, then that’s a different matter.
So similarly, knowledge in relationship brings about conflict. See the fact. Not accept the fact; see the fact that knowledge has importance in one direction, in the other it has not. The negation is the most positive - you understand? Right? Can we go from there a little more? That is, do we exercise will to end conflict? That is, to enquire whether will, that is, positive action - ‘I want to end this conflict’ - whether that will will bring about the cessation of conflict, which we have done before.
So, it’s very important to understand the place of knowledge and knowledge as an impediment in relationship. Love is not knowledge; love is not remembrance. When there is no knowledge about her, I look upon her, and she does, as a fresh, new human being, each day new. You know what it does? You are too learned, you are full of book knowledge, what other people have said. And that’s why this becomes awfully difficult to comprehend - a very simple thing like this."
What is the place of knowledge in our lives?
Public Talk 2 Ojai, California, USA - 02 May 1982
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When someone tells you something that may or may not be true, you want to find out for yourself. But you are your biases, your view of things, so you are always inclined to find out the “truth” you can live with rather than the truth you can’t abide.
What is true for the biased, conditioned mind is confusion, the insecurity that comes with it, and the desperate reactivity of denying it by believing what you can. As long as that’s the truth it cannot abide, the only truth it can find or acknowledge is what it can believe.
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Has anybody looked at what K was speaking in the above passage about knowledge?l Why not? Laziness?! Lack of interest? Or genetic issues?