The incomprehensible

Kinfonet Discussion
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Re: post #18

As K said and as is clearly seen, the crisis is in human consciousness. Conditioning clutches and enslaves the mind, producing division, confusion, brutality, superstition, greed, selfishness, corruption, starvation, war, destruction, and so on. This IS the crisis we have been talking about here, isn’t it.

And life is demanding action. This is what life does.

Is the perception of this accurate? Is the crisis imagined? Is the mechanism or process of conditioning imagined? Is the division, confusion, brutality, corruption, destruction, and so on, imagined? To me, it is clearly not …. But I might be wrong.

In this circumstance, what IS right action, what is action which is not driven or determined by conditioning? Is there such a thing? I am conditioned, so not free. Whatever life puts in front of me, it is the conditioned mind which responds. Whatever I do is necessarily action engendered by conditioning. Unless…… Except….

Is the perception of the totality of the mankind’s predicament the movement of conditioning? Is the perception itself the noise of thought? Or is it the action of silent attention, of choiceless awareness?

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Post #21:

When I ask someone for directions on how to reach a certain place, I need to follow the directions if I want to get there. I need to remember what to do, where to turn left or right, what landmarks to look for.

But when I am conflicted, in turmoil, confused, governed by emotions, and I want inner peace and clarity, understanding, can someone tell me what to do to get there? Is there a road map I can follow?

One CAN make the “choice” to become inwardly quiet, but that choice is useless, inconsequential, powerless. It’s a dead end so to speak. There IS NO road map to inner quietude, and no switch to “turn it on”. Isn’t it clear that inner quietude CANNOT be reached through choice, will or effort, and that choice, will and effort are themselves part of the noise of thought?

The very perception or understanding of this is not a conclusion reached by means of thought, as I see it. It is not THOUGHT which perceives or understands it, is it. So it follows and it is seen that thought and perception, awareness and understanding are attributes or qualities of a completely different kind. The mind has the ability to think. That is one kind of attribute, ability or quality, and it is rooted in memory. The mind has the ability to be aware, attentive, observant, intelligent, compassionate, and so on, and these are an altogether different kind of attribute, ability or quality. Not rooted in memory, as I see it.

Thought can be governed by itself, by its own efforts, desires, ideas, and self-discipline — all of which are bound to memory. Or thought can be inspired/guided by awareness, understanding, intelligence, compassion, and so on. The source of thought determines its “correctness” or “righthness”, as I see it. Is thought engendered by intelligence and so imbued with the quality of intelligence? Or is thought engendered by the past and imbued - tainted, corrupted, divisive, in this case - with the quality of its own limited field?

So to me, inner peace and clarity are not the fruit of the labour of thought. They are not the result of “thinking things through”. Quietude comes out of observation, awareness, attention, which are one, inseparable, and which are not thought. Is this so? If the perception is absolutely clear, doesn’t this act on the endless activities of thought which is seeking answers?

I don’t know if I’m right. I don’t know if my words are clear. It’s just “food for thought” if I may be allowed to use the expression.

Also, I wouldn’t put it that “complete attention is required” to make inner quietude happen. Doesn’t that imply that one (attention) is the means to the other (inner quiet)? Doesn’t that imply a method?

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Shouldn’t we be free of conclusions however they are achieved?

Is a conclusion based on the memory of some enlightening insight less dangerous or less of a burden than a conclusion based on analysis, deduction or inference?

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I don’t know because I am conditioned to perceive only what supports and perpetuates my illusions. But I do know that the conditioned mind can awaken and exert “the action of silent attention, of choiceless awareness” when the situation is so dire it has no choice.

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No, it doesn’t imply method. There’s nothing I can do to bring about complete attention; it occurs when there is no choice.

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First, a résumé. I take the liberty of extracting the gist of the thing being examined so as to make it easier for ME to follow the thread. Please forgive me and ignore it if, to you, it is a ridiculous thing to do. We all have our quirks.

Peter: #1
…… in everyday life, I am thinking and informed, going about my life …… ……the thoughts are not fundamentally the motive, there is a deeper activity, like desire, pleasure, deeper than thought. Then I might ask, other than just words, what is this deeper activity? Or is it simply an incomprehensible movement?

RPS: #6
Or, possibly, there is nothing deeper than speculative imagination. Maybe this is why after hundreds and thousands of years, we are still seeking this “deeper” meaning to our lives.

Huguette: #7
Deeper activity manifests itself as anxiety, dissatisfaction, desire, boredom, fear, depression, jealousy, anger, and so on …… Doesn’t attention reveal the causes which give rise to these undercurrents?

MacDougDoug: #8
Deeper as in what we are unaware of - as opposed to deeper as in more important and complexe.

Peter: #12
So I can see the memories, emotions, are an attachment. Completely experiencing this attachment is a negation. It is not a process of comprehension. It is not a process of working through language and sorting out meaning, nor extending skill with words, explanations, descriptions, etc…

Huguette: #17
…these deeper manifestations are not speculation, are they.

RPS: #30
The apparent depth of what is, is an illusion caused by the minds constant escape. Everything we need to see is obvious and above ground.

Huguette:
Again, Randall, I don’t disagree with you: “Everything we need to see is obvious and above ground.” That is, we don’t need to SEE or uncover the actual, “historical” root thoughts which provoke our anger and fear, etc. Such an approach belongs perhaps to psychoanalysis or other fields of human endeavour. But don’t we need to understand that there IS a historical accumulation - memories as thoughts and images - which is connected and affects or provokes the emotions which are clearly manifested?

Then also, I might briefly SEE the unwanted, disturbing, disruptive emotions and immediately go about trying to brush them away, repress them, analyze, justify or explain them, or pretend they are inconsequential, of no significance. But doing that does not remove their poison. Doing that does not “disarm” them or make them go away. They return to the deep and they fester, they keep releasing their poison, don’t they? Am I being overdramatic?

And what remains is, as Peter first intimated, a deeper activity, an incomprehensible movement of dissatisfaction, discontent, pain, depression, anxiety, or whatever words can most closely point to “the thing” which causes us to seek meaning. So we go through life seeking meaning and never facing the actual thing, remaining with it, understanding it, examining it lovingly. I say lovingly because we naturally love life, as I see it. That is what I see. Beyond the sorrow, the pain, the suffering, there is love. Not some sentimental ideal. Life is rough, but ultimately there is love of life, love of the mystery, love of the unknown, love of everything. Even when we contemplate suicide or homicide, even when we hate or are depressed or anxious, at the depth of it, there is love of life, isn’t there? But rather than remain with the depths of pain and with the depth of love, we remain on the surface of consciousness where the intellect rules and where we have been conditioned to believe that the ultimate truth resides.

Of course, I’m not sure. I don’t know.

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Why is it only obvious to me?
(Though I agree that that the stuff under the surface is just more of the same iceberg)

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If Krishnamurti said this, I wouldn’t question it because I assume Krishnamurti perceived directly, and that we (his followers, sycophants, and students of his teaching), perceive distortedly, according to our conditioning.

As much as I like to think that what you’ve said is true, that doesn’t make it so.

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The incomprehensibility is not limited to someone, anyone individual. I think we can say K was not talking about his perception, but a human experience free from a conflict of a self center. The distorted perception people have due to conditioning is not a finality. It is just that the actual beginning has not been realised.

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Do we say the sun, land, wind, trees, birds, people, cars, all of it, can’t be seen? Do I say I can’t see poverty and violence in the streets, and not see the terrible news on TV? I might not feel affected, or not know what to do, but to see all this, what is there to work out? What we are trying to do is see what connection, what importance, I am to apply to aspects of life for my own sake. It is our own brains which are troubled with its own strategies, and that internal conflict and its supposed solution, is what we think is the right action. But it does not actually give anything but a temporary relief. Our way of thinking, psychologically, is a confusion, and what always leaves us with confusion.

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If you can’t find enough enough credible evidence to support or debunk what you’re investigating, you acknowledge your inability “to determine fact from imagination” and live with it. We’re limited to how much free inquiry our conditioning will tolerate.

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Direct perception is “a human experience free from a conflict of a self-center”, but if only one human perceives directly, is it not his experience? When the human who sees clearly what everyone else sees distortedly is considered by everyone else either delusional or enlightened, is that actuality not his experience?

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You play with words. The nature of life on the planet is not individualized. Or to put it another way, the individual lives a petty life, divided from living.

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Aren’t we all individuals? Is Peter indistinguishable from Paul and Mary?

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All in disorder. The words reflect the disordered mind.

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Are you sure your mind is not "disordered:? Are you open to the possibility that ii may be? If you’re certain that your mind is not disordered, it most certainly is.

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The disordered mind is thinking within in its own framework, and thinks in terms of him and her, you and me, and to make it all about the other.

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So only a “disordered mind” reacts defensively to a provocative comment because an orderly mind has nothing to defend or react to.

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What is order? Is it the mind acting orderly or is there order, with which there is responsibility?

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You seem to have the answer to your question when you say that with order there is responsibility. So why not just explain what you mean by order and responsibility, and why “order” and “acting orderly” are different.