The inner and the outer

[sivaram]

@nobody

but of getting obsessed with trying to understand it, visualize it, grab onto it. This can be like a mental-spiritual illness. Or at least it has been, from time to time, for me.

Hey,
This is not a mental illness, because I am not having conflicts inside because of the information I am understanding. See the last video of Jiddu before his death, he said if you are uncertain just be certain of it.

[DanMcD]

Ian’t it almost inevitable that we see our ‘situation’ as a sort of puzzle to be solved? My problems and conflict stem from the fact that somehow I have been “conditioned” and I must find a ‘way’ to become free of my conditioning? It’s a perfect challenge for the thinking process: how can this be changed into that? Thought does it all the time. It changes earth into metal, plants into paper, trees into houses, etc., etc. So how to change me from what I am into a me who I would like to be? What’s the problem with that approach? What is thought overlooking?

Isn’t it overlooking that the desire to ‘change’ is the conditioned response to ‘what is’? That the desire to become something different than what I am is the conditioned response to what I perceive myself to be?

Isn’t ‘freedom’ then, the non-desire for change?

[Inquiry]

@sivaram

I understood that the ability to respond is a responsibility.

The ability to respond is not “a responsibility”. It is the ability to respond appropriately and adequately. Its antonym, irresponsibility, is inability to respond appropriately and adequately.

When someone says “You have a responsibility to…”, or “It is your responsibility to…”, they don’t really care whether you’re responsible or not - they just want you to do what they want you to do.

[Inquiry]

@nobody

Perhaps intelligence arises from and is grounded in a web of interdependency?

The intellect can only speculate as to what intelligence is. All we can say is that it is beyond what we know or comprehend presently…assuming it is not just a fantasy.

[sivaram]

@Inquiry

It is the ability to respond appropriately and adequately

But we always think we are responding appropriately in the situation. May be I have to see on this point a step further.

@Inquiry

When someone says “You have a responsibility to…”, or “It is your responsibility to…”, they don’t really care whether you’re responsible or not - they just want you to do what they want you to do.

At work places it happens quite often. I agree on what you said.

[Inquiry]

@DanMcD

Isn’t it overlooking that the desire to ‘change’ is the conditioned response to ‘what is’? That the desire to become something different than what I am is the conditioned response to what I perceive myself to be? Isn’t ‘freedom’ then, the non-desire for change?

Whenever I make a mistake, I know I have to correct it in order to continue with what I’m trying to do. So, in that instance my desire to change from incompetence to competence is appropriate. When I see that many of my mistakes are attributable to my conditioning, however, I can’t correct them without looking at my conditioning to see whether its reasonable or not. I may be prejudiced in a way I’ve never questioned or examined, and upon examination, I see the error of my prejudice and drop it. But more often than not, I can’t see my prejudice, my bias, my belief, because the mind is not open, but closed by these very things.

We learn constantly to identify and examine our mistakes, and by so doing, correct them and revise and improve the way we do things. The only time this quality-control mechanism breaks down is when a deeply held prejudice, cognitive bias, or belief blinds us to our mistake, and this is the case quite often.

So what are we to do about this blindness? If some aspect of our conditioning persistently escapes attention and examination because the mind isn’t open to what threatens to expose it, it is a closed mind.

It’s a mistake for the mind to close itself to what it needs to be aware of and attend to, but its demand for a sense of security requires that its beliefs and biases can not be doubted or questioned. This means that the mind has traded openness to what’s new and disturbing for an inviolable comfort zone presided over by a false sense of security.

[rickScott]

@Inquiry

The intellect can only speculate as to what intelligence is. All we can say is that it is beyond what we know or comprehend presently…assuming it is not just a fantasy.

We don’t know. Which doesn’t stop us from wondering, because that’s what thinkers do.

[sivaram]

Hi DanMcD

@DanMcD

Isn’t it overlooking that the desire to ‘change’ is the conditioned response to ‘what is’? That the desire to become something different than what I am is the conditioned response to what I perceive myself to be?

Sir, in the question, you reasoned the implications of desire to change and asked us whether it is yes or no. I haven’t paid attention to the aspects of a “Desire to Change”, yet. I can say that in a situation, if our actions are not showing the intended effect, then our understanding of that particular context must change.

I could be missing other points, please mention.

[DanMcD]

@Inquiry

It’s a mistake for the mind to close itself to what it needs to be aware of and attend to, but its demand for a sense of security requires that its beliefs and biases can not be doubted or questioned. This means that the mind has traded openness to what’s new and disturbing for an inviolable comfort zone presided over by a false sense of security.

Yes that seems to be the situation. “Its beliefs and biases” are the source of conflict and division but it will hold on to them because it has not realized the danger of doing so. We have accepted conflict as normal. The “new” is not “disturbing” unless there is a trying to hold on to the old.

[Inquiry]

@DanMcD

The “new” is not “disturbing” unless there is a trying to hold on to the old.

Yes, an open mind can’t be too upset by what happens because its not clinging to anything and has little, if anything, to lose.