Start off with a squirrel, end up with a monkey
The squirrel was real. The monkey was a metaphor.
You just love to skip along in the ether, those upper regions beyond the clouds where your feet are not touching the ground.
Is the ājewelā that K says that he found and could not be told to another that which he expressed as āthe observer is the observedā?
There is the āseparateā observer as regards the body and the senses. The one seeing, hearing, chasing, killing, eating, mating with the other, etc. But that there is an āobserverā , separate as we feel ourselves to be, is not true. If true that the observer is the observed, that would be a profound insight.
Yes, the clarity to see the illusory nature of self and time.
If it is so that the observer is the observed and the thinker is the thought etc, what is the āfactorā that thought adds to its activity that gives the feeling of āmeā as thinker, observer, experiencer. Can it be seen? Can it be described? Can thought be aware of how it does this?
It could be that the default mode network never gives way to other neural networks.
Isnāt that the point? The established (conditioned) network will operate as it has been until something happens to change it. What will change it that will make it give way? Isnāt it that it becomes aware somehow of its creation of the thinker, observer, the āmeā,etc, how it automatically does thatā¦ and a question then arises about the value of doing it? Especially in the face of someone (K) proclaiming that what it is doing is divisive and destructive?
The problem isnāt the default mode networkā¦itās necessary. But when it doesnāt give way to the whole neural network, it doesnāt realize its place, its relationship with other modes of consciousness.
I think sorrow can make the mind to change the connections in its own neural network to some extent. Such as to avoid chattering, anxiety, and other sorts of distress happening in daily life.
As I said, itās necessary. The thinker, me, is illusion, as is time, but to get things done one must operate as if these illusions are reality. When thereās nothing that must be done, thereās no need for the illusion of the do-er.
I say this, not from experience, but from what neuroscience has discovered. Under certain circumstances, other modes of consciousness operate when there is greater communication between different neural networks.
Keep in mind that the default mode network is not in itself ādivisive and destructiveā when it operates as need requires. The problem is that it operates constantly rather than on demand.
What does it take to operate the mind on demand?
There is a place for rational thought, the ādefault modeā you are calling it. But does it need the illusion of a separate āmeā or āthinkerā to get things done that need to be done? It is in the dividing itself as thinker / thought, observer / observed that the division leads to conflict. Becoming aware that āIā , āmeā, āthinkerā am not separate from the thinking that is going on gives a little āshockā to thought. What, if any, are the results of these shocks of awareness to the entrenched āobserver is not the observedā way of ordinary thinking? Arenāt these shocks having an effect āneurallyā. Reminding Thought that "the observer is the observedā, the thinker is the thought, the experiencer is the experience, etc. Reminding Thought that it is not the authority over the entire being?
The conflict is in not seeing that self and time are illusions. With that understanding, one can act as if āIā and time are real.
Becoming aware that āIā, āmeā, āthinkerāā¦
To be aware that these are illusory is awakened intelligence, but we merely believe they are illusory. Because of our K-conditioning, we are convinced of it, but still we have to remind ourselves constantly because we donāt actually see the illusions for what they are.
Direct perceptionā¦
Okayā¦
Sometimes, my own knowledge makes me ignorant of the situation for perceiving directly and I have to see how far it goes.
Thank you Inquiry
āWe merely believeā is your opinion. You can only speak for yourself about this. You canāt see whether another has this āawakened intelligenceā. You can only āknowā it in yourself, in my opinion.
No, because I canāt see anything for what it actually is,
But that can āchangeā at any moment. We have to leave that ādoorā open!
Donāt we?
Of course. The door is always open, but the human condition is what it is until otherwise.