Many of us who have listened and read K. and others and have experimented according to our understanding of them , to discover in ourselves the truth or falsity of it all…now we have a chance to join with others and share what we have found,As I see it, and it may be wrong, is that we have a responsibility to find a way to bring about in ourselves a ‘harmony’ that is absent and in the world of humanity. We are all part of this energy matrix, the world , and we seem to be woefully out of sync with others and with the Nature around us. This forum here is one opportunity to discuss our discoveries about ourselves , and share with others who are interested.
Hello the other Dan, how are things for you ? Well sharing is caring, so is it said, I see it as true.the world is falling apart, it has started long ago, millennia ago , materialism has lived, what is left ? Not much.Competition between us is producing what it must, conflict, violence, wars, poverty and all other human insanity, this world is our creation. We are the creator of this insanity, k said that with his words long ago, so did some before that, it can be found in the lamentation of Hermes, “corpus hermeticum”, written possibly some 2500 years BC…it can be found on YouTube told by Graham Hancock, title of video is " The Lament of Hermes, read by Graham Hancock"…talk to you soon…cheers
Well thank you, it seems it was prophetic. This numbness to the miracle we find ourselves in here. Trashing each other and the earth would not be possible if we glimpsed the wonder and the miraculousness of it all., would it? K. brought the recent message about the folly of ‘individualism’. Was his presence here the beginning of the ‘turn around’ or have we not hit the ’ bottom’ yet?
Hello Dan, yes prophetic and possibly totally predictable. Yes agreed, about the “wonder” ,it seems our choices about competition between us which eliminates and a vertical financial society is not only producing what it must , which is predictable too, but it is much worse at it seems to allow only the thinking process to work. As I see that it is a vital tool for practical aspects of life…and nothing else. Well seen that way I see a self set trap, but usually it is not perceived as such, so we remain in that trap. Yes k on individualism, and you rightly ask if his presence was the beginning of the turn around…I do not know about that. What I see so is just personal feeling is that a door is opened, but have we hit the bottom, this I do not think so as if so we would have started to radically change so society too would, but it seems to be for now the same old story…competition so wars, stealing, and all of it anyone can see.What would be your own feeling on those last points, the turn around and hitting the bottom? cheers
We can’t ‘know’ obviously where we are in all this…at what stage. But hopefully the brain is questioning why it has set such a small place for itself…why it has settled for such a petty, ignorant existence?
Hello Dan, well yes. For myself in my own disturbed life for tons of reasons, I am careful as much as possible with analyzing so with thought because it hurts so much to be wrong and I see it as such, as if something x knows and tries to tell us, that actually is what I see, something X unknown knows the way. Then pain, suffering and all of it are perceived for what it is, or can be, a warning and may be more , then mental pain becomes THE central problem we try to run away from. We globally apart from exceptions of moment and persons, have chosen to compete between us, but this is war and yet we keep doing that. What would be the root of this? It is a bit like putting one’s hand into the fire , feeling the terrible pain of doing so but leaving it in the fire because neither the hand nor the fire is perceived. It seems to be a matter of what perceives what too?
I’d say that we DO feel the pain of the fire, but we fear the much bigger pain that awaits if we remove the hand. Or we feel we must do SOMETHING to escape the inner pain, so we run away…and we find that we’re running right into the flames . Wherever we run is pain. Is it possible that the running itself is causing the pain? That if we were perfectly still, the pain would cease? I think I’ve experienced just that on several occasions. Just questioning…
This is my experience too. However, it seems we never really learn it. The question is: why do we not learn it if we saw it happening a couple of times?
Dan, I always ask myself what I really have learned. Maybe the most critical thing is to realize the importance of selfknowledge. I wonder if we really perceive its importance. Why are we here discussing those matters? This question is important too.
1 Like
Jose isn’t it through a knowledge of the ‘self’ that it can be seen for what it is, (a bundle of memories and experience) and gone beyond? Without that knowledge, it operates…I wondered today if that is the ‘snake’ that K. said has to be kept an eye on: the ‘me’…it is so close, we have become immune to its danger, its poison?
Hello Tom
Yes about running, by programming, the thinking process is trying to get rid, to run away, from what it perceives as painful which it sees as : “not me” like I see a spider on my arm and get rid of it. It simply does not work with pain of course. Wrong capacity used in such mental field.
For me any let us say inappropriate running is fear so pain.If what is said here has some value, then it implies that something X knows and guides if we understand, believe or know, that mental pain is too a symptom of error. Not saying it is ,it could be. For me it is.
If I remain still as you mention no matter how this happens here but let us say it just happens, then I am that pain, there is no more ,even for a second, me on one hand and pain on the other hand, so me running away from? from what me is…me is pain…Then in such moment as you mention indeed something unpredictable in goodness takes place and for some unknown time pain is not there and pain which I see as a symptom has too played its catalyst part ,like it is needed in “a” specific process but is not found in the result.I leave it for now. We may or not go along in such field, cheers…
This is interesting. Does the error consist in identifying with a source of psychological security…or seeking psychological security…in my job or my wife or girl friend or my art or writing? When our psychological security is threatened then we experience pain…often severe. Many years back I had a girl friend who I planned to marry. I was still in college back then and felt that I was deeply in love. when she told me she was leaving, I almost literally fell apart, the pain was so severe. I’m sure many of us have experienced such things. Or the horrible fear if one’s lifetime career is threatened.
Sorry for the late response, Dan. Good point! I have the impression we get used to it, we do not see the real danger of it. Probably the ‘me’ cannot see the danger of itself. K said the only purpose of the teachings was to realize the importance of self knowledge. So I guess this must be tough to see. 
If that is the case, then this "knowledge’ only comes about in the moment, doesn’t it? Not an accumulative knowledge but an awareness of oneself as we move, speak, think, etc. And this awareness doesn’t ‘mind’ what it sees. It is non-reactive. non-judgmental, and it is choice-less, isn’t it? The awareness comes and goes. It gets lost and is picked up again. Thought / self does not control it. This awareness has no aim, goal other than to be with, as fully as possible, whatever is there. As I see it.
1 Like
Dan, it ocurred to me that the knowledge you referred to, does not represent a gain for the self. How can the self give importance to something that does not represent a gain?
However, we may be able to observe the consequences of awareness. I think this is all we can do.
As insight in the moment of living?
Awareness or insight has a goal? I don’t think that’s what you’re saying, is it?
I know something is wrong. I am in fear. I suffer. Someone comes along with the aim to “set man free”. I want to ‘be free’, but I don’t know how. I listen, I study, I try things, etc. And then I start to see that what is necessary, is to ‘see’, have a knowledge of the psychological ‘prison’ that I and that you and that we are in. I have to understand how it is that I am conditioned. Others may not care about any of this but I do. I don’t know why I do, but I do. So…is it possible to be aware of ‘myself’? This ‘me’ that has been called a “bundle of memories”? Awareness without choice, without condemnation, without comparison… Try it. See what it is. We are each on our own here.
Does sunlight have a ‘goal’?
Who or what holds this “knowledge”? The self is the past, a collection of experience and knowledge. As K often pointed out the thinker is thought, the observer is the observed. Each of these seemingly pairs of things are not two different things.
Who or what sees the “self” for what it is? Who or what decides what the self is beyond what we have already seen is a collection of experience and knowledge? Is “knowledge” different from awareness? Awareness, to my understanding is without choice, without naming, without leaving any residual in the mind. Knowledge, knowing something, implies that there is a knower, a center, a storage place.
Maybe Dan is talking about understanding. Understanding in the moment…which is perhaps the ‘self knowledge’ that K spoke about. Understanding the ways of the self…insight into the ways of the self and the thinking process which divides…‘internally’ and ‘externally’ in the world.