It’s okay, now we have clarity
Quite right. It remains to see how many people will want to follow us in this observation. Personally I think that small is beautiful, so discussing with few people could be an advantage. But what if these few people insist in taking side issues?
Ego is drawn to Krishnamurti because it thinks this Yoda-like man has all the right answers to all the Big Questions. Ego thinks: If I study this great man’s writings and talks, I too will have all the right answers. I will be more intelligent, powerful, spiritually evolved. Perhaps more beautiful too, a longer life, more love. A path to a higher form of happiness.
So ego jumps in and devotes its formidable intellectual intelligence to studying Krishnamurti’s teachings. (It thinks of them as teachings, even though Krishnamurti said he was not a teacher, because to think of them as teachings gives them more authority, and ego is hung up on authority.)
All goes well for a while, ego feels it is growing, swelling, becoming more evolved. (Of course it wouldn’t call itself ego, rather: higher self, true self, consciousness, something like that.) But at some point ego realizes that to take seriously the things Krishnamurti is talking about, the ego will have to give up its throne, relinquish its control. At first this is fine with ego, since it doesn’t think it is the one studying Krishnamurti, it thinks the true self is.
But … if ego is observant and honest and courageous enough, it discovers that IT is deeply involved in the Krishnamurti studying process, that it is not all the work of the true self (if such a thing exists). And this is where it gets really tricky for ego, for the I. Once it has had the insight that it is the one that has thrown itself into Krishnamurti, and that it has done this for typical ego reasons = its own pleasure and comfort, it stands before a kind of fork in the road. Does it continue to expand itself under the guise of devotion to spiritual teachings, or does it step back and look in the mirror. What makes it really tricky is that the former tends to feel good and the latter to feel painful.
A good and precise description, but does it come from your personal experience or from observing the others?
It has dawned (is dawning) on me gradually over the past say decade from personal experience. I assume (but don’t know with certainty) that something similar happens with lots of people who become ‘spiritual seekers.’
Can we go into the intense feeling of me and mine-ness that most/all of us have?
The basis for it is understandable, right? Each of us has their own first-person view of reality. No one sees, hears, feels, senses, thinks exactly what I do. Similar perhaps, but not identical. This makes me feel unique, different, separate from others. Not 100% separate, because I also feel connected with others. An individual and part of a collective.
It is, in MHO, a probable assumption. But there are many nuances, big and small. Some K’s follwers (let’s call them so) for instance, never realize that it is their ego which prompted them to approach and follow K. But let me add some personal consideration: what’s wrong with that? Of course it’s a contraddiction, but can be, in same cases, a useful one. As if the ego would contain the seeds for its dissolution. Long ago I read a statement by someone involved in Indian traditional spirituality: Nature pushes men towards illumination, meaning that somewhen everybody will awaken from their sleep, maybe after thausands of reincarnations… 
But putting aside the myth or the personal suppositions like the one I expressed above, the fact is that the mind, the mind not the ego or thought, possesses the capacity to see and to learn. Give it a fertile ground and it will flourish. K. said human mind, or brain (sometimes he distinguished between the two, sometimes he spoke as if they were the same thing, he was not completely coherent) had immense capacities. I like to think he was right.
My case was both similar and different from yours.
Before meeting K. I practiced traditional meditation and followed a handfull of traditional gurus. Let me say again, we can’t blame human ego for that.
When I discovered K. It was like a revelation, I knew immediatly that that was true and I saw the tricks of my ego, the illusions, the useless efforts I had been doing. Actually it was easy for me to understand K. because I had already discovered the ineffectiveness of all the traditional methods and the fallacy of the doctrines of the guru.
But of course, once understood all that, there still remained the question of what to do with the ego. I could not commit a spiritual or psychological suicide, that was pretty clear, so I did the only healthy thing one can do, if one do not want to became neurotic or continue to deceive oneself: I enjoiyed my ego, canalazing my activities, my desire for gratification, into some harmless hobbies like hiking in the mountains, sailing and similia. Looking at how some people have become here I can say my choice was a good one.
But even if I stopped to try to be something different than what I was, I kept on observing and reflecting, something which happens anyway even if we don’t decide to do it. And I couldn’t, I can’t ignore the disorder in my life, in my counsciousness. No matter how far you lock yourself you cannot escape your consciousness.
So we arrive at my question: now, not in the past as your description implies, now what are our reactions when we touch this thing in us? I really put myself in front of the mirror yesterday while I was chatting with you, I I could observe my reactions, and I enjoyed the observation. We don’t want to do it. Sivaram, replied OK, but didn’t do it. Peter dispensed his sermon but didn’t do it, or at least didn’t share it with us. And you? I guess you didn’t do either
Well, I knew it that it would have ended like that. Notice that no other people joined the discussion, did I scare them (like with Charlie) or simply they are not, you are not interested?
We, I put myself too in the lot, like to chat, to feel we are busy with elevated and “intelligent” argumentations, oh! How good some people here are in debating, in explaining what they think is K’s teaching, but the moment we are left with our psychological reactions we simply ignore them.
Mr nobody, allow me a personal question: why you chose that nick?
What makes you think that we didn’t look in the mirror?
I chose nobody as a forum name, because I like the sound of it and deep down that’s what I am. Why did you choose voyager?
Well, I expected that you would have said something about what you had felt/observed, as a base for further discussion. Perhaps my expectation was not realistic… Basically I’m realizing that we have a different way regarding the relationship one can have in a place like this. But looking at what is happening in the world one can see that relationships are more and more deteriorating, hate prevails, and so diffidence, untrust, bad manners… I don’t know where you live, Germany maybe from your salute yesterday, but here in Italy sometimes it seems that people have forgotten what good manners were, and all in matter of 15-20 years…
I choose voyager because is a figure you find in I-Ching, and it’s a metaphore for the spiritual journey one can have…
I asked that question because, shame on me, I’m beginning to doubt about everyone’s good faith here after the surprise I had with charlie. Lot of people are in diguise here, so I thought that you could be part of the gang. I mean the people who think they are without ego. Nobody is the perfect nick for a person who wants to pretend he has no ego…
I thought that’s what I did. But you don’t?
Sorry about your disappointment with Charley … and hers with you. You’re two strong personalities, I’m not so surprised you clashed.
I would never deny having an ego. In fact I cherish mine like I might cherish a lonely frightened child residing in (and often trying to control) my body-mind.
The ‘nobody’ that I feel I am dwells far far beneath the ego. (These words are misleading: nobody, dwell, beneath. But I think you get what I mean, right?)
You wrote a very good resumé of what happened in the past, or do you mean that you had that realization only yeserday?
I don’t what? Talk about my reactions? I was waiting for you and other people participetion, before writing again. I didn’t want to monopolize the dialogue. Well, if you are curious to know I can tell you what I saw. I realized for the first time that I am all the time expecting something, that it’s not an occasional activity but it’s going on all the time, subtly, expecting things to happen, expecting to receive something and so on, that means I’m always projected into the future. It’s a kind of frenetic activity going on in background. I cannot stop getting or achieving something, and I camouflage this thinking that it’s all necessary. The ego wants alwas to be active in something, and just the moment you confront yourself with a quiet observation, the ego or my mind “invent” a new activity to do. One aspect of this is that one wants to post here, to be present, to be in interaction with the others. I was surprised because usually I’m a quiet person and I live a solitary life. I immediatly saw the danger of partecipating too much in this discussion, in indulging in useless chat, I sniffed the ego! and also, thinking of K. I realized that I was split in two, one part sympatised with K. the other had the "my country, right or wrong, attitude (quoting from Trump).
I’m only sorry that I have been so silly not to have spotted her. Anyway we had a private conversation today and somehow that is settled.
Right.
Is this true? Is there a mind that is not the intellect? Is it something the brain does, or is it beyond the brain? You may have your certainty that you’re not imagining this mind, but you can understand why all those who know of only one mind wonder why you speak of another.
I edited this to make it clear. Go back and see if it helps
In the K-world, it’s referred to as parroting K. It’s imitation, but it isn’t learning.
The original observation was in the past. But I observed again yesterday. I often revisit themes, the nature of self for example, though (ideally) it’s more like visiting as if for the first time than re-visiting. I’m sure you understand.
This is a simple miscommunication. I meant:
I thought I looked in the mirror, but you don’t (think I did)?
This seems like a useful skill, as long as sniffing the ego doesn’t mean seeking to kill off the ego.
It’s good you can see this as it happens.
Monkeys and parrots and apes … oh my!
Imitation is often the first step in learning a new skill. Was Krishnamurti teaching skills for living happier and kinder lives? If so, are they the kinds of skills that require or allow imitation?
I doubt Trump ever said this. The saying has been around for a long time, and anyway, Trump never admits to be being wrong, making mistakes, feeling regret, and never apologizes. As he said of himself, “I’m a very stable genius”.
This is only a side issue Inquiry, like last year you have a gift for chosing the side issues of a discussion ignoring the main one Well each one of us has his own tastes…
But I don’t like to spend too much time in side issues and certainly not being involved in speculations which don’t have any practical effect on our daily life, remember the sex of the angels?
We have only one certainty: nature will not ask to us what she is able to do. Nature, it’s just a name for something out there and inside here which we will never be able to understand.
The only thing we may have is the sense of mistery loooking at the miracles nature does everyday. But the person who has no eyes do not see those miracles and so don’t participate in the mystery of nature. That person in my view lives a miserable life.
another insignificant side isssue…
Well I’m in a sweet mood tonight so I can dance this hideous dance.
I have a vague remembrance that the sentence was uttered by Bush or perhaps even by an earlier president. But I remember clearly a newspaper article, last year? where that sentence was attributed to Trump.
I don’t give a damn whether he said it or not, I only wanted to depict a certain attitude of our ego which I had in that moment (but I’m not an admirer of Trump) and presumably all egos have. I 'm so delighted at hearing that you consider him a genius. That confirm what kind of person you are.
Yes, that’s why I said I enjoyed the observation. Those feeelings are very fast and last for a fraction of a second. Usually I fail to be aware of them.