The self :: A dialogue

You tell us what nature will not ask us to do, what we will never be able to understand, and speak of mystery and miracles and how miserable those with “no eyes” are. Such humility!

I’m not surprised you can’t tell when someone is being facetious.

No, but that’s for the K-parrots to find out.

I adopted a wrong approach with you and my interaction with you was a complete failure. I told you I was not good at creating a good dialogue. But I wonder whether it’s really possible to have the right interaction with you. Have you ever questioned whether you are having the right interaction with the others? We get what we give.

I am biased against you Inquiry, because of the past experience I had here, and of course this bias shows in my replies. In all the discussions we had together you seemed incapable to grasp the most obvious things, things you don’t need to use your intellect to understand – just like the discourse on nature I made yesterday, (I’ll explain it later). And this prevents a real interaction, a real communication. If that is we want to have here (which I doubt). A dialogue on truth, life, self, mind, etc, implies that one has his/her feet well-grounded on the floor, that is capable of being in contact with reality through his senses. It seems you are not in that position so how can one have interaction with you?

Another characteristic of yours which impedes communication and a dialogue is your incapacity to follow and so to understand a discourse in its entirety. You only notice some single sentences and discuss, speculate about it not considering the context. Is that communication? Is that useful for you or for me? What kind of result, aim, goal you have in mind in doing so? Are you satisfied of all the innumerable back and forth you had here? If the answer is no, then why you continue? And if the answer is yes, then what kind of satisfaction is yours? That of feeling superior intellectually of your interlocutor? Or that of trying desperately to assert and advertise your ideas? Are you here to gratify your ego Inquiry? If not, then you must be concerned with the quality of your communication/comprehension. Then you should be grateful when someone challenges your assertions or points out your limits. Then you should be concerned with trying to understand the point of view of your interlocutor, his/her whole perceptions and not stick to one or two single sentences.

So, if you now have just a tiny bit of good will you should ask yourself this question: am I having a real communication with the people here? That implies both perception, immediate perception and doubting. As Peter said: this is not a social meeting. Most of the discussion here don’t touch the real point, the real thing, so actually it’s just chatting. When we are incapable to see an obvious thing (which can happen to everybody), when we are not capable to really listen to the other then only chatting is possible. And that is the kind of interaction I don’t accept here. I do chat like everybody else, with my friends in real life, with my wife and relatives, etc, but here I think, this place has been created to see if there is the possibility to produce something far more satisfying than a social chat, or a back and forth to show my superiority.

So I have to repeat my question to you: why are you’re here Inquiry?
I asked you this question last year and you never answered.
Don’t you have that minimum of intelligence to understand that your silence is much meaningful than words? Do you really think you can go on indefinitely to hide yourself?

I’ll tell you why I am here, why I came here last year and why unfortunately I decided to return now. I came to unmask the hypocrites, the people who pretend to discuss K while actually they are passing off or selling their own ideas. To unmask the people who, in the way they tackle the discussion, are speaking from a pedestal, as a self-appointed guru. And finally those ones who think in bona fide that they have no ego and cling to this ridiculous illusion in spite of all the evidence.
With all those kinds of people, Inquiry, it’s impossible to have a communication, it’s impossible to talk, it’s impossible to be in a serious and affectionate relationship.

I had a friend long ago, a close friend. We were both interested in yoga and Indian spirituality (I had not yet meet K then) and we chatted about our common interests. One day he disappeared, he didn’t show and I could not find him at home. One year later I received a phone call: “Hello, I’m Sivananda (I’m inventing the name)” I was puzzled because I didn’t know anyone with that name. He perceived my perplexity by my silence and added: “I’m the one who once was called Roberto”.
You understand Inquiry what that means? You see the absurdity of that assertion?
He told me he had been in the ashram of Sri Rajeenesh (who now is called Osho) in Puna. You know this supreme guru Inquiry? Are you aware of what took place in that ashram? It’s a very interesting story…. He invited me for dinner. Evidently he wanted to tell about his experiences.
After some initial explanations he told me plainly and naively: I’ve attained illumination.

Now do you understand the sense, the lesson to learn, of this whole story, immediately, without thinking about it or without sticking to single sentences? The whole story, its meaning, its absurdity.

I’ve lost a friend Inquiry, a good friend. Because after that dinner we never met each other again.

I didn’t say anything, I just listened to his story without making any comment. But obviously he understood that I didn’t believe to his illumination. No relationship was possible after that assertion of his. He expected that I should have expressed excitement, surprise, joy or whatever.
He was prisoner of his illusion and wanted the others to acknowledge his illusion. He needed confirmation (which clearly shows that one has not attained clarity) and was disappointed when he didn’t get it.

You see the analogy with some people here Inquiry? (To see the analogy is another thing which does not require thought or analysis). These people came here to show off their wisdom, their supposed illumination, their unique and precious teachings which consider superior to those of K, or to show off their lack of ego. You see the absurdity Inquiry? To show off their lack of ego!!!
Now you tell me: is it possible to have a communication, an interaction with those people? (apart from chatting?) The only thing they are concerned with is that the other people in the forum will acknowledge their wisdom, their illumination, their lack of ego. And they are willing to fight to obtain that acknowledgement!

How can we have a forum about K with these people swarming around and spreading their stink? It fills the air, don’t you perceive it Inquiry?

The persistent action of some of them, intervening in every thread or so for years, (years!) actually impede any productive dialogue. I suspected – but maybe I’m wrong – that some of them do it on purpose to boycott the forum. Last year Inquiry I suspected that you were one of those. All your behavior and words pointed in that direction. That is why I asked you: why you are here?

As I told you Inquiry I’m biased against you, and now you know why. I believe in frankness Inquiry, I believe in sincerity. Lack of frankness, hiding, etc, are just trademarks of the ego. Actually of the nastiest kind of ego. So the only way you have to dissipate my bias, my suspect, is to reply frankly to all my questions I’ve asked here.
Now, from the general we must go to the particular:

I had replied to your assertion: “Is this true? Is there a mind that is not the intellect?”

I could have answered discussing, arguing: yes, it’s true or no it’s not true, etc. is that a dialogue? Is that a way to find what is true? Ask it please Inquiry, ask it to yourself. Something is true because you assert it with some cunning speculations? Of because I assert it or K. assert it?
We have already discussed this point last year and there was no way to make you understand the possibility to have a direct perception of things. This closes the discussion Inquiry, this only leaves the space to “believe to authority” It is so because I say so!

So how did you find your truth? I asked last year (I have good memory for this kind of things) what was the source of your knowledge. You refused to tell. How can we interact at such conditions?
You ought to tell me Inquiry.

So, let’s hope that a grain of light is left in your mind, How can you say something like “Is there a mind which is not intellect?”

There is no other way to respond to this question than that of pointing to you something tangible, something you can see, touch, smell. Something that, if my memory is not wrong, you have denied last year, and that probably you will deny even now (unless your views are changed). I talked about the beauty of nature, the mystery of nature, the miracle of nature. Do you need intelligence to see that Inquiry? Every peasant in the world can see it, and from that, from the perception of the mystery of nature, the religious sense come. And that’s the reason why I said it. Perception, Inquiry, belongs to the mind (actually to the mind-body unity) and anyone can see that it’s not thought, it’s not intellect. Now you can spare me your speculations, argumentations that it’s not so. A truth, Inquiry is self-evident and does not need proof, does not need argumentations.
If that is not self-evident to you is just because you are caught in illusions.

Now, instead of taking my answer as a chance to see something evident, something obvious, something tangible, you took it as an assertion of arrogance on my part:

“You tell us what nature will not ask us to do… such umility!”

Inquiry nature is there. Have you ever looked at it? Or maybe you live locked in an apartment 365 days a year? Stay five minutes with it: does it ask you what she can do? I’m not telling it, your observation can tell it. So how can you say what she can or can’t do? Not even the scientists know that. The more they discover the thicker the mystery is. But you are very certain, aren’t you? that there is no mind without intellect. It seems you know a lot Inquiry, more than the scientists, more than K., but why you didn’t want to tell me from where you gathered that knowledge? What is the source of your certainty?

I don’t put limits to nature, because I don’t know its “nature” and its potential looks immense. So I quoted K’s statement that the mind (which is simply nature) has infinite potential. You know better than K. Enquiry?

2 Likes

It seems the ‘dialogue’ of this dialogue has gone off-track. Comments have gotten personal and drifted off topic.

Should we return to the kind of dialogue voyager had in mind? Or continue doing what we’re doing and let the thread create its own form? A mix?

I’ve participated in threads that have been ordered (focused, without interruptions and tangents) and in threads that have been more chaotic (like this one seems to be moving towards). And, though it took me a while to realize it, learning and even insights can happen in both types.

Yes, it has. But maybe it was necessary. I -like you- prefer an ordered and focused discussion, the ideal. But we are dealing we people, not only with topics, and the role, behaviour, they have and the problems which arise in the discussion. This is the real, the actual fact we cannot ignore. You can’t understand the self, theoretically, we must take into consideration a real and personal self with which we are in realtionship here.

Perhaps @sivaram was right :slightly_smiling_face: after all personality matters, at least in this case…
but I hope that my digression with inquiry will be useful to make this order we wish to have.

Anyway let me tell you one thing which I consider important: my post to inquiry is not something personal: it deals with problems which should concern everybody here. I strongly feel they can’t be ignored.

It’s okay man

Let’s move on to another topic. :slightly_smiling_face:

Your feet may be firmly planted on the floor of the structure you’ve built, but my bare feet are on the ground, and I don’t have the time or the inclination to defend or praise myself.

When someone speaks mostly about oneself in a forum like this, is it a mistake to remind him/her that we’re discussing the human condition, regardless of how it manifests in oneself?

But it seems that to me ‘you’ do have the “inclination” and the “time” to attack, demean and belittle, as you say ,“remind”. This thread is about the ‘self’. The " human condition" as you put it. K has called it, the self, “evil”. How do you see the 'self? As it relates to ‘your self’?

Sorry you feel that way, but I’m curious as to why. Could you provide a few examples of my alleged attacks, demeaning, and belittling, and how they are gratuitous and innappropriate?

Hi Inquiry
I didn’t say they were “gratuitous and inappropriate”, I said they were “demeaning” and “belittling”.
The one ‘example’ that comes to mind is those of us who are in your eyes “parroting” K. Who gave you the right to compare others to birds? Birds that imitate sounds they hear. Who are you to judge what the repeating of things said by K is not an evolving understanding in the persons repeating those things. They are “parrots” to you? And you for some reason you have assumed the role to ‘swat’ them down. As phonies, As parrots. Are you “curious” as to how that might be demeaning? Or maybe you think that this behavior is ‘helpful’?

If you repeat something K said without quotes or attribution, you’re parroting, regardless of how evolving your understanding is.

nobody,

You have cited 3 paragraphs, by K.

I have tried to find the source of these 3 paragraphs, and have not been able to. When I mean source, I mean which book/talk are they are from? So, I have no idea when this was said or written, or whether or not K actually wrote or said that.

I have checked all types of sources at https://jkrishnamurti.org and get no results. I have tried various combinations of words, like blossoms, dialectical, etc.

I question the legitimacy of providing these 3 paragraphs and attributing them to K. Are these from Bohm? Or from someone who is into Bohm and re-interpreting K? Because if they are, I find that such attribution odd to say the least.

You left out two important features of the ego, of us: dishonesty and insincerity. Perhaps they are the most destructive factors in relationship. All social rituals and formalities have the function to hide, to cover our dishonesty and insincerity, that is our immorality.

It’s curious how in this forum no one talks about morality, and yet K said that the first step or the first requirement was a moral life.

Two dishonest people can get along well together, can have an apparently good relationship, each one respecting the dishonesty of the other. But an honest person can never have a relationship with a dishonest one, because an honest person cannot respect dishonesty. So 90 % of the social relationships are fake relationships.

Sir,
Your statements are quite sensible, I have to agree with that. My point is that, we have to deal with all types of people in this complicated world for basic survival. Having said that,

Why should we believe someone and make things complicated?

What is the role of compassion in this regard?

I feel these questions are important, please share you experience.

@charley, share your insights.

Sivaram,

Please see my recent post about sincerity at:

sincerity

okay

[post must be at least 20 characters]

That is a good question. But before answering your question let me ask one thing: which meaning you are giving to this word? The usual meaning one can find in the dictionary or the meaning that K gave to it?

K had his own vocabulary: intelligence, love, passion, compassion for him were something different than that which is usually meant. For him those four qualities were a single unity, that is you can’t have intelligence without love and passion, and you can’t have love without intelligence.
And he was a real example of this. He was a very passionate person, passion meaning energy, meaning feeling involved in life. So you cannot separate compassion from passion, they are the same thing.

So how a passionate, loving and intelligent person will deal with a dishonest one? He can’t accept dishonesty but he may try to wake that person from his illusions, from his falsity. A lier thinks that he will alwys be capable to hide his lies, that the other will not discover them, and invents a lot of cunning games to mask his lies and dishonesty.
For the intelligent-passionate person is very easy to recognise those games, and he will refuse to play those games, to be an accomplice of the dishonesty of the other. And being passionate he will say to the other person: look you want to have a relationship with me, but a relationship can only exist on the same plane, platform, and this common platform is sincerity. If you play those games with me you are not being sincere and we cannot be in relationship.

In my understanding, Compassion means
No attachments,
No hate,
No desire,
No belief.
No pity

In the present case, this is what I felt.

But we are aware of his thought process, judging from his actions and social movements. In such case, we will just do what is needed. (I have to admit that before listening to Jiddu, I felt in many traps)

This is very important aspect, as most people go through this stage. For this aspect, we will discuss in near future. To be frank, I am not an expert but I will try to share my view. :slightly_smiling_face:

Okay, thank you.

(This conversation went meaningful)