If I can’t solve the problem by doing something
And I can’t do nothing
I must be the problem
And until I am not
I will never know
I never was
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Lovely poem! Enjoyed reading and pondering over each line.
If “I” can’t do anything to resolve the problem, there is silence.
If thought enters this silence to solve the problem, then
“I” is the result of thought identifying with the inquiry as it searches for a solution.
If I can’t solve the problem by doing something
And I can’t do nothing
I must be the problem
And until I am not
I will never know
I never was
It is a beautiful poem
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But I know nothing more meaningful than how I feel, so when I feel the frustration of not solving the problem, I feel that I must persist in my effort because I won’t feel good until I solve the problem.
When nothing matters more than how I feel, I must feel good enough to carry on with being I. But when I don’t feel good carrying on this way, and I don’t feel bad enough to quit carrying on this way, I carry on waywardly for a change until even that feels too bad to carry on, and there’s nothing I can do to feel better.
When this is as good or as bad as it gets,
Does I, the future,
die?
That “I” is part of the problem of thought, thinking. “I” is thought identifying with all those memories the collection of memories everyone has stored in the memory cells of the brain from birth, all the experiences, the collected knowledge, the conditioning one has gone through. Thought needs memory to act, to come alive, without memory thought cannot act. Thought identifies with these memories and calls it “I”, me, my, myself. So when we say I or myself this is just thought identifying with all the memories … but it is just a collection of memories nothing else, “I”, me, my, myself are memories which thought refers to in order Ito justify itself “ as being,”
You wrote… But I know nothing more meaningful than how I feel, so when I feel the frustration of not solving the problem, I feel that I must persist in my effort because I won’t feel good until I solve the problem.
Thought is justifying it’s being “I” … if one realises this then there is no effort needed to justify or feel good or bad, feeling has ended and there is only the problem left to solve or not solve. It is the “I” that feels hurt or anger… “I” being these memories, and thought created the “I” which is reacting to feelings being hurt or angry… all the process of thinking identifying with memories. If one sees this hurt ceases, anger ceases. Feelings are reacting to “I” that thought has created. Feelings will still exist as they are part of emotions but one can realise they are nothing and so let them go.
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Can thought identify with anything? Can thought choose what to do? Or is thought a mechanism activated by response or reaction?
Thought needs memory to act, to come alive, without memory thought cannot act. Thought identifies with these memories and calls it “I”, me, my, myself.
Thought doesn’t need anything because it isn’t alive and cannot act. It doesn’t identify with memories and it doesn’t call itself anything because it is just a mechanism that is used or not used by the brain responding or reacting to awareness.
So when we say I or myself this is just thought identifying with all the memories
I am the conditioned brain. When I say I or myself, I am speaking of the person I believe myself to be, the person I should or should-not-be, according to what I choose to believe.
I can imagine that thought is alive, makes decisions and carries them out, but all I know is what I believe, what I imagine, and what is self-evidently or demonstrably true.
I am a brain confused and conflicted because I use thought for practical necessity, but I can’t allow silence, the absence of thought, because silence would reveal that I am nothing but awareness and response.
The conditioned brain can’t see why it isn’t practical to be silent when thought isn’t needed because without silence there is no seeing. Thus, thought prevails by default, but thought is not intelligence - it is only the intellect.
I don’t see how the brain can awaken from its self-perpetuating condition without losing what sustains incessant thought, so it seems there is nothing one can do until/unless one can do nothing.
I hear K saying that there is a need for silence. And he suggested that when an unanswerable question is asked to one self, such as “can the rhythm of thought come to an end?”, that the brain becomes quiet. Thought can’t bring about silence. Thought / explanation is noise itself. Maybe through the unanswerable question and the ensuing quiet , there can be the necessary ‘insight’ that stops the unnecessary movement of thought?
surely its an insight along the lines that suffering is the movement of self, and that any movement on my part necessarily reinforces suffering in me and the world?
that all self centered activity is self centered. that any action from suffering and confusion is necessarily the continuation of confusion and suffering.
Yes that is an ‘insight’.
Yes that is also an important insight.
And the knowledge from those insights has no or little effect on the movement of psychological thought/thinking because they are the ‘past’ and the movement of thought itself only takes place in the immediate present?
And this is where the benefit of memory comes in: We don’t need to reinvent the wheel every time we encounter a new situation, we can rely on stored patterns. This helps us survive the tiger attack and monsoon, but there is a downside that shows itself when evading the tiger and monsoon is not an issue.
Yes thought is the response from memory. But the question is can thought not be active when it is not necessary for it to be active. It may have its questionable reasons to be more or less in continuous motion but can that movement be still when there’s no call for it?
Is thought always active (except in sleep, perhaps) because it thinks it needs to be for the well being of the organism, or because it likes it, or because it can’t help it. Seems like all three to me.
Isn’t the question of why unnecessary thinking doesn’t stop different than the question of can unnecessary thinking stop? The first calls for speculative thinking. The second is unanswerable because I don’t know.
I think the difference between the questions is soft, not hard. They can melt into each other. Asking why thinking doesn’t stop is largely speculative, but calls also for direct observation. Asking whether thinking can stop is largely observational, but can easily slide into involving speculation. They are different questions, but the answerer is the same self with all its attendant biases. ?
To the second question, the honest answer is ‘I don’t know’ isn’t it? Because you don’t. Where are the “biases” in that? I don’t know if thought can stop. The question isn’t academic. Can incoherent thought and its destructive results come to an end? I don’t know. (A major part of that ‘incoherence’ is thinking there is a self or center which psychologically divides itself from all the rest.) can that come to an end? Again, don’t know.
To say, “movement on my part”, means that I exist and can do things, or at least exert influence. But what if “I” is no actual doer of anything, but only the voice of authority?
Just as believers in gods or God, angels and devils, ghosts and demons, etc, don’t doubt the existence of these imagined entities, believers in I don’t doubt the actuality of I, me, mine. In fact, our belief in our imagined selves is so steadfast and unquestioned that to question it at all makes no sense because here I am, speaking, writing, doing, choosing, when all that is actually here is just thought reinforcing the belief in I, the doer, the thinker.
If it’s true that there is no thinker - only thought, then there is no actual I, and nothing but thought and the body’s response to its authority.
You pose the question to yourself: Can thought stop when it’s not needed? You get yourself settled where thought is not needed and observe that thought stops for a while. Perhaps for a minute, perhaps a second (gap between thoughts). This poses and answers the question, though perhaps not in the way you mean it?
If the brain could discern the difference between necessary and unnecessary thinking, there would be no unnecessary thinking. The conditioned brain doesn’t know when thought is unnecessary until after the fact, if at all. This is why Krishnamurti stressed the importance of self-knowledge.
So how ever different or not the two questions may be, the brain can only ponder them or choose an answer because it can’t know what it needs to know about its own activity until/unless it turns its attention to what it is actually doing.
And possibly why Bohm spoke about proprioception of thought. Practical thought may take place in one part of the brain and psychological thought in another? I don’t know. I have no or little awareness of the different sensation of one from the other.