So plz… call me in on this, because me too is interested in the observation of the self.
And do you know why? It is very simple: because i am living with it, all day long, and day after day.
Si i might say that i am becoming familiar with it, care for it and eventually coming to “love” it. If that is not too strong expressed.
And if i may continue a bit: if one truly cares about sthg (being the self, as well) then it might tell you sthg no?
In response to DanMcd.
Sorry for any disturbance that might cause.
I am still new on Kinfonet and i still have to learn how to reply on certain topics.
Maybe I was speaking to myself, I sometimes see connections that are pretty far-fetched. Metaphors are beautiful, but taking them literally is like taking imagined things to be real.
I don’t know. Maybe a good shake gets the subtlest mud to settle? I’m speculating.
I don’t know the state of me being absent and there being clarity. I don’t see how I would know it, if there is no me there to register it. I guess I’d have to assume its existence?
I don’t know it either…I’m just assuming that if the continued operation of the conditioned brain is the problem, wouldn’t the solution be it’s stopping?
That doesn’t seem to be the solution either because there is much learned/conditioned that makes life efficient and enjoyable. For finding my home and/or work or how to cook something and/or or what not to eat, it is an efficient tool.
What’s not ‘efficient’ is the self-image, a ‘center’. And according to K’s experience, not at all necessary. The psychological ‘me’ is a misunderstanding? He called it “evil” at one point…it is the ‘worshiper’, not practical thought.
The issue is not “Does the ‘self’ exist?” Rather: “How does it exist?” It seems to appear and be real, more real than almost anything else. But rainbow and mirages also appear to be real.
To bring things back to the OP, is the egoic self a kind of internal authority figure?
Of course. We can’t function without practical knowledge/practical thought, so none of that content has to go. It’s the psychological content that’s creating the limitation that bounds,contains, and enslaves us.
This is the paradox, the catch 22 of K’s teaching: the brain can’t be free, unlimited, until it is free and unlimited, which can’t happen until it comes into contact, communion with intelligence. And that can’t happen until the brain has lost the fear of losing everything by ceasing and desisting from its usual activity, the known, the believed.
Awareness without motive or choice, condemnation or comparison, isn’t that the “ceasing and desisting” from its usual activity? Isn’t that the abandonment of the self? Or better said, the self trying to abandon itself?
Cont.
This occurred to me from reading your ‘catch 22’ post. There is no ‘doer’ but there must be a ‘doing’. If you recall the ‘breeze’ metaphor, the window can, must be opened but the breeze can’t be “invited” in. Even though motive is involved I try to not judge, not condemn, not compare, etc. I try to be aware of my thoughts, my body, my reactions etc. That ‘effort’ is the opening of the window , putting the house in order? The breeze of intelligence may or may not come in.
Yes, but it isn’t chosen, decided upon, but what happens when the conditioned brain fully awakens to its condition and sees - to its horror - that it is a weapon.
In what way is the awakened brain a “weapon”?
What I said was that the conditioned brain is a weapon, but I would revise that to say that it’s dysfunctional; that incoherent thought brings about much harm, misunderstanding, conflict, destruction, etc.
This is also evident from previous replies where everyone has ignored the word ‘worshipping’! Not authority per se is the problem but the failure to be embedded in its environment with both critical attitude and completeness.
Can you quote these “previous replies”? I don’t know what you’re referring to or how the word “worshipping” relates to this.
Nay, can you point to a reply where worship is mentioned?
While in the quote of K it is!
[quote=“DanMcD, post:29, topic:2233”]
What’s not ‘efficient’ is the self-image, a ‘center’. And according to K’s experience, not at all necessary. The psychological ‘me’ is a misunderstanding? He called it “evil” at one point…it is the ‘worshiper’, not practical thought.
Okay Dan, but does naming it an independent self-contained entity do justice to the energetic quality attributed to an authority?
That energy is so terribly subtle.