With regards to the issues K presents us with, no amount of determination to reach any state will get us there. Determination is will and will is not the appropriate tool.
Is a tool of any use without the will to use it? Is inquiry not a tool?
As for living a āseriousā life, is it entirely clear to you what K meant by that? If so, are you living such a life?
I ask because Iām not sure what he meant. Too many people take themselves seriously, and theyāre either ridiculous or dangerous. If I think Iām living a serious life, Iām a fool.
But Iām determined to be serious! Which implies that Iām not really seriousā¦only want to be serious because K said I should be ā¦or so I can reach some state of transformation. Sorry, I find the subject pretty confusing.
Yeah, well K gave some indications, some samples. I think thereās no need to enumerate them. Mostly what he seemed to be indicating was to be thorough, both in seeing the implications of where oneās actions may lead and being honest with oneself. But there seems to be an underlying assumption involved, that man is essentially good and would want to set himself in order if he could. I donāt know what he founded those assumptions on.
Many people think all sorts of things about themselves. Thatās true. K wasnāt referring to what we think however but about what we do, how we act in life. And how we perceive things, how we think, is all part of that. Both the inner and outer process being part of our action.
āIntegrity,ā for example: Most people think of this as towing a straight line, of not deceiving others etc. K saw it as a state of mind, a mind that is integrated and not fragmented. āSeriousā to most people smply means to be dedicated, to push forward. To K it meant to have a mind that was ordered, profound and sane.
And Tom is correct I think: Determination does not come into it. With seriousness, you either is or you aināt. K may have hoped his teaching would inspire some of the āis.ā What more is there to it than that?
Thatās a pertinent question. Something becomes a tool when there is a will to use it as such. That is implied in the word ātool.ā Inquiry may be used as a tool or it may simply be a state of mind. Maybe we can be attentive to whether we are using it as a tool or whether it is running on its own steam.
As I wrote the above I became aware that at that moment inquiry was not being used as a tool. It was just following its own course. I could inquire into the inquiry itself by asking what was it that set that course. And in doing so I see there was a genuine curiosity in finding out involved. No more to it than that.
Just as when we are hungry we seek food, when we are confused we seek clarity. It may not be that one says to oneself that one is seeking clarity. It may be a more natural process than that, one that does not involve conscious intent.
K talked about the importance of inquiry and how if thereās no determination to get to the bottom of things, to strip away all the excess and distraction and realize how the mind operates, all one can do is passively hope that somehow one will awaken to what K was talking about, and that the awakening would be the end of interminably talking about it and the beginning of living it.
Inquiry is a tool, and as you say, it operates on its own. There is no operator. But there is determination and there is will. It just isnāt conscious. Itās just happening, whether Iām aware of it or not.
I canāt see that Inq. If it is a tool then someone is using it. A tool is an extension. A tool does not operate on its own. Either inquiry runs on its own or someone is using it, in which case there is will aimed at an end. That is how I see it. But I suggested that even when it runs on its own there is some a-priori condition to its running. And I suggest this is not āwill,ā as such but a natural state of an organism seeking order, which I think was Kās position.
Will, according to K, is the summation of desire. All your desires comes together to form will. But will is a hierarchical structure wherein some desires have to submit to others, according to their relative strengths and the alliances that are formed between them. Will is fragmented and duplicitous. Any inquiry run at the behest of will inevitably results in fragmented discovery.
Fine. But realise that you are already starting with a precept, that things have a bottom, a final point, and that this can be got to. And then we have to evaluate it. Or, we have to get to the bottom of those assumptions. How did the precept form? What lies behind it? Hope? Is it an active hope or a passive one? I think the latter. So you are back at passively hoping and then trying to act from what is essentially a passive hope. In fact, hope is always passive.
I am not sure that the things of the mind have a metaphorical ābottomā that can be revealed. It may be so but I am unsure. I have no conviction about it. However, I have seen that much that is worthless or which is a hindrance can be stripped away, depending on the depth to which it is ātrulyā understood. So, I will work with that. For me, I see that the energy for this comes and goes. There is no overarching ādetermination.ā Should I try to summon an overarching determination by an act of will? I don;t think K meant that.
But letās also recognise that K often urged us with phrases such as āGo on sirs, do it.ā Yet he also and continually pointed out that there was no doing of it. It either was or it was not. So, to my mind, such remarks are not to be taken literally as they would take one on the opposite road to which K intended. They were simply efforts to raise the energy and break through the shields. The evidence is that they were ineffective.
But they do. Theyāre called ārobotsā. The unconscious mind is not a robot, but it knows what itās doing while the conscious mind does not know until something is revealed.
Any inquiry run at the behest of will inevitably results in fragmented discovery.
According to your definition of will. For me, the word covers more territory. Inquiry is arduous, it takes intention to do it, but it is mostly an unconscious process. A question arises in the conscious mind, and the unconscious mind takes over.
A robot is neither a tool, nor does it operate on its own Inq. It is a complex machine that has to be programmed and energised.
Also, there is no such thing as āthe unconscious mind.ā K points this fact out many times. There is only the mind, a small part of which has this quality we call consciousness. And it is from that self-reflective aspect we call āconsciousnessā that the self arises and all the problems of duality (the thinker and his thought) gain ground.
It is not clear to me what you mean when you say that the unconscious mind knows what it is doing. Knowing, it seems to me, involves reflection, which is an attribute of consciousness. But here we are drifting from the point.
I feel inclined to leave the discussion at this point. I would however suggest you read more of Krishnamurti on these points, especially with regard the nature and movement of will, intention and determination. He may be totally wrong. I am not saying he is correct. But it may serve your future inquiry well to understand what he taught on the matter.
Best wishes
Paul
You sure about that? Do you believe this because of what K said, or because it is a fact? If the latter, present the evidence.
I would however suggest you read more of Krishnamurti on these points, especially with regard the nature and movement of will, intention and determination.
I might suggest you do the same. Clearly, we have differing ideas of what K said.
Can there be any evidence that there is no such a thing as the unconscious mind? What I can see is that consciousness is his own content, this I can see it, though I canāt sadly present any evidence . But as K said, and as I also see it, the content of consciousness is consciousness, Isnāt it the most important thing to see ? Then what we call the conscious mind is the part , as Paul said, that we are aware of. And we call the unconscious simply what we are unaware of. But it can be reveal and then there is any fragment of our consiouness that we are unaware of. So what we call the unconscious can be blown away.
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Ideas ? Of what value is an idea, if I may say.
The heart is a tool that pumps blood. Does it operate on its own?
Dear Sree, why would you consider the heart to be a tool? The heart is an organ of the body. A tool is something external to the user. When you say the heart is a tool you are separating you from your heart and creating a duality where there is none.
I see the two challenges as rather artificial, no disrespect intended. You have stated that there is such a thing as an āunconscious mind.ā I do not ask you if you are repeating someone because to do so would be impertinent of me. But I will answer your questions.
Yes, I see it as a factual statement to say there is no such thing as an unconscious mind. There is the mind, part of which has the ability to look back at itself and we call that facility āconsciousness.ā I have inquired into this during many years and find it so. The alternative thesis, that there are two minds, a conscious mind and an unconscious mind and that they somehow interact does not accord with my experience. It is rather like saying there are two trees, one above the ground and one below the ground. No, there is one tree, part of which is above and part below. The part below we call the root but having a specific name for that part does not imply separation.
You ask me to present āthe evidenceā and instead I have offered an analogy. The one who demands proof must set out the criteria for what that proof would be. So I put the question back to you. What would your criteria be to either prove or disprove either statement?
As RIchard wrote, āCan there be any evidence?ā
And I would add a logical issue involved in presenting proof that something does not exist. Can you prove that unicorns to not exist? Present the evidence?
Do you see the difficulty in proving that something does not exist? That is why I say the demand is artificial.
As I see, when K says there is no such thing as unconscious mind, there is an expectation that the mind spoken of about is already in the process of observation and awareness, the unconscious aspect then is continually unfolded in activities and action in general and submits itself within the ambit of observable happenings. For K, unconscious is not when there is choice-less awareness firmly established as in a process; when the observer is observed, the unconscious is not says he. To talk of unconscious as something hidden is more related to what is generally called as psyche to which people like Carl Jung etc are interested in exploring and if carelessly used can cause people to conflate between what K is attempting to communicate and what psychologists are keen to establish.
Having said this, for people who arenāt awaken to the need for observation and understanding, I do agree that there is an unconscious aspect to the psyche which causes patterns in perception-action interaction and allows people to be categorized as psychological types so to speak.
Yes, agree. Can perception be described as generally this? the back and forth movement of awareness constrained or to a certain degree inseparable from will.
It is rather like saying there are two trees, one above the ground and one below the ground. No, there is one tree, part of which is above and part below.
So youāre not disputing that the mind operates openly, in plain sight, and hidden, subliminally, as well. Call it the roots of the tree, or call it the unconscious mind, we agree that much of what the mind does is hidden from itself.