What is the intelligent way to understand and react to Russia’s actions in Ukraine?
In other words, all these years of working through Krishnamurti’s teachings, here we have a real-world difficult situation, how to apply what’s been learned, what to think, what to do?
nobody,
As “I” have been directed by admin to limit anything “I” say re: politics, “I” can do nothing but to remain silent…
Also, @Eric made it perfectly clear that “I” alone am not welcome to quote K…
Interesting. If all discussions that involve politics are verboten here, I apologize and will remove this thread, though personally I can’t think of anything more relevant to talk about now.
That the self is never satisfied - never free from fear and desire - you may have power over a huge country and the use of all its money - there is still the over riding need to gain power and security.
How does one apply K’s teaching without making him our authority, our leader?
If we’ve learned anything from K’s teaching, it’s that our thinking is the problem, so to apply K’s teaching is to be increasingly mindful of what thought is doing. Forming opinions and discussing them with other opinionators reveals how the less we know about ourselves, the more knowingly we can speak about everything else.
What (re)action does this lead to? Your beloved home is suddenly being bombed by people who seem hell-bent on your subjugation and possibly destruction. Do you stay, tough it out? Join the resistance? Fight the ‘enemy?’ Seek refuge elsewhere? Do you allow hate to blossom? Do you strive to take the high road?
And the urge to glom onto some form of authority tends to be stronger in a crisis situation, right? That’s how demagogues and cult leaders ply their trade, use fear as bait.
What truths is thought telling us about Putin and the Ukraine situation? What falsehoods? What are the traps to be aware of?
As long as I know K’s teachings are about healthy and sane minds. K’s teachings are useless with regard to evil as anything else is.
I’d say one trap is to think: I am not like that, I’m condemning that - and generally avoid to look at that side of the human mind: Extinction, exploitation, getting the maximum advantage for myself, regardless of losses.
An isolated mind causing havoc.
Another trap is to consider war as a means of conflict resolution in certain cases. We are not asking ourselves why we have to murder each other.
What is the intelligent way to understand our own reactions in regard to this latest crisis? Surely, they are reactions of fear and violence, are they not? So the real crisis about all of this is right inside us, right now, not in some far abstract place. And this crisis exists even when Russia and Ukraine are apparently at peace. Therefore the real-world difficult situation is with us all the time, not just when a conflict between two countries brings it out into the open.
So look at what we are doing now. Are we taking sides? That’s usually our first reaction, isn’t it? Why? Not that it is wrong to take sides, but that is what we do. With whom are we siding? And also another reaction is to imagine a lot of different scenarios. Again, why? Why are we dealing with any of this through our imagination?
These are serious, difficult questions. The answers to these questions really don’t matter. What matters is the question at the heart of all this, the one question which is always clouded by our own reactions and by our desire to take control of any awkward situation.
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Look at how you have reacted and you will see how you have reacted - you will see who you are.
From here it looks like your reaction is the normal human reaction from fear and confusion - in the form of imaginative speculation, just in case, what if, how would I ensure the best reaction in search of good and avoiding bad?
Unless of course you are speaking from somewhere in the warzone? How far away is the enemy? Has the resistance been in contact? If so, you know better than me what to do.
Sane and healthy minds need to live with unhealthy/insane minds. You can distance yourself from insanity, but not totally: We are the world, right?
Yes. I often have to smile (grimly) at condemnations of views/actions that are grounded in the same “I’m right and they’re wrong!” assumption as those they condemn.
A day or two ago Ursula von der Leyen said (wisely, I think) that diplomacy was always the best way to resolve problems and that fighting should only come when all diplomacy has failed.
The conditioned mind thinks continuously and compulsively despite knowing that it must stop periodically to relieve itself of the confusion and conflict it generates by perpetual accumulation. This condition is a trap it unwittingly set for itself thousands of years ago, the operation of which is unconscious.
Why live with anybody psychologically?
By ‘live with’ I mean share the same world with. Empaths and sociopaths, mystics and despots, all must live together in this sense. You can distance yourself from people, but you can never fully separate yourself from them.
Sounds like you see this as a flawed way to react, a way that stems from fear and confusion. What would be a more intelligent way to deal with the situation?
The intelligence is simply to see the fact. No other steps need be imagined.
The prognostication of the next step from the this center of fear and confusion, is merely further fear and confusion.
Maybe I am a confused and fearful human, and acting in this way is natural and normal - I am not offering advice from some special place. No judgement is implied, only the suggestion that clarity is a form of freedom.
Fear, violence, sadness, shock, horror, wonder, curiosity, excitement, gratefulness. All sorts of emotions get awakened by strongly triggering events like war.
Yes, the real crisis is inside us, part of us. But it mostly remains simmering quietly on a back burner. It takes a sudden conflagration to come into focus and to get our attention.
Yes, we take sides, analyze, speculate and game, imagine, extrapolate, search for a fix. We feel angry, sad, perhaps morbidly exhilarated like when seeing a car crash, one we are not in! Some people, too few these days imo, take the time and energy (and courage) to look for the big picture, see the unbiased whole rather than biased fragments.