I don’t have any theory. I am afraid. So are you. All the other feelings we may have are irrelevant at the moment. Any theory we may have can only complicate things by covering over our primary reaction of being afraid and taking us off into some cosy, abstract corner of the brain. Resorting to theories, however perfectly formed they may be, however good their credentials, is an age-old human habit of allowing our imagination to solve a problem in the hope that there then follows some apotheosis of total understanding. This is the wrong way round. We are afraid. No theory is going to change this. The theory merely distracts us from the root feeling of fear, which then develops many tendrils.
So if we are willing to reject all the different theories flying around, then we are free to look directly at our fear. Otherwise, we are simply repeating and getting caught in a lot of old nonsense.
Fear of Death?
Not ready to die now, as I have many things to do in my life?
Don’t want Human species vanish like Dinosaurs, and want to save them but fear of how to change them?.
So, Fear it is, One couldn’t look at destruction. Animals, die in food chain. Chicken/etc., killed by Humans for the taste or for the proteins - to live long. One cuts down trees for building and wood. Also, One puts an end to life of insects for clothes (silk,etc).
Is one feared at that time of human act of killing animals for food or wood for shelter or insects for clothes? No? Destruction is same for all, whatever/wherever happens. So, why one is feared of Destruction of Humanity alone, but not in some other destruction?
My reactions are like those of many others: shock, horror, outrage; distress at the suffering of so many innocent people, fear at the possible consequences; a sense of powerlessness to stop it. War is always terrible: and with modern munitions it is even more destructive and unpredictable. I can’t believe that in 2022 another sick leader has launched a war in Europe. I remember the fall of the Berlin wall, and how much hope there was for a new start in East/West relations - but it seems that structures of antipathy have their own tenacious resilience (whether in the collective mind of European and Russian societies, or in the mind of a single ruthless dictator fomenting it).
Krishnamurti’s “theory” is that these conflicts are caused by psychological thought/time. I don’t think this is much in doubt: a society that has been brainwashed into identifying itself with certain thoughts and images (of nation, race, creed, etc) is capable of accepting anything that affirms those identities. If those identities are contradicted by others, conflict is the result.
The radical part of Krishnamurti’s “theory” is his solution to this: the ending of psychological thought/time (in the brains of ‘individual’ human beings). This remains radical. This means that even though many of us have questioned certain obvious identities in ourselves (of religion, nationality, etc), few of us can claim to have ended the roots of those identities in our minds - and so I remain still the world, and am still contributing to war.
So, for me, the question of whether psychological thought/time can really end (in ‘my’ brain) is the fundamental question that this conflict raises. There are other questions of course - political questions, questions of strategic alliances, sanctions, the place of nuclear technology in society, questions of energy resources, etc, the dangers of misinformation - but this, for me, is the main psychological question.
Charley never saw what K talked about/wrote as a “theory”… theory being a system of ideas, or beliefs… etc…
Charley used to have an excellent sense of time. One recalls how when people would stop and ask Charley for the time, Charley wouldn’t even have to look at watch and would be able to say what time it was. Funny, eh? This was the situation before getting into K. Last year, after carefully checking the bus schedule for my appointment to get the driver’s license renewed, and checking time, one ended up there 1-1/2 hours before the time of the appointment ! Had no idea how that happened. Fortunately, they let Charley in - Charley is old, and Charley was out of there in 10’. A few months ago, completely forgot the optometry appointment (had to reschedule and fork over $20 because of this…). Charley has no sense of time. Charley never had any idea to stop time, but what has happened is just an after-effect. Charley finds it absolutely incredible to have within one’s brain this idea to start off with - the idea of stopping time - like putting the cart before the horse.
All of this makes one wonder why on earth people get into K in the first place, like what is the motivation. Like some kind of fantasy to possess or own the after-effects.
One must also say, as well, that the ending of thought as such was never something that interested Charley (when Charley first began reading K). As a matter of fact, Charley considered Bohm a blockhead, someone completely stupid, and found most of the verbal exchanges between K and Bohm a waste of time and utterly useless.
One can easily make an analogy between the actions in ending thought/time and those who take medication in order to lessen the impact/effect of any disease. This is not what K was about, nope. He was into getting at the roots of the disease and healing - making whole the person. And the manner in which one gets at the roots was not by thought !! It was through awareness, attention, etc. - seeing the conditioning and understanding this conditioning. This is why those who use thought fail.
This is why the word “theory” is in quotes: I was following the grammatical convention of putting a word in quotes to show that I didn’t fully agree with the use of the term in the given context. However, as I didn’t want to get drawn into a discussion about that, I just took it to mean “Krishnamurti’s teachings” or the equivalent.
The whole question of thought (and memory) was something foreign to me too when I first discovered K, but I have subsequently realised that it has a central importance in the way the mind operates, and is at the root of many of the problems in the world. The insight that time is thought and thought is time (psychologically speaking) - and the related question of whether there can be an end to time - is something that K laboured to communicate in his public talks (as you must know), so I don’t understand the analogy you make about “medication”?
To attempt to end thought/time through will, suppression or mentation is obviously false. I am not denying that getting at the root of this is through (choiceless) awareness and attention (rather than through thought); so I don’t understand why you seem to have reacted this way to what I’ve written? Surely an insight into thought/time is not a matter of “medication”?
Not that I think Bohm was stupid - as you apparently think - but I am not a Bohmian. I’m just someone who is moderately familiar with K’s teaching and with Bohm too, that’s all.
Okay, thanks for clarifying how you used “theory”. Got it.
Charley knows of no one who has ever had the insight that time = thought (and vice versa), including Charley. Actually, one can’t even imagine having such an insight. One cannot even see “thought” within, let alone psychological time, right? Insight implies seeing within, seeing “what is” true, “what is” false, etc. Time as a psychological idea is an illusion from Charley’s viewpoint - it just isn’t real, apart from night/day the physical reality, etc.; however, one cannot see a particular illusion within. One can only see facts within, which when they cannot be seen are understood to be illusions - such as the insight regarding “becoming” - the river… and getting to the other side - so, that was seeing the truth in the false. No matter what one does while sitting on one side of the river, one cannot get to the other side. Perhaps Charley is mistaken. But really, all of the insights that Charley has had had to do with real characteristics, with reality. Charley has no understanding at all of intellectual insights. Why should anyone? Apparently, K said they are all meaningless, so why bother? “I” really liked the mutations/healing that comes with insights. Charley - before K - was full of what Charley considered “normal” ways of seeing the world, which were all rubbish. Charley believed that cemeteries were sacred - laughable eh? Charley was into politics, etc. among so many other things. As a public figure, even helped someone get elected ! Now, Charley refuses even to vote - so many years since having removed one’s name from the voter’s list, after that insight, “I am the world and the world is me”…
Considering admin’s admonition to Charley re: discussing politics. Charley considers all politics evil and that is all C can say. You do recall what K said to the UN - oh yeah. I could say much more on what he said…
People take medication to lessen the effects of say “diabetes”… thought has invented medication to treat “diabetes”, right? But were one to stop - to cease eating that which causes “diabetes”, many cure themselves. Not sure this is a good example, but… So using thought as a solution is not the way to end thought.
Aha, okay I was thinking of the partial in ‘partial attention’ literally, as paying attention to just one (or perhaps just a few) of the large number of channels of information available in that moment.
I doubt pretty much everything. If my self is not doing the doubting, who or what is?
I think the full gestalt of feelings we have, the full experience is relevant. Fear is not a monolith, it exists in relationship with other feelings, perceptions, thoughts. We can choose to narrow the focus and home in on the fear aspect, but that runs the risk of losing the whole.
Definitely. Antipathy and violence are tenacious forces in the human mind. They’re easy to spot.
There’s no question this is a radical ‘solution’ for the ills of mankind. So radical that few (if any) can fully realize it, put it into practice. But a partial realization is better than nothing, right?
Surely one doesn’t need to know of others who have had such an insight (after all, how could one ever be sure?) in order to listen to someone - like K - who talks about it and points out about the nature of time/thought. K obviously felt strongly enough about it - the relationship between time and thought - to talk at length (in scores of talks and discussions) about it. One is free to reject the whole topic, but that’s surely a personal matter.
As far as I see it, because thought depends on memory it is bound up with psychological time. Every thought arises from some past experience, and proceeds through the present to the future: creating fear, pleasure, desire, hurt and sorrow, hope and despair. So the question - for me at least - is whether that movement (of time/thought) can end.
I vaguely recall - from dropping by kinfonet some weeks ago - that you yourself talked about the Indo-Buddhist notion of “nirodha” (meaning cessation, ending, negation). If it is a valid term, doesn’t it imply the ending of this movement of psychological thought/time? This ending cannot be willed, desired or intended, and so is not “medicative”. Rather, it is the radical ending of psychological disorder at the root (the root being time/thought).
Remember, the thread began with the question of the war in Ukraine, and what kinds of reactions or questions those of us on the forum have in response to it. I have many questions and reactions to what’s going on (mostly of horror), but the one fundamental question it raises for me is: can the psychological movement at the root of all war and conflict (which I take to be time/thought) come to an end in the minds of human beings?
If that is not the right question, or if you have your own question, then please go ahead and express it. I’m [edit] NOT trying to be intellectual about it.
Right now I would take the tiniest movement in the direction of such a realisation in the world! If just a small percentage of generals and oligarchs in Putin’s orbit were to momentarily step out of their identification with the Russian state and realise that they are literally killing brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, mothers and and fathers in Ukraine, then they would find a solution to this nightmare.
Let’s start small - that’s all I am saying. Besides, the very first reaction to this kind of international conflict is one of fear. This is our starting point. So let’s look at it. We can go off to look at other feelings and emotions later.
And to realize that those and other reactions are reactions of the ‘self’. The self is fear. The fears, confusions and anxieties of childhood. Suppressed and covered over.
I think there is a substantial % of people (particularly those who are in no immediate danger) who do not feel fear as a first reaction to the Ukraine invasion. Rather: anger, disgust, shame, hatred, compassion, sadness, love. To reduce these all to fear would be imo a mistake.
No, it is worse than nothing. When it is partial, it is your property, your baby, the result of your efforts; you are still involved in it up to the neck. A partial realisation is still just a theory. What is wrong with nothing? At least then there is a freedom to look all around, not merely in one very limited direction.
Yes, very much so. Here, we are on the same page. This is the conditioning. Yes.
However, when you state:
Any child who has some “experience” which so imprints itself upon the child is caused by some situation which either scares the living daylights of the child, causes enormous pain, sorrow, etc. as you mentioned…
One can take many examples, a dog bites a child (which never happened to Charley), feels physical pain, etc. and it is only after that experience (the conditioning), has thoughts from a memory of that experience and is terrified of all dogs later on because the conditioned memory is one of physical pain.
Not that this example ever happened to Charley, but … say, “My mother died. All of a sudden she isn’t there.” So, there is sorrow/sadness experienced, from the loss, the separation. This is the conditioning, okay?..Do you follow? The child cries, as he/she misses the mother. The fact is the mother is now permanently absent. It is from this conditioning that thought arises. It is not from thought that sorrow begins. It is from the experience of loss. The way you expressed it suggests that thought as you say creates the sorrow. But, it is the other way around. Now, can you see that the experience creates the conditioning (of suffering) and then leads to thoughts…? So, insofar as Charley sees it, thought is the result of the sorrow, and as thought persists and changes over time, it is still the symptom of the suffering. So, to heal the sorrow, do you not consider it relevant/important/crucial to discover the cause of the thoughts (which is only the symptom of a malaise), and not the cause?
You see, initially, one brought up the word “conditioning” when one became a member, quite a few members dismissed … scoffed at that word. And, one raised an eyebrow and wondered what on earth was going on in this site, from the following comments from my thread on relationships: (posts 31 ff…)
So as one participated on this site, one discovered that the reason why so many did not have a clear understanding of “conditioning” was that basically they had not seen the conditioning and the closest they got to the conditioning were thoughts - which to Charley were only symptoms of the deeper conditioning, but not the conditioning itself at all. For the majority of participants here, it seems that the initial conditioning had never seemed to arisen… Now, Charley could be wrong, but it is not like people on this site are citing and discussing the fact that there was the seeing of the conditioning and the understanding of such conditioning and the freedom felt from that.
