Hi James! I’ve been thinking of Krishnamurti’s psychological time as the “becoming gap” between what-is and what-should-be. Is that nontrivially different from “the distance created by the psychological construct of observer and observed?”
May I quote you the next time I’m late for an appointment?
Yes - but of course when speaking of the ‘now’ (as opposed to the ‘specious present’) fundamental physical theory matters; and whether Relativity constitutes such a fundamental theory (in the light of quantum physics) is an open question.
For instance, David Bohm’s physical theory presents the character of the actual present (the ‘now’, as opposed to the ‘specious present’) in terms of the immediate or non-dual relationship of consciousness to (what he calls) the ‘implicate order’. The implicate order here means a non-fragmented movement or flow (of fundamental energy) from which physical time and space (or space-time) is unfolded as a secondary (or explicate) level of order.
So, from this perspective, the relativity of space-time is a characteristic of a certain level of explication of the physical order, but not a characteristic of its fundamental (or implicate) nature.
This makes room, as it were, for the observed phenomenon of non-local action, which contravenes classical Einsteinian Relativity. From a Bohmian perspective, this non-local action is not an action ‘between’ two separate discrete entities (even though this is how it appears at the explicate level of (macro) physical observation); but rather it is unitary action at the level of implicate movement, which shows up (or unfolds) as a simultaneous action of separate and discrete entities at the explicate order of Einsteinian time-space.
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His understanding is mostly intellectual. But there is some actuality = empathy for the confusion of the other person. That’s why it’s a ‘guilty pleasure.’ So he does have a problem, but it’s minor and easily ignorable.
(To what extent) Do we need to feel our pain rather than just seeing and understanding it?
Thanks for that very clear explanation Nobody.
Yes, that sounds right. The time between the ‘what is’ and what ‘should be’ (the time of psychological becoming) is the same as the distance created between the observer and the observed. It is the interval created by memory and thought.
In relationship this might be the distance created by my image of someone, which separates me from who or what they objectively are. The image creates a screen or a delay, which interferes with my direct observation of - my relationship with - them.
Hello James. Thanks for the explanation. We often say that the only thing we can do is experiment with the choiceless observation of the movement of thought. As far as I can see, this is the only way to find out if what K was saying is true.
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I don’t say “that the only thing we can do is experiment with choiceless observation of the movement of thought” because I can’t experiment without choosing to.
Does deciding to experiment rule out the possibility of choiceless observation? I mean, you can’t decide that the breeze will come into the room but you can leave the window open.
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What does it mean to “leave the window open”?
Hi Dan. In the context of my reply to Inquiry, I meant that one can make a decision about something (to leave the window open or to experiment with choiceless awareness) but that what comes next is not something that can be decided (the breeze coming in or choiceless awareness taking place).
Concepts? There are no concepts.
And when you start there, where will it go? Or will it just stay in intellectual understanding?
Also to me, ‘leaving the window open ‘ is the intellectual understanding or certainty that the self must ‘die’, dissolve, if ‘freedom ‘ is to be realized…and ‘the breeze’ is the process of that dissolution which can’t be invited.
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I meant concepts such as up, down, the observer is the observed etc…
I suppose it could go anywhere - to some emotional place, to some action. What barriers are there actually between this moment and the next? Are you implying that intellectual understanding is a barrier to psychological freedom?
I suppose the best we can hope for is an intellectual understanding that any effort from self, reinforces the self.
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I can’t choose to experiment with choiceless awareness if I have no experiential knowledge of it, and if I did, it wouldn’t be anything new or different. I can, however, do as you say and leave the window open, which I take to mean be more open minded.
I want to know what choiceless awareness is, if it’s possible to experience it.
I reckon we have at least some idea of what attention is.
During a quiet moment, is attention there when we look for it? What happens if we stay with it? Does this take effort? Why does it stop?
What can I know about complete attention and choiceless awareness if I, choosing, can’t be present when attention is complete and awareness is choiceless?
is attention there when we look for it? What happens if we stay with it?
“We”, the choosers, can only acknowledge what we choose to find.
What happens if we stay with it?
I don’t think it’s possible to be choicelessly aware of choosing until the mind loses confidence in itself.
Fear, identity and experience do not dissapear forever - the idea is that the worst behaviour and actions of the self (aka from fear) are mitigated by the loss of dominance that suffering undergoes through freedom and clarity.
A bit like how bungee jumping becomes less scary once you get into the habit/realise that you don’t die when you fall off the bridge.
Its not so much my knowledge/opinions about “magical illumination” that is important, but how I feel and interact with my daily life, once freed from my self delusions and angst.
I think there is a danger of reifying certain statements that Krishnamurti makes so that they become impossible ideals, abstracted from daily experience. Although Krishnamurti uses the term total attention to imply the complete non-existence of the self at any level, his language around awareness and choicelessness is more nuanced and subtle. Awareness is simply awareness of whatever is arising in the mind at any given moment (whether it be thoughts, feelings, perceptions, sensations, etc).
The term choiceless awareness shares a family resemblance with a group of terms - such as nonjudgmental awareness, bare attention, open monitoring, etc - that are used in ‘modern mindfulness’. The influences on ‘modern mindfulness’ include the so-called “bare attention” of Burmese Vipassana (beginning with Sayadaw and Nyanaponika), and the so-called open-presence (or open-monitoring) styles of approach that have been articulated in the Dzogchen and Mahamudra schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Indeed, the “father of modern mindfulness” - Jon Kabat-Zinn - directly appropriated Krishnamurti’s phrase “choiceless awareness” to describe his own syncretism of these traditions. (Of course, ‘modern mindfulness’ is highly contentious among more traditional and conservative communities of Theravada Buddhists, because they hold to an interpretation of mindfulness which emphasises the roles played by memory and conscious choice - but there is no need to go into the weeds on this issue here).
In the academic literature around ‘modern mindfulness’, the attitude of choiceless awareness has been summarised as
A kind of non-elaborative, non-judgemental, present-centred awareness in which each thought, feeling or sensation that arises in the attentional field is acknowledged and accepted as it is
In principle this is simply an effortless awareness of the present situation that anyone can have in the moment, from children to adults. It’s not an impossible prescription.
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