Nobody to my mind before K has said so clearly what the ‘problem’ in us is. We did not see the danger in labeling I.e., taking the label for the thing. Or nationality or religion etc. But now we see the necessity of non-violent negation of all this. Of non-attachment.
When you understand anything, you are already divorced from it. Therefore, it is our own understanding that keeps us caught in the personal and cut off from the universal. This may sound like a contradictory statement, but look at it carefully and you will see the truth of it: the hidden observer seeks understanding because through the employment of explanations and descriptions it can remain hidden.
There are many versions of reality and what is real today may seem unreal tomorrow. These versions of reality are put together by the observer of the universe, which is you and me. Do you see the arrogance implied in all this? The question is not why we call it the universal mind. The real question is why we assume that there is anything else separate from the universal mind as the personal mind. The personal mind we accept without question. Why? Why on earth do we ever say, ‘This is my mind’ or, ‘This is my life’?
Thought alone is saying this, isn’t it? Life itself is universal. The mind is universal. Therefore, only a fragment draws attention to itself and assumes a position where it believes it is separate from the whole. This fragment is thought. It is the only fragment in the entire universe. This fragment is me - me as the observer, me as the entity that seeks to understand and connect. There is enormous beauty in the realisation of this fact.
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It really depends on what one means by “understanding”, doesn’t it? K usually uses the word understanding to mean seeing the truth of something
or realising something
K:
Love comes into being when we understand the total process of ourselves, and the understanding of ourselves is the beginning of wisdom
- If the mind were truly empty, then this would obviously include the emptiness of the egoic self. In K lingo, this would be called a state of total attention.
- Immersed, absorbed, concentrated. The mind is quiet in relation to an external object or activity which absorbs its attention or focusses its awareness. When the external activity ceases, or the object is withdrawn, the mind returns to its previous state.
- In K lingo, this is choiceless awareness.
What interests me is whether there can be a state of quietude without absorption in an external object or activity.
I am happy with the use of the term “universal mind” if we mean it in terms of “not belonging to me” rather than some independant agent.
Can we go into this for a moment? What is this preference/dichotomy based on?
Is it to do with freedom from progress? Dialogue for example could be considered a form of activity.
In this case it is about understanding concepts and ideas about the nature of the mind. An understanding of the personal mind, for example, assumes that one is looking at it from a position outside the thing itself, objectively. Similarly, with the concept of universal mind, any understanding of what this might mean places oneself immediately at a distance from it, which is obviously a move back into the personal.
However, the direct perception in daily life of the contradictory workings of the personal mind - the mind that seeks peace yet behaves warlike - brings with it an action that immediately negates any further need for understanding.
Are you equally as happy with the term ‘personal mind’ also in terms of ‘not belonging to me’? This is the deeper issue. If there is something in the human brain that is assuming the identity of an independent agent, this is thought, isn’t it? But thought is entirely dependent upon the past.
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I don’t get your question Douglas? Why do you relate these issues of preference and dialogue to the question of whether there can be quiescence of the mind without an external object?
This state is present in certain types of meditation. Deep rest and sleep too.
What I find way more challenging is the mix of being quiet, alert, and free of objects. I can get there (sometimes), but it’s such an alien place that I come away wondering what it’s good for.
Interestingly, I was in a dialogue yesterday in which we explored the notion of a universal mind. This dialogue group has several members who’ve been reading and discussing Krishnamurti and Bohm for years and years, so they ‘know of what they speak.’ And though they were all very familiar with Krishnamurti and Bohm’s use of ‘universal mind’ none of them felt that they understood its full meaning or experienced it firsthand (at least not consciously).
I am indeed - I did not choose it, I do not control it, it is not so different from everyone else’s
I have - everyday really. My question to you is : why try to control movement - whether it be physical or mental? What presupposition is giving rise to this effort?
I feel there might be an unconscious presupposition at work - can we have a look? Maybe forget dialogue for the moment - why do we feel that quietude is more important in the absence of activity?
One, maybe all, important thing is freedom from the incessant exigence of self-centered (good for me) existence.
I still don’t get the question Douglas? Maybe you can rephrase it?
Are you saying:
“You (James) assume that a quiet brain is synonymous with (physical or mental) inactivity; but is it?”
?
Is this your question?
I am reacting to the above - I wonder why you are more interested in the above, the implication being : as opposed to quietude in action/relation.
Yes, I am wondering whether you think there is something special about inactive quietness.
Dan has mentioned this as well, but sometimes when I am in nature I have the sense of nature as mind - of the wholeness and unity of nature that feels ‘minded’, if you will permit that kind of language. When K or Bohm talk about a universal mind, I feel that it is probably another depth of the same sensibility.
Maybe. But maybe you haven’t tasted the fullness of what it all means, which is why you
I don’t see anything to be gained by being certain about any of these things - just as you are wary of accepting any definite statements about a universal mind.
Yes. I think there is something special about unforced physical inactivity. Not in some strangely absolute sense (the Jains, for example, have a morbid preoccupation with forcing the body to be still - I don’t mean that). But just because this is a state free of distractions, free of impediments or external compulsions and activity. Although this also doesn’t communicate what I see as its value (because I’m not saying that external activity is wrong, or that distractions are wrong, etc).
It is something special to be physically still. One can be on a train, in a car, on a boat, at the beach, lying in bed, sitting on the sofa, sitting on the grass outside - and the mind, the heart, has more space to breathe.
One can find stillness in movement of course - in walking, doing yoga, dancing (though not for me!), playing tennis or swimming or surfing or volleyball, etc. There can be a stillness in watering the garden, doing the dishes, taking out the garbage.
But there is a different quality to this stillness when the body is (naturally) physically still. The stillness penetrates more deeply, the mind opens up, the heart opens up. It’s like one has permission to be alive.
Yes, good point. But being deeply self-centered, if something is not good (read: pleasurable, advantageous) for self or any directish extension of self (tribe, family, group), it tends to register as: meh, blah, boring!