Back when Krishnamurti began telling people about the urgent need for the human brain to undergo a radical transformation from what it has been for millennia to what if must be now if our species is to survive, he made it clear that we are violent, destructive, and unaware of why we are this way. Our problem, he told us, is that we’re unaware of why we behave the way we do, and not concerned enough or too distracted, to find out.
Everything he said pointed to the fact that we don’t see the danger of what we’re doing because we’re too fragmented to see anything in its entirety; we’re not whole human beings anymore, if we ever were.
So how is one to find out if that’s true? Many would say that psychedelic substances make it self-evident in a moment that feels like wholeness. But the realization that one is not fundamentally fragmented, as liberating and illuminating as it may be, when induced by an outside agency is only a glimpse of what is possible when one depends on nothing more than the urgent need to find out.
last alinea QOTD: J. Krishnamurti
So, self-contradiction is the cause of this ceaseless effort which most of us are making. Self-contradiction exists, because one wants to be something, does it not? I want to be the governor, or the prime minister; I want to be noble, non-greedy; I want to become a saint. Do you follow, sirs? The moment you have an idea of being or becoming something, there must be self-contradiction. Don’t say, “Then must I not become something?” That is not the problem.
Just see what is implied in becoming something. That is enough.
Of course our need to progress, obtain more power and security is the norm - when we speak of the urgency of change, we mean no longer blindly following the norm.
This isn’t clear. Do you mean not following at all or not following blindly? Is following okay if it isn’t following blindly? Are you saying that urgency is felt when one is not blind, or when one is not following?
Isn’t urgency springing into responsible action without deliberation, e.g., seeing a child stepping into traffic or toward the edge of a cliff, and restraining the child before you know it?
We spend decades listening to Krishnamurti talk about the human condition and the urgency of seeing it for what it is, but all we do is talk about it.
Many of us talk as if we have some understanding of what K was saying, some of us admit that K’s message still isn’t clear, and there’s no telling how many have given up trying to get the message because it fails to awaken them to a sense of urgency that moves one to act. All we do is react to it in our chosen way. We seem to be hopelessly bound by our commitment to self.
Sorry, I was just reacting to Wim’s post - because we humans do feel what could be described as an urgent desire for change - or desire to become something else, something better - I was just saying that that wasn’t really change, that it was in fact our normal habit.
Yes - the words themselves do not contain the magic power of instilling urgency in us - at least not in sufficient measure - the person hearing the words and the brain in their skull (the quality of its conditioning) and the environment affecting that person in that moment is also of utmost importance (for urgency to arise)
Saying that thought is unaware of itself until it becomes aware of its movement is saying that thought undergoes a radical transformation. You share this belief with Paul.
As Wim said my response to you is not important. What is important is seeing the conditioned activity of thought… it’s reflexive response, question, opinion, condemnation, approval, etc. Not, as K said, ‘you’ observing its activity but it becoming aware of itself: “lighting up” as it were. That might be what we are here for? That might be ‘important’?
It’s too bad we can’t ask K if he meant that literally, because I don’t see how thought can be aware of itself.
Self-knowledge is a matter of being aware of one’s reactions; aware of what thought is doing. It’s not something one chooses to do, but what happens when self-knowledge matters more than anything else.
If thought can be aware of itself, the brain is no more than thought and autonomic activity, and there can be no awareness of silence and emptiness.
I just want to say that its not about how intricate and detailed our intellectual understanding is - its not about how refined our thoughts about the teaching are.
Its more about how honest we are able to be, whether truth is more important than my self image.
But it is about not misunderstanding what K was saying, and a lot of things he said need to be understood in the context of everything else he said. To pick out one statement of his that is not verified or supported by everything else he said is either stupid, confused, or misleading.
What Krishnamurti says about thought is confusing for those people that want it to be confusing. Thought ‘can be aware of itself’ means people can be aware or understand the workings of thought, that is, see how it compares, measures, turns one way or the other along some trail of information. Of course we must want to understand, one must be honest as I think was mentioned by macdougdoug before, I would say one must have the love of truth. This does not imply any transformation in thought itself, thought is what it is, any transformation that may come about is solely of the human being. Thought exists as long as the human being exists.
I am talking about some insight into self and suffering, that frees us from the dictat of the known.
For example : if a scholar studies K very carefully and diligently, and is able to answer questions on the teaching better than chatGPT, what happens? Does some transformation of the psyche occur?
Another example : was Buddha conditioned by some teaching? Was K? Was the philosophy that they heard the reason for their “awakening”?
But I get what you’re saying (I think) : either that incorrect understanding of the teaching may somehow prevent awakening, or that people might point out our mistakes in debate.
Thinking /chattering is a process of brain memory. Awareness is not activity of thought but of mind that seems to be beyond brain. When chattering is going on, mind seems to remain dormant. When mind becomes aware,it takes over the brain, chattering stops and there is silence.But as it normally happens, this silence does not last long, and brain starts chattering again. What triggers awareness by mind or loss of awareness by mind , do not know. Remembering K suggesting slipping into awareness.
We know that transformation doesn’t follow from a correct understanding of what Krishnamurti was trying to get across, but getting an incorrect understanding is worse than knowing nothing about Krishnamurti.