What did Krishnamurti mean by fact?

@Ayham

Krishnamurti: Awareness, attention has nothing whatsoever to do with discipline, with practice, or with the intention to be aware. Either you are aware of those flowers or you are not aware of those flowers… If you put your mind to it, give your mind, your heart, your whole being to observe those flowers then you have total attention. That needs no discipline, only that you have to look. But if you look with a verbal statement, ‘How beautiful those flowers are’, or ‘Is it a chrysanthemum’, ‘I like others flowers rather than that flower’ – those are all verbal descriptions and escapes from the actual fact of observing. If you observe without a verbal statement then you are completely attentive, and that attention perhaps you can maintain for a couple of minutes or a few seconds, but when that attention wears off, moves away, then you become aware that you are not attentive. And then you proceed to be attentive. Then you say, ‘How am I to acquire continuous attention?’ – that’s a wrong question. There is no such thing as continuous awareness, a continuous attention… When your attention wanders off, be attentive to that wandering off. You understand? Be attentive to the state when you are not giving attention, then you are attentive. But when you say, ‘I must be constantly attentive’ then you are introducing a factor of time. And when there is attention there is no centre as the ‘me’ or time, there is only a state of attention. Have you understood this? It’s fairly simple.

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiZ1rj_2IzwAhVilFwKHRSuCvoQwqsBMAB6BAgEEAM&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DCkCUH6BfBC0&usg=AOvVaw0_6-uxNQPFx790w34Ao6lF

Viswa - you are the most confused person on this forum! - If anybody here is willing to be diverted by your claims to have “ended sufferings”, and of hearing krishna whenever you see a beautiful woman!, etc, then that is up to them.

But count me out: I won’t play with you.

I run hot and cold on Rupert Spira. At his best (for me) he reveals, in words and tone, the primacy of consciousness better than anyone I’ve ever heard. At his worst he comes off smug and affected and toes the party line (a certain flavor of Advaita, Neo-Advaita, Direct Path). I have learned lots from his books and videos, they’ve helped me clarify my (ever-changing!) worldview.

In terms of Krishnamurti’s observer=observed and Spira’s Observer=Consciousness … I think each model has something valuable to offer, but neither nails IT. Which is fine with me, since I doubt there is an IT to nail!

What value it gives to ‘me’/‘you’ sir?

How many days will you go on seeing other person’s ‘philosophies/words’ and escape from ‘you’? :sweat_smile:

Good question! Over and over the teachings of others take me to the edge of the cliff … but they don’t seem to be able to get me to jump. I guess I’m too afraid, too comfortable contemplating?

So, if we don’t adopt as a starting point the analytical premise of K’s observer = the observed, or Spira’s Observer = Consciousness, where might we begin?

I think this is where the Buddhists provide a clue. They say (not all of them obviously!): there is basically suffering.

I think K at his most persuasive begins there too - with what he calls what is. But what is isn’t limited only to suffering (obviously) - it is just whatever is arising in our experience right now.

So a choiceless awareness - of whatever is arising in our experience right now - is as good a starting point as any.

If one can honestly say that it is bliss arising, or beauty, or love - then fine. But if it is sadness, lethargy, or confusion, then that is also fine. Whatever is right now, is.

No-one else can be the judge of what is for me, or be choicelessly aware for me - so there is no spiritual authority. And if I don’t go to town and make this choiceless awareness into anything special - a Divine Consciousness, etc - then I don’t become an authority for someone else either.

There’s just what is, and my awareness - or lack of awareness - of what is.

At least for me, there’s a tremendous simplicity about approaching it like this. - Does this resonate at all with you?

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Entertainment is definitely part of it … the thrill of seeing deeper and deeper into reality.

But there’s more to it, a kind of fire. My search for meaning/truth/understanding has a life of its own, it’s as if I’m being taken along for the ride.

For me, when psychological suffering arises you can see that there is a ‘me’ resisting whatever uncomfortable thoughts have arisen. There is also on the part of the ‘sufferer’ a desire to turn to ‘something’ that will mitigate whatever is creating the suffering. A universal Observer (Awareness, Choiceless Awareness, God, etc.)that was mentioned. Someone or something that is outside of the fray. It’s an escape, right? Whatever name it’s given, it’s an escape from what is. The fact is that thought is weaving a tale from memory or imagination that is painful, say. And the effort to resolve whatever is there, is thought in conflict with itself. There are two worlds here. The world (reality) of my thought / memory and the physical world of where the body, senses, sounds is. One is fact, where the body is. The images of thought are not. They are a fiction made up of the past, or imagined images of a 'future. What is a ‘fact’ is that thought is doing this: moving. It is important to realize that all attempts to resolve the suffering caused by the thought only keeps it in motion. JK has said that “thought IS fear,” not that thought causes fear, they are one and the same. Seeing (being aware) of the existence of these two worlds or realities,:the presence of the body / senses in the Now always and the reality created by the movement of psychological thought.
When the psychological thought is ‘favorable’, acceptable, etc. it reigns supreme. But when it reveals truths about oneself that are not, the ‘thinker’ takes up arms and looks for a way to end the suffering and ‘go back to sleep’ until the next time.

Yes, agreed. Although, as far as I use the words, there is nothing capitalised about choiceless awareness - it is just awareness without choice. I personally reject the idea of a “universal Observer”.

Yes - when there is suffering, we very quickly try to manage that suffering, verbalise it, order it, reason it away, and so on. Or just escape from it into something else.

Yes - any movement of thought to act upon the suffering, perpetuates the suffering.

So - you are asking - is it possible for us to so be with what is arising (as suffering), that there is really only suffering, and no separate observer or ‘me’ attempting to act upon suffering?

Apart from the body, apart from the senses, is it possible for there to be (in us) only this non-dual state of actual sorrow?

Perhaps. But I’m not giving up without a fight! :wink:

I’m a fan of starting wherever you happen to be … and what-is pretty much nails that. So, yes, it resonates. I also see other possibilities. For example, one could begin not by aware-ing what-is rather being it, surrendering to it. It’s a ‘go with the flow’ rather than ‘watch the flow’ approach.

I’m willing to broaden our understanding of awareness to include going with the flow :ocean:

What is is also the call of the open ocean, the beauty of friendship, or the simple happiness of being in nature.

Choicelessness is an open - not a closed - heart & mind.

The joy of daydreaming, the fullness of despair, the wild ride of ego.

What-is is what(ever) is.

Yes - what is might be daydreaming or ego. But what is is also the world around us, the society we live in, the society we make: the poverty, the ignorance, the cruelty, the injustice. And part of the what is of ego might be the callousness of blocking all that out. If we are choiceless, we don’t get to choose what to let in and what to block out. We are vulnerable to ourselves and to the world. - And if we find we have to put limits, to protect ourselves from what is, then those limits - and the consequences of those limits - are also part of what is.

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Yes that seems to be possible.

Yes but when the resistance to it disappears, is it “sorrow”? Or is it just ‘what is’?

Reading here, I guess I have a different “what is”. The “what is” is completely untouched.

Obviously the answer to this question must ultimately be a matter of one’s own nonverbal discovery - but K gives us a clue to this when he says

If the fact alone remains and not its opposite, then one has the energy to look at it. One has the energy not to do anything about it and the very fact is dissolved. (2nd Question and Answer Meeting, Ojai, 1980)

The implication here is that what is is not a static, immovable reality, but something permeable to insight and perception. What is can be changed, if it is encountered or contacted in the right way - such as when there is only suffering (and no-one who suffers).

If we’re talking about the ‘suffering’ that is psychological thought, yes, it “dissolves” when there is no resistance to the images. JK said somewhere that we’re in a more or less constant state of “friction”. That dissipates the energy that is necessary according to him, to “not do anything” about ‘what is’. The dissipation is the duality of the ‘me’ acting on , or reacting to, the fact of what is happening. Experimenting with this verifies the truth of it.

Yes. It is a relinquishing of control. At two levels: 1) You don’t choose what to be aware of. 2) You don’t judge/analyze what you are aware of. It is pretty much the opposite of how we normally roll.

Yes. But - as was discussed on another thread - this should not be thought of as a task to be achieved through effort, or a demand made of us by someone else. It is just something to experiment with in the course of the day - not all day, or continuously with strain and the effort to sustain such awareness. A few minutes is already a puncture in the cocoon of our ordinary habitual conditioning - I don’t think we need to make it more complicated than this.

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