This confusion may be the result of K vocabulary. In the first sentence above K is using attention in his sense of choiceless awareness. In the second sentence he is using attention in the layman’s sense of watching his reactions or rather the reactions of the me. The second is where we (common man) start.
I don’t know. I’m not sure we can separate the two so straightforwardly. Probably the difference has to do with how absolute, how complete this awareness is. To be in a state of total attention implies the nonexistence of the ‘I’ - though this is another matter perhaps.
The two are separated by the me. In one the me does not exist. In the other the me exists and is being watched.
The issue may be that we are attempting to put in words a movement that is indivisible.
For instance, you must have heard Krishnamurti talk about having an insight into sorrow.
To remain with sorrow correctly is to see that any escape, any suppression, any action upon sorrow to dispel it or evade it is still part of sorrow. One has to realise or see, be completely attentive to the fact, that one is sorrow. There is no division between the one who is observing sorrow and the sorrow itself.
If one can remain with sorrow in this way, so that the observer is non-different from sorrow, then there is only the fact of sorrow - in the sense that there is total attention to the fact of sorrow. When there is this total attention of the fact of sorrow, there is an insight which dispels the sorrow. This is what Krishnamurti taught.
Sorrow is the ‘me’. Attention has no ‘me’. And yet Krishnamurti talks about the need for there to be total attention of the fact of sorrow, which is the ‘me’. In this total attention to the fact of sorrow, sorrow ends, and there is passion (the passion of compassion), according to Krishnamurti.
So there is both attention to the fact of sorrow, and the state of compassion when sorrow comes to an end.
Yes, attention to the fact of sorrow or the me is the beginning. WHEN sorrow and the me comes to an end then there is the non-dual state of attention described by K.
I see what you are saying but I personally don’t like to be so categorical. It’s not that I am disputing the logic that until or unless sorrow - which is the essence of the ‘me’ - ends, there cannot be compassion in its fullest sense.
All I am pushing back against is that when I listen to Krishnamurti I do not hear him saying that the attention we have to thought (the first step) is fundamentally divisible from the attention we have when thought ends (the last step).
Krishnamurti may be wrong. But when he says that the first step is the last step, I want to keep this in mind.
Tradition says: start with working on your selfishness, whittle it away day by day, being more and more attentive, and one day you might be free of the self.
But Krishnamurti’s approach is different from the traditional time-centric view. It is subitist, sudden, not gradual and progressive. It is not ‘then’ and ‘now’ (at least, not fundamentally). It is the first step and the last step. That is, what I hear him to be saying is: there is no ‘then’ and ‘now’, there is only ‘now’ (if this communicates anything).
I’m not suggesting that I can completely explain all this to myself, I find it baffling when I try to think about it. It’s just that what I hear Krishnamurti saying is that if one could simply look, see, be aware now, this instant, pay attention to the movement of thought, then in this seeing the whole movement can come to an end. So freedom - which is to see - is at the beginning, not at the end.
This is what I understand Krishnamurti to be saying.
Isn’t Krishnamurti simply asking what takes place when the ‘me’ - who wants to do something about envy (or greed or violence) - realises that it is not different from envy?
He is saying that we have been educated to judge envy (or greed, etc), to shape it control it or suppress it or run away from it, and so on. In this battle with envy (greed, etc) a lot of energy is wasted.
And then he asks what takes place when we - the one who is aware of envy, who has experienced envy before and so can name it as ‘envy’, who judges the envy, etc - realise that he/she is not separate from the state of envy? When there is the realisation that envy is ‘me’?
K says that when envy is me (i.e. the observer is the observed) then there is no longer a wastage of energy - energy that is wasted through control, effort, the attempt to change ‘what is’ (envy) into what ‘should be’ (non-envy), etc.
Perhaps some people would say this is a surrender to the ‘what is’. There is no longer a battle with the actuality of the fact of envy.
Then, he says, when there is no longer a wastage of energy, one has all one’s energy saved, conserved, to meet the fact of envy and to go beyond it.
They talk about other things apart from this - but this is the relevant part.
So far I haven’t watched the entire recording at once; I started it several times, paused it, and restarted; which is not the way to listen to K recording; I came across it few years ago, I have it saved in my YouTube playlist
Spot on. This is the essence of the teaching. The approach of K is to drive thought to its limits through intense enquiry and finally realize that thought is limited and utterly incapable of radical change.
On any topic of discussion such as anger, fear, envy, disorder and so on K would begin with a thorough examination of how human thought has tried various means over thousands of years to free itself. All methods of escape, suppression, inventing and pursuing its opposite, following a system or method etc are examined and shown as futile. Finally the root cause of this utter futility is shown to be that ‘the observer is the observed’. When this truth is realized fully, all effort ceases and there is silence. One may call it the K method although this is centuries old at least in Hinduism and likely in Buddhism as well.
Yes. This is a good summary description of Krishnamurti’s general approach.
I agree with you up to a point, though I’m not sure that Hindu or Buddhist schools used the observer-observed gestalt with the same psychological meaning that K did.
Non-dualism is at least as old as the Upanishads, and can be found in Advaita Vedanta, Hindu and Buddhist Tantric schools, Yogacara Buddhism, Vajrayana Buddhism, Chan and Zen.
But the particular way the observer-observed non-duality was explored by Krishnamurti - his emphasis on the psychological significance it has for understanding the psychological contents of consciousness (fear, envy, greed, sorrow, etc) - is unique as far as I am aware.
The drig-drishyam in Advaita Hinduism literally translates as the observer and observed. Of course, the particular examples and explanations will and must vary with time and people of the day. K’s teachings are the most complete because it covers every aspect of life starting with childhood and schooling. It is therefore of most value to the common man today who has little or no background in spirituality.
The language of non-duality clearly exists in Indian religious philosophy, there is no denying this fact. But the fact remains that Krishnamurti’s relationship with this language is relatively unique.
For example, when he used the words ‘duality’ and ‘non-duality’ it was usually in the context of saying that any present psychological fact - such as greed, envy, violence, disorder, etc - has no psychological opposite (such as non-greed, non-envy, non-violence, etc).
So the context of talking about non-duality was the pointing out of the importance of remaining with psychological facts (‘what is’).
Then there is also the consideration that Krishnamurti approached traditional theories of non-duality with skepticism. This doesn’t mean that he denied the principle of non-duality, but he was skeptical of the religious belief attached to non-dualism.
For example, he would say things such as:
Why do we say, “I am that”? And not “I am the river,” nor “I am the poor man”, the man that has no capacity, no intelligence, who is dull—this dullness brought about by heredity, by poverty, by degradation, all that! Why don’t we say, “I am that also”? Why do we always attach ourselves to something which we suppose to be the highest?
(The Awakening of Intelligence)
So usually his usage of the terms ‘non-dual’ and ‘observer is the observed’ had to do with facing present psychological facts of conditioning.
This doesn’t mean that he did not also talk sometimes about the more cosmic significance this non-dualism may have (when talking about the nature of the religious mind, for example); but this was not his main concern in using such language.
As you know, Krishnamurti tended to approach everyone as being the common man, even those regarded as spiritual or religious leaders or teachers.
Yes this is surrender or pure Bhakti known as Para Bhakti in Hinduism. K lived this way. We can find it in his biographies where he says everything in life has been decided for him. For example, His body was meant only to talk to the world and whenever the body stopped talking it would die.
Without doubt every seer uses a different vocabulary. So uniqueness in language is only to be expected.
My comment was from the standpoint of the common man, not Krishnamurti.
18 min into the recording
This occurs to me: thinking is a movement of thought; this movement continues because thought is attempting to observe it self, to know it self and in the process makes an error of recognition.
How does thought attempt to know it self? It creates another thought to look at it, to analyze it; the error is that thought forgets or misses to realize that the new thought is an image of it self, it is it. Thought doesn’t realize is looking in the mirror. The observer is looking at the observed in the mirror.
The observer is the observed.
The thought that is looked at (the observed) is the one that is looking (the observer). This is not realized fully, so the observer thinks that its own image can be manipulated in the mirror, hence it tries to manipulate its own image-reflection (the observed) which will never work.
Is like being in a room of mirrors where one’s image is mirrored to infinity, and one wanting to change her/him self by changing her/his reflections ( infinite in number)
Yes. I see logically you are saying, but for me this notion of thought looking at thought doesn’t communicate anything. This is a limitation of my own.
However, when Krishnamurti talks about an emotional state (such as greed, envy, anger, suffering, etc) the meaning becomes more clear. I am my anger is easy to see (at least intellectually). Clearly there is no objectivity of seeing when I am trying to control my anger or my jealousy. Then it is clear that the ‘I’ (the observer) is not different from the jealousy itself (the observed).
But when Krishnamurti talks about thought observing itself, or thought observing other thoughts, there is no comprehension in my mind at all.
I’ll respond
In the afternoon
Maybe in the light of my previous response what you (K) are saying, align.
I think I would have to demythologise the concept of Bhakti to make it make sense in my mind. Personally I reject belief in gods, or devotional worship of persons.
K talked about the importance of love, affection, beauty. Perhaps these states can be understood as a kind of Bhakti?
He would often say that where the self is not, beauty is, or love. If Bhakti means the abnegation (or surrender) of the ‘I’, the ‘me’, then perhaps this is what it points to?
The commonly understood Bhakti is where people surrender to a personal god, guru or deity. This is considered as the beginner’s stage. Para Bhakti is impersonal and can be best described as surrender to what is in K terms. There is no demand of pleasure and fear and so no effort which means no thought.
It is also mentioned that the pinnacle of enquiry is Para Bhakti. One can see this Bhakti in K’s life as well as in his writings where he saw everything in the world as sacred.
This maybe so. I don’t know. I haven’t researched bhakti before (apart from what everyone knows). I know that Krishnamurti didn’t like to use the word surrender, as this implies an outside agency. Instead he used words such as non-movement of the mind, non-action (similar to the Chinese notion of wu wei), to describe the state of the mind that perceives what is.
I think bhakti has more to do with the emotions, feelings, the heart. Love. As you know, Krishnamurti’s negative approach is to begin with what is not love, and deal with this first. So if one feels jealousy or hate, these are obviously not love. Yet in facing them correctly - i.e. not moving away from them, so that the observer is the observed - there is an opportunity for the heart to be cleansed of what is not love. And when what is not love has been dissolved, then love is.
Would this approach fit the meaning you give to Bhakti?