All words are context-dependent. Krishnamurti used the word ‘mind’ in different ways at different times, so one has to go by context. Sometimes he meant merely “intellect”, sometimes he meant the whole of the brain, body, senses, thought and consciousness", and sometimes (especially towards the end of his life) he meant “a mind outside the brain” or “universal mind”.
English equivalents for insight are:
realisation (“to make real”, “to reveal the reality of”)
All words are context dependent. In reply to your question about the difference between realisation and insight I merely wanted to give a non-exhaustive list of synonyms for insight - including those from Asian cultures - that may or may not help to shed some light (no pun intended).
I think this was considered in the OP. Generally insight - as it is understood in science for example - comes after a great deal of thought, and then stepping away from the problem completely (by taking a walk, having a bath, etc, to use popular examples).
But for Krishnamurti insight has more to do with intense seeing, observing, attention. Not thinking.
So-called “out of the blue” insights may be the consequence of unconscious mulling over a problem, or they may arise as a result of being in a certain quickened state of mind, sharpened by watching. But I don’t feel one can legislate about the matter.
I don’t know what kind of insight you are talking about. But my understanding is that insight is an act of intelligence.
Then you might ask, what is intelligence?
The body has its own intelligence - sense perception, proprioception, the intelligence of thought, etc. Nature has its own intelligence. Trees and animals have their own kind of intelligence. Perhaps there is an intelligence that springs from the mind itself, which is related to awareness, the nature of attention.
You have asked this question before, and I’m still not sure why you are asking it.
The answer is that it depends on what kind of insight one is referring to. Most people have insights into things occasionally. For instance, an insight into a scientific problem, or an insight into some psychological issue that has been bothering one. One can be conscious of such insights.
But the kind of insight that empties consciousness of its contents - the total insight that Krishnamurti talks about - is a different matter.
In a conversation with Allan Anderson Krishnamurti asks
what is creation? Is it something, a flowering in which the flower does not know that it is flowering.
This would suggest that when total insight takes place one is not conscious in the ordinary sense.
But, yes, there does seem to be a category distinction between ordinary insights and the kind of total insight that Krishnamurti talked about. This is because such insight - as I understand it - has to do with the whole of the mind, the whole of consciousness. Naturally this implies that the kind of conscious awareness one ordinarily has may not be in operation.
However, this question is obviously rather speculative because I’ve not experienced such a total insight. I’ve had little fishes of (partial) insight here and there, and I was conscious of the manifestation of insight as it occurred (i.e. the moment it showed up in my conscious awareness). But I wasn’t conscious of the origins of these insights; and I’m not sure that people generally are.
Yes. My understanding is that total insight is quite different to the sorts of insights most of us have. It seems to imply, as you say, the death of the self, the ending of the ‘me’.
Many people claim to have had this kind of total insight, but I feel they are mostly deluding themselves - because it involves a complete transformation, a complete revolution in consciousness.
K said that consciousness is its content, which means that I am my content. When the brain goes from forming and modifying its content to seeing what it is doing, consciousness is not mine, is not about me, is not what the brain has accumulated and identifies with.
I’m not sure I have grasped your central question Wim? You seem to be asking several questions all at once:
if insight can be compared, accumulated, stored up?;
if insight implies some transformation of experience or after-effect?;
if partial insight is insight into “something”, which involves dependency?;
and whether total insight is
I didn’t understand the wording in this last question.
Perhaps you can ask your central question again, using different words, or asking it more simply?
In reply to your other questions:
One could say that insight itself cannot be stored up: it is a perception, and so implies active present tense awareness or intelligence. The knowledge it leads to can be stored up (as happens in science for example), but insight itself cannot be captured or stored in the mind.
As I understand it insight necessarily implies transformation. Depending on what the insight is, it will inevitably transform one’s perspective, one’s attitude, one’s understanding of a problem, or even end a problem - so long as the insight lasts, that is. If it is complete or total insight, there may be a revolution in consciousness that transforms the whole of consciousness, the whole of one’s relationship to life. I say ‘maybe’ because even though I think it is reasonable and logical to think this way about total insight, and Krishnamurti has spoken about what such total insight involves, I haven’t personally had such total insight, so I cannot be definitive about it.
As I said already, I’m not sure I have addressed your central question because I didn’t understand your post - but if you can ask it again using simpler or clearer words it would help. So if I haven’t answered you directly, this is the reason why.
It’s crazy that I understand that you don’t.
Is it because I had thought you smarter or that I have changed after a week of personal face-to-face dialogues in Brockwood itself or maybe some unknown activity is at work ?
There are people who ask questions not so much to get an answer but rather a question that the answer might evoke in the person being presented with it.
But to use other words, the quest for total insight implies a goal, presupposes a path. Definitions, descriptions or questioning if it is/was total insight is surely not as such and are rather blocking.
Yes. This is clear isn’t it? Krishnamurti spoke so much about this that I am baffled how this can be the cause of so much confusion for certain people…
I still do not understand what you are saying here Wim. Is it my fault that I cannot understand your English? Or is it your fault for not explaining clearly the subtext of your own thoughts? Are you saying you think I am less “smart” because you have attended some dialogues in Brockwood? What is the relevance of this comment to my post?
We have not been talking about a “quest for total insight”, this is your own invention. Nor are we making definitions frivolously or in order to “block” inquiry. We have merely been pointing out that Krishnamurti constantly talked about complete, total, absolute, fundamental, holistic - not partial - transformation, insight, revolution, etc. This is his teaching. If you find it a “block”, then are you suggesting we should just ignore the fact that this is what Krishnamurti taught?
Don’t you recall Krishnamurti frequently talking about not wanting to eat a partly rotten egg? (known as a curate’s egg🥚). I don’t feel there is anything “blocking” about questioning whether it is healthy to eat a curate’s egg.
To be clear, I am suggesting that to dress up partial insights (or small experiences of seeing, listening, being without thought for a few minutes, etc) as total insight, total transformation, is equivalent to eating a curate’s egg. And as I am clear that this is what Krishnamurti taught, I am surprised you (and others) find this so controversial.
Part of me is asleep, therefore I am not awake. It is like the curate’s egg. [ed: A curate at the bishop’s breakfast table was embarrassed to find his egg uneatable; asked by the bishop if his egg was bad, he replied, “It’s good in parts!”]
(Discussion 2, Brockwood, 1969)
Questioner: Sometimes, yes; sometimes not.
Krishnamurti: Like the curate’s egg. Do you know what the curate’s egg is? Part of it is bad, part of it is good, and they give it to the curate. (Laughter.) That’s an old English expression, and probably the modern generation doesn’t know it.
(Discussion 6, Saanen, 1966)
S: There are moments like that.
K: That is not good enough. It is like a rotten egg!
(5th Conversation, Transformation of Man)
So are you saying, Wim, that after a week of face-to-face dialogues at Brockwood, you are more convinced than ever of the value of eating rotten eggs? What does this say about the value of the face-to-face dialogues you’ve been having I wonder?
Krishnamurti was often criticised for using words such as total, complete, absolute, fundamental, radical, all, etc. But these are words he used all the time to describe or point to the kind of transformation he was intent on communicating. Here are a few examples taken at random:
We are asking what is the root of fear. And whether it is possible, in the discovering of it, whether it can end, totally, completely; not partially, not it ends sometimes and begins again…
Meditation is to find out, come upon that freedom which comes from total unconditioning. When the brain is totally unconditioned, then the mind is the religious mind.
(Talk 2, San Francisco, 1983)
The real issue in all this is to bring about a total transformation of the mind. That seems to me the chief concern, not to be involved in details at the beginning, but rather bear in mind that to resolve the external and the inward problems we need a totally different kind of mind. And that is our chief concern during all these talks: whether human beings, as we are, it is possible to bring about in ourselves, psychologically, inwardly a fundamental change…
You see our chief concern for a serious man is the total transformation of the human mind - total not partial, complete revolution in the psyche - because that is the first movement which can transform the outward environment.
(Talk 1, Saanen, 1973)
Transformation implies complete revolution, total revolution. (Chennai, 1956)
I see that I must fundamentally change, the totality of my being must undergo a complete transformation… The leaders, the teachers have ideas that we read and conform to, and we think we are changing. There may be a superficial adjustment but there is no change at all in the sense in which I am speaking, which is the total transformation of our being so that our way of thinking is entirely new… It seems to me that there must be, especially at this time, people who are really serious about these things… I am talking of people who seriously and earnestly want to find out how to bring about in themselves a revolution which is total… So the mind that wishes to be fundamentally, deeply in a state of change, in a state of revolution, must be free from the known. Then the mind becomes astonishingly still, and only such a mind will experience the radical transformation which is so necessary.
(New Delhi, 1956)
It is only the completely silent mind that is aware if there is or if there is not something that is beyond all measurement… because in itself it is totally empty.
(Talk 4, Brockwood Park, 1972)
In that total observation there is the emptying of, or going beyond, all the things that thought has put together, which is one’s consciousness. (The Wholeness of Life)
Oh my, oh my, I must have hit something by sharing a viewpoint that has not been understood.
The amount of energy expended on the response is beyond me and as such wasted.
You can recite or quote the entire teaching that will do nothing to clarify my or your intent.
So please excuse me if I do not comment further either defensively, offensively or clarifying, I merely note that we are obviously not on the same wavelength at the moment.
After making tremendous efforts to try to respond to you, you continue to say that I do not understand you.
I have given you ample opportunities to clarify your meaning: so either you cannot do so, or you refuse to do so.
I don’t feel I am responsible for either one of these possibilities.
If your post to me was the product of one week’s work of face-to-face dialogue, sanctuary and self-reflection, then I can only say that it didn’t communicate the significance you may have intended it to do.
My feeling is that the language barrier is the main issue with our communication. It is not your fault, and I’m not being condescending as I only speak one language properly myself. I’m sure you are able to be clear and articulate in Dutch, but as I cannot speak or write in Dutch, we can only communicate in English - which you are more proficient in than I am in French or German or Spanish (the only other languages I’ve learned to speak a little bit).
