Yes I understand, freedom to look. But I think that K. talk about freedom as a non-existence of thought: worry , anxiety, guilt to name a few. As is fears, believes, opinions, violence and so much more.
There needs freedom to learn about the nature of thought. This is why I understand freedom to be at the beginning, and not just at the end, of inquiry.
Learning. Interestingly, what follow the quote is :
K.: You understand my question? That is, perception is learning and perception doesn’t require time, and time is basically the movement of thought, and through thought you cannot learn what freedom is. And to learn about freedom , thought must be completely silent. (end of quote)
Then thought is not the instrument. Perception is.
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“What does freedom mean to me?”
That is a good question.
My answer is freedom from fear and anxiety about the future.
Freedom from __________ rather than freedom to __________ ?
In India the classical term they used for freedom is Moksha.
Etymologically moksha comes from the root, muc, which means “to free, let go, release, liberate”.
Typically it means freedom, liberation, from avidya (ignorance).
Avidya is the opposite of vidya, a Sanskrit word meaning “to perceive, to see, to understand”. The English words “video”, “view”, “vision” (from the Latin videre), and “wisdom”, come from the same Proto-Indo-European root word weid-, meaning “to see”, “to know”.
Yes, but when the brain is deprived of “the instrument” by its psychological conditioning, there is no freedom, so how is one to address the human condition?
Don’t know Inquiry. But I don’t see why any brain would be depraved of perception.
Don’t we perceive all the time, except in a deep sleep. As James said:
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Yes
Freedom to observe.
Which means: freedom is in the seeing, not in the seen, which means: I can freely look at anything (“ugly or beautiful”), the seen is not bringing freedom, the seeing is freeing what is seen.
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Yes. As was mentioned on another thread, just the ability to even notice the various movements of the psyche implies some psychological space of freedom. We cannot see or be aware of anything without the simple freedom of being able to feel, sense, look.
This freedom of awareness, because it already exists naturally, can be widened or expanded (I don’t mean by a system of practice, but just naturally) to include more and more aspects of our experience. So I find this quotation from K to be relevant here:
Meditation is heightened awareness.
(Talk 9, Ojai, 1945)
For people who have studied Krishnamurti, freedom as freedom from psychological conditioning makes sense. But for the vast majority of people, freedom from conditioning seems like taking away freedom, the freedom to be me!
Rather than simply rejecting that view, can we see what it might have to offer?
For example, does “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” apply to conditioning that promotes kindness? Or joy? Love? Fairness? Attention? Equanimity? How fine-tunable is our psych conditioning?
I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding going on here Rick.
Conditioning, as has been explored elsewhere, is a system of reflexes, habits, which respond mechanically, automatically.
So, is a moment of kindness, or love, or joy, or wakeful awareness, something mechanical, habitual, trained, conditioned by reward or punishment?
If one’s act of kindness is caused by a desire for reward (pleasure, esteem, something given in return) or fear of punishment, then it is not actually kindness.
In what way is it a sort of freedom to be me? You are of course allowed to be you, modern society actually encourages you to be the best you you can be.
But what choice do we have in the matter? Isn’t that the problem : we have to obey me! me! me! and damn the rest?
What the psychologically conditioned brain perceives is its reaction to its awareness, its conditioned response, a distortion, a denial, or a dismissal.
So freedom - as I understand it - is the very first step. There may be more to it than that, but everyone has this basic freedom to look.
Yes, the PC brain has it’s moments of truth, clarity, but its predominant tendency is to reduce actuality down to what it believes what should/should not be.
Do you mean that perception can be corrupt by the psychological conditioning? Like an Israelien knowing that the guy in front of him is a palestinien , as an example ? Or vice-versa. Of course it is as you say, if I understand you well. Then does it mean that the conditioning pervert, corrupt , get in the way of the perception?
I have the freedom to be ‘the real me.’ There are people (lots, I’d say) who believe that their true self is their conditioned self, though they most likely wouldn’t put it that way. They might say something like denying your conditioning is denying your true self.
Yes, unless my understanding of what K has said is inaccurate.
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I totaly agree on that Inquiry. I see that as very accurate.
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Here we disagree. I see kindness, love, compassion as learnable, conditionable. I realize that view is different from Krishnamurti’s. I’m not trying to stir things up, just sharing my take.
Clearly both Richard and Inquiry are correct. The brain is perceiving (i.e. aware, sentient) all the time, but the brain’s conditioning is perpetually interfering in this perception, in our awareness.
However, even to be able to notice this phenomenon (of conditioning interfering in perception, through automatic reaction-responses, etc) already implies a small degree of freedom to perceive, to be aware, does it not?
I think this is what Richard is trying to say.
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