I feel driven to question things that seem both important and misrepresented. You do it too, quite often. We all do it. The difference lies in what we feel merits questioning and how we feel it’s misrepresented.
In what way is this an example of “inner freedom”? (lonely!?)
We are all living in a world with terrible suffering - your comparison was of someone who had all that they wanted, and wasn’t perfectly contented; and someone living in difficult circumstances who wasn’t happy either.
The comparison seems to be completely missing the mark of freedom from circumstances, or what we here call experience (aka the known, my projected reality, which includes “what should be”)
As Douglas says,
Whether one has found inner freedom or not found inner freedom, we live in the world as it is.
But this is where I probably feel differently to you Rick. I feel that all the preventable sufferings in the world begin in the mind, in consciousness. So if a person can transform their consciousness, this can have an effect on the consciousness of the world. My consciousness, in essence, is no different from the consciousness of anyone else. But I can’t transform another’s consciousness. I can only be directly responsible for being aware of my own thoughts, feelings, reactions.
So freedom, for me, is not a selfish act. Freedom may be the discovery of true love, compassion. And it is true love, true compassion that the world needs more than anything else (imo).
This doesn’t negate or detract from the need for outward reforms, outward freedoms - I never said that it did. But it’s just those outward forms of freedom are not what I call true freedom.
I agree with both of the statements. Where we differ imo is: 1) I don’t necessarily think that all preventable suffering should be prevented. Suffering can be a good, if at times harsh, teacher.
2) I think that with rare exceptions, the degree to which a transformed consciousness can deeply change the consciousness of the world is very low. And deep change is what’s needed, or the tipping point will remain far far away.
And it is true love, true compassion that the world needs more than anything else (imo)
I don’t know what the world needs more than anything else, but I’m quite sure it would be an even lovelier place to live if there were more of the right kind(s) of love in it.
Alright. No-one is preventing you from preventable suffering 
. Be as harsh on yourself as you want to be. Are you?
Alright. That’s how you make your bet. My own sense is that “deep change” has to start from the mind, from within consciousness.
More threads?
Well I did grow up Catholic.
I agree. I’m just less optimistic than you that it’s real-world possible. (I hope you’re right!)
You and I both seem very skilled at that! 
Maybe it is worth exploring this point a little bit?
There are two perspective that are apparently in competition on this issue. The first is a matter of empirical observation. The second is also a matter of empirical observation. So what is the difference?
Allow me to state them simply:
-
It is an empirical fact that the world does not seem to have changed in any radical way as a consequence of Krishnamurti’s consciousness (or another’s) purportedly being transformed.
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It is an empirical fact that all the major causes of war, tribalism, race hatred, religious divisions, sectarian divisions, terrorism, ideological conflict, the destruction of nature, murder, killing, human violence, human suffering, envy, jealousy, fear, etc all have their roots in human psychology, human consciousness. So if one wants to deal with the roots of preventable human (and planetary/environmental/animal) suffering, one has to deal with human consciousness.
One may not believe it is possible to do anything about 2). Or one may wish to do something about 2) but is put off, or has doubts, because of 1). This seems to be the issue.
Say I see what it means to be a suffering human, and in my relationship with other humans (my child, my partner, my neighbour, my coworker, the postman, the dog etc) I can see their humanity, I no longer have to impose my suffering upon theirs, they will not have to share my fear and anger with the next person they meet - and in this way the whole of humanity is saved from me.
Also, when the world I see is no longer the world that imposed itself upon me beforehand, has not the world been transformed?
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Thought the better of and deleted.
This seems obvious but whether sapiens make it may not make much of a planetary difference. What is interesting about us though is ‘creation’ evolving a brain that could question and reflect on being here. A ‘chip off the old block’? I think K has said as much with his mind / brain associations? For that alone I think we should do what we can to get beyond the problems created by taking a ‘wrong turn’ in the past. A ‘thank you’ to creation for making our stay here even possible? K saw that there was no path to the truth / freedom and told us, that was one of his gifts to us.
When it is said that “the world does not seem to have changed in any radical way as a consequence of Krishnamurti’s consciousness (or another’s purportedly being transformed)”, isn’t it just surmise? Do we know enough about transformation to know what its effect is on other brains? Are one or two transformed brains going to make us much difference as a hundred or a thousand or a million?
Is it a fact that Krishnamurti’s brain hasn’t changed anyone’s brain radically? Isn’t it a radical change for the self-centered brain to see itself as the problem rather than the outward effects of self-centered behavior?
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I wasn’t making the claim that Krishnamurti has not had an effect on society, or that his consciousness has not affected human consciousness in a way that is not visible to us. This is why I used the word ‘seem’. I am open to the possibility that K’s consciousness has affected human consciousness in a way that is not available to ordinary observation.
However, empirically speaking there is no obvious change in the general condition of human consciousness, that’s all I was saying. This is why some people doubt the validity of what K said about the effect of individual transformation. I was attempting to articulate this view as a view, even if I do not share it. Most people probably think this way.
According to K’s last public statement, yes.
If we take K’s last public statement as seriously as we take everything he said prior to it, he was saying that his life was a waste of time and energy, and that our lives are too, for taking him seriously.
This may be the conclusion that you draw from what K said. But this isn’t what I feel.
Anyway, we can discuss K’s final statement in another occasion (there is a thread on it from a while back that is still open).
My point is that there are two empirically reasonable facts that we have to consider. I won’t repeat them again here, as I have done so above.
What do we do with this?
Some people, as I said, may be disillusioned by the first observation (number 1), and so ignore the validity of the second observation.
Or, one may feel that it is impossible to do much about the second observation (number 2) anyway, and so simply accept the inevitability of contributing to the maintenance of the 1st fact (number 1).
However, if one does not do either of these things, then one has to face the fact that doing something about number 2 is the only responsible and intelligent action.
In fact, much of what rational or progressive human beings do - whether they are teachers or educationalists or psychotherapists or reasonable politicians - is done to directly address the issue of number 2. The freedom within the system (that Rick was talking about) is all about dealing with number 2.
And so is the question of whether consciousness can be radically transformed.
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very nice reply.Not from.
I was doing a search on Kinfonet and I came across some previously shared extracts from K on the topic of freedom, a couple of which I think are really useful to share again here:
So one has to ask oneself, it seems to me, whether you want freedom at the periphery or at the very core of your being. And if you want to learn what freedom is at the very source of all existence then you have to learn about thought…. is freedom the non-existence of thought? (Brockwood 1972)
Thought is merely a reaction to accumulated knowledge as memory, as experience; therefore it can never free man. And yet everything that we do—every action, every motive, every urge—is based on thought. So one has to see for oneself the significance of thought, where it is necessary and where it is poison. Mutation can only come about when the mind is totally empty of all thought. It is like the womb: a child is conceived in the womb, because the womb is empty, and out of that a new birth is given. In the same way, the mind must be empty, it is only in emptiness that a new thing can take place. (Bombay March 1964)
Freedom implies really, doesn’t it, the total emptying of the mind. Completely to empty the whole content of the mind—that is real freedom… It is only in that emptiness that a new thing, a new mutation, can take place. This emptiness, this space, is freedom. (Bombay February 1964)
[Freedom] is a precious fruit without which you lose human dignity. It is love, without which you will never find God, or truth, or that nameless thing…. That reality, that immeasurable something, comes when there is freedom. (Madras 1959)
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This has been mentioned on a couple of other threads, but what K calls here the ‘non-existence of thought’, or the ‘emptiness, space, and freedom’ of the mind, is essentially a state of pure attention:
love is a state of pure attention in which thought is absent
freedom is a state of pure attention in which thought is absent
beauty is a state of pure attention in which thought is absent
intelligence is a state of pure attention in which thought is absent
insight is a state of pure attention in which thought is absent
mind is a state of pure attention in which thought is absent
creation is a state of pure attention in which thought is absent
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Truth.
Freedom to me is for The Painter understanding the truth about the colours.