For Krishnamurti thought did not exist. There was no inner, only outer, which is silent awareness.
For you and me, thought exists, inner exists.
That is the difference
I think that is the case. Thought has created the âreality of âmeâ. It âexistsâ as memory. It is continuous. It is interesting that each of us is in this situation without being aware of it. What a colossal mess it makes!
I donât think this is true.
I would rather say that for Krishnamurti thought could be totally absent for longish periods of time. During those periods of time it seems clear (from what he said and wrote) that thought was absent. But it is also clear that in the ordinary sense he used thought regularly in daily life, and he never denied this.
He wrote letters, he read crime thrillers, he watched TV and went to the movies. He read the Song of Songs (from the Old Testament) for its language, as well as English poetry from the 19th century. He read about the ancient Egyptians, read Time magazine to catch up with news and scientific discoveries, and memorised jokes (often from the New Yorker) to share with other people. In his dialogues with other people he often refers to pieces of information - about computers, technology, etc, that required him to use memory. So in the ordinary conventional sense, K used thought throughout his life.
Excuse me, but isnât that a big assertion that, moreover, cannot be verified by anyone.
I am more and more aware that in this way one turns it into a theory, a danger that is always lurking.
I think it resonated with me because of the simplicity. It âfeelsâ as if âmeâ as thought / feelings âexistsâ âŠ.K comes along and says âyou donât existâ. That inner world felt as âyouâ doesnât exist. Thatâs what I thought @Adeen was saying, that K didnât have that âinnerâ self / thought / feeling complex. We do.
One moronic, as well as unbelievably pathetic, example of this âinner youâ, is the soldier heading off to murder innocent men women and children but making sure to have his prayer rug with him!
I can understand this; but there is also a danger of oversimplification sometimes.
Just for context here ( for people who donât have time to watch the whole video), the video is dialogue titled âSenility and the brain cellsâ. The following short extract is a very condensed prĂ©cis of the main substance of the dialogue:
K: We have said that knowledge at a certain level is essential; there you can add and take away and keep on changing. But I am questioning whether psychological knowledge is not in itself a factor of the shrinking of the brainâŠ
N: When you say psychological knowledge, you are making a distinction between psychological knowledge and, let us say, scientific knowledge or factual knowledge?
JK: Of course, we have said thatâŠ
All that bundle [of psychological content] is the result of time. Insight into this whole movement, which is not âmyâ insight, brings about transformation in the brainâŠ
Let us go further. Then there is total emptiness.
DB: Well, emptiness of that content. But when you say total emptiness, you mean emptiness of all this inward content?
JK: Thatâs right. And that emptiness has tremendous energy. It is energyâŠ
You see, I think meditation is a great factor in all this⊠true meditation is this: the emptying of consciousness. You follow?
Thatâs a big âifâ. Most of us are so removed from nature, more accustomed to driving than to walking, addicted to manufactured food, doing what weâre told, dependent on electronics, etc., that âordinary awarenessâ has more to do with oneâs conditioning than with what is actual.
âŠor his Bible and crucifix.
Adeen, perhaps you can say a little what it is about this video that made you want to share it? What is the thing you wish to say?
Are you wanting to draw attention to what K is saying about the emptying of the contents of consciousness?
What I take from the video (or rather the clip at the end) is that K is suggesting it is possible for the mind to be in a state of total emptiness (i.e. of the psychological content of consciousness).
Maybe we can put this in the form of a question rather than as an assertion?
Can there be a state of awareness (or attention) in which thought (as the âinnerâ) is completely non-existent?
(Which does not mean that thought no longer has a place in the âouterâ: in communication, language, technology, etc).
But if by âtotalâ he meant the practical content, too, then one wouldnât be able to function, so why didnât he specify the psychological content only?
Say we notice a sound, or we recognise the sound as children playing outside (which is already quite a lot of concepts) - I donât think we would call any of this inner thought yet would we?
I reckon Inner thought is when we think : its them pesky kids again, theyâre gonna (insert annoying activity here)!
He does specify it in the video. Bohm asks him whether this emptiness includes the emptiness of the world outside (or words to that effect), and K says of course not.
But itâs true that Kâs nonverbal communication does suggest (to me at least) that in that state of emptiness there may be an absolute nothingness (in the sense that the Buddhists think about it). This may be an insight into an actual truth about the world.
But it obviously doesnât mean that K as the historical entity in the world no longer had need of practical thought and knowledge. One takes that as a given.
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It may depend on what âlevelâ of emptiness we are talking about?
In the âK worldâ we are not supposed to talk about âlevelsâ because this leads to comparison. But Adeenâs comment about K not having thought, followed by the video clip he shared in which K talks about total emptiness, means that we may be talking about a âlevelâ of emptiness or nothingness in which ordinary recognition no longer applies.
In a later discussion he had with Bohm in Ojai (I think from 1984) - a conversation that took place at the dinner table with very poor sound recording (so it hasnât been released) - K talks to Bohm about a state of total nothingness.
Now, usually when K uses the word ânothingnessâ he breaks it up as âno-thing-nessâ to indicate that what he is communicating is not a completely negative state (i.e. that it is a positive state in which there are simply no âthingsâ of thought).
But nevertheless Kâs style and emphasis in those dialogues suggests to me that in a certain state of nothingness there really is a completely different sense of the world - and perhaps no ârecognitionâ of external reality in the ordinary sense.
In Buddhism as you may know they talk about the state of emptiness - but there are many different ideas about it. There are weaker and stronger interpretations of what emptiness means. But what that state really is (i.e. the ânothingnessâ that talked about) is complete speculation for me.
We desire ânothingnessâ. freedom from the known - but without the fear of what we donât know, which we know all too well.
Itâs the fear of what I donât know that enslaves I to what I think I know. If, however, I feel in my bones that the universe is orderly - not random, mindless, and unreliable - I have no fear of what I donât know because the universe will inform me as I need to know (if Iâm alert and attentive, not caught up in my insecurity). And though this may be no more than faith, religion as we know it, it may be that faith is all one can have until one cannot have anything.
If I feel in my bones that the universe takes care of its own, and its own are those who own nothing more than their faith and trust in the universe, how can I go wrong when I can only do what feels right? As it turns out, what I feel is not a reliable guide. So I go with rational thought, which, however, brings me to the same place: thereâs no way of knowing more than I actually do, and I never know how little that is because I presume to know far more than I do.
The level that may be missing for me is the level of âunnamed thingsâ
I get the level of no experience (which might be Samadhi or âzoning outâ or âlost timeâ or it might not) - a sort of unconsciousness despite being very much awake (not asleep).
I get the level of experiencing phenomenon/objects - but I feel that objects are always known (I recognise them)
And I get the level of reacting emotionally towards the world (like/dislike, should/shouldnât)
But the idea of experiencing objects without knowing/naming them is not something I have noticed.
I have started a separate thread on the topic of emptiness (and nothingness) so that we can continue to talk about awareness in a more ordinary way here.