Thought has not ended. That is what you know. So watch what thought is doing. It is driving you to seek solace in words and ideas. Those words and ideas will divide you from everyone else; and then feeling so divided, so alone, you will seek yet more ludicrous words and ideas. That’s all. You know all this; it is in front of you right now. Just look at it.
If I allowed my mind to fill with a disturbing feeling, if I surrendered to it without allowing thought to jump in and amplify it (that last bit is crucial) … and if, after some time, a few minutes say, that feeling did not subside but persisted … I would most likely say: “Okay, that’s enough, this is going nowhere” and I would try to mitigate or end the bad feeling. If I were feeling truly adventurous, I might let it go 20 minutes before throwing in the towel. 20 minutes of feeling awful without resisting can seem very long.
Ah! But why would you say, ‘I am feeling awful’? That’s thought already in action. Do you see that even as an idea you are resisting it?
Yes, thought would periodically check in to monitor the situation: How am I doing, is the disturbing feeling lessening, how many minutes has passed, am I doing it right, etc. There might be 5-10-20 seconds of pure feeling, then a quick thought check, 5-10-20 seconds feeling, another thought check, etc. Thought is not as continuous a presence as normal, but it’s still there, like clockwork!
Then it’s a waste of time. We are asking thought to keep out. Otherwise, we can’t allow in the disturbance.
I don’t (consciously) invite thought in … it seems to have a mind of its own and always tries to control the situation to protect me, optimize my experience, like a well-intentioned but overzealous guardian.
In this case, it is protecting you from yourself. So what is thought keeping at bay? Is it protecting you or is it protecting itself?
The art of living that Krishnamurti tells us about is to put one’s house in order, put in the right place whatever comes by that one hears, feels or thinks. Thought has got its right place, it cannot be either underestimated or overestimated. The middle way is not easy to come by, you cannot play about it, you’ll be out of balance if you go too far one way. Krishnamurti uses the term 'ebbing’somewhere to mean that you must keep the balance between parts. And this thing of ‘lila’ that hinduism speaks about definitely is not human play, whatever it may be.
I understand how this might be true.
Reality!
Thought discovers and imposes (doesn’t seem to understand the difference too well) order onto what can feel like the feral chaos of the ‘real world.’
James, thanks so much more the Primavera vision.
The following is my thought pursuing yours.
The creation seems to have an inherent quality that is wired into each manifestation so that it can admire every other one.
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It is what is meant in Christianity by the word resurrection, but is thought to be a personal devotion.
There is no real world. There is just the world. You are standing on it now. Psychologically, it is exactly the same thing: there is no real you; there is just you, which is nobody, nothing. Just as thought has built great temples it has built great images of itself. Both the temples and the images are empty structures.
Good God, Paul. I don’t know what to say. You’re an interesting, if not evasive character. Dare I say, I almost like you. After all, we do bear some resemblance to each other, what with your quick and impassioned temper that you often refuse to quell. You claim I’m married to my ideas. Yet its obvious the extent to which you, yourself overindulge in word parsing, semantics and metaphysical arithmetic. In the back of my mind, I know there is something much greater that frightens you and it’s not the enemy you’ve made of ideas, words and language.
Let me see then. I suppose my complaint is that if you wish to borrow Krishnamurti in revelation in order to inform your own metaphysical logic, (which, demonstrates your commitment to pure reason), then you don’t go far enough in order to reach its natural and paradoxical outcomes. Follow me on this:
Beginning where you left off, do you deny that “what other’s have said” is what composes all of language? Do you deny that? Then words are never our own. None of them. Not the words you speak, nor the words I type now. We speak only for having been spoken to and are spoken to by what there is to say. So, no words are original; no language is original. The fact that there are no original words means that they are deprived of any origin. That they are deprived of any origin equates them as issuing from the infinite (because having no origin, they are beyond causation). The fact that they issue from the infinite now invests them with transcendence. That they transcend means that they already speak from beyond. That they already speak from beyond means to compose and orient us already in answer to the infinite. To be composed and oriented by the transcendent places us in intimate answer to what calls us. What calls us is word and word calls us “to be.” They are the same.
Word is never our own, yet is what is most intimately “mine.” What is most intimately mine, is also what is most direct and unmediated.
Behold! the almighty beckons you.
Now, like James above, let me see if I can predict the manner in which you’ll respond. You’re not over-committed to reason at all, correct? Words do not have command over you, but having already achieved silence (something I lack), you in fact have command over them, right? Metaphysical speculation isn’t something you’re interested in, but only the actual (although neither Krishnamurti nor Indian philosophy as a whole were ever able to explain how speculation was somehow divorced from the actual reality) which is composed out of pure seeing, right? And ideation is of no use, but taken as itself, only speaks of delusion.
My pre-emptive response is, why are you even answering? If you believe all of the above, then let it go. Just be quiet. Be with the trees and with the meadow. But, not with Phil. He’s lost. Permanently.
The force is strong with you Paul, but you’re not a Jedi yet.
I don’t mind speculation, whether it is metaphysical or any other kind. And I don’t mind borrowing words. But they are tools, that’s all. When we use them to put together a good idea, we have already started to misuse them. There’s the idea of resurrection, the idea of the almighty, the idea of the infinite and the idea of transcendence. What does any of this have to do with me and you? I don’t want to be hurt in relationship; that’s all that matters to me. There is no other fear.
Already asked and answered.
But what is your answer to my fear?
It’s not that words have no place at all. - Obviously they do. The complete catalogue of Krishnamurti’s teachings must run to thousands of pages! But obviously words are tools, as Paul says. They are more succinct and varied than gestures in pointing the listener towards a specific end, and for that reason they are invaluable. But a tool is not more important than the job for which it has been created - and if the tools begin to lose touch with their limited purposes, there is a danger that they cease to be practical altogether. This is the challenge of using language correctly, accurately, without expressing more than can be expressed, or than is properly intended.
So we need to be able to slow our words and meanings down to do words justice - remembering all the while that the word is not the thing, the description is not the described, etc. Right?
The challenge for us on these kinds of forum (even more so than on Zoom) is that our principle or explicit relationship to one another is one of words. There is obviously some movement in the person writing the words that is more nuanced than the words, but the words are all we get of each other here - so part of our responsibility in relationship here, so as to avoid hurting each other, is to attempt to communicate what we have to say simply (that’s one thing), but also to be careful that we have understood the intended meaning that the other person had behind their words - which is much more challenging. With some people this is easier of course, but others are less transparent in their language, or more vague, and the meaning is more difficult to grasp. This is the challenge we have on this kind of forum.
Accumulating knowledge, cultivating knowledge, is not the point of this forum. A dialogue regarding the teachings is something to discover, not to have it work in some way according to what is known.
Hello Philip. I’m not sure about this. Surely there is the possibility of creativity with language is there not? I could make up a word and it would be original. Combinations of words can be original and result in original language. Can a response to a posting here be original? Or is it inevitably a product of past conditioning?