Yes if it’s seen that the ‘desire’ for something called ‘transformation’ implies the time to accomplish it , to have it ‘become’ a reality, etc, that that is a movement away from what is to what should be…the seeing of that is transforming?
Isn’t the desire for instantaneous transformation? Didn’t K make it clear that radical change does not take time or require effort because it is simply seeing, directly perceiving what the human brain has been doing for millennia; that the seeing is the doing?
Isn’t ‘transformation’ then, the ending of psychological desire? That desire is always for what should be to substitute for what is…as in (real) “change is the denial of change”
I don’t see that “the observer is the observed” because the ‘I’ that I believe myself to be would disappear were that to be seen. Yet intellectually it isn’t difficult to grasp that I am a projection of thought. The transformation in the ‘seeing’ that would probably as he said, alter the brain cells.
PS Not judging, condemning, justifying etc doesn’t mean one has to indulge.
Yes. Desiring transformation is wanting desire to die; wanting to be relieved of it, wanting to celebrate its death, all of which is desire’s last stand.
If desire can kill itself and live to talk about it, it is no longer desire because its death is its transformation. But can desire kill itself, or does it die for lack of stimulation, wilting and wasting away?
Perhaps transformation is the natural death of desire because without desire, there is only need, and when we all need the same things, there is no conflict and no confusion.
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What is desire? Does desire have an object? It seems it has. I desire that I should be transformed in a better human being. But automatically this will take time. So we have (or thought) has invented time … to become.
Bit then comes K and says : time is not the solution and he ecplained to us.
What if desire has no object? Could that be the end of it? To us to find out, no?
You are talking about a mental hospital patient.
The only difference between mental hospital patients and the rest of us is that we’re not hospitalized. The distortion, denial, and dismissal that the conditioned brain does reflexively is “normal”.
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It’s the ‘monstrosities’ that are singled out and ‘there but for the grace of God…’ etc, etc.
In the quote from K posted by Wim and re-posted by 07007, K talks about watching jealousy and not letting it flower. We all become jealous from time to time. Surely we are capable of being aware of this. If you are becoming jealous or angry, are you on to this quickly in the sense that you’re aware of what is happening and can see it as if from the outside? I understand that this is what K is talking about here. Of course, I could be wrong.
There seem to be different outcomes in these kind of cases.
One where the self is split in 2, and the 2 selves : the judgemental and the jealous/angry are in conflict. One discriminating me against the other.
The other case being where I suddenly realise where I am, that I am caught up in some intense experience, and in that moment there is no anger/jealousy, just realisation.
Which makes me think that there is some difference in the understanding of experience between these 2 cases.
Hi Douglas. I don’t know about there being two different outcomes. In the quote that Wim originally posted, K stated:
“When one is not thinking clearly, rationally, be aware of that and change it, break it. That is transformation. If you are jealous watch it, don’t give it time to flower,”
That seems quite clear to me. I understand that we, at least on some occasions, have the ability to observe ourselves in a non-judgemental way and be aware of how we are behaving - a kind of watching ourselves from the outside. Is this kind of “choiceless” observation something we’ve ever experienced? Or are judgement and choice always present?
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Do you recognise either of the 2 scenarios I presented? If neither of them seem familiar, what do you experience in situations when you notice that you are caught up in anger/jealousy?
This is what I’m describing : In the first scenario, judgement is present, in the second, it isn’t.
The second scenario is the one I’d say I recognise. What about you?
I recognise both. Even today I can still get caught up in strong emotions.
Especially when injustice is involved, where one person seems totally wrong and I am sooo obviously right.
Surely all of us do, don’t we?
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Yes, but there was a time when I thought that I was experiencing the truth, and now I understand that the person who thinks I’m wrong, thinks they are experiencing the truth too.
And the “truth” that we see is a very powerful force. It dictates my emotions and my actions - as truth should.
Hi Sean,
I wonder if curiosity to what’s going on the same as choiceless awareness? One step to far seems to me going over to name it transformation or whatever is going on!
Hi Wim,
Is curiosty the same as “not knowing”?
Then a potential transformation would be from the state of “knowing” or “needing to know”, to the state of “freedom from the known”.
Hi Wim, Douglas and all. What Douglas has written here seems to make a lot of sense to me. Also, I’d say that awareness is transformative - when I become aware of, for example, when I am being mean, something immediately changes, doesn’t it?
If you start from ‘silence’ (being as nothing) you may be able to be aware of thought ‘entering the room’. Awareness of the entrance of thought brings one again to the ‘silence’ until the thought arises again and moves away from the silence. This kind of exercise brings an awareness of how thought with the ‘thinker’ dominates the psyche and how it is constantly reinforcing the sensation that ‘I am thinking’ and not the reality that it is just a material process taking place in the brain and that there is no actual ‘I’ at all involved in it.
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