This sentence is obviously pointed to the fact that no one can state that transformation has or hasn’t taken place because to determine that requires comparison and thus introduces the factor time.
Is it a form of confusion to compare myself to how I was before and think : “I have been transformed, I am now free from delusion” ? Why?
Is it a form of confusion to think : “If I pay attention and observe my self, I shall understand myself better and become a better person” Why?
I would say that it’s confusion because it’s all constructed on, and all about an illusory entity, ‘me’. If thought has created the ‘me’, then it’s thought’s ‘game’ to try to figure out ways to dress it up, ‘better /worse’, more this, less that. But if transformation of the human mind means breaking through all of that, shedding it, dissolving it, exploding it etc, and as a result ending fear and violence and madness, then that should be looked into seriously while we still can.
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Reactions like anger and jealousy are normal for the conditioned brain, and it seems we’re all conditioned brains, so if we’re all normal, what’s the problem? We just need to modify our reactions so are behavior isn’t egregious, right?
Anyone who has questioned these reactions knows that “normal” is pathological, and inquires into why these reactions occur, what purpose they serve, and whether one can live without them. This is looking at the human condition, as you say, from the outside.
If the silent empty brain can’t know that it is silent and empty, it is literally nothing, not even a brain. But if it knows it is silent and empty, it is aware and can respond intelligently in the moment, and this is how it knows it is a transformed brain.
If Krishnamurti thought they were the same he wouldn’t have coined “choiceless awareness”.
Inquiring is choosing to look into something, to look more closely, more openly. Choiceless awareness is having no choice but to face what is.
Then a potential transformation would be from the state of “knowing” or “needing to know”, to the state of “freedom from the known”.
That may be what logically follows, but it is unimaginable by the brain that knows only belief, doubt, and not-knowing. In other words, we always know something, even when it’s what we don’t know. The conditioned brain doesn’t know how to be the unknowing brain because knowing is all it knows.
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Resistance is the ways of the conditioned brain. Even K couldn’t penetrate such a superficial brain… who are we to change it…!
If I’m watching an illusionist doing sleight of hand, I know I must watch carefully with complete attention, but invariably, I don’t see how the trick is done.
Likewise, when I want to see my confusion. I watch carefully, but I can’t see what I’m actually doing because I am conditioned to see things, not as they are, but as I choose to see them. The way I’m watching is no less confused than what I’m watching, so what am I to do?
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Transformation of the self over time is, in many ways, a meaningless concept.
Because I am the projection of the past aiming for the future - time is very much a part of me.
Because the process of the self is already perfectly suited to its purpose (ie reacting to so called external dangers and opportunities) - also evolution happens to a species not an individual.
Because freedom from the known, or freedom from experience has an aspect of immediacy to it - as in : we can only realise that we are involved in the experience we are in, when we are in it.
It may still be possible to speak in terms of progression or accumulation in terms of intellectual understanding (ie. of the danger of self itself). Although correct understanding is of no consequence if it plays no part in any “psychological death” event.
And of course intellectual understanding can also be used as an excuse for why “I am not responsible” for any failure to transform.
We also sometimes allude to the concept of some sort of intentional awareness practise - which of course holds the danger of success and pride.
All that you say may be very correct but there is no transformation in the moment if there is an identification with the ‘speaker’, the ‘poster’, the ‘thinker’…As I see it , to be as nothing means a break from everything we have accumulated inside the ‘wall of the self. Seeing the hopelessness of ‘doing’ anything brings us to that point.
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I thought I’d just repeat this bit which could become an essential insight (but could also become a terrible intellectual trap - it cuts both ways)
Being identified with thought, that IS a “trap”, as I see it. The identification as ‘my’ thinking, makes impossible a relationship with it that is necessary if there is to be an objective overseeing as to whether it is functioning logically, clearly, practically, sanely, etc.
The same goes for the physical body and for ‘emotions’.
If practical thought is thinking logically, clearly, sanely, etc., without the thinker, practical thought is the choiceless, selfless voice of reason.
We don’t really know if “K couldn’t penetrate” the conditioned brain, or whether some brains have transformed without ever coming into contact with K’s teaching.
For all we know, there may be transformed brains having an effect we’re too insensitive, too self-absorbed, to be aware of.
It’s “selfless” but not “choiceless”. Choices are made between this and that based on knowledge. If I am building a table say, the proper joinery, wood has to be ‘chosen’.
Of course, but I’m not referring to the little choices we make constantly, but choosing to live in the make-believe world of what should/should-not-be; what I decide is true or false, good or bad, right or wrong, past or present, etc.
The immature brain chooses to live within the limits of thought by thinking it can be in control, establish security, gain power, and enjoy the prospect of being/becoming someone special.
But thought is a mechanism, the limitation of which the brain can’t see when the mechanism is corrupted by its power of suggestion to believe that it can see only what it wants/does-not-want to see
Resistance in politics, religion, relationship , desire, pleasure and so on…
Fear is the creator of conditioning in the world…
Interestingly K described the brain as “infinite”. Because of the possible neural connections?
David Bohm described it as “infinite potential”.
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So if the brain ‘identifies’ itself as ‘danmcderm’, it has ‘short changed’ itself a bit? 