What is Kinfonet for?

[James]

I thought it may be worth asking this basic question, because there seem to be so many different approaches at work here.

As far as I understand it Kinfonet is primarily a place where people can gather to explore, investigate, clarify and understand what Krishnamurti has talked about during his many years of lecturing, teaching, and discussing.

It presupposes some basic interest in Krishnamurti, so that while other views can of course be considered - whether they be scientific views, Buddhist views, psychological views, etc - the basic questions will have to do with our understanding (or lack of understanding) of what Krishnamurti has said.

There are people who may feel that there is no point in discussing what Krishnamurti has said, either because they feel his teachings have to do with something wholly non-verbal, or because they interpret his criticism of thought to mean that all verbal or rational discussion of what he has said has no meaning. For these people participating on a forum like this is just an intellectual escape from a state of non-verbal quietude.

Similarly, there are people who feel that Krishnamurti has said what he had to say, and the only intelligent response is to listen to what he said without any further discussion of what it means. Or they may feel that they have fully grasped what he had to say, and so they have no need of discussing it with other people.

Meanwhile there are people who feel that Krishnamurti is completely wrong about certain things, and so either have no interest in investigating into these things further, having settled on certain conclusions of their own; or else participate while actively holding onto their preconceived conclusions, all the while refusing to look at anything Krishnamurti has said afresh.

So everyone it seems is coming from some prior background of assumptions and interests, and few people will end up satisfied with the result.

But it may be worth articulating for ourselves what such a forum exists for in the first place, so that we can make the fullest use of it.

So what do we feel a forum like Kinfonet exists for?

[danmcderm]

I’m happy to see anyone come aboard here. Their interest ( contact) means that they at least have a chance. It can take 30,40,50 years before K’s words start to come through. We’re so loaded with knowledge. But the forum gives people who are really interested a chance to air out their stuff. And get some reaction from others.
Invaluable!
And no hierarchy!

[Inquiry]

@James

So what do we feel a forum like Kinfonet exists for?

It exists for those who want to understood what K meant by certain things he said…things like, “The observer is the observed” and, “We are the world” and, “The seeing is the doing” and, “choiceless awareness” and, “direct perception”, etc.

I still don’t fully fathom what these statements signify because I seem to be limited to what words and concepts and images denote or allude to, and that limitation is what Krishnamurti was addressing when he spoke to audiences.

I don’t doubt that he did all he could by himself and with David Bohm, to convey the significance of what he was saying to an audience who is inclined to either reject what he was saying, accept it as gospel and parrot it mindlessly, or admit to getting no more than an intellectual grasp of what he was saying, which is to say, without the understanding that is beyond grasping.

[O7007]

I use k forums to exercise my English. In fact I learned English from K and a little from academics books. So I’m grateful for that. As far as discussing the teachings we can only remind each other. For example when somebody says the observer is the observed it is a reminder of what K said so it makes me think and apply it to my mind.

[crina]

Kinfonet is a kind of display or a mirror of/for the human mind. I come here to look at my mind in a bit more clearer and deeper way.

[macdougdoug]

A place for honest, open inquiry into the human experience, based around the teachings of K?
And a place to observe ourselves in our interaction with others as we discuss ideas that feel so important.

[Inquiry]

@macdougdoug

A place for honest, open inquiry into the human experience, based around the teachings of K?

It’s a statement until it’s a question. Why?

And a place to observe ourselves in our interaction with others as we discuss ideas that feel so important.

Do these ideas just feel important, or are they important?

As important the fact of anthropogenic climate change is, it doesn’t feel important enough for an awful lot of people to change the way they live.

But what could be more important than the possibility that the human brain’s psychological conditioning is the underlying cause of our anti-biotic relationship with our environment, and our callous-to-murderous relationship with each other?

What could be more irresponsible than dismissing or arguing this possibility?

[Dev]

@James

So what do we feel a forum like Kinfonet exists for?

Ideally, to get at an understanding of what K is actually saying - not what we think he is saying - by conversing with other equally serious students of the teaching.

The ethos of not fooling yourself is one of the best you could possibly have. It’s powerful because it’s so rare.

Charlie Munger

[macdougdoug]

@danmcderm

no hierarchy!

@macdougdoug

our interaction with others as we discuss ideas that feel so important.

I’d just like to touch on the dangers (that we are all probably familiar with) of having the truth on our side - the danger regarding our relationship with those that haven’t got the “proper understanding” (aka the best or my understanding)

Its the problem of violence and conflict.
Dogma, when organised properly can give us a sense of status, identity, security and power. We are familiar with the violence that can arise from identities such as recognised preachers and their followers, and their relationship with those that might challenge the “truth”.

We all want the correct interpretation, and if we have the correct interpretation, thanks to the force of our intellect, love of the teachings, and desire to do good, we feel strongly that this gift must be shared with as many as possible.

But the ends do not excuse the means. Compassion, love, awareness is always now.

Even if you do have the most amazing intellect, even if all the people you meet seem a bit slow in comparison, even if your interpretation is especially sound and the path you propose is near perfect - for example if you are proposing a kind of “dynamic mindfulness” that, if adopted would improve the world, are you in love?

If I have the truth, can I still listen?

[danmcderm]

@macdougdoug

If I have the truth, can I still listen?

This brings up something for me. When K and DB are talking in the Ending of Time, at one point K states flatly: “There is no division”…not ‘perhaps’ or ‘maybe’ or ‘in my opinion’ etc but simply “There is no division”. And Bohm doesn’t say ‘wait, how do you know that?’ Or even question him on it. My impression of that was that K SAW that there is actually no division and there was nothing more to say about it. Period end of story. Keep believing that there is division at your own peril, etc.

So a decision has to be made: did he actually see that or did he believe it? How could I know? Was he actually seeing the truth of it or hallucinating? And if he was seeing it, how come I can’t see it? What obscures it?

For what it’s worth I believe that he DID see it and that that was the message he was giving to whoever could, would listen: There is no division.

It turns everything on its head!

[Inquiry]

@macdougdoug

I’d just like to touch on the dangers (that we are all probably familiar with) of having the truth on our side - the danger regarding our relationship with those that haven’t got the “proper understanding”

Is there a “proper understanding” of Krishnamurti’s talks, dialogues, and writings, or is there only one’s impression of them? If it’s possible to be aware of how I am interpreting K’s words, it’s possible to put aside my interpretation and attend to what K intended by what he said and wrote.

The only “danger” I see here is being unaware of how I interpret K’s teaching instead of letting it speak for itself.

[Inquiry]

@danmcderm

Keep believing that there is division at your own peril, etc.

And since it’s no less perilous to start believing there is no division, there is nothing but the question of whether there is or isn’t division.

So a decision has to be made: did he actually see that or did he believe it? How could I know?

Why do we feel “a decision has to be made” when we know we don’t know something? Why is it our bias, our tendency, our ethos, to believe, i.e., pretend to know rather than be honestly unknowing?

For what it’s worth I believe that he DID see it and that that was the message he was giving to whoever could, would listen: There is no division.

So I succumb to the conditioned pressure to pretend to know what I really don’t know, and that’s the end of the matter. Inquiry is trumped by decision. I don’t need to find out what is true when I can always just presume to know.

It turns everything on its head!

It shuts down inquiry by affirming the authority of dishonesty.

[danmcderm]

@Inquiry

It shuts down inquiry by affirming the authority of dishonesty.

Just the opposite of your conclusion, in my case anyway, it opened everything up!

[macdougdoug]

@danmcderm

It turns everything on its head!

What I got from this was the following :

If there is no division, as in the observer is the observed, then awareness of what I experience is always awareness of my projections.

It turns the question of whether “I can listen when I have the truth” on its head : listening always includes listening to/being aware of, me.

[danmcderm]

@macdougdoug

It turns the question of whether “I can listen when I have the truth” on its head : listening always includes listening to/being aware of, me.

That’s one way of putting it. I can’t listen. I can’t perceive directly. I can’t love, be free, be silent etc. The ‘I’ lives in the darkness of its belief that it is ‘divided’…it IS division itself and its attempts to be ‘free’ from an illusion only perpetuate the darkness.
K’s “there is no division” is a voice crying in the darkness….a call to inquire, to question, to be as nothing, to be aware. To wake up.
Because “The house is burning”

[James]

@macdougdoug

I’d just like to touch on the dangers (that we are all probably familiar with) of having the truth on our side

I think the issue is that most people participating on any forum often feel as though they have truth on their side, and find it difficult to accommodate contrary views.

So the challenge of a forum like Kinfonet - as was mentioned in the original post - is for those of us participating here to take into account the subtly different approaches each of us have.

On the one hand there are those who completely dismiss any views that they feel undercut or contravene what Krishnamurti has said, and who may even feel that the attempt to discuss or comprehend what he has said - through written or verbal statements - implicitly contravenes what he has said. This is one extreme.

And on the other extreme there are those who completely reject what Krishnamurti has said - about the nature of the self, the ego, for instance; or about the possibility of perceiving without mental images - and who may feel that what the psychologists and scientists are saying about the ego or about perception has totally invalidated Krishnamurti’s teachings on these matters.

And there are a spectrum of approaches that fit somewhere between these extremes.

For myself I feel it is important to give space to as wide a spectrum of participation as possible, but I nevertheless feel that those who are on the extremes have a responsibility to at least listen to and take seriously other approaches.

For instance, if one feels that there are important views to consider which challenge aspects of Krishnamurti’s teachings, I would suggest that rather than creating a zero-sum situation in which only one ‘side’ can be considered true, one ought at least to consider whether both views can be given equal respect, and find out if they even compliment each other, before deciding precipitously that only one of the views can be entertained as valid at the expense of the other.

This is especially the case with scientific views that are constantly changing, constantly being updated and refined in the light of new data, and so cannot be taken as absolute truths in the forms they currently appear.

If one simply assumes from the beginning that what the scientists are saying about issue X is an absolute fact, which invalidates what Krishnamurti has said about issue Y, then isn’t it this is a form of dogmatism at least as rigid as those who do not countenance discussing any of Krishnamurti’s statements?

There is a way of dialoguing that does justice to both the scientists and to Krishnamurti - giving respect to each - without expecting a full scientific enquiry on a Krishnamurti forum, which is clearly not going to happen.

[Inquiry]

@danmcderm

it [belief] opened everything up!

It opens up false hope, false confidence, false sense of security.

[Inquiry]

@macdougdoug

If there is no division, as in the observer is the observed, then awareness of what I experience is always awareness of my projections.

Not “always”, but only when awareness doesn’t support the brain’s content.

It turns the question of whether “I can listen when I have the truth” on its head : listening always includes listening to/being aware of, me.

If the brain believes it can “have the truth”, when it hears what does not conform to or support its belief, the head turns away (it is not upended) by reacting, denying, dismissing, or distorting what it can’t dare listen to.

[James]

@danmcderm

Was he actually seeing the truth of it or hallucinating? And if he was seeing it, how come I can’t see it? What obscures it?

An example of this for me is something K says in a talk he gave in Hamburg in 1956:

We are trying to experience directly for ourselves if there is such a thing as reality, something more than the mere projections of the mind… Can you and I… discover or experience something which is immeasurable?

Even though it is impossible to know whether Krishnamurti was merely hallucinating or seeing the truth of something when he asked this question, it allows us to ask ourselves whether our own minds can participate in an immeasurable state, or not. And what may be making this state an impossibility.

It is also a very general question for ourselves: are we able to experience something more than the “mere projections of the mind”?

Some scientists use the language of hallucination to suggest that everything we experience is a projection of our mind/brain (as @macdougdoug has been saying). But we have to remember that just because scientists use such language does not make it a fundamental truth. It may simply be a very useful metaphor for capturing important aspects of what goes on in neurological activity. But an aspect doesn’t make up the whole.

We can measure aspects of experience. But it may not be possible to measure the whole of any given experience. And to be in a state of experiencing whereby something immeasurable becomes even notionally feasible, the mind/brain must be whole, complete, not fragmented. Even the best metaphor cannot capture such a state.

[danmcderm]

@James

So it may be than when it comes to really fundamental questions - of the kind K asked - we can only find out directly for ourselves.

Yes of course. To me this ‘no division’ business is crucial. Belief has nothing to do with it. I will find out if it’s true or not….if I can.
Btw, this was not a ‘question’ (no division) but a statement he made as fact.