What is Kinfonet for?

Kinfonet Discussion
21

Yes, knowledge is dangerous but also one aspect of the whole.
David Bohm in ‘touch the future’ writes the following about it:

Knowledge Is Full Of Barriers
The point is that knowledge is full of barriers which are very active. In the case of special relativity, one of the main barriers was Newton’s belief that any velocity could be reached and overtaken. Einstein did not mean to disparage Newton with his questioning. Rather, he said that if he saw further than Newton, it was because he stood on Newton’s shoulders. Newton himself showed a similar humility when he said he felt like a person walking on the shores of a vast ocean of truth and picking up a few interesting pebbles.

22

As I recall it, Bohm’s view of scientific :test_tube: knowledge is that it is a constantly moving exploration that attempts to keep up with what has been discovered, but which remains forever limited. There can be no final knowledge, no theory of everything. Knowledge is always an approximation, a current ‘best guess’ at what reality or nature is doing, forever one step behind nature, a fragmentary abstraction of certain features of nature. So knowledge is always fragmented and never whole.

Krishnamurti’s concern was the perception of the whole, holistic perception, which he called insight. And such insight, he said, is not the product of knowledge, has nothing to do with knowledge.

So there is a tension between scientists who say, from their ground in knowledge, that such holistic insight is impossible, and Krishnamurti’s statement that holistic insight can happen and does happen (so long as the brain is quiet).

So for these scientists Krishnamurti’s statement is the product of illusion, hallucination.

23

I would look at the false… without comparison, without judgment, without condemnation.

24

But isn’t it the truth for the psychologically conditioned brain? As long as the brain is holding and identifying with its content, scientists can see the brain doing this very thing.

25

I feel these are two quite different things Inquiry.

The metaphor of hallucination is applied by Anil Seth to the brain’s perceptual cognitions. In his book he tends to mix up psychological processes with perceptual cognitions sometimes - as this isn’t an issue to which he has given much attention - but he is essentially exploring ordinary perceptual cognition, not the process of psychological thought.

What Krishnamurti is concerned with, and what you are alluding to, is the way that psychological thought, psychological memory, distorts our experience of the world, by creating enemies (for example), or by constructing internal (psychological) fears, or by diminishing the acuteness of our sense perceptions.

These are two quite different ways of talking about distortion.

26

The challenge of exploring into what Krishnamurti (K) talked about is that it implies a creative tension between accepting what he said at face value, and rejecting what he said as having no validity.

The tension between being a follower, a believer of K, and a cynic, a perpetual rejector of K.

For me, to enquire into K’s teachings implies two things:

  1. Being serious enough about them to be open to exploring what they are pointing to afresh.

  2. And establishing the same use of words together so that there isn’t a constant and unnecessary breakdown in communication.

So, for instance, Krishnamurti talked a lot about thought, the nature of thought, and how it is limited. If a person proposes to use the word ‘thought’ in a totally different way than this, then dialogue/conversation will break down.

The way K used words could often be ambiguous, and one has to allow for context-dependent differences to emerge when using the same word. But these ambiguities in language can be explored on their own terms without occluding their generally accepted meaning.

So, for instance, the way that K generally talked about consciousness is not the common way this word is used in the wider culture (where it usually means awareness). But occasionally K used the word consciousness as a synonym for awareness. So one has to go by context.

Similarly K used the words intelligence, love, insight, meditation, attention, perception, mind, truth, reality, actuality, time, knowledge, the observer, experience, aloneness, etc, in very specific ways that are often unique to him. But K also used these very same words in their ordinary accepted sense. So one has to be alert both to their specific K-related meaning, as well as their general significance, because - depending on context - either meaning may be intended.

And finally, one is interested understand what K talked about because one is interested in understanding oneself. The understanding of K’s teachings and the understanding of oneself do not exist in separate psychological universes. So this ought to be borne in mind when examining K’s words.

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27

One thing seems clear:

Between on the one hand those who are adamant that they have had insight, and those, on the other, who have a cynical or nonchalant disregard for K’s teachings, it is actually quite difficult to find people who are willing to explore what K taught.

In dealing with the saints and the cynics there seem only to be endless disagreements (on the one hand) and dialogic dead-ends (on the other). The cynic will never be convinced except of his cynicism, while the self-appointed mystic is forever entranced by their delusive fantasies.

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28

are very, very, very few.

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29

For me, exploring what K taught is an ongoing attempt to understand what K meant by what he said; how he used language to awaken the listener/reader to what language can’t adequately convey.

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2 posts were split to a new topic: The intentions of Kinfonet