Well self exists as a thought construct like a belief is constructed and we have an image of that. And that image we fit into like a skin. Shed the skin.
And then the how comes in and either thought comes in and directs unconsciously or the entire operation is watched listened to and observed.
There is a how, it can only be self taught if you’ll pardon the expression.
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The driven is the unobserved.
Both sorting and intervention are not watching the movement of thought. Observing the movement is realisation, insight, and is not anything to do with ability.
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The idea that if I carry out some operation over time this will lead to the desired result - is the normal functionning of the self.
The effort of observing my thoughts - if done with enough intensity, over time will most probably result in altered psychological states.
That these altered states may aid in freeing the psyche from the known is not in the slightest bit guaranteed.
It is sad that we are still attracted by techniques based on effort over time, even after years of listening to K.
The only liberation comes from realising the truth - nothing that I do brings the truth closer - the liberation comes from the silence in seeing that I am the delusion.
The answer is in seeing what observation is ? I do like to encourage people to experiment with observation and awareness - observe your thoughts, why not - but its not a technique that leads to freedom from the known. In fact it might be rather confusing for the psyche - why not just try a few minutes of something much simpler : observe your breath - and see if that is even possible.
Meditation is the absence of the self (effort/motive/focus) not the self doing stuff (observing) - awareness is when there is no dependance on the known (thought, knowing) - Silence is the absence of this doing that. We allow for awareness, awareness is not imposed.
PS - I demand the right to use the word “if” as it is in relation to criticism of psy time.
‘The man who says he knows does not know.’
Yes it is the unseen, and in many cases the hidden, the so-called unconscious, which is implicit within the explicit.
It is. ‘Attention’ and ‘inattention’ as I would usually consider them, is as opposites. But we have moments of attention and then that ends and we are back in this so called ‘inattention’. So as I see it, K is saying that they are not. That true attention includes both: the one where we’re ‘on’ and the one where we’re back in our old self. This is David’s point I’d say, ‘see’ it all whenever you can. Wherever you can. “just do it!” as K has said. And there is an ‘art’ to doing it. A delicacy, a sensitivity. No matter the motive behind it because in the ‘doing’ of it, the observation state, the motive is seen for what it is, an action or desire by ‘self’ to ‘become’. And I think he makes a good point about the learning about this, over time. through experimenting, how thought co-opts and ends the seeing? And as I recall K somewhere saying, you drop it and you pick it up again.
read today’s ‘Quote of the Day’ here is the beginning of it…
"So a mind that has the power of concentration, that says it has complete control over thought, is a stupid mind. If that is so, then you must find a way of enquiring which is not merely through concentration. Concentration implies distraction… J. Krishnamurti
Pointing out, your mind is in a state of concentration, you are attempting to figure something out intellectually/verbally, it cannot be done, you are not observing; observe first and for quite a while until all attempts to figure things out are gone, which may take a very long time for most, and your mind is quiet and in a full state of attention… which you may not recognize, nor will you know, because there will be no self talk
observing thoughts takes no effort at all
what you may be feeling is your effort to intellectually/verbally figure it out
actual observation takes no effort, makes no effort
That’s right, that’s all i’m saying; watch or attend or observe when you can and when you can’t, so what… going in and out of it is what the brain wants to do, so letting it work is just fine with me… glimpses of whats going on open up and whole fields come into view and then they go away but it appears that the glimpse alters and increases the capacity to understand what is going on without any additional effort by the mind or the body besides breathing.
And so correct too on the experimenting with it, letting it come and go without accumulating more powder for a fight. None of this is about any kind of magic… nor does any conclusion matter really, its like the art of listening is an aspect of the art of observing that expands on its own, you can’t force it nor think it all the way through until you first observe it; then you can talk about it and ponder it over to flesh it out.
no effort is required, there is nothing to gain by all this cogitating although some mild pondering over is always in order and may be helpful
There’s no jealousy when there’s nothing to lose, so the question is what is there to lose, not who could lose it.
True. What is to lose is the ‘possession’ of the partner. The ‘dependance’ upon the presence of the other to comfort you, is threatened. If you truly loved or cared about the other, whatever he or she chose would be respected, even welcomed if it made the other happy. My point was that ‘thought / self’ doesn’t operate like that. A non-existent entity was suffering over the possibility of something that might happen, because ‘it’ didn’t want it to. And felt it was justified in feeling that way…and, it doesn’t even ‘exist’!
That’s right, you are left there standing there on your own, there is no one to give you support, no affection, sex, nothing, and you come upon that quiet in which there is no body left to turn to, nothing, nobody, and you find your mind is more quiet being alone and so you are introduced to yet another way of relating and living day to day, like a great vacation by the beach only perhaps more fun.
What we are trying to find out will be found in observing. Observing is not thought. This is not said contentiously. It is thought which takes the role of knowing. What we can’t see, can’t understand, is this influence of thought. It maintains thought is the only understanding. Yet we are aware there is thinking, and so there is an awareness of thinking. The awareness is the mind observing. Is there thinking that dispels awareness, or is it that thinking is a separate function and that’s all I need to be aware of?
Can an entity be non-existent? Is an illusion an entity?
It seems to me that the entity is the human, and its suffering is caused by its mistaken identity.
The internal dialogue described by Dan is a good example : having a debate with myself about myself in my head - which is the movement of thought.
When a thought crops up, causing unease, and in reaction a second thought crops up, condemning and explaining why the first thought was wrong, and a third conscious thought comes up with a further interpretation/description of self/thought, judging the whole thing to be good/bad/silly or funny or whatever - this is just the normal reviewing of thought via memory. Normal behaviour, further confused by a bit of self-knowledge - a kind of self-conscious sickness. Recursive knowledge.
This is a common danger when we observe thought/ourselves, if we have not seen the relation between the thinker and the thought - if we are dependant on thought to tell us what we are observing - if we think we are separate from the observed/conditioned - I remember having many such internal struggles with regards to my addiction to cigarettes.
I think I see your point but I do actually think that I do exist as an ‘individual’, perhaps you do to at times also. But given the possibility that we are looking into this as being all illusory, it can at times be humorous to see through this and the illusory non-existant me acting the part of the ‘drama queen’…that is, when I’m not trying to be frightfully ‘intellectual’. 
I would like to apologise for the above choice of words which is of course a value judgement - and could be considered a personal attack.
Whether the form of self-consciousness described (eg. the analysis and interpretation of ones own mentation by further mentation) is a positive improvement of the self, or an impediment - my commentary is not meant as a personal attack - rather a description of the stuff that can go on habitually within all our heads - being a habitual movement of the self, rather than freedom from the known.
Is observation learned? Is it an ability developed over time through effort? Or is it the spontaneous response to seeing the illusion of the observer for what it is?
Those are questions - not opinions.