That’s exactly what we are doing now. That’s why our dialogues are so important. I am a bunch of reactions. Those reactions are responsible for all the suffering in the world. That’s a tremendous responsibility.
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This is all I have been getting at Paul. (I don’t understand why we seem to take so long to agree on the simplest things! - especially as we want to travel so far. But it is as it is).
But yes - I agree with you (that is, I think or feel with you): I too see or sense that I am a bunch of reactions and thoughts (which - I am dimly aware - are responsible for all the suffering in the world).
Indeed, I feel that anyone in the group can see this (or accept this, or feel this). If, therefore, we can begin from here (which is all I mean by a common ground, a shared meeting place), then the next step (the next movement) can be taken together, seen together, inquired into together - without much argument or resistance or division. We do not fight over common ground - it is common ground. I feel responsible for my reactions, and you feel responsible too (and so, hopefully, does X, Y and Z).
So we are each of us responsible for our reactions (and for the expression of these reactions in the world). So we are, each one of us in the dialogue meeting, both the teachers and the taught. - There is something beautiful about this!
I have to challenge this for the our sake 
The question of this thread have sprung out of the resistance experienced in the group, no?
Here it is suggested that, in order to avoid resistance, one or all need to perceive a certain fact. Which is that I am the content and a bunch of reactions.
Correct me if I am wrong, but this sounds like a prerequisite. And if it is, then it is knowledge.
Is this a fact for you? If it is not a fact for you, then we are not meeting. The only requisite is that we face facts.
A fact is something that is happening now.
No, I am not responsible for my reactions - that’s a separation away from the fact if I say that I am. I am a bunch of reactions; and these reactions create enormous suffering. To say that I am responsible for them is just another reaction which keeps the whole game going. I am not responsible at all; I am an irresponsible human being. What happens when I refuse to live like this? It has to be a refusal that is not just another reaction.
The fact is not the content of me or you.
What is happening now is the resistance.
That is sufficient. We are all of us irresponsible human beings, which is why - unfortunately - the world is in the mess it is.
If this is the fact, then this is the content of your consciousness - now.
At least a couple of issues that seem to keep re-emerging here and on the ZOOM dialogues (when they are not exhausting themselves in dialoguing about dialoguing)–namely, how to come to, let come, or “find” the common without that being simply my covering or eliding everything particular under a putative totality, group convention, global category, or generality; and whether consciousness is simply a generic feature of humanity that, if we supposedly see rightly, overcomes all-too-problematic separateness by simply obliterating individual uniqueness–these issues are (oddly enough) strikingly addressed by K in the document now downloadable under the announcement at https://www.kinfonet.org/meetups/6
Can a dialogue change all that? It must. That must be the common ground: the sole intention, impulse and desire to bring about real change in the world.
Yes - our intention has to be to address the appalling mess and misinformation that is the world; but always bearing in mind that we are the world too.
I only say this because we sometimes have a tendency to feel that on account of our having certain sensitivities, aptitudes, knowledge or partial insight, that we are somehow different to the world, when our consciousness is still the consciousness of the rest of the world. - I’m sure you understand what I mean, but I think it is important to state it nevertheless.
Hi Dennis - thank you for sharing some of the material from K’s early period. I’ve just scanned some of the first pages of the document you link to, and the quotations selected are quite fascinating. On the one hand there are clear tonal differences, differences in vocabulary (K at this early point talked of a “true self”, much like the Advaitins); while on the other there are clear thematic parallels with his later teaching, which shows the wholeness of his thinking from the 30s to the 80s.
You would have to explain more what your criticisms are here - but it is an unfortunate reality within the group that it is difficult to find common ground on anything without it becoming controversial for at least some participants!
Obviously K spent the 60s, 70s, and 80s hammering home the idea (or fact) that there is no separate consciousness: that our consciousness is the consciousness of humanity: that we are the world: that each of us contains in essence the whole history or book of mankind. Some people in the group apparently reject this, and so it becomes a contentious issue. But I don’t think it is controversial to say - as K does say (and the Buddha said before him) - that our suffering is not unique to us: our suffering is human suffering. However, this does not mean that we can “obliterate” the particularity of our own suffering, or evade our responsibility for feeling-out, sensing, becoming aware of this suffering in ourselves - correct? The difficulty is that to share this or inquire into this in the group - with the balance of impersonal tact and personal directness which is required - is only possible in an atmosphere of sensitive collaboration; and the group is only haltingly ready for this.
Without presuming to estimate anyone’s “readiness”–Yes–I agree, this general/particular thing may be too nuanced and even unparsable for a large group (ZOOM or text discussion thread) or one too well rehearsed in a single set of idioms and heuristic assumptions, or interpersonal conventions.
You write, “the group is only haltingly ready for this.” It is merely a side observation to me, but I do wonder how much the group’s readiness is structurally precluded by its size as well as the manner of its facilitation; I wonder how much the tedious and exhausting dialoguing about dialoguing that ironically tries to “start” the sessions might be obviated merely by reducing the size and entertaining a practice of rotating or shared hosts.
Moving on, I’m not sure why you read the couple of recurrent “issues” I discerned as “criticisms.” Maybe you mean the issues I critically discerned? Or maybe you just felt criticized? But no matter, that one.
You may want to do much more than scan the document I supplied in introduction for the Meetup. And there is also the entire context of the 1929-1932 material to consider. Much time and letting words speak from where they mean may be required with this before concluding about any “differences,” “parallels,” or “wholeness of his thinking,” and especially any analogies with Sankarite or Buddhist tropes, which is fruitful only after a rigorousness greater than facile comparison. Haste usually yields only self-serving eisegesis, not thoughtful exegesis. Apropos to that, while I agree that K did a lot of often cantankerous “hammering” (or rather, humorous haranguing) of his audiences in the course of his many “talks” (more often guided inquiries or phenomenological self-reports), I don’t share your putatively “obvious” readings concluding over decades of K regarding consciousness. Seems sophomoric and categorical, to be charitable, yet mildly chastening, James. But that’s OK! As long as in being constructively impetuous one is just trying not to lose one’s footing while negotiating the vertigo of new learning.
I feel it might be less remote or convoluted and even more practical if you and I discussed independently of this forum, perhaps in person via ZOOM. If you agree, please reach out to me directly: dennisfey@comcast.net
Cheerie!
That’s why it is a communication through dialogue. It starts with oneself in relationship.
I appreciate the evident interest you have in Krishnamurti’s early talks and writings. And I see - from the extracts you have accumulated - that there are some truly fascinating nuggets in K’s early teaching (i.e., from the 30s).
However, life is short, and unless one is a full-time scholar, one has only so much energy to expend on these things. Therefore, speaking purely personally, I would rather give the limited energy I have to K’s mature teachings, which - for me - are more linguistically clarifying and summative.
Indeed, I don’t remember where I read or heard this, but once, when K was asked about his early books and talks, he advised to begin with the last ones (i.e., from the 80s) and to work one’s way back from there (or words to that effect). So this is the approach I prefer to take.
However, I don’t mean to appear judgmental about this; and I sincerely wish your venture to explore K’s early teaching well.
Thank you, James, for your appreciation.
Yes, working chronologically backward through the corpus of works of any published figure (whether particularly oracular or not) is often a good way to as it were drill down–down to from where (it will turn out) they have always haled, a whence, or calling, they, by way of their acts and works, were often trying to make sense of, or to which they were trying to deepen their answerability. Indeed, this tack is fairly routine in literary criticism, including historical studies and the scholarly collection of significant works.
Appreciating that, one will understand that in being responsively engaged by someone’s work, one has not completed the backward journey until one has gone to the end, in this case beyond the (it turns out) arbitrary boundary of 1933, and if one does not do so because one hasn’t the time or inclination to do so (which is neither here nor there), then one must needs confess they have not gone to the end and humble their conclusions accordingly.
I thank you for your “sincere wish,” but as you say you “don’t mean to appear judgmental” (which I take you also to mean you do not wish to be taken as dismissive), I feel I must call out a few things on account of the fact that, while you have qualified them as “purely personal,” you have nevertheless published them to this forum.
Your readers, James, need to know that the decidability of a so-called K teaching, much less what could be deemed the so-called mature teachings (and those vis-à-vis so-called early teachings) is still very much disputed. I have only to recall the several years’ correspondences and work with K Foundation Trustees, the Editorial Board of the Complete Teachings Project and that project’s advisory members, the latter including, to name a couple, Javier Gomez Rodriguez and Hillary Rodrigues. Much ink has been spilt (some in my old files) over how simply attempting to apply a valuation like “teaching” instantly hurls the disputants into the fatal waters of fixing a canon for K’s works.
In fact, reducing K’s meaning of “the teachings” to a specific, or any, mere collection of works impoverishes the expression, even in K’s own terms. Most are aware of how well-exercised K was by a concern that a church not be raised upon him; so, it should be glaringly obvious what an irony it would be (and, alas, is here and there, I see) that in affirming this or that as proper “teachings”–even if adducing (and selectively!) K’s own attributions–these would-be protectors commit the very thing they supposed to avoid.
Now, you may have heard or read somewhere that K said this or that, even definitively, but unless you were/are privy to the accounts and Foundation documents and discussions around these putatively decisive or final-sounding statements, you may very well, to the great detriment of your own inquiry, give them unentitled or unreasonable weight.
I cannot give you these materials, of course, but I can tell you that truly scholarly approaches to collecting and publishing the collected works of any significant figure pay little attention to even the author’s own judgments or valuations (supposing those could even be determined by anything stronger than anecdotes or passing remarks), or even their own wishes regarding publication, except, say, where legally constrained or where tortious effects are foreseeable upon persons named in their materials.
Why is this so? Because (and this is fairly standard literary regard) the instant an audience hears or reads an author’s expression, in that same instant any interpretation or valuation of that expression becomes a corporate affair: the author’s proprietorship of judgment over their own works is forever escaped and can only be rendered henceforth of, by, and with their audience. This is not to say, of course, that the author’s opinions of their own works does not matter; it’s just to say that they can now only be annotative (yet illuminatingly so, of course!); they can no longer be decisive.
Please forgive the tiresome length of this, but I can find no less fine-grained way for preempting any wrong purchasing of what might be read into your remarks, James.
So, dear James’ readers, you will understand why one should not purchase James’ “fascinating nuggets” as dismissive, as he surely does not intend. One should be able to see that attributions (even if putatively out of the mouth of K) like “early teaching” and “mature teachings” must be taken with a grain of salt. One must entertain that for many it is rather material antecedent to 1933 that are “clarifying and summative” precisely because they are (formatively, not just chronologically) antecedent to the so-called mature teachings. Indeed, some of my dear friends, now deceased, who new K personally, affirmed this to me resoundingly. And finally, if one wants to go to the end, one must do so. I am giving you a chance to do just that.
Cheers,
Dennis
Thank you for sharing these passages.
Just a brief reflection I thought I worth mentioning (without going further into details): in these 1930’s talks one of the areas that K emphasises is the crucial importance of self-knowing in the present moment (or what he calls an intense awareness of our “self-consciousness”), which results in the liberation of “self-consciousness” as intelligence (which he calls “intuition” during this period).
I have selected a few passages to highlight this aspect (which caught my attention):
you must become fully aware of yourself; you must know for yourself in what manner your opinions are selfish, whether your ideals have their root in selfishness, whether your will is selfish, whether your imagination has its roots in selfishness. (5th August, 1931, Ommen)
Do not go through the whole gamut of beliefs, but become conscious in action in the present… By becoming fully self-conscious in the present, in thought, in emotion, and hence in action, you are liberating self-consciousness. (24th January, 1932, Ojai)
Therefore live the whole in the present. If your mind is continually dwelling on postponement… you will never understand. But if your mind is really seeking, inquiring for Truth… you will find that time is an illusion, that the whole of existence is contained in a single minute of comprehension, and that comprehension is not arrived at through time but in the vitality of your desire to understand experience in the present. (30th July 1931, Ommen)
Intuition which is pure action of Life… can be realized only through your own constant, diligent, patient watchfulness, never letting one second go by without knowing what you are thinking and why you are thinking it… (31st July 1931 Ommen)
You must know yourself, wholly, fully, consciously; not by examining the past, but by being fully conscious in the present. (3rd August, 1931, Ommen)
Before you can understand truth it is necessary that you should become fully conscious, that is conscious of your own separateness, and thereby of all your qualities and their opposites; that is, you must become so conscious of yourself that all your hidden desires, purposes, conflicts are brought out, examined and understood by you. By becoming intensely conscious, you consume all subconsciousness, because when you are fully conscious of your actions, your thoughts and your emotions, hypocrisy ceases, illusions cease, secret desires and fancies no longer have sway over you; and then, when you are so clear and purposeful, you can arrive at that state in which there are no so-called qualities and therefore no conflicts. (7th March, 1931, London)
Intuition is the intense, emotional awareness in which thought completes itself. (3rd June, 1932, Ojai)
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What could it mean for thought to complete itself?
Maybe when thought grows aware of itself?