I think that’s a safe bet . Dimensions in dimensions but thought knows only three. The others may touch us and who knows, those may be what ‘we’ actually are: the “World”.
Division doesn’t make sense.
Why do you say it “cannot” be corrected? Going in the wrong direction is corrected by changing direction. Isn’t it.
Can we get back to the plain start, and not keep following along with knowledge and speculation? The un-directed, simple watching and listening is not to be considered a challenge to self. Self is always challenged with its own operation. Don’t make it external, or the other.
Why do you say it “cannot” be corrected?
I didn’t say it can’t be corrected - I said we’re making a mistake we cannot correct.
I am making the mistake of interpreting perception rather than perceiving directly because I am my conditioning and perceive in accordance with terms and conditions. I am the mistake humanity has been making from the beginning of civilization, and as such, I can’t see it…I can only explain.
When it is said thought is limited, this is not to say words can’t be expressive, or impressive, it is pointing to the way words connect to things, and this operation is mechanical, and all the multitude of things make the world fragmented, and a puzzle.
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‘Thought has its right place’. Instead of discussing thought endlessly, what is important is to check whether it is in its right place. It happens that people are generally lazy, negligent, they prefer to go round in the same old circle rather than getting out of it. It’s what you call inertia, living on low old energy. The fact is the brains we are born with may be old, but the energy is new and we’re just wasting it because we don’t want to change.
That’s the situation, isn’t it? The ‘thinker’ you, imagine that they’re ‘your’ thoughts …but that’s not the reality at all, they’re just thoughts…not a ‘you’ having them?
post #85:
It’s very kind of you to say that, dear Charley. Thank you.
Nonetheless, self-observation reveals what is, doesn’t it? One observes oneself and others rationally, unemotionally, honestly, effortlessly, without condemnation or blame being part of observation. Isn’t such observation what learning about oneself (and so about the world) IS? One THOUGHT of oneself as kind, and one observes that one is not what one thought — oh! That to me is insight, in a flash.
It seems to me that once there has been an insight into the nature of self and time, the dark cloud of ignorance CAN still come over one, overcome one, in moment of inattention. But to me, it is a fact that one is not altogether the same as before there was insight. The insight is not lost. It acts in moments where awareness is not obstructed. Learning goes on.
Maybe it’s a bit like learning to walk. Once the first step has been taken by the toddler, the next steps inevitably, unstoppably follow, in spite of lots of stumbling and falling. The toddler is not trying to copy or recreate the first step. Life is driving him to walk, which he loves to do. Of course, learning to walk is not the same as learning about self, relationship, time, action, and so on. But it is not altogether different either.
The child learning to walk is doing what comes naturally, spontaneously and he loves it — no one is forcing him to do it (hopefully). And, unless illness intervenes, the toddler does not give up on walking. That is the spontaneous, natural energy of life acting. Similarly, the grownup learning about life naturally, spontaneously, lovingly, cannot give up on self-understanding.
We keep making the same mistake repeatedly because, despite being able to see the effects of the error of our way, and despite being able to describe the mechanism by which we make the error, we can’t see the whole process in its entirety because to be civilized is to be separate and apart from nature; from what actually is.
When you’re in a trap, you are unlikely to get out without making a thorough examination of the trap… how it works and where its weakness is. But our trap is self-inflicted and its weakness is our tendency to interpret perception to accord with our desire and ambition. We trapped ourselves with our desire to be more than the animals we are, and after ten thousand years we are seeing the error of our way, asking how we can free ourselves, and having concluded that desire and ambition is our weakness, the question is, How can we be free of desire and ambition without having the desire and ambition to do it?
Why are people content with their own opinions, bring up the past, and not actually share with an open-ended inquiry? How do people overlook the context and think about their own ideas? Isn’t it because we think watching, listening, reading, etc, is an accumulation of bits and pieces, to be compared and cultivated in the brain. Then this reinforces our point of view, and we are very antagonistic to what anyone else is saying, wanting to disparage and disprove everything, and maintain our sense of independent existence.
Everyone who takes K’s teaching seriously agrees with you, so it goes without saying. The question is whether we can do anything more than believe we must undergo radical transformation, because belief/disbelief is our standard operating procedure. Remaining in a state of open-minded uncertainty is not what we’re accustomed to or familiar with.
We deny making K our authority, but we don’t dare deviate from the tenets of the teaching. The dualistic mind can only accept or reject propositions and assertions because choosing is all it can do.
We are convinced we must change as radically as K has described, and we are as incapable of doing this as our conditioning is able to prevent it.
“Things” being each one of us… .
It depends on how often and how accurately “our reality” is updated; how rigorous we are about our “take” on actuality. We may never see things clearly and completely, but if we’re not acutely aware of how we spin things, we’re too dizzy to change, much less see clearly.
Thought is charging ahead in the technical spheres, new this, new that…but psychologically there doesn’t seem to be any movement, still locked into the old ways, beliefs, ideals, religions, nations. And thought serving up more and more efficient ways of killing, entertainment, sensation, calming drugs, electronic games for children and adults, etc.
K’s insight that “real change is the denial of change” takes the whole subject in a different direction.
Yikes!!..
I can’t imagine time stopping, so I don’t presume to know enough about it to say, “time has to stop”.
There is the movement of life (the unfolding of actuality), and the movement of thought along with it. So thought surmises that without thought (itself), the movement of life would be timeless, immeasurable, ineffable, whole, complete, selfless, etc., but because psychological thought cannot imagine or conceive of being reduced to mere practical thought, it assumes it will survive its own demise and enjoy the blessed afterlife of timelessness. Thus, thought cannot stop.
I don’t mean day/night, spring/summer/autumn/winter, earth round the sun kind of time but you/me, yesterday/today/tomorrow kind of time.
If the distinction between between “day/night” and “yesterday/tomorrow” kind of time is that the former is present and the latter is past/future, then psychological time is never about what is right now but always about what has happened and what might yet happen?
I think that consciousness is consciousness is consciousness and an empty mind is an empty mind, but it is the content that is caught in time, not the observation of it, is it not?
Is a mind empty because it has no content, or because it is free to use or not use what content it has at hand, as necessity requires?
I didn’t say I knew nothing about the subject. I said that I can’t “imagine time stopping” because, as far as I can tell, time marches on regardless of how timeless existence may seem to enlightened minds.
you seem to share K’s view that it [practical thought] can act autonomously in its own interests without needing the ‘centre’ to initiate the action.
You’ve said that what distinguishes practical thought from psychological thought is that it addresses only that which is present - never with the past or the future. Is that what you mean by “its own interests”?