A post was split to a new topic: On Death and Dying
Thanks to you voyager for the quotes on the interval between thoughts that you have posted.
In The First and Last Freedom Krishnamurti wrote the following:
“Our problem is how to be free from all conditioning. Either you say it is impossible, that no human mind can ever be free from conditioning, or you begin to experiment, to inquire, to discover. … Now I say it is definitely possible for the mind to be free from all conditioning – not that you should accept my authority. If you accept it on authority, you will never discover, … and that will have no significance.”
(Jiddu Krishnamurti, The First and Last Freedom , “Questions and Answers: 20. On the Conscious and Unconscious Mind”)
I feel that the above quote is very significant. It’s an invitation to “experiment, inquire and discover”. Considering thought is with us every day of our lives, doesn’t it make sense to look into this? Is there ever an interval between our thoughts?
Yes, it’s very significant, and an invitation to “experiment, inquire discover”. And that’s the reason why I joined this discussion and this topic. As I have said I have had the impression that this practical aspect of K.’s teachings has been neglected.
I’ve experimented this interval many times. It’s not difficult both in daily life, especially while walking, or sitting and observing one’s thoughts. In most cases the problem arises because we are absorbed by the content of our thoughts to which we give importance. So, from what I gathered from K. (and stated elsewhere in this forum) one needs to devaluate thought and thoughts. Remember in the first and last freedom he said there must be a revolution of values? If we keep on giving importance to thought and to the content of thoughts which we perceive as real, any attempt at choiceless awareness will be vane. Another factor is that usually the flow of thoughts is too fast, so it’s impossible to perceive the intervals. And of course, the two most disturbing factors for this observation are fear (or better anxiety) and desire. I’s impossible to keep still and observant when there is something which worries us or if we have an important project we want to realize. That’s why K. in all his talks first tackled the problem of fear and desires before tackling meditation.
When the conditions are favorable, the passive observation of the flow of thoughts (which we can call choiceless awareness) slows down the flow and so we can “feel” that there is an interval.
What happens then? K. attributed a great importance to this interval, saying: “the full experiencing of that interval, liberates you from conditioning”.
But every time that I perceived that interval that did not happen. Why? Because for us that interval is “nothing (no thing)” and so we don’t give importance to it. We are attached to all the things of the mind, we are used to deal with them, but in that interval there is nothing to deal with. So again there must be humility to stay with that interval…
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Good points V. So psychological thought is conditioned to believe in its own significance, if I can put it that way. As you say, the interval is nothing and hence not considered by thought to have any value or significance? Can thought now see that by overlooking and being unaware of this important ‘nothingness’ that it has been going in the ‘wrong direction’?
Exactly so. That’s is what I meant to say.
“Can thought now see… it has been going in the wrong direction?”
This is the point. But I don’t want to tackle it from a theoretical point of view. I prefer to stay personal, to refer to my personal experience. As I wrote in my previous post which gave start to this new thread, I know I have not changed because I didn’t want to, and Jony Mitchel’s song explains well the reason why.
I’m all the time swinging from my spiritual research to the pursuing of the things I desire. (I suppose we are all like that…). I think I’ve enquired a lot into the question of why images are so important to us, but I could not get rid of their influence and power. I feel my life is empy without the things I value most, I feel I’m not living if I don’t pursue them. When I happen to be in a fine observant state and watch to the flow of thoughts, on one side I manage somehow not to give importance to them, not to react and let them go, on the other side the interval has no significance to me. This of course shows that I’m still enslaved into the set of values that thought has created.
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Yes…you expressed my feelings too here voyager. It’s good to be honest and not pretend to be ‘spiritual’ when we’re clearly very worldly.
Just revisiting this thread today and I’m coming across your posts for the first time voyager. You seem to express my own feelings precisely in some of your messages. I was thinking of Dan’s posts about the interval the other day and had the same thought you express above. And to attempt to keep still only leads to increased inner conflict.
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And that seems like quite a solid discovery, conclusion, etc…but it is a ‘distraction’ from the ‘interval’ that came before and after it, isn’t it? I’m not saying that it’s not of value to share that with us or what I’m attempting to share right now. But the point K made regarding ‘conclusions’ being the termination of insight (conclusion or fact?) seemed appropriate to bring in here? I may be wrong.
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I hope that we all see that “silence” or “the ending of identity and its interpretive narrative” is essential.
But the understanding that the “goal” of wanting to achieve this silence is also “noise” - thus counterproductive - just the striving of the confused self - is also essential
Awareness, curiosity, acceptance must be for its own sake - not in order to get anywhere.
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It’s effort…more thought…more goals…more conflict. It is what it is. It’s a distraction from the interval you say? Well our whole way of living is that. And further efforts and goals and ideas/ideals(of an interval or whatever), no matter how ‘spiritual’ only lead to more of the same conflict.
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Bingo! Oops they insist I make my reply at least 20 characters…so I just did.
I don’t know about the “acceptance “ but yes on the others. The curiosity about the ‘interval’ arises from it having been mentioned by K and his placing a great deal of importance in it rightly or wrongly…so is it there? Is it important ? If it is there, has thought overlooked it’s importance? It is understood that psychological thought maintains, updates the self image , is the space between two thoughts (if there is one) disregarded because being ‘nothing’ it isn’t a strengthening factor for the ego? If in this ‘voyage of discovery ‘ you are swept away with thought’s desire for this or that, we can come back through the negation of that thought/desire, right?
I use the word acceptance to highlight that true understanding is dependant on lack of judgement : good/bad - identity being synonymous to the conflict between what is and what should be.
If things are not as we want, if there is not the desired “interval”, this too must be accepted.
Meditation is choiceless awareness - not the movement toward silence.
But, Yes - the interval between thoughts is where peace and freedom lies - but the distinction between noise and silence, is noise. To identify silence as silence, and noise as noise, is the movement of self
First, thank you so much again for your honesty @voyager.
Reading your words, one sees that we are still at the beginning. You say that we do not change because we do not want to due to our inability to get rid of the influence and power of our images and also due to the feeling of emptiness that arises in us if we lose the images that we think give certain meaning to our lives and that we value the most.
Now can we go slowly? The influence and power of those images or the emptiness that arises from simply thinking that those images could disappear, are only the consequence of something. So my first question is: what is that “something” that gives such images so much power and influence and that just by thinking that they could disappear does that feeling of emptiness (and therefore, fear) arise in us which make us fall back?
Just wondering if this is not a total denial of any possibility of change. What do you think (anyone)?
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Oh no, you’re reading something into what I wrote that’s not there. It’s a denial of the fact that ‘I’ …through my own efforts…can bring about change…mutation. Perhaps change will come about through the ‘flowering of desire’, a phrase K used. Letting desire flower. No ‘interval’ there…just the flowering or blooming …unfettered? Here’s a quote someone posted just now in a Facebook Krishnamurti group: “then I say to myself, ‘I am part of that fear, therefore I’m just going to observe it, not act upon it.’”
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The flowering of desire for awareness itself? How long shall we wait for this to happen? No one said that you could not sit down calmly and experiment with awareness - just because you are interested in finding out about awareness. (I am sure, in fact that you have been encouraged to do so)
It is the desire to escape what is, via some kind of magical meditation, that you have been warned against.
That’s not what I meant. Desire is happening now…for a new car, a new girlfriend, a success at something or other…desire for fulfillment. We don’t have to wait for it. I think K was implying that we repress it or judge it or condemn it. We don’t let it flower. Not totally sure…it’s been ages since I read the talk about that.
Desire is part of suffering, the other part is aversion - together they form the self. Condemnation of desire is aversion. Whether desire is allowed to flower or whether it is repressed - its still the movement of self - The flowering of desire is the prison of the self.
Investigate the flowering of desire, but do not be its slave.
(Go find that speech about the flowering of desire - please get rid of the idea that some flowering of desire will save us)