Everyone knows this that, what K meant by change was, total abandonment of the “self” or self centeredness, which per K’s claim he did not see anyone around him, or knew anyone who fundamentally changed; maybe someone did and never came around him anymore. But form the changes that took place in my mind is that, now I can see the limitations, suffering, and struggle of a very limited mind of myself and others trying to function in this deeply corrupt and dysfunctioning world, therefore I don’t condemn others for their actions, because we are acting from a ground of confused, irrational, and a wounded brain. We must have capacity to expose ourselves, at least to ourselves; I even have thought about having a dialogue as a exposure dialogue, because what we are exposing, is not personal alone, whatever we expose it belong to all of us. Somewhere I red that K said “saturate yourself with the teaching” this has been very important for me for last 10 years, but I don’t know how everyone perceives this saturate yourself with teaching? So I do not expect anything to change to, but only living life through understanding of this messy relationship around me and in our world, so what happens from such living, I don’t know, but one thing is clear that his teaching for sure exposed my own messy and conflicting mind to be aware of, which has created a space of awareness that was not there before, this is “what is” means.
I had the same intuition myself and I think this is quite important. Unless we have the courage to expose ourselves in a relationship (so maybe here too) we will not discover anything. K. said not control, so let our selfishness come out, so that me/everybody can see it clearly. Just this moning I watched a new video titled: Don’t pretend then you’ll find out what you are.
Very good points @fraggle
I agree fear is a big one. The fear of the loss of the images, security, illusions, etc., it covers a lot. What else….
Let’s say we worked out the fear completely…
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How about will-effort?
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How about our patterns of thoughts?
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How about the deep unawareness or understanding of our desires or dishonesty to ourselves? The many false measures and false values that prevent us from operating intelligently. The demand for pleasure.
I just came upon this interesting post by James #64/223 and after watching the above video. That we are “nothing” and have all these different “masks” for different occasions. Different 'relationships we feel require a different more suitable ‘me’. Example , I was at a pre-Covid party a while back and the guests were all excited about watching a college football game. Not young people and some were alumni. I was in a conversation with one who was a doctor and I think I mentioned something about the ‘need for entertainment…’ and she snapped at me, “What are you, a philosopher?” …‘wrong persona’ for that assembly. The persona phenomenon is clear in watching someone you live with or someone you are ‘close’ to. You can see them don a different mask in different situations with different people, etc.
K says in this video that it must be tiring for us to be changing “masks” all the time. And these ‘personas’ we are harboring are often time in conflict with each other. One does, says, something that another in a different situation might say or do the opposite, etc. One acts one way here that one would never act that way there…We do it to ‘fit in’, to act ‘appropriately’, to not be ostracized, to be ‘liked’, to ‘get along’, etc. We’re afraid of what society will do if we don’t have these masks. That we’ll be destroyed…K here says “You won’t”!
Gurdjieff had a saying about these masks or personas (which he called 'I’s) that they were “the outer covering of the inner nullity.”.
So from this angle, what does James’ “exploring the unknown” imply?
I caught that one too! 
Interesting. I’m not aware of doing that…nor of my wife doing it. In fact she never does…she’s always herself. But I do watch my mouth when talking to a professional who I need to consult for help…like a physician or dentist. With friends I’m pretty casual with the cursing, for example. I’m likely to say that such and such is so ‘F’d up’ for example. Talking with a physician, I won’t use that kind of language. I don’t know it that qualifies for putting on a mask however. Just using common sense. Or if I need to speak to a cop for instance. I’ll try to appear more civil and polite than i would when talking with friends. Can you give an example of how you ‘put on a mask’, Dan? And how significant is it…I mean is it significant at all if you are aware of doing it?
Good question. The way I see it is that we actually are nothing but ‘masks’. Another way to describe my consciousness is as ‘actors’ with different roles but all tied together with an illusory ‘I’ controller, the illusory ‘observer’. These ‘characters’ are developed and refined over one’s life. They are our conditioning. Without them we are ‘nothing’ (which is what K has stated we are : “nothing”) It seems to me that this whole ‘masquerade’ serves the purpose of supplying the ‘security’ that the brain needs to function. It’s a ‘wobbly’ security to be sure, but from the brain’s point of view, better than ‘nothing’. Regarding this last, John R. told me that K said to a close friend something to the effect ‘that if you touch this, you need to take root in it or you will come apart’…that seems very right to me ; that once the illusion of the observer as separate from the observed is ‘breached’, the ‘glue’ that is tenuously holding these ‘persona’ in place is weakened albeit thoughts’ efforts to keep it all ‘together’.
How is his statement, ‘the observer is the observed’, related to what we’ve been discussing about the many personas, Dan? The observer who observes the various images in consciousness is a result of the images…is himself an image? Can you elaborate on your point above?
I’ll see and also try to bring it back to the question of this thread. In every situation, ‘I’ am (more or less) present. No matter the mood, it is always ‘my’ mood, the mood that ‘I’m’ in… ‘my’ elation, ‘my’ anger, ‘my’ sadness, etc Also no matter which ‘persona’, the controlling ‘I’ is always present. Always the same 'I feeling’ . Always the duality of the state and ‘me’. That duality as I see it, is the duality between observer (me) and the observed (the state). But that ‘I’ or ‘me’ is an illusion and doesn’t actually exist. I don’t know why this ‘state of affairs’ came about. So the ‘I’ that doesn’t actually exist plays the role of ‘having control’ of every situation. Of being ‘present’ in every waking moment ( as well as dreams ). Is it that having a ‘controller’, albeit illusory , something continuous and permanent, provides the security the brain demands? So to the question of “why don’t we change…?” , is it that this false ‘I’ feeling or ‘selves’ has to end? The duality between the ‘controller’ and what is being controlled, seen as an illusion? That there is no observer separate from what is being observed…that they are one and the same?
I don’t know…that’s possible…that an insight into this will end the ‘me’…which would bring the change or ‘mutation’ that K spoke of. Or perhaps it’s an understanding of the nature of the ‘controller’ as another limited image trying to control the images that are presently active that’s needed. The angry one/me or the frightened one/me. the ‘me’ controller image is trying to change or understand or eliminate the anger or fear. But we haven’t understood the anger or the fear yet. They are a result of images. Just exploring…
Sometimes you have to wear a mask. What matters is that you know you’re wearing a mask. Self-deception is mistaking the mask for what it conceals.
Hi @Conditioned!
Sorry to reply so late, but voluntarily left the forum for a while…
If, as you say, one has really worked out the fear completely, what is the actual meaning according to you, of your three questions? Since all three are included in the field of fear.
Unless of course, someone who’s still in that field is imagining how it will be if one had worked out the fear completely.
But then those questions would arise from the fear in which one still is while trying to find out what would happen if one had worked out the fear completely … which to me is quite far from the observation of fear itself.
So if you want we can go into the three questions with regards to fear, and of course, forgetting that we have worked out the fear completely, which could be only a mere imagination.
I don’t know … is there any problem in using “flowering” here? 
How can one possibly stay with a feeling without letting it flower completely?
So according to you, staying with anger, jealousy, sorrow is allowed because they don’t strengthen the ego, while staying with desire does, i’m i right? … If that’s so, could you please explain us how do you observe desire if you have fear that staying with it will strengthen your ego?
Thank you! 
p.s.: by the way, according to you what is the difference between “arise from thought” and “it is a thought”?
Desire is more than a thought. It is an emotion, a feeling, nurtured and cultivated by thought.
Krishnamurti gave the example of seeing an automobile and then imagining oneself driving it. The imagery is a product of thought, but the feeling that inspired and revels in the imagery is the emotion of desire.
sorry for late reply.
Let me try. Jealousy, anger are feelings. Say one sees his beloved girlfriend happly talking to another man. What happens is a feeling of jealousy/anger rising in oneself. If one does not label the feeling but stays with it with no thought interfering, one can see it flowering and dying out, without any effort. This no way strengthens the ego but weakens it. Another situation, one sees, say a lovely car, then the thought arises for posssing it, how nice it would if I can drive it, show it off to friends etc. Here what is involved is thought. When one becomes aware of this thought, it stops immediately. Here there is no flowering and dying out. Istead of being aware, if one remains occupied with thought of possession of car, thought/ego strengthens itself by this process.
Thete is no question of fear of strengthening of ego. It is just my plain observation. This is what my observation is as of now.
Jealousy arises after thought identifying my girl friend etc. So question is can feeling arise without thought preceding it. Appears that in case of feeling like anger, jealousy, hatred ,thought prcedes the feeling. But in case of beauty, it can arise without thought. So is beauty not a feeling, something entirely different.
Then you go on to say that if thought doesn’t name the feeling, it instantly disappears and leaves no trace; it doesn’t wilt and die under the light of naming. When the brain is watching what it is doing, it doesn’t matter too much whether it names the feeling or not because acknowledging it is what matters.
Since we’re overly familiar with a few basic feelings, and unfamiliar with a myriad of subtle, nuanced feelings for which we have no names, we need to feel more than we know, and know when we’re feeling the same old way.
Acknowledging / naming/ labeling / recognising are activities of the centre /‘me’ / ‘I’. It is observed that In this awareness is lost. When I see a tree, without labeling or any thought arising there is only observation , no observer as me and tree as observed. There is a direct contact. It is very difficult to put in words what happens at that moment. But it is also true that it last only few moments, thought intervenes and seeing is lost. This as experienced by me as of now.
As far as other subtle feeling, not aware, so can not comment.
That is a very good question…