Why is intellectual understanding insufficient?

Intellectual understanding is partial say in the sense of ‘swimming’. I can learn everything about the movements, the different strokes, etc from books and videos but until I’m actually in the water :sweat_drops:

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Why do some ‘spiritual’ seeds germinate, others not? It’s a fascinating question! And hits deep, the difference between seeds germinating and staying dormant is life changing.

It’s a metaphor, a story, there are in actuality no spiritual seeds that do or don’t germinate. But staying with the metaphor might be illuminating.

In the world of plants, how does germination work? It’s not fate or magic or grace, it’s causes and conditions: light, water, proper temperature, oxygen, soil. What causes and conditions might cause Krishnamurti seeds to germinate?

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Observation of thought without judgement.

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Yes, that sounds right.

How about: attention. It’s required for nonjudgmental observation of thought, but goes beyond it, includes more, right?

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I don’t think this fully answers the question - because of the question : how does observation without judgement arise? Is this something we can do? decide to do?

Dan,

You are missing the point, for anything to “germinate”, it must have the right soil, and from what is within, that means a good foundation, in other words, goodness.

There are all sorts of people who think they are meditating, and observe thought endlessly (apparently without judgement), and nothing happens.

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Yes. ‘Seeds’ won’t water themselves. If it’s too difficult to follow each thought, maybe this would prove a valuable excercise: listen to the ‘others’ thoughts without judgement. Understanding that their thoughts / thinking is the same process as your own but issuing from a different ‘content’. No judgement, just listening and then it may be possible to listen to your own.

That’s it!

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I wasn’t trying to “fully” answer, Charley’s bringing in “goodness” as a major ‘condition’ is important is it not?

Dan,

Ah!, Then, who is observing thought?

I wouldn’t call it a “who”. Simple awareness? The interesting thing about ‘doing’ it is that it brings into the light the ‘sense of an identity’ that the brain associates automatically with thought. It’s always ‘me’ thinking ‘my’ thoughts. This excercise drops the judgemental ‘me’ and tries to simply follow whatever thoughts are arising. I find it difficult to maintain for more than a few minutes and weeks may go by before something reminds me to ‘try’ it again.

Btw I never associated this excercise with ‘sitting quietly’. I did that years ago but this I took to be watching thoughts in the normal ‘walking around’ day.

Apparently so - we seem to be saying its essential. Anybody like to clarify what they mean by “goodness”? What is this goodness that is essential for there to be Observation without Judgement?

What is observation without judgement ? Without the entity that observes (or that makes the effort)? This I think might be hard to follow, if we have not experimented.

Is there an agent that observes? And without that agent (if that is possible), can we still call what occurs : observation?

It could be ‘thought’ observing itself. That has been suggested and solves the ‘problem ‘ of the ‘entity’ or the ‘who’?
Especially since Thought was ‘clever’ enough to create the imaginary entity: Me

Doesn’t sound right to me Dan. When we say thought, don’t we mean some kind of narrative, description, knowing/conceptualisation of what is observed?

Thought is a sort of brain or ‘center’ in itself? The ‘intellectual’ brain. As the body has its own ‘brain’ that controls its movements? So as the body has its awareness of where it is, how it feels, etc, the intellectual function has its own awareness of what it is thinking, believing, liking, disliking etc?

Thought puts all of this under the control of the imagined ‘I’… but there is no ‘controller, no ‘I’!

I’m going to have to ask that old question again : can there be awareness and thought at the same time? Or can I observe my thoughts as they occur (we can try when we have a moment to spare)? Or If there is awareness am I, and thought, present?

I would say let I/ me be present (who is there to do anything about it?) include the watcher, the schemer, the purist, the doubter, etc…just watch! Do it and loose it but do it! K said and “don’t lose it in the middle”. But I do. Ce’st la vie.

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Absolutely - for a time when I experimented with this, I was fascinated by the presence of the watcher/judge during observation - and often held the question : is this presence necessary? inevitable?

And K gets real enigmatic when he says when you lose it be aware that you’ve lost it. “Be attentive when you are inattentive”.

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