PD: Why do we talk about anything? That’s the first point to get clear. This will then show us everything we need to know about the universal mind without any fuss or effort involved. Why do we talk about anything like this?
Pilgrim: I think that it is very likely that the mind demands constant stimulation and the brain is only too happy to oblige with its constant activity. Talking about anything is part of this activity. We may kid ourselves that there is some noble reason behind our incessant chatting, but probably there isn’t.
PD: So what would it mean for us to talk to one another without any reason or motive at all? Where would we start?
Macdougdoug: Seeing as language/speech can be defined as the symbolic representations of thought - and thought being an expression of conditioning and motive - I have no immediate answer to this question.
PD: Perhaps you are seeing too much. Do you see me? That’s our start, isn’t it?
Macdougdoug: Hello? (Is this word - and my use of it, motive free?)
PD: That’s what we’re going to find out. Unless we are sure about the nature of our relationship to the world, moving on to consider things like universal mind makes very little sense. Because if we are already creating stories about each other, about the things that are right in front of us, goodness knows what we might do with the other less tangible aspects of our lives. How would we know that we have a motive?
Motive does seem apparent when I look. Even for something as simple as Hello.
@anon78228991 @anon77654962 @WimOpdam
Yes, but how do we know we have a motive?
What do you mean know? know for sure? When I look, it does feel like I have motives, I recognise one or two.
Wim Opdam : Is the original expression in words from the Teaching only thought? I don’t see as such.
Here is thought in function from something more than itself.
@WimOpdam I think you’re saying that statements/concepts free of good & bad (ie. self) is not thought - woops! No, you’re saying there’s good thought (useful/practical) & bad thought (delusional/psychological)
It is fairly easy to recognise them, but what happens to something recognised once it comes under much closer scrutiny? Are we allowing our recognition to explain something that may not even be in the realm of the explainable? It is like the word ‘universal’ - we recognise everything that we already know about this word. Therefore even before we begin we bring it into the field of the personal. Why? What is the motive behind making everything personal and explainable?
So, when I look at what I am doing and I start to recognise my motives, part of this process of recognition should really include the fact that actually I don’t know why I am behaving as I am. I really don’t know why I am talking to you. In the talking, I may find out.
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I get the bit about only recognising our own experience - via past conditioning - but I don’t understand what changes in the talking - why does potential for discovery arise via talking?
Because a motive only works when I am dealing with a fixed object. There are really no such things as motives in relationship; there is only ever a motive to get away from the relationship and back into something certain, fixed or known. Any motive in relationship denies the possibility of meeting the very thing which I believe I am approaching.
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So the power of dialogue is in that it is supposed to be a relationship, and thus might actually become one.
Where there is a fixed object, a motive makes complete sense. If you were a fixed and stationary object, never changing, then the motive to meet you and talk with you would make perfect sense because then I am just dealing with a mechanical object. But because you are not fixed, because you are a living human being, my approaching you with any motive in mind means that I am the one who is acting mechanically. And if I am acting mechanically in relation to you, I am obviously acting mechanically in relation to the rest of the world.
So I don’t want to meet you. That’s the first thing to realise. You are a living human being. Something else must take place between two living beings that can’t take place when we view one another through our motives, which is to look on each other mechanically. It is the mechanical mind that wants to meet another mind, explain another mind, understand another mind, including all the various concepts we throw at one another.
Our dialogue, therefore, if it is to make any sense at all, must be from the universal mind at the very start. (I suppose we ought to paste this over into the other thread too.)