After addressing life as a whole, the ebb and flow of inward and outward disorder, going beyond the realm of thought, and when/where there is no division, K said, “You must have a mind that is capable of receiving the whole Universe.” (1:09:58) In this video, K defines mind as “the brain, emotional responses, and sensory responses”. (13:15). Under what conditions is the mind capable of receiving the whole universe?
J. Krishnamurti - Brockwood Park 1980 - Public Talk 3 - What is the relationship between the… - YouTube
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You must have a mind that is capable of receiving the whole universe and that is possible only when the mind is clear of confusion, fear. Then there is no shadow of division, as the ‘me’ and ‘you’, my country, your country, my dogma - all that. That means when there is complete freedom then there is a perception of the whole. And from that, comprehension; from that, intelligence. That intelligence can act in the world, to get a job, to get no job, to do anything. But now we approach it as parts and therefore we are creating havoc in the world.
Concluding words from Third Public Talk, Brockwood, 6th September 1980
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We can only embrace the whole when we are not solely focussed on what I want right now as the only issue that matters.
We are freed from what I want right now when we see the implications - the effects - of repeatedly living from this authority of fearful need.
When I see that I am the process of harm, my struggle loses all meaning.
Is the ‘process of harm’ the presence of the self-image, the ‘center’, the ‘me and my’…?
Yes - K couches it in terms of the inner conflict and confusion expressing itself in the world (through our actions)
We don’t see our inner conflict and confusion - for example : my strong desire to slap my naughty son vs my belief that violence by those in power against the weak in their charge is wrong.
We don’t see our confict and confusion because all our inner movement of conflict and confusion is occulted by the one dominant thought, feeling or belief that is driving me right now.
So I end up being violent to the ones I “love”. And my violent reactions are always seen as necessary in the moment - though I may feel guilty later - because I am not aware of the whole movement - thus not seeing how stupid and harmful it is.
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It seems impossible to receive the whole universe. It would then be a manageable package, smaller in itself than we who receive it; we would either have to expand to the size of the universe, or disappear completely, so that there is no difference, no separation, no from-here-to-there, be completly absorbed in it.
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This seems to be the only reasonable answer.
When I am present as anger, desire or a particular idea, my universe is focussed into a very narrow band.
Which does not necessarily mean that it is not part of that whole Universe that we are supposed to be able to receive in our minds, don’t you (plural) think? Or is it that we have this romantic idea that the Universe is all peace and harmony, and that chaos (ours and others’) has nothing to do with it?
So, let me ask: Shouldn’t we also be able to receive our own chaos, without separating ourselves from it, along with the rest of that whole Universe we are supposed to be able to receive in our minds?
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There is nothing that has to be absorbed in it, since we are already it. It is just a matter of seeing/realizing that we have never been separated from it, despite our chaos/ignorance in thinking otherwise (and hence thinking that it is necessary to do something to return to it).
It does seem that what divides us from the world and from each other is the sense of our being ‘special’…the physical desire, drive, need to survive became ‘psychological’?
Yes, I would say so too… although I would not use the word ‘special’, but ‘unique’ (you already know: “I am not you because I live/have lived a different life than you”).
Yes, most probably from the very moment a human being thought/sensed “I am therefore I exist as something separate from everything else", and started to function accordingly, passing that on from generation to generation.
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Our experiences though ‘unique’ are really all the same. Things ‘happen’ to us as they do to all creatures but we are the only ones that have a brain that remembers the happenings and make them adornments around an illusory center or ‘self’.
This feeling of the ‘special-ness’ of ‘me’ is so pervasive that it is mostly invisible and as @macdougdoug has pointed at, it is the source of human disharmony.…or as K simply described the self: “evil”.
One cannot deny that there are waves in the sea or ripples on the surface of the water. These phenomena do not mean that they are anything other than sea or lake. In our thinking, we tend to consider phenomena separately from the whole.
is it that our mind is capable for al the what is .
In the human Psyche arises thought at the same time as something from outside of it .
everything present can be captured .
Do you see how thought cuts the stream of watching something outside to get to the point of it’s matter ?
Did you look at the skills of a mind bringing somthing of his interest into the moment .
is it such a mind that hinders a careful look .
Why humans are torn back and forth between heart and head .
Yes. I don’t know how it is with the animals but it is amazing that we have this strange gift to be aware that we are part of something ‘immense’! Our telescope has let us see visually what an enormity surrounds us!
The narrow, isolated, fearful self-image denies the gift of awareness of what we are…and where we are.
To get absorbed in the observation of the night sky or the flight of birds or dissatisfaction, to dissapear.The crow on top of the light pole at the intersection, meditating in the flow of traffic.
How could it be that thinking, the conflict-ridden human existence, the disunity could not be part of the universe? How could it be apart? Are illusions and all the phenomena of the psyche such as fear, aggression and confusion not part of it?
Of course, a distinction can be made between nature (mountains and sea, animals and plants) and human society and what it has produced.
The evaluation of good and bad belongs to the realm of the psyche, and is not in itself good or bad, but a phenomenon of thought and thus a phenomenon that occurs in the universe.
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We know so much its easy to get confused.
There is the Cosmos (and the multiverse) out there which includes everything - including me and my thoughts, quarks, comets, horsehead nebula, space ships, crop circles, gas giants - the list is endless.
There is the potential reality that sometimes offers itself to me. Which includes all the stuff that I can identify, like comets, chairs, quarks, horsehead nebula, my thoughts and emotions, crop circles gas giants - the list is endless.
And there is the narrow band of experience that consists of the whole universe that I am living in right now - this might just be my reactions to the words on the computer screen - or whatever single thought or emotion or trauma that is causing me to act right now.
Only one of these universes need concern us.
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Understanding how the brain is acting, reacting in the moment, without judgement, seems to be the only way that ‘order’ could come about? To be aware without choice how conflict, fear, joy, worry arise and disappear? Without order there is chaos?
It seems logical that it is only an orderly brain / mind that could receive the whole universe?
Or be the whole universe?
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To be clear, from the very beginning: Universe is our idea of smth, so we risk to be caught in idea from the starting point
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