KFA - Krishnamurti Foundation of America

Yo, Pablo, so long as you find my nonsense entertaining, I'll gladly entertain. I play two notes, the digital and the analogue, as the discontinuous and the continuous. Let me play a tune here; a willy-parse sort of jig.

We are the analogue and the pedal tone to our being is the discontinuous, which means that the subject is one's sense of self. We continually take things apart by seeing differences, and put things back together by seeing the in-common.

What I do is fairly simple -- has to be if I can do it, I begin with a discontinuity, move it in such a way that the continuity it produces gives the sense that we are that continuity. I begin with a deconstructed sense of self and construct a sense of self out of it, with the suggestion that it comes apart as it was put together.

I am giving away trade secrets here, but I think you can handle it. Let me explicate in real time.


P: Nevertheless, here goes. ;-)
W: The only act that can create two incommensurate perspectives is the act of reflection, wherein the observer sees the reflected from the perspective of its incommensurate other.
P: I have to (respectfully) disagree with this assertion. It is clearly possible to hold two "incommensurate perspectives" without viewing each from the perspective of the other. I can hold in mind the view that reality is the ALL, and the view that the ALL is much more than reality, without viewing each through the skeptical lens of the other.

See, you jumped immediately from the deconstruction to the construction. Of course you, as the construction, would disagree with a deconstructed sense of self; goes with the territory, as they are wont to say.


w: Let that incommensurate pair be subjectivity and objectivity, and the subjective perspective sees the objective and the objective perspective sees the subjective.

P: To "see" the other is different from seeing "from the perspective of" the other. I like the idea of seeing both objectively and subjectively; but it seems to me self-defeating to see objectivity from the perspective of subjectivity and vice-versa. The perspectives negate, leaving only skepticism. Like taking LSD to get a new mystical experience, and in the same mouthful taking its antidote.

Ok, I kept the two separate, but made them one by using the notion of subjective and objective. This keeps the shift as the discontinuous, and if there is to be a continuity, it must be built upon that absolute shift. The point being that if a continuous sense of self comes across an absolute distinction in the way it can reflect upon itself, then that absolute gate is in place.


w: If the act of reflection is the act of identity that is the self-reference, then the two perspectives are of the finder and of the found; the finder has found the found and what it found was itself, or the found has been found by the finder and what found it was another that is itself.

P; To my brain-ear, the trumpet player got stuck in a loop here. ;-)

So, I put the two together in the act of self-finding, which makes the finding a duality. We come to an identity with two heads.


w: The finder requires a found and the found requires a finder. The self looks at the world, and the world looks back, or the me looks back from the past, and I turn around and face the future.

P; I thought we were talking about a duality of perspectives? Here you launch into a thought not about incommensurate perspectives but a duality much different, of self and world, or past and future. These are not two parallel perspectives being viewed by the same mind, they are different entirely. Yet you seem to want to attach your earlier thought about the act of reflection to these quite different things. And that's as far as my noggin' can take me. :-)

Yes, and I just created a continuity that smells just like us.

Let me pull this together as a process. There is a continuity, such, that in its coming apart, reveals a discontinuity. Turn that around, begin with the discontinuity revealed, and put it back together.

That is all I ever do around here, in one form or another. I am trying to show the way it comes apart by showing a way it came together.

My point: The way it comes apart is the way it came together. If that is not a fact, then all I am doing is making funny music. Which is fine by me. I like Bruckner.

add this to the 1 or 2 pile:

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/an- … -new-haven

A few idiotic thoughts:

If the timeless cannot be described in the language of time, then the timeless found in the future cannot be the timeless that cannot be found in the future.

Yes, definitely, you cannot go to it, but can it come to you? What is the question? Isn't it a question of waiting? Is there a waiting that does not take time? If not, it is coming from the future.

But what if that letting it come to you were only a metaphorical way of absolutely saying that you cannot go to it?

What then is the timeless? It is where one loses the thread of the self thought and gets lost in that lostness. It is where no one can enter, especially the temporal one.

Why is that? Because the door to that place is not in the future; that's why.

Hell, all one needs do then is lose their future, and the rest will be a history of the present unfolding.

Pablo wrote:

One of the (unfortunate, imo) aspects of Krishnamurti's teachings is his obsession with time. He uses 10,000 words in 10,000 permutations, with as much dull near-rote looping as early minimalist composers, to get at what can (again, imo) be gotten at so simply:

Be present.

If you're present (consciously here now) all the intellectual/analytical rigamarole about time takes care of itself.

Pablo, you may be spot on and you may be spot off. The way you have cast it can be read as spot on by myself and an another, and yet, when that other and myself compare notes we uncover the fact that our respective readings are categorically different.

For instance, such may be the case here between the two of us. The question that rises from what you have said is this: What does it mean, to be present; what does it mean, to be consciously here now? Is there one meaning to being consciously here now or are there two incommensurate meanings?

On that last question, I say that there are two incommensurate meanings and that that double meaning can only be uncovered existentially; and that by losing one's temporal sense of self.

It is not easy, this subject of subjectivity.

[edit corrected sloppy grammar]

Last edited by wilbro99 (2012-08-03 13:37:05)

wilbro99 wrote:

Pablo wrote:

Be present (consciously here/now).

What does it mean, to be present; what does it mean, to be consciously here now?

For me: Being present is not an esoteric technique that requires study/practice. It's something I know; it's in my nature. It doesn't need a mountain of words and abstractions to elucidate it. In fact, the less said about it the better. All that's required is a simple pointer, a reminder.

I'd be very surprised if this weren't true for most people. We all know how to do this thing, to be here/now, to feel it, experience it. It doesn't need to be learned.

That said, sure, some might benefit from a buncha words/analysis around it. We all learn differently.

Pablo Sitauskis wrote:

wilbro99 wrote:

Pablo wrote:

Be present (consciously here/now).

What does it mean, to be present; what does it mean, to be consciously here now?

For me: Being present is not an esoteric technique that requires study/practice. It's something I know; it's in my nature. It doesn't need a mountain of words and abstractions to elucidate it. In fact, the less said about it the better. All that's required is a simple pointer, a reminder.

I'd be very surprised if this weren't true for most people. We all know how to do this thing, to be here/now, to feel it, experience it. It doesn't need to be learned.

That said, sure, some might benefit from a buncha words/analysis around it. We all learn differently.

Completely insufficient for me Pablo. Time is a very big issue when your mind is timeless and you try to get at time for people to understand. What you describe about being present is  but a part of consciousness which is time, a result of time. To be present is time, to attach to the presence is also time. And especially when the presence is a continuity of the past. To become is also time. A thought moves that is time. So we need to look at it in all aspects of it. Timelessness is something extremely tremendous in its insightful revelation.

wilbro99 wrote:

stumpy, when that added is subtracted, that which is is that which was and that which will be is that which was; the temporal collapses upon itself and ceases to be.

Stumps, is it productive, do you think, to speak of differences, as opposed to knocking down everything said temporally?

In other words, do you have a thing against showing the difference verbally?

why gild the lily...

wilbro99 wrote:

why not?

carry on

Pablo Sitauskis wrote:

snguyen wrote:

Completely insufficient for me Pablo. Time is a very big issue when your mind is timeless and you try to get at time for people to understand. What you describe about being present is  but a part of consciousness which is time, a result of time. To be present is time, to attach to the presence is also time. And especially when the presence is a continuity of the past. To become is also time. A thought moves that is time. So we need to look at it in all aspects of it. Timelessness is something extremely tremendous in its insightful revelation.

You benefit from intellectual analysis of time. I enjoy it (sometimes), like I might enjoy any engaging story, but don't (afaik) benefit from it, in the sense of being present. The pointer's enough for me, without all the supplemental explanation.

Each to his own (way of learning), yes?

Not a single problem at all. But if we do really want to look at the truth, the whole of it all, that is where it goes the full nature of it. I cannot just ignore any engaging facts.

Therefore, to be possess'd with double pomp,
To guard a title that was rich before,
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

Shakespeare

wilbro99 wrote:

Where is the simple to be found...?

you're sitting on it

Pablo Sitauskis wrote:

One of the (unfortunate, imo) aspects of Krishnamurti's teachings is his obsession with time. He uses 10,000 words in 10,000 permutations, with as much dull near-rote looping as early minimalist composers, to get at what can (again, imo) be gotten at so simply:

Be present.

If you're present (consciously here now) all the intellectual/analytical rigamarole about time takes care of itself.

(that bit in the brackets makes for a spot of mischief)

but let's not critique nature or one of its by-products tendency to be repetitious
take sex, for example, its just the same thing over and over, but who's complaining!
what about planetary orbits, my god, so predictable!

early minimalist composers? are you talking about homo erectus and hollow logs?

RJ wrote:

Pablo Sitauskis wrote:

One of the (unfortunate, imo) aspects of Krishnamurti's teachings is his obsession with time. He uses 10,000 words in 10,000 permutations, with as much dull near-rote looping as early minimalist composers, to get at what can (again, imo) be gotten at so simply:

Be present.

but let's not critique nature or one of its by-products tendency to be repetitious take sex, for example, its just the same thing over and over, but who's complaining! what about planetary orbits, my god, so predictable!

Well, yeah, now that you mention it, a lot of my best friends repeat themselves / repeat themselves / repeat themselves / repeat themselves / repea-- ;-)