KFA - Krishnamurti Foundation of America

T wrote:

Will is all ears but not all heart.
Roots has his heart in this, but Will is just having an intellectual ball. …

You pegged it to a T T.  My purpose here is to help people realize their intellectual potential. If someone is serious, I have not chance one.

T wrote:

You two can never commune/communicate - as in seeing something at the same level, at the same time, with the same intensity... (now, where did I get that from...?)

Yes, maybe there is hope for you intellectually after all. Naw, just kidding…

<shrug>

T

<chuckle>

William Iodine Brown; Esq.

edit corrected spelling error

Last edited by wilbro99 (2012-03-29 14:27:34)

wilbro99 wrote:

Hi Roots, I am all ears, as they are wont to say...

Ok.

See what you think of this:

We come here with our opinions - our understandings you'd probably tag it - and it seems to me we pretty much sit in the driving seat of those understandings and steer at one another. This is neither a good nor even a fitting formula.

None of us is K or anything like, because we simply haven't got there; the reason for that being that we just haven't figured it all out yet. When we understand it all aright - the message seems to be - it's job done; the understanding itself effortlessly erradicating the blocking factor(s).

Be that as it may and whether or not you might wholeheartedly agree with that particular snippet, the point is that we seem to have this 'driving at one another' approach, which seems to me a mistake and the cause of shed-loads of friction. You and I were determined not to get back to the dobbin and yet, what happenend? We ended up pretty much back there; which if it proves nothing else it proves - since we ran awry from our very own determined intentions - that we aren't in proper control of ourselves.

Now, if you will allow me to take it as a given that we are neither of us in the condition of K (JC or Buddha, etc.), which means that we do not know, then how about we board the bus together and take some seats in tandem for the ride?: such circumstance better reflecting any true comparison of our actual positional relationship in it all than the other, the 'driving seat' thing.

So, we are moving forward in a state of unknowing. This has to be so because we are not perfect and anything short of perfect is nothing to do with perfect; agreed? White has nothing to do with black and the tiniest speck of black in a bucket of white makes for no whiteness.

Having said that, we have come to a state or condition in which our outlook is nothing like all the rest of (i.e. non-human) life on the planet, because we have become aware of something needfull of understanding. That in itself represents a chink of light in the wall at which we both stare.

So we have some light already. Can we work on that, or from there? I'm fast running out of my allocated time here on the public library computer (to which I have cycled 7 miles so bear with me and be lenient ha, ha!).

wilbro99 wrote:

You and I are about to engage in a thought experiment.

Would you say so? I would have been more inclined to think we would be dealing with hard and proven (at least for our two individual selves) facts. Surely to deal in anything less would be a bit pointless?

To work. You and I are to return to the place where we, as creatures capable of performing a thought experiment, first came upon the sense of presence that allows a reflection upon that event to take place.

If we were to be dealing in the facts of our two life experiences rather than in the ilk of 'thought experiments', would we really have to go delving back time consumingly? Surely we could cover that ground to our present standing pretty quickly couldn't we? After all, that ground is certain to be virtually identical: there is only one 'wrong' and we both have it.

I think you, as a scholar, . . . .

I am (was) a washing machine repair man.

If I am off the track you have in mind, relocate me.

Did I do that?

You see, what I feel am reading here in your response is suspicion willy. Nobody is about to try to trip you up or humiliate you.

wilbro99 wrote:

Ok, the ball is in your hands. I knocked the last one out of bounds.

We shall be dealing with two life experiences. Serve again.

The 3rd chapter (The Night Shadows) of the 1st book of Dicken's 'A Tale of Two Cities' begins thus:

A wonderful fact to behold: that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.
        A solemn consideration when I enter a great city by night; that every one of those darkly clustered houses, encloses its own secret. That every room in every one of them, encloses its own secret. That every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest to it. Something of the awfulness, even of death itself, is referable to this. No more can I turn the leaves of this dear book that I loved, and vainly hope, in time, to read it all. No more can I look into this unfathomable water, wherein, as momentary lights glanced into it, I've had glimpses of buried treasure, and other things submerged. It was a pointer that the book should shut with a spring, forever and forever, when I had read but a page. It was a pointer that the water should be locked in an eternal frost, and the light was playing on its surface, that I stood in ignorance on the shore. My friend is dead; my neighbour is dead; my love, the darling of my soul, is dead. It is the inexorable consolidation and perpetuation of the secret that was always in that individuality, and which I shall carry in mine, to my life's end. In any of the burial places in this city through which I pass, is there a sleeper more inscrutable than its busy inhabitants are, in their innermost personality, to me, or as I am to them?

His obervation is of course accurate, but this particular pronounced affect of our human psychology does not represent the whole story, because though our interrelations are indeed pretty much as he there describes, nevertheless we all sit in the same psychological place; which is to say we are as one in it, the dark.

It is simply this that motivates me to try this new approach willy. We can never (and it is not a good idea anyway) get anywhere by supposing ourselves in different places at and from the outset, and then driving at one another in the hope of bringing them into line with our own particular brand of darkness.

So if you're still willing to join me in some side by side and forward facing seating, I will, as you request, provide another 'service ball' as follows:

We are looking at a wall. What we know, i.e. our experience, is (I stoop to presume) the same thing, viz. amongst some pleasures which never seem quite the full shilling, hurt, frustration, etc., etc., etc., and at best, because we are accustomed to dealing with it so, we accept a situation of perpetual compromise. You cannot, we philosophize, have it all-ways-up.

There is something or things we don't know and that/those somethings linger out of sight behind - if I might use the metaphor - a wall. It's natural to suppose that what might be behind the wall then is 'the truth' of the matter, but logic tells us that cannot be the case because the truth is all around us; our-side, the wall itself, and the other side of the wall is all 'what is' and hence 'the true'. So what lies hidden behind the wall can only, if it is not the true, be the other.

May I see what if anything you have to say about that willy?

The plans fell through, I got back early, hence:


Roots, setting aside all of the difference between where we sit in this matter, I am left with the following puzzle; the logic of your last paragraph. I am befuddled to the point where I must take it line by line and think out loud about it as I move along.

Perhaps that is best because your request is for what I think about it, and coming at that request befuddled will let you know what I have to say about it.

<< There is something or things we don't know and that/those somethings linger out of sight behind - if I might use the metaphor - a wall. …>>

My first thought is that the only thing I know about things that I do not know is I can only say that I did not know that until that which I did not know became known. I guess I am saying that I cannot know what I do not know until I come to know it.

I am stuck with that because that thought is the upshot of an insight into a task I had set for myself, that finding a structure to hold a seminal insight, where, after years of trying, came upon another insight; namely, that if what I was trying to do could not be done, I could try forever and never find that out.

So, I could just as well place that something, or those somethings, in a black box, as opposed to behind a wall. My difficulty here is that my thought process creates two possible forms to wall off that which is not known; and that where I find myself in relation to each form is an absolutely different place.

If I think one of them, a black box, I create category that holds the unknown, and if I think the other of them, a wall, I become the occupant of a sphere with the unknown as containing me as the content.

I think what I am doing is drawing a bright line between the abstract and that abstracted from, where the subject, in this case, is the unknown. if it is unknown, than I cannot logically say which it is.

Until such time that the answer is revealed to me, I am in the dark as to which.

Ok, that run of thought is over.

<<… It's natural to suppose that what might be behind the wall then is 'the truth' of the matter, but logic tells us that cannot be the case because the truth is all around us; our-side, the wall itself, and the other side of the wall is all 'what is' and hence 'the true'. So what lies hidden behind the wall can only, if it is not the true, be the other. …>>

I get the sense that something is out of alignment, or out of focus. I am not sure how it's natural to suppose something I cannot suppose. The if-then structure you offer applies only to the wall. I cannot imagine the truth being in the black box; that would make it is grey box.

Ok, that settles the first part of my befuddle; one of the two forms I see will not hold the truth.

But the truth is all around us, so it cannot be a sole property of the other side of the wall, so the other side of the wall must be whatever is on the other side of the wall.

Ok, let me see if I can translate that into black box terms. I don't think so; there is nothing in the black box but the possibility. I think there must be a being beyond that wall, else it could not contain what it contains.

Fine, let me set the black box aside, and see if I can follow the way you are thinking here. At first blush, it seems logical if confined to its own axiomatic structure, but I need to think it through.

If I am the content, there must be a container. If that content is the world I find myself in, then that container must be *the container*.

If the unknown is *the container*, it is beyond knowing, and hence, the other. Period. Unqualified. Yes, the notion of a wall, as opposed to a black box ends up there.

I don't see why I should entertain the wall as opposed to the black box, but that is another story for another time.

<<… May I see what if anything you have to say about that willy? >>

Ok, I have bracketed off the black box. I follow the logic that creates an absolute other. In a sense, the logic has reified itself as the true thought.

If you will accept my last thought, we have a go.

Whew, that came out unfuddled. All I had to do was set aside the abstract. I learned something new.

[edit corrected a grammatical error only]

Last edited by wilbro99 (2012-04-02 14:54:19)

Roots, you speak to sitting side by side and pondering the same thing. I run into this difficulty: The subject matter is such that even were we to be sitting side by side, there is an infinite gap between us. Let me say what I mean:

<< We are looking at a wall. What we know, i.e. our experience, is (I stoop to presume) the same thing, viz. amongst some pleasures which never seem quite the full shilling, hurt, frustration, etc., etc., etc., and at best, because we are accustomed to dealing with it so, we accept a situation of perpetual compromise. You cannot, we philosophize, have it all-ways-up. …>>

I let slide this the first time through. I think I need to pick it up. The thought here being that you and I can only find one thing in common, that being our difference. If we were looking for a same, that same, if such existed, would always appear as different.

Perhaps what it shows is that our difference is the most basic one; you and I are not talking about the same experience, where the experience is the thing, and which means that you and I are not speaking to the same thing.

That would be the given. That is where you and I begin; we are sitting side by side alright, but there is an absolute difference between us, like two infinite planes with an everywhere gap between them (Euclid's parallel lines).

This visualizes an absolute difference. The wall is between us. That is where we begin. That is where we are facing the same direction. We both have come to see an absolute difference in an absolutely different way.

As I see it, you see that absolute difference as between what–is and its source. As I see it, I see that absolute difference as between two ways of thinking self.

Perhaps that is the form we have been looking for.

There are two ways of entertaining the meaning of self.

Both ways require a difference.

In one way, that difference of self is between the partial self and the whole self as between a false-I and the-I.

In another way, that difference of self is between the temporal grasp of self and the presential grasp of self.

Yes, it could be that you and I read the same experienced discontinuity in absolutely different ways.

wilbro99 wrote:

I think I can now layout a form that explains why I see us speaking to the same error; what you would call the pseudo-I and what I would tag as a temporal sense of self.

Whereas I allow for a transcendental misstep, you do not.

The revelation of that misstep reveals the error of the transcendental step.

This clears the temporal sense of self of both forms of time.

You see the error as the taking on of a self in the first and only place.

Thus we become the error and give ourselves to the truth.

This segues back to a singular sin, as self-consciousness, or an error made in coming into the world, where we find ourselves in that world in the wrong way.

Well, you could say that, and you and I would agree.

I'm thinking you find it too tedious to bear.

There is no sin, or any absolute willy, though I fully understand why you struggle so to escape from the idea (of the latter). I suspect that even the 'black box' - as a completely separate 'entity' - represents it; you fight so hard to escape from the notion and from the idea that you hold it, but you do, and so you cannot. And beg don't let that agravate, or read as patronising, there's no intention of either.

We have a creature in the world which has developed to the point of consciousness of himself, and he has the capacity to fully complete his evolutionary 'trip'. The only thing in his way is the fact that his brain still operates in the mode it has become accustomed to for all the entire previous eaons of his evolution (you have to remember all is one, so it evolves as one, in the visualisable form of a sludge if you like, so it drips or trickles through the finish gate). Though he knows something is amiss, he fails to spot or realise that this is what it is - himself, his own brain's modus op. It is this which sits behind 'the wall', the details of this modus op, but he is too in attached to the (pseudo) 'I' which it projects that he is lost in, and to, that factor. The extraordinary power of this projected 'I' is such that, it's owner being constantly fooled into the idea that it is all powerful but still feeling a lack, has no option but to invent a greater, call it 'god' or a fantastical 'black box' or whatever; it is always there and can never go away from a mind so structured.

You have an opportunity to spot what is going on willy, don't throw it away.

wilbro99 wrote:

In response to your # 63, I think you have clarified your position clearly enough for me to describe the difference between us.

You didn't respond to my #60. Consider the reason why.

We are a creature who has evolved to the point of becoming aware of being the creature who has evolved to the point of becoming self-aware. This becoming aware of oneself is the finding of oneself in the world one has found oneself in.

All I am saying there is that we are this creature who has come upon this *consciousness of oneself*.

Does this differ in substance from my statement? I could have and would just of readily said 'we'. It's what I meant of course. Do you feel you see some significance in the difference?

There seems to be a problem with this finding, and that because we find that this finding something that we are trying to bring about a change in.  . . .

In the church and every other faulted way, yes, of course, it's what K is at pains to point out. But it is not an error that belongs to his description or to mine.

Our history is replete with descriptions of what that problem and how it is to be solved.

Indeed. But time to time a one sees through the issue and gets both the description and its resolution in clear perspective: K is such a one and I read him clearly.

You and I describe the genesis of this problem differently, and I think the reason for that has to do with what we see as the solution.

To reiterate: K describes the problem and its solution perfectly and I am independently in perfect alignment with his perceptions.

I am saying that what we see as the solution to the problem defines the problem, whether that solution is offered by another, or we, in stumbling across a solution, are left with the puzzle of what it must look like to solve as it does, thus coming upon our own definition of the problem.

There is K's description - true for all the ages - and there are a multitude of erroneous alternatives, which are the ones you indicated in your paragraph "Our history is replete . . . " above.

With you and I, the description of the problem is given as the upshot of the solution we have come upon.

Yes, I think that's fair comment.

I am offering up the possibility that the problem is an elephant, and that there is the tail solution, the trunk solution, the leg solution, the tusk solution, and even a dung solution.

I know; and as I have pointed out to you before, if this is thought through to its logical conclusion, it ends us precisely where we are, with a different (none) solution (just as we at present stand) for every extant and future Homo sapiens.

This leaves us with the solution as an art, and where the description of the problem itself is not necessary.

Indeed, an 'art', better described in this particular as a philosophy, or scientifio/philosophy. Which is to say - positively counter K's descriptions - that the solution lies within the brain's operational sphere and capacity. This is the same brain of course which cannot but produce a transcendental, or 'black box of possibilities'.

Let's see where we are.

- - -- --- -----

R: <You have an opportunity to spot what is going on willy, don't throw it away. >

And how would I throw it away? Just curious as to what you are saying here. No response necessary.

- - -- --- -----

w: <In response to your # 63, I think you have clarified your position clearly enough for me to describe the difference between us.>

R: <You didn't respond to my #60. Consider the reason why.>

As I said just previously, I did not want to get into a war of metaphors.

- - -- --- -----

w: <We are a creature who has evolved to the point of becoming aware of being the creature who has evolved to the point of becoming self-aware. This becoming aware of oneself is the finding of oneself in the world one has found oneself in. All I am saying there is that we are this creature who has come upon this *consciousness of oneself*.>

R: <Does this differ in substance from my statement? I could have and would just of readily said 'we'. It's what I meant of course. Do you feel you see some significance in the difference?>

I said above that I think I saw the positional difference between us. What I am doing here is laying out a canvas of givens upon which I am going to paint that difference.

- - -- --- -----

w: <There seems to be a problem with this finding, and that because we find that this finding [is] something that we are trying to bring about a change in. >

R: <In the church and every other faulted way, yes, of course, it's what K is at pains to point out. But it is not an error that belongs to his description or to mine.>

I am still stretching out the canvas here.

- - -- --- -----

w: <Our history is replete with descriptions of what that problem and how it is to be solved.>

R: <Indeed. But time to time a one sees through the issue and gets both the description and its resolution in clear perspective: K is such a one and I read him clearly.>

I am still stretching out the canvas.

- - -- --- -----

w: <You and I describe the genesis of this problem differently, and I think the reason for that has to do with what we see as the solution.>

R: <To reiterate: K describes the problem and its solution perfectly and I am independently in perfect alignment with his perceptions.>

Now I am beginning to paint.

w: <I am saying that what we see as the solution to the problem defines the problem, whether that solution is offered by another, or we, in stumbling across a solution, are left with the puzzle of what it must look like to solve as it does, thus coming upon our own definition of the problem.>

R: There is K's description - true for all the ages - and there are a multitude of erroneous alternatives, which are the ones you indicated in your paragraph "Our history is replete . . . " above.>

The difference I am painting here is that the solution to the problem of self, of consciousness, that we come across determines the description of the problem that we have solved.

- - -- --- -----

w: <With you and I, the description of the problem is given as the upshot of the solution we have come upon.>

R: <Yes, I think that's fair comment.>

And I have, with that, signed my painting.

- - -- --- -----

w: <I am offering up the possibility that the problem is an elephant, and that there is the tail solution, the trunk solution, the leg solution, the tusk solution, and even a dung solution.

R; <I know; and as I have pointed out to you before, if this is thought through to its logical conclusion, it ends us precisely where we are, with a different (none) solution (just as we at present stand) for every extant and future Homo sapiens.>

I am not sure what you are saying there. In my view of the problem/solution complex, the difficulty is one of communicating what we have come across.

- - -- --- -----

w: <This leaves us with the solution as an art, and where the description of the problem itself is not necessary.>

R: <Indeed, an 'art', better described in this particular as a philosophy, or scientifio/philosophy. Which is to say - positively counter K's descriptions - that the solution lies within the brain's operational sphere and capacity. This is the same brain of course which cannot but produce a transcendental, or 'black box of possibilities'.>

I am saying that there is one error in consciousness, and that that error takes the shape of the consciousness conceived in that error. This is why you and I can speak generally to the manifestations of that error.

I am saying that the solution to the problem of self can only be obtained by the one who has come across that error, that no other can solve the problem that one must solve for themselves if it is to be solved.

Where you see JK as meeting your mark, I see SK doing the same to my mark. I discovered both after my mark had been made, and I find SK precise where I find JK amorphous.

Well, at least you and I have been civil here. Mutual exploration is what I am after in this forum, and it is so difficult to come by.

RJ wrote:

willy wrote:

… Well, at least you and I have been civil here. Mutual exploration is what I am after in this forum, and it is so difficult to come by.

yeah b-b-b-b-but...
how can you explore something if you already know what it is?

or put another way

what is your question exactly?

yours sincerely

Ransacking Jihadist (the Uncivil)
son of
Rampant Jaywalker (the Unwashed)

Hello Royal Jester, the King's fool being the wisest mean in the kingdom, you have caught me out; I was very sloppy.

I have long since given up getting another to see what I think they should see, and that for two reasons.

First, if there is an error to be seen, only the one making the error can see it, and that when they catch themselves making it.

Second, since the error is personal to the one making it, that seeing is going to be cast in terms of that seeing, which is the personal.

What I was thinking of there was of any two of us comparing notes on the error. Like what it seems to be, what differences the seeing brings into focus, and more or less what would it take for us to agree that we are speaking to the same error.

So, that is what I was referring to; thanks for making me clarify!

wilbro99 wrote:

Where you see JK as meeting your mark, I see SK doing the same to my mark. I discovered both after my mark had been made, and I find SK precise where I find JK amorphous.

May I ask then, amiably (but not for the first time by any stretch, as you will recall) why you choose a site of the former rather than one for the later? Is it a wish of yours to 'hejemicate' the K crew into a better - if only in the sense of cleaner - perspective?

Well, at least you and I have been civil here. Mutual exploration is what I am after in this forum, and it is so difficult to come by.

Yes . . . .  the seating arrangement don't you know. It really boils down to the same as K tried constantly to promote . . .  i.e., that 'we explore it together'.

P.s. I see your 'black box' response as an evasion  . . .  for the record, it's one of the three.

willy: "Mutual exploration is what I am after in this forum, and it is so difficult to come by."

Roots: "Care to explore any of the areas in which you see SK's perspectives clearer than JK's? Only if you'd care to of course."

Hello Rootsy-Tootsy, I had occasion to mindlessly sit for some hours today, and during that stint, I let my thoughts mull over your response. I think I see a way clear for us to make progress here.

Just got in and will need to work it up, but I thought it best to let you know I am not ignoring you. Ha!

wilbro99 wrote:

Would you not agree that there is no way for the one who is the problem to separate themselves from the problem, as is possible with any one of JK's descriptions?

trying to separate oneself from the problem, is the problem.

T