KFA - Krishnamurti Foundation of America

night wrote:

Tom wrote:

night wrote:

The censor/suppressor is a protection mechanism when there is overdose. Its function is to establish boundaries until you can face whatever there is to face. If the mind is not ready, it protects itself so. Same as the need to belong to a group.

Yes, but why does the mind have to be ready? Ready for what?

For anything, precisely. Ready to face the complexity of life, and its ultimate unpredictability. Ready to live unsheltered from the whole spectrum of living, from the sublime to the abject. To live untethered and without recoiling.

Yes, but if you are protected then you are not ready to face the complexity of life, are you? How can a protected mind meet anything except itself? Similarly, what does it mean to be ready if not also protected? It still implies a mind that has prepared itself to face the world. But how does it know what the world is going to offer?

Last edited by Tom (2012-03-09 15:26:29)

ilan_moorthi wrote:

Tom wrote:

You see, why do we say 'problem'? Why are we so quick to identify events, situations and even people as 'problems'?

The word 'problem' is used describe an unpleasurable feeling like anger, hate, fear and worry arise to an incident or assumption. Isn't it because of our parents and teachers created the idea what is right or order and told us all other events disorder? In engineering course a state is assumed safe or order based on certain critiera at first then all that do not meet the criteria identified as problems. Either on a paper or as a mental image. Maybe this is the first step taken during any incorrect situations. Maybe this gives a feeling of being in control of the situation.

Yes, we want to take control. It's very simple. Something arises up within oneself and the first impulse is to control it. If we don't control it, it may wipe us right away. Do you follow what I mean? It's a threat to our whole psychological stability. And to treat it as a problem is the first response because that brings in our artillery of words, concepts, memories, the complete arsenal of problem-solving skills. But the problem is me. The problem is not a bridge or a building that is falling down due to poor foundations or shoddy workmanship; the problem is me. So the very moment we say 'problem' that creates the 'me' at the same time, at that very instant. It creates a division between the 'me' that suffers and the 'me that solves the suffering. And so we solve the problem and the 'me' is strengthened. We have dealt with whatever it was that arose within us and we remember what to do about it the next time. For example, the next time we call it 'fear' and so we awaken all our remembered responses to fear. 

Is this clear so far? This is not playing, as Pearl suggests; far from it.

Tom wrote:

hermann wrote:

Yes 'certainty and security don't exist except as ideas'. But even the essential uncertainty of everything can easily become an idea. If I see it actually, there is no self; but I'm only parading it as a trophy of the truth before my own eyes. I'm not living face to face with that uncertainty. What to do?

Why don't I see clearly that ideas can only ever create insecurity?

Or would it be better to ask why we're constantly getting trapped in ideas?

What's the actual problem that you're dealing with here?

I don't know.  It seems to me that I'm trying to go back to some past understanding that is now utterly gone.  And the more I try to retrieve it, the duller my brain becomes.  There was a time when the complete uncertainty of everything had the power to arrest my mind.  Now everything has become dull.

Tom wrote:

pearl wrote:

Tom wrote:

You see, why do we say 'problem'? Why are we so quick to identify events, situations and even people as 'problems'?

Now, you're simply playing. Look, sir, you started with the word 'problem'. The word is not the problem. Look beyond the word. You can call it a crisis or a challenge or confusion, whatever, but there it is that which you must face.

What is it that we are facing? You're throwing a lot of other words - crisis, challenge, confusion - at the word 'problem'. But it's not the word I am objecting to. Why do we use a word at all - any word? That's my question.

Wait, wait, wait, sir.  Do you see that YOU are the problem?  The problem is YOU.  what happens when you see this.  No need for any verbal answers, analysis, just wondering with one and all.

Eden wrote:

pearl wrote:

Wait, wait, wait, sir.  Do you see that YOU are the problem?  The problem is YOU.  what happens when you see this.  No need for any verbal answers, analysis, just wondering with one and all.

Still wondering ay?

Eden, what is up? What is happening friend? Anything new? You seem kinda low key lately. I look forward to more of your sharing. You did not respond to anything I wrote about you a few days ago. I hope you didnt mind my sharing and opinions and thoughts.... Was only trying to help you, friend. Be well....

ilan_moorthi wrote:

Why there is so much dependence in this constant psychological learning (accumulation) and use (interpretation) of it? Why is there this need for physiological strength? Does life requires some strength, but psychological strength mistaken as right tool? This process doesn't seem a simple habit, but a process of suffering that has no end. Maybe failure to understand the nature of this operation is the continuity. The control, movement away, resistance - is that the real block?

What do you mean by 'psychological strength'?

Tom wrote:

hermann wrote:

Tom wrote:

What's the actual problem that you're dealing with here?

I don't know. It seems to me that I'm trying to go back to some past understanding that is now utterly gone. And the more I try to retrieve it, the duller my brain becomes. There was a time when the complete uncertainty of everything had the power to arrest my mind. Now everything has become dull.

So what's wrong with being dull?

I's that feeling of arrestment, of being stuck.  Of being inattentive, unable of being attentive.  For a while I would go back to that state of of complete uncertainty, but with ever-diminishing returns.  It had become a memory, and that memory is now blocking access to the state itself.

The uncertainty surely is a fact, but that feeling of elation - of freedom - that flowed from the fact, that has become a memory, a somewhat addictive memory.  It must be brushed aside if one wants to live in the present.  The present being to only fact that has any relevance.  Then one may even rediscover the complete uncertainty of everything.

ilan_moorthi wrote:

Tom wrote:

What do you mean by 'psychological strength'?

Knowing in advance that physical needs and somewhat transparent psychological needs will be fulfilled. Knowing that myself, the surrounding environment, relationships and future will support and supply the expectations. A trust in the images for survival of me may be a strength that guarantees the psychological existence.

But there is no such thing as 'knowing in advance' when it comes to psychological matters. Is there even a future at all, psychologically? In order for there to exist a definite psychological future there has to exist first of all a definite psychological present. Is there such a thing?

Jayaraj wrote:

Yes, there is thinking without a thinker. This is technical thought. To say 'my thoughts' means an image is there. Is that right? So thinker comes into being when there is an image. Is that correct?

I have an image about you or an opinion about you. That image or opinion is stored away somewhere in my memory and forms what I call and think of as 'me': my opinions, my prejudices, my principles, my beliefs, my likes and dislikes and so on. Without all those images and opinions, is there a 'me' at all? Probably not. So I am actually nothing but this collection of memories that comes into play whenever I meet you or meet a new situation or person. If those memories don't start to operate within me, who is present when I'm meeting you? No-one. And yet why do those memories operate? Is it not partly habit? Is it not partly fear? And all the time you are meeting me in exactly the same way. Therefore what is actually taking place between us is that fear is meeting fear, habit is meeting habit. That's all. And there may be a totally different way of meeting. But we can't meet in any new or different way unless that entire bank of memories is dead. And apparently that's what we won't do: we won't die to all that. Either we say, 'Well, some memories are important; some memories protect me,' or we say something absurd like, 'Yes, I am dead to all those memories.' In the course of saying, 'Yes, I am dead to all those memories,' we have merely replaced one set of opinions with another set. So something else of an entirely different nature has to occur if we are to meet one another.

It's an immense problem all this and yet we seem to skim over it very superficially and offers lots of trite intellectual solutions. Or, chiefly, we make it into our own personal problem and then we're lost again.

hermann wrote:

It may well be that there is nothing wrong with being dull - being what you are. Not that one should wipe away that layer of dullness. Yet the dullness seems to constitute - if one looks at it with patience - the kind of energy that seeks its own order. Like seeing through a glass darkly. The dullness may well be able to supply all the meaning that we need to see. If it's just a matter of reading my dullness correctly. Dullness yielding to uncertainty.

There's nothing wrong or right with it. But I am that, whatever it is.

And is it that I'd rather be dull than be nothing at all? Is it that I'd rather be something than be nothing? In order to be something, there has to be a distance between myself and that dullness. I can't call myself dull unless I am able to observe it and identify it as dullness as though from a distance.

Last edited by Tom (2012-03-13 15:55:15)

awareness wrote:

Tom wrote:

You're asking me if I fear death. Which 'me' are you asking? The 'me' from childhood? The 'me' from last year? The 'me' from ten years hence?

A very good description of a fact.  So the fear as thought, which represents the past, which is dead.  So do we want to live with an illusion, with a non-fact?  If we live with a non-fact as the first step the next step would be also a non-fact.  A non-fact is a lie.  If we live with a lie and cry for security, fear is the result because of the non-fact.  If the fact is seen, the lack of the lie is the lack of fear and the beginning of total security, which is a fact.

Probably facts are not important at all. What matters is the nature of the mind that is looking at the facts. How does the mind look at death?

Tom wrote:

hermann wrote:

It may well be that there is nothing wrong with being dull - being what you are. Not that one should wipe away that layer of dullness. Yet the dullness seems to constitute - if one looks at it with patience - the kind of energy that seeks its own order. Like seeing through a glass darkly. The dullness may well be able to supply all the meaning that we need to see. If it's just a matter of reading my dullness correctly. Dullness yielding to uncertainty.

There's nothing wrong or right with it. But I am that, whatever it is.

And is it that I'd rather be dull than be nothing at all? Is it that I'd rather be something than be nothing? In order to be something, there has to be a distance between myself and that dullness. I can't call myself dull unless I am able to observe it and identify it as dullness as though from a distance.

So is all this desire to give it a name merely an escape?  An escape from what?  An escape from being nothing?  Or an escape from the feeling of dullness?