KFA - Krishnamurti Foundation of America

So, Slowly Developing Sage, have you answered your own question yet?  Is Bohm worthwhile to you?

In the past, I have experimented with reading "The ending of Time", the book of dialogues between K and Bohm.

Sometimes I would just read K and skip Bohm. And at other times, I would just read Bohms replies and skip K's.

Both have their unique contributions to share....

I do like Bohms constant questioning of K and asking for K to clarify, for further clarification and precision and simplification....

sds wrote:

I was just asking based on what you wrote in the previous reply, that he was on this side of the shore and K was on the other side. It just seemed like the logical thing to ask next, after reading that.

Ah, i see. So let's say, as I see it, there's Bohm the physicist and curious about metaphisical issues. He is tremendously worthwile in himself, whether or not you are curious or interested in K.
And then there is Bohm the guy who, because he had an intellectual capacity that most of us do not have, grasped K in a 'less confused' way. Let's say that I have sometimes had this happen to me: K said something and Bohm sort of 'translated' it into 'humanese', making it clearer (with K in front of him approving, obviously). So, in this role, he is sort of a go between who manages to make what K says clearer. But he is still on *this* shore because ... well, K 's mind obviously somewhere else entirely.

Incidentally, I have stopped needing Bohm in *this* role because what K say is now, at least intellectually, clear to me. But the interest in Bohm the scientist and phylosopher (which he was after all) remains.

hope this is clearer now

sds wrote:

I do like Bohms constant questioning of K and asking for K to clarify, for further clarification and precision and simplification....

for the sake of the public, because he himself did not need any.

Teulada wrote:

sds wrote:

I do like Bohms constant questioning of K and asking for K to clarify, for further clarification and precision and simplification....

for the sake of the public, because he himself did not need any.

Oh I think K got insight about relationship via these questions.  While K may well have known exactly what it was to him, his skill in delivering this information to the public was lacking in clarity on these points and has caused much confusion, confusion still present in those who took what he said a certain way.

Teulada wrote:

sds wrote:

I was just asking based on what you wrote in the previous reply, that he was on this side of the shore and K was on the other side. It just seemed like the logical thing to ask next, after reading that.

Ah, i see. So let's say, as I see it, there's Bohm the physicist and curious about metaphisical issues. He is tremendously worthwile in himself, whether or not you are curious or interested in K.
And then there is Bohm the guy who, because he had an intellectual capacity that most of us do not have, grasped K in a 'less confused' way. Let's say that I have sometimes had this happen to me: K said something and Bohm sort of 'translated' it into 'humanese', making it clearer (with K in front of him approving, obviously). So, in this role, he is sort of a go between who manages to make what K says clearer. But he is still on *this* shore because ... well, K 's mind obviously somewhere else entirely.

Incidentally, I have stopped needing Bohm in *this* role because what K say is now, at least intellectually, clear to me. But the interest in Bohm the scientist and phylosopher (which he was after all) remains.

hope this is clearer now

Yes, very clear. Thank you for your contributions. I am really enjoying a sincere thread for a change, where people can come and discuss a topic without all the usual going ons.

I have very similar thoughts, perceptions on this matter and it is nice to see them on the screen, so eloquently stated.

This ties in to what I shared, that many knew K, had many dialogues with him, were closely associated with him, like Dr Bohm, and yet were not like K, they were still coming from the intellect or what not. K was on a totally different wavelength...

Eden wrote:

farmer wrote:

I think bohm material is worth reading. He seemed better able to put into words their dialogues.They both seemed to take their dialogues and move together when speaking . Seemed their purpose was that the listener would be caught up in the dialogue.Then people begin to ask some real tough questions that ordinarily they may never ask.Bohm had his own ideas about the limitations of language.Yes bohms material worthwhile.

Bohm had some worthwhile observations?  Name one.

Here are some quotes from Dr David Bohm, each and every one of them are worthwhile, dont you think? Well, maybe you are not the right one to ask in this thread :-) But for the others, enjoy.....

"I would say that in my scientific and philosophical work, my main concern has been with understanding the nature of reality in general and of consciousness in particular as a coherent whole, which is never static or complete but which is an unending process of movement and unfoldment...."

D. Bohm, _Wholeness and the Implicate Order_, p.ix

"Then there is the further question of what is the relationship of thinking to reality. As careful attention shows, thought itself is in an actual process of movement. That is to say, one can feel a sense of flow in the stream of consciousness not dissimilar to the sense of flow in the movement of matter in general. May not thought itself thus be a part of reality as a whole? But then, what could it mean for one part of reality to 'know' another, and to what extent would this be possible?"

D. Bohm, _Wholeness and the Implicate Order_, p. ix

"...awakening...the process of dialogue itself as a free flow of meaning among all the participants. In the beginning, people were expressing fixed positions, which they were tending to defend, but later it became clear that to maintain the feeling of friendship in the group was much more important than to hold any position. Such friendship has an impersonal quality in the sense that its establishment does not depend on a close personal relationship between participants. A new kind of mind thus beings to come into being which is based on the development of a common meaning that is constantly transforming in the process of the dialogue. People are no longer primarily in opposition, nor can they be said to be interacting, rather they are participating in this pool of common meaning which is capable of constant development and change. In this development the group has no pre-established purpose, though at each moment a purpose that is free to change may reveal itself. The group thus begins to engage in a new dynamic relationship in which no speaker is excluded, and in which no particular content is excluded. Thus far we have only begun to explore the possibilities of dialogue in the sense indicated here, but going further along these lines would open up the possibility of transforming not only the relationship between people, but even more, the very nature of consciousness in which these relationships arise."

D. Bohm, _Unfolding Meaning_, p. 175

"Indeed, for both the rich and the poor, life is dominated by an ever growing current of problems, most of which seem to have no real and lasting solution. Clearly we have not touched the deeper causes of our troubles. It is the main point of this book that the ultimate source of all these problems is in thought itself, the very thing of which our civilization is most proud, and therefore the one thing that is "hidden" because of our failure seriously to engage with its actual working in our own individual lives and in the life of society."

D. Bohm & Mark Edwards, _Changing Consciousness_, p. x

"If [man] thinks of the totality as constituted of independent fragments, then that is how his mind will tend to operate, but if he can include everything coherently and harmoniously in an overall whole that is undivided, unbroken, and without a border then his mind will tend to move in a similar way, and from this will flow an orderly action within the whole."

D. Bohm, _Wholeness and the Implicate Order_, p. xi

"My suggestion is that at each state the proper order of operation of the mind requires an overall grasp of what is generally known, not only in formal logical, mathematical terms, but also intuitively, in images, feelings, poetic usage of language, etc. (Perhaps we could say that this is what is involved in harmony between the 'left brain' and the 'right brain'). This kind of overall way of thinking is not only a fertile source of new theoretical ideas: it is needed for the human mind to function in a generally harmonious way, which could in turn help to make possible an orderly and stable society."

D. Bohm, _Wholeness and the Implicate Order_, p.xiv

"Suppose you have two religions. Thought defines religion - the thought about the nature of God and various questions like that. Such thought is very important because it is about God, who is supposed to be supreme. The thought about what is of supreme value must have the highest force. So if you disagree about that, the emotional impact can be very great, and you will then have no way to settle it. Two different beliefs about God will thus produce intense fragmentation - similarly with thoughts about the nature of society, which is also very important, or with ideologies such as communism and capitalism, or with different beliefs about your family or about your money. Whatever it is that is very important to you, fragmentation in your thought about it is going to be very powerful in its effects."

D. Bohm & Mark Edwards, _Changing Consciousness_, p. 11

"Difference exist because thought develops like a stream that happens to go one way here and another way there. Once it develops it produces real physical results that people are looking at, but they don't see where these results are coming from - that's one of the basic features of fragmentation. When they have produced these divisions they see that real things have happened, to they'll start with these real things as if they just suddenly got there by themselves, or evolved in nature by themselves. That's [a] mistake that thought makes. It produces a result, and then it says, I didn't do it; it's there by itself, and I must correct it. But if thought is constantly making this result and then saying, 'I've got to stop it', this is absurd. Because thought is caught up in this absurdity, it is producing all sorts of negative consequences, then treating them as independent and saying, I must stop them."

D. Bohm & Mark Edwards, _Changing Consciousness_, p. 14

"[Thought] seems to have some inertia, a tendency to continue. It seems to have a necessity that we keep on doing it. However ... we often find that we cannot easily give up the tendency to hold rigidly to patterns of thought built up over a long time. We are then caught up in what may be called absolute necessity. This kind of thought leaves no room at all intellectually for any other possibility, while emotionally and physically, it means we take a stance in our feelings, in our bodies, and indeed, in our whole culture, of holding back or resisting. This stance implies that under no circumstances whatsoever can we allow ourselves to give up certain things or change them."

D. Bohm & Mark Edwards, _Changing Consciousness_, p. 15

"If I am right in saying that thought is the ultimate origin or source, it follows that if we don't do anything about thought, we won't get anywhere. We may momentarily relieve the population problem, the ecological problem, and so on, but they will come back in another way."

D. Bohm & Mark Edwards, _Changing Consciousness, p. 25

"Of course, one of the main legitimate functions of thought has always been to help provide security, guaranteeing shelter and food for instance. However, this function went wrong when the principle source of insecurity came to be the operation of thought itself."

D. Bohm & Mark Edwards, _Changing Consciousness_, p. 84

"...it is proposed that a form of free dialogue may well be one of the most effective ways of investigating the crisis which faces society, and indeed the whole of human nature and consciousness today. Moreover, it may turn out that such a form of free exchange of ideas and information is of fundamental relevance for transforming culture and freeing it of destructive misinformation, so that creativity can be liberated."

David Bohm & David Peat, _Science Order, and Creativity_, p 240

"A key difference between a dialogue and an ordinary discussion is that, within the latter people usually hold relatively fixed positions and argue in favor of their views as they try to convince others to change. At best this may produce agreement or compromise, but it does not give rise to anything creative."

David Bohm & David Peat, _Science Order, and Creativity_, p. 241

"What is essential here is the presence of the spirit of dialogue, which is in short, the ability to hold many points of view in suspension, along with a primary interest in the creation of common meaning."

David Bohm & David Peat, _Science Order, and Creativity_, p.247

sds wrote:

From "Knowledge as endarkenment."

Those observations are hardly worthwhile...I was well aware of all that when I was in middle school. Literally.

And as for oil shortages....hah.....there was no shortage back then, nor is there one presently.  So he was smoking crack.

Dialogue is worthless/impossible as long as there is fragmentation, obviously. But why do two minds free of duality/fragmentation need to dialogue about anything??  ....other than very practical stuff like gardening or fishing.

Eden,

In the quotes provided by SDS Bohm is supposed to have said more about thought. That thought became the principle source of insecurity. Not just the quotation you picked.

You have not given logic & reason to counter the point I raised.

Saying 'you are nuts' is no argument.

My neighbor planted some guava a long long time ago because he believe it would bring him good luck. He moved away but I ate some of the guavas just recently in fact....which I guess means that I ate fruit that isn't part of this universe.  Apparently my body now contains nutrients from another unreal universe!  Holy $&!# that's brilliant Jayaraj.