Daily Quote, Monday August 24, 2009.
Good morning everyone,
Not too bad with the hurricane yesterday, it seems. More of a tropical storm in the end, and more fun than disaster for most. I thought, as I was outside, the rain was warm and heavy enough that you could take a shower in it!
Here is today's quote:
The self is still the self at any level you may place it.
Can I be aware of my greed, of my envy, from moment to moment? These feelings are expressions of the 'me', of the self, are they not? The self is still the self at any level you may place it; whether it is the higher self or the lower self, it is still within the field of thought. And can I be aware of these things as they arise from moment to moment?
Can I discover for myself the activities of my ego when I am eating, talking at table, when I am playing, when I am listening, when I am with a group of people? Can I be aware of the accumulated resentments, of the desire to impress, to be somebody? Can I discover that I am greedy and be aware of my condemnation of greed? The very word greed is a condemnation, is it not?
To be aware of greed is also to be aware of the desire to be free from it and to see why one wants to be free from it - the whole process. This is not a very complicated procedure; one can immediately grasp the whole significance of it. So one begins to understand from moment to moment this constant growth of the 'me', with its self-importance, its self-projected activities - which is basically, fundamentally, the cause of fear.
But you cannot take action to get rid of the cause; all you can do is to be aware of it. The moment you want to be free from the ego, that very desire is also part of the ego, so you have a constant battle in the ego over two desirable things, between the part that wants and the part that does not.
Here are my reflections.
The idea of the self still being the self no matter whether it is the higher or lower self is getting at the Hindu notion of the Atman, or inner God, that Patanjali also talks about in the Yoga sutras and that Krishna refers to in the Bhagavad Gita. The higher self, Atman, is still the product of the lower self, the ego. Desire resides in the ego. Therefore, you can't take action to to get rid of greed, because this is still the action of the ego and desire. Instead, there is a duality created within the self, as we desire two things: what our greed wants and to be free of the greed. And in a sense the higher self is just more greed, the desire for further, deeper and more exciting experience. The Atman is the manifestation of greed.
You can't will your way out of this, as will, after all, is just a concentrated form of desire. All you can do is be aware of it, as Krishnamurti points out. And it's not hard to do, to see the process of the mind, but it is hard in that we ee all that we believe is negative in ourselves. We can look directly at many things that we think to be urgly because there is love underneath it; can it be the same with ourselves?
Best wishes
Robert
I appreciate the hopeful tone with which you closed your reflections. That there is something positive and valuable 'underneath' everything else I take, I suppose, as an article of faith. It's rather violent to assume that the base motivation for any and every action is negatively bound up in the ego, though I sometimes wonder if Krishnamurti is saying just that.
ReplyDeleteThinking over my day today, I notice that I did many nice things and was spontaneously generous on several occasions. It's interesting to replace K's use of the word 'greed' with 'generosity', simply to inquire whether his teachings about awareness and attachment still hold. I agree, with self-deprecation and self-aggrandisement both being such strong forces within/between us it's difficult to get any clarity about ourselves. But to simply see, the good and the bad, and to acknowledge it all without judgment...seems we always return to this!
Yes, seeing that there is ego and greed in the desire to do good is as important as seeing it in the desire to acquire power and influence.
ReplyDeleteI actually think that Krishnamurti is saying that the base motivation for every action is bound up negatively with the ego. I've read him saying that self-interest is the basis of all action several times. I'm not sure if it's violent; maybe explain more about this?
Your day sounds much better than mine, Nicole! I found myself becoming very annoyed and frustrated by other people's actions and each time I wondered what JK would say about the situation. Is it my ego that is reacting to the situation or is the other person being self-indulgent? I attempted to work through the annoyances by looking to see if the other person needed to act this way, if something about their life causes them to behave a certain way. In the end, though, I was just frustrated!
ReplyDeleteWell, let me follow this a little further. If ego really does inhere in every action, then it is as insidious as, say, dust. Apparently the same dust has been lifting and settling on this planet for millennia, moving in & out of every place and creature. There can be no getting free of it. So I wonder what all this critique of ego is about. Perhaps it's not about being rid of, but about being free within ego? To continue the metaphor, "from dust you came and to dust you shall return", so accepting and making peace is more to the point than trying to escape. Where I find violence is in the hint that our fundamental constitution is necessarily flawed. Though we don't operate at the depth of our being, is it not possible to say that the depth of who we are is inherently perfect? Thanks for the discussion!
ReplyDeleteIs not the ego also the possibility of freedom? We can't know freedom but we can know unfreedom, and by understanding this fully the space of freedom opens up.
ReplyDeleteSo I agree that it is about being free within the ego; to be aware of the ego and all it's workings is to be free of it. To defeat the ego totally would only be the victory of the bigger ego, which is itself the creation of the ego.
It's rather like the Art of War. A wise general never totally defeats the enemy, because that simply creates greater resistance and resentment and leads to further war. A good example of this is the Allies in 1918 and the War Guilt Clause that was imposed on Germany. 20 years later the Nazi's took power.
If the Allies had made paece rather than blaming Germany and holding the country responsible, much might have been different. I think the lesson was learned by 1945 and the agreements that ended WW2.
Is our constitution fundamentally flawed or are we flawed when we believe there is a fundamental constitution? Is that not the millennia of conditioning?
I was writing about the way we approach yoga postures the other day in the context of our relationship to our body, and I suggested that when we approach a posture with an idea or an image of what that posture is, then our practice is violent. Whenever an image preceds and an action, in anything we do or in any realtionship, surely that action or relationship must be violent.
I don't think that Krishnamurti is saying that our consitution is flawed, but rather, like the question of time in The Ending of Time, we made a wrong turn somewhere in our history that made the "I" a centre.
Is it not a rather Christian or Religious notion that our fundamental constitution is inherently perfect? That we have fallen and can be picked up?
I think Christians are bit more egotistical about that- they believe a person is going to fall and the only way to "be picked up" is by following God's example as taught by the church.
ReplyDelete