Daily Quote, Tuesday August 25, 2009.

Good morning everyone,

Looking out the window for the advertised sunshine - none yet! :-)

Here is today's quote:

Every reaction becomes a means of discovery.

As one becomes aware at the conscious level, one also begins to discover the envy, the struggles, the desires, the motives, the anxieties that lie at the deeper levels of consciousness. When the mind is intent on discovering the whole process of itself, then every incident, every reaction becomes a means of discovery, of knowing oneself.

That requires patient watchfulness - which is not the watchfulness of a mind that is constantly struggling, that is learning how to be watchful. Then you will see that the sleeping hours are as important as the waking hours, because life then is a total process. As long as you do not know yourself, fear will continue, and all the illusions that the self creates will flourish.

The Collected Works, Vol. VII - 327

Here are my reflections.

Elsewhere Krishnamurti says that "Dreams are a device by which one part of the mind communicates with the other...Cannot this communication go on all the time, during the waking hours as well?...if you can be so aware, constantly watching, listening, you will find that you do not fream at all".

So the unconscious is all part of our conditioning; that which we might notice first - the conscious mind - is just the tip of it.

But you can't learn to be watchful; as soon as you try to do something there is struggle between what you are and what you are not (or what you are to what you want to be). So not trying is the condition for removing the duality, and so the ego, so that watching is possible.

It's that very simple negative inquiry again. You can't go from A to B, but you can remove A so that B can be revealed. That process is self-observation.

Best wishes

Robert