That is true religion

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

The search for God, for truth, the feeling of being completely good; not the cultivation of goodness, of humility, but the seeking out of something beyond the inventions and tricks of the mind, which means having a feeling for that something, living in it, being it- is true religion. But you can do that only when you leave the pool you have dug for yourself and go out into the river of life. Then life has an astonishing way of taking care of you, because there is no taking care on your part. Life carries you where it will because you are part of itself.

This Matter of Culture, p.128

Here is my reflection:

How does intelligence relate to this question about life taking care of you. Are the two ideas consistent?

Best wishes

Robert

Is a religious life possible?

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

Is a religious life possible in this modern world? Which does not mean becoming a monk or joining an organized group of monks. We will be able to find out for ourselves what is really, truly, a religious life only when we understand what religions actually are and put aside all that, and not belong to any religion, to any organized religion, to any guru, and not have any psychological or so-called spiritual authority.

There is no spiritual authority whatsoever. That is one of the crimes that we have committed—we have invented the mediator between truth and ourselves. So you begin to inquire into what is religion, and in the very process of that inquiry you are living a religious life, not at the end of it. In the very process of looking, watching, discussing, doubting, questioning, and having no belief or faith, you are already living a religious life.

That Benediction is Where You Are, pp 71-72

Here is my reflection:

To inquire you must have no belief, and the groundwork for this is to understand everything in yourself that gives authority to another, that cedes your intelligence to another's memory and conditioning. Can you do all this is what K is asking here? Can you be a light to yourself?

The very idea of a mediator between you and truth, which is the priest, the teacher, the parent, etc., is akin to Nietsche's account of morality in On The Genealogy Of Morals. The weak, physically and morally, create religion to make the 'strong' feel guilty for being what they are. Morality is then the weapon of the weak. Nietsche pints it in stark terms but his basic premise is correct: religion is not about finding God or Truth; it is about power and control; subordination and domination. It is the weapon of those who live with and by fear, those who cannot - in K's term - stand alone.

For K the religious experience can never come with mediation. It can only come directly when, for example, we see it in a sunrise, in nature; not through the memory, motives, ambitions, and jealousy of another. When you can simply look at something and observe it in itself, whether that is a chair or your wife or husband, that is a religious experience. To do this you need to look very seriously at how you look, where you look from, your images of that person or thing; your pre-conceptions and all of that stuff that makes you feel secure in your world, your consciousness.

To live with that attention is to take responsibility for your own life.

Best wishes

Robert

To understand God

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

To understand God, you must first understand your own mind—which is very difficult. The mind is very complex, and to understand it is not easy. But it is easy enough to sit down and go into some kind of dream, have various visions, illusions, and then think that you are very near to God. The mind can deceive itself enormously. So, to really experience that which may be called God, you must be completely quiet; and have you not found out how extremely difficult that is?

Have you not noticed how even the older people never sit quietly, how they fidget, how they wiggle their toes and move their hands? It is difficult physically to sit still, and how much more difficult it is for the mind to be still! You may follow some guru and force your mind to be quiet; but your mind is not really quiet. It is still restless, like a child that is made to stand in the corner. It is a great art for the mind to be completely silent without coercion, and only then is there a possibility of experiencing that which may be called God.

Life Ahead, pp 67-68

Here is my reflection.

If you try to find God, or if you try to quiet your mind (they are the same thing), there is always effort because there is always a goal. Can you meditate without goal? Can you, in fact, look at all the goal making, imagining, activity of your mind, and in so doing cease trying? Once you make yourself the object of observation all trying ceases. You cannot maintain the contradiction that is inherent in trying to meditate once you see yourself in that contradiction. Intelligence tells you that this is absurd. It is the fear of what comes after death that is behind all this trying; the belief that our trying will be rewarded with everlasting life. But isn't the truth that we simply end up with a life that is anxious, never living in the present because we are worried about the future? If we can observe ourselves and see the play of our fears, then we can come to life with abundance and with joy. We can kiss each moment as it passes by, to use Blake's phrase.

Best wishes

Robert

What does a religious life mean?

Good morning everyone,

Continuing with Religion today:

So, what is the basic cause of this corruption, this degeneration, this hypocrisy, the non-religious life? All your stuff, all the garlands and all that you put round yourself is not a religious life. Right? You are following somebody. Forgive me because you are all sitting in front of me, I can't help it. Don't laugh sir, it's much too serious. This is not a religious life. A religious life implies a life in which there is complete harmony in your daily action, in your daily life. We'll go into that if we have time later on. But all the temples, all the gurus, all the circus that's going on in the name of religion really has no meaning whatsoever. If you want to discuss that we will.

But after discussion are you willing to throw all this aside? Or you say 'That's your opinion, my opinion is different' - we are not discussing opinions. We want to find the truth of the matter and to find the truth of the matter one has to have a mirror that doesn't distort your reactions, a mirror that tells you the truth of what you are so that it doesn't allow you to escape, that is, face exactly what you are, and from there move, change, radically bring about a transformation. But if one is all the time avoiding, avoiding, avoiding, then we never come face to face with ourselves.

Krishnamurti at Rajghat

Here is my reflection:

The idea of a life that has complete harmony in every action: a life without contradiction. How many times do you hear yourself saying "I would do this if...." or "I should do that...". This is contradiction; it is disharmony. This is avoiding ourselves. It is keeping away from "I am this." Do you sometimes find yourself saying "I am angry". Could you see yourself being honest and clear enough to say "I am anger". In other words, can you live without reistance to yourself, can you give yourself complete attention? Can there be no distance between the perceiver, the perceiving, and the perceived. Can you practice samadhi on your anger? Or do you just want to practice samadhi on God? Without total attention to what we are cannot take responsibility for our lives. With this responsibility there is harmony; seeing the responsibility is it's own action.

Best wishes

Robert

The silence of intelligence

Good morning everyone,

K continues with the same theme of what religion and intelligence is.

So in meditation there is no controller, there is no activity of will, which is desire. Then the brain, the whole movement of the brain apart from its own activity, which has its own rhythm, becomes utterly quiet, silent. It is not the silence cultivated by thought. It is the silence of intelligence, silence of supreme intelligence. In that silence that which is nameless comes, nameless is. That is sacred, immovable, it is not touched by thought, by endeavour, by effort. It is the way of intelligence which is the way of compassion. Then that which is sacred is everlasting. That is meditation. Such a life is a religious life. In that there is great beauty.

Mind Without Measure.

Remember the line from William Blake:

"He who kisses joy as it passes by will live on eternity's sunrise".

Religion is the cessation of the “me”

Good morning everyone,

As if right on cue after last night's study group discussion, here is today's quote:

Have we shared this together? Because it is your life, not my life. It is your life of sorrow, of tragedy, of confusion, guilt, reward, punishment. All that is your life. If you are serious you have tried to untangle all this. You have read some book, or followed a teacher, or listened to somebody, but the problem remains. These problems will exist as long as the human mind moves within the field of the activity of the self; that activity of the self must create more and more and more problems. When you observe, when you become extraordinarily aware of this activity of the self, then the mind becomes extraordinarily quiet, sane, healthy, holy. And from that silence our life in everyday activity is transformed. Religion is the cessation of the “me”, and action born of that silence. That life is a sacred life full of meaning.

This Light in Oneself, p 77

Here is my reflection.

What is sacred can never be interpreted and given to us by another. K makes it clear that there has been a falling away from Religion in the sense that this is the gathering together of all energy at all levels to bring about great attention in which there is no frontier in order to understand what thought can never capture.

Religion and to be relgious is not to join a religion, to be a Hindu, a Christian or a Muslim. It is to see the singularly, the sacredness, in all things; to look without the past and pre-conceptions, to be without the comfort of memory and projection. It is to be unconditionally free to the need to relate the looking to the me.

Religion today, like yoga, has be entertainment, the repetition of rituals, a way of putting onself to sleep. It is about pleasure; the joy has been sucked out by the need of the me. As K points out, as soon as anything becomes organised, it becomes totally superficial; it is about maintaining itself rather than deep attention to the activity of the self. Don't we spend all our time really, organising our sense of "me"?

Best wishes

Robert

What is not meditation.

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

To find out what meditation is, the beauty of it, not the word - the word means to ponder over, meaning of that word, to ponder, to think, to recollect - so to find out what is meditation we must approach it negatively. That is to find out what it is not. You understand? Most of us are so positive, and we think meditation is something that we have to do, practice, but if we can approach it with intelligence, not with desire, but with intelligence, which is to see what it is not. So shall we do it together? What it is not.

The Beauty of Death as Part of Life.

Here is my reflection.

Here K is making it clear that we can't expect the meditation technique to do the work for us. This is just a manifestation of our failure to take responsibility for our own transformation. It would be accurate to say that "I don't want to change, to havea complete inner revolution, there I will will practice meditation'> In other words, I'll do something eles. If I want to change, to change totally and be wholly other than the "me", then I will do that. I won't think about it. I won't wait for the meditation technique to chnange me. I'll change. This only comes through intelligence. Only by seeing the false in the false. We are the negative. Our existence s "me" negates life. So the practice is just to look at ourselves, to see the negative, the false, so that all that is left is the positive. The different is that that we don't go looking for it, no journey, no search, no path. This is to be fooled by the word, which is to avoid living, which is to be intelligence, which is to see the negative, which is to get out of the way with our fears and anxieties and let the new be.

Best wishes

Robert

Meditation and listening

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

We hardly ever listen to the sound of a dog’s bark, or to the cry of a child or the laughter of a man as he passes by. We separate ourselves from everything, and then from this isolation look and listen to all things. It is this separation that is so destructive, for in that lies all conflict and confusion. If you listened to the sound of those bells with complete silence, you would be riding on it-or, rather, the sound would carry you across the valley and over the hill. The beauty of it is felt only when you and the sound are not separate, when you are part of it. Meditation is the ending of the separation not by any action of will or desire. Meditation is not a separate thing from life; it is the very essence of life, the very essence of daily living. To listen to those bells, to hear the laughter of that peasant as he walks by with his wife, to listen to the sound of the bell on the bicycle of the little girl as she passes by: it is the whole of life, and not just a fragment of it, that meditation opens.

Meditations, p 20

Here is my reflection.

What K is describing here is also what he is talking about with the notion of total attention. Both are akin to the idea of samadhi found in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. In this state of samadhi, there "normal" distincton between the perceiver, the perceiving, and the perceiver is disolved. It is only created through memory, which is the efefect of thought and which is perpetuated by desire. It is also akin to the notion of true beauty that was discussed is the last study group conversation we listened to between K and Alan Anderson. The suffering that allows us to experience true beauty, not the beauty of museums, is the ending of desire and the opening of perceiver, perceiving, and the perceived as a totality. It is the ending of time, which is the movement of desire, and the ending of the destructive force of the "me". So desire or will don't end separation. Instead, it is ended in the observation of the separating force of desire itself; just as memory separates the perceived from the perceiver - "I like that and must have it again".

Best wishes

Robert

Whether the brain can be quiet

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

Meditation is to find out whether the brain, with all its activities, all its experiences, can be absolutely quiet. Not forced, because the moment you force, there is duality. The entity that says, “I would like to have marvellous experiences, therefore I must force my brain to be quiet” will never do it. But if you begin to inquire, observe, listen to all movements of thought, its conditioning, its pursuits, its fears, its pleasures, watch how the brain operates, then you will see that the brain becomes extraordinarily quiet; that quietness is not sleep but it is tremendously active and therefore quiet. A big dynamo that is working perfectly hardly makes a sound; it is only when there is friction that there is noise.

Meditations, p 4

The idea here is simply that self-awareness creates stillness. It puts an end to the movement of the mind that establishes duality. The awareness is the transformation. It does lead anywhere, to the fulfillment of any desire for the mind to be wonderfully quiet or anything. When the self is observed there is no room in consciousness for the other, the not me. The attention is directed towards the activity that creates and maintains the me. It is right upon it, upon the me, rather than just to the not me. Then there is no force.

Best wishes

Robert

Understand the activity of the self

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

When there is the activity of the self, meditation is not possible. This is very important to understand, not verbally but actually. Meditation is a process of emptying the mind of all the activity of the self, of all the activity of the “me”. If you do not understand the activity of the self, then your meditation only leads to illusion, your meditation then only leads to self-deception, your meditation then will only lead to further distortion. So to understand what meditation is, you must understand the activity of the self. The self has had a thousand worldly, sensuous, or intellectual experiences, but it is bored with them because they have no meaning. The desire to have wider, more expansive, transcendental experiences is part of the “me”.

This Light in Oneself, p 72

Here is my relection:

Unlike most mediattion practices, k is saying that the way to the outside is through the inside. there is no avoidance and so no indirect and covert preserving of the self. Any recognition that the "me" is not, is from the me. We can never know enlightenment.

Meditation is the ending of sorrow

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

It rather compliments the study group discussion again and the last Meeting Life seminar.

Meditation is the ending of sorrow, the ending of thought which breeds fear and sorrow—the fear and sorrow in daily life, when you are married, when you go to business. In business you must use your technological knowledge, but when that knowledge is used for psychological purposes—to become more powerful, occupy a position that gives you prestige, honour, fame—it breeds only antagonism, hatred; such a mind can never possibly understand what truth is. Meditation is the understanding of the way of life, it is the understanding of sorrow and fear—and going beyond them.

Talks & Dialogues Saanen 1968, p 94

Suffering and self-pity

Good morning everyone,

I'm going to paste in the blog entry I have for the Meeting Life group today as our quote for the day. By coincidence it matches one of the things we discussed at the study group last night. We got talking about whether there is a difference between missing someone and suffering. We found our way to the understanding that missing someone even if they have died is a form of self-pity and self-indulgence, whereas actually suffering a loss is transformative. The references are to Commentaries on Living, Third Series.

Suffering and self-pity:

K starts with a question, “Do you suffer because your father (or anyone you loved) is gone, or because you feel lonely? “Now which is it? You are suffering, surely, not for your father, but because you are lonely, and your sorrow is that which comes from self-pity.” (p300)

Do we ever meet sorrow directly, or merely use words to talk about it, meeting it indirectly? “When we talk of loneliness, are we experiencing the psychological pain of it, or merely employing a word to indicate something which we have never directly experienced. Do we really suffer, or do we only think we suffer?” (p302)

So we never meet adversity directly. Instead, we escape by all possible means. We are afraid of it and so we never find out what it is. We are running away from something that we don’t know and have never encountered. To escape from suffering is one thing, but to be free of it is another; for that you must look at it directly: the loss, the sadness, the loneliness, all of it. Do you just want a friend’s good wishes and comfort over a cup of coffee or do you want to end it now? “To understand sorrow there must be an actual experience of it, and not just the verbal fiction of sorrow.” (p303)

Meditation is not different from life

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

Meditation is not something different from daily life; do not go off into the corner of a room and meditate for ten minutes, then come out of it and be a butcher—both metaphorically and actually. Meditation is one of the most serious things. You can do it all day, in the office, with the family, when you say to somebody, “I love you”, when you are considering your children. But then you educate them to become soldiers, to kill, to be nationalized, to worship the flag, educating them to enter into this trap of the modern world.

Watching all that, realizing your part in it, all that is part of meditation. And when you so meditate you will find in it an extraordinary beauty; you will act rightly at every moment; and if you do not act rightly at a given moment it does not matter, you will pick it up again—you will not waste time in regret. Meditation is part of life, not something different from life.

The Flight of the Eagle, p 46

Here is my reflection.

It is meditation, the continual observation of the self in action, in relationship, that makes for an integrted life. Nothing else will do as anything else shines the light of awareness and transformation elsewhere, and if it is elsewhere it is no transformation at all; just a manipulation through argument to make the world better for your kind of conditioning. If we are manipulative in this way, the we are, indeed, butchers literally and not just metaphorically.

Best wishes

Robert

Mantra has lost its meaning

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

What is meditation? Is it to escape from the noise of the world? To have a silent mind, a quiet mind, a peaceful mind? And you practise systems, methods, to become aware, to keep your thoughts under control. You sit cross-legged and repeat some mantra. I am told that the etymological meaning of that word ‘mantra’ is ‘ponder over not-becoming’. That is one of the meanings. And it also means ‘absolve, put aside all self-centred activity’. That is the real, root meaning of mantra. But we repeat, repeat, repeat, and carry on with our self-interest, our egoistic ways, and so mantra has lost its meaning. So what is meditation?

That Benediction is Where You are, p 75

Here is my reflection.

The irony of mantra, as will so many of the yoga techniques, is that we have become lost in the technique. We think that the technique will do the work for us, as if the matra will create a total inner revolution - just by repeating a word! So we try to perfect the technique, find a teacher, etc. In fact, it's just a way of avoiding the reponsibility to observe ourselves. This is the only adequate response to living. This is the only think that will change us.

Best wishes

Robert

Siddhis are like candlelight

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

You do all kinds of things to come upon this strange beauty of silence. Do not do it, just observe. Look, sirs, you know in all this are various powers of clairvoyance, reading somebody’s thought. There are various powers, you know what I am talking about, don’t you? You call them siddhis, don’t you? Do you know all these things are like candles—candlelight in the sun? When there is no sun, there is darkness, and then the light of the candle is very important; but when there is the sun, the light, the beauty, the clarity, then all these powers, these siddhis are like candlelight. They have no value at all. And when you have the light, there is nothing else—developing various centres, the chakras, kundalinis, you know all that business. You need a sane, logical, reasoning mind, not a stupid mind. A mind that is dull can sit for centuries breathing, concentrating on its various chakras, and you know all that playing with kundalinis—it can never come upon that which is timeless, that which is real beauty, truth and love.

Krishnamurti in India 1970-71, pp 180-181

Here is my reflection.

Well, here is another one in the eye for the yogis! When you learn about yourself from yourself and for yourself, you are not being selfish and narcisistic; you are being a light to yourself. When you are this light then the teacher is a like the candle in the daylight: he or she has no value. One is attracted to the teacher because one is in the dark, but the teacher cannot lead you to the light. He is in the dark to; this is why he attracts students. He has created a method and an ideal and he clings to that as if it were his candle! A stupid mind will explore chakras and kundalini and breathing for centuries; what you need is a mind that is sane and logical, that can see the false as false and not try to escape.

Best wishes

Robert

What meditation isn't

Good morning everyone,

Monday and Tuesday together today. Sorry for the miss yesterday:

Monday:

Prayer obviously produces results; otherwise millions wouldn’t pray. And in praying, obviously the mind is made quiet; by constant repetition of certain phrases, the mind does become quiet. And in that quietness there is a certain intimation, certain perceptions, certain responses. But that is still a part of the trick of the mind because, after all, through a form of mesmerism you can make the mind very quiet. And in that quietness there are certain hidden responses arising from the unconscious and from outside the consciousness. But it is still a state in which there is no understanding. And meditation is not devotion—devotion to an idea, to a picture, to a principle—because the things of the mind are still idolatrous. One may not worship a statue, considering it idolatrous and silly, superstitious; but one does worship, as most people do, the things in the mind—and that is also idolatrous. And to be devoted to a picture or an idea, to a Master, is not meditation. Obviously, it’s a form of escape from oneself. It’s a very comforting escape, but it’s still an escape.

The Collected Works vol V, p 361

Tuesday:

And this constant striving to become virtuous, to acquire virtue through discipline, through careful examination of oneself, and so on, is obviously not meditation either. Most of us are caught in these processes, and since they do not give understanding of ourselves, they are not the way of right meditation. After all, without understanding yourself, what basis have you for right thinking? All that you will do without understanding of yourself is to conform to the background, to the response of your conditioning. And such response to the conditioning is not meditation. But to be aware of those responses, that is, to be aware of the movements of thought and feeling without any sense of condemnation so that the movements of the self, the ways of the self, are understood—that way is the way of right meditation.

The Collected Works vol V, p 361

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

Thought shattering itself against its own nothingness is the explosion of meditation.

Krishnamurti’s Notebook, p 166

Here is my reflection.

Thought constantly needs a reference point to survive. It needs to compare and work at all levels of generality. In and of itself, it is nothingness. Its singularity, outside the opposition of this and that, me and you, it is nothingness. Meditation is to observe this, and then in this moment the shattering of thought happens. Perhaps K is using the word explosion to refer to the total movement, the instant and complete change, the inner revolution, that happens with self-observation - thought observing itself?

Best wishes

Robert

Meditation…is the very inquiry into what is meditation

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

Meditation is not a process of learning how to meditate; it is the very inquiry into what is meditation. To inquire into what is meditation, the mind must free itself from what it has learnt about meditation, and the freeing of the mind from what it has learnt is the beginning of meditation.

The Collected Works vol IX, p 192.

Here is my reflection.

We think we are serious about meditation but really we are only serious about the benefits of meditation. We are not serious about inquiring into what it is and so we don't free our minds. Instead, meditation gets corrupted by desire, and end is attached to it. So really, inquiring into the whole process of our desire is meditation. If we can act without desire then we have understood what meditation is.

Best wishes

Robert

Putting your house in order

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

The understanding of relationship, fear, pleasure and sorrow is to bring order in our house. Without order you cannot possibly meditate. Now the speaker puts meditation at the end of the talks because there is no possibility of right meditation if you have not put your house, your psychological house, in order. If the psychological house is in disorder, if what you are is in disorder, what is the point of meditating? It is just an escape. It leads to all kinds of illusions.

The Network of Thought, p 96

Here is my reflection.

So meditation arises naturally out of self-awareness. This understanding of the self is it's own action of creating order. Will meditation itself ever lead to order? How can it if what you are is disorder. As K says, it can only be an escape from disorder. The mind feels disorder and imagines it's opposite. And so we become trapped in the network of thought. So meditation is without effort, without trying, without concentration, and without purpose.

Best wishes

Robert

What prevents insight?

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

It is astonishingly beautiful and interesting, how thought is absent when you have an insight. Thought cannot have an insight. It is only when the mind is not operating mechanically in the structure of thought that you have an insight. Having had an insight, thought draws a conclusion from that insight. And then thought acts and thought is mechanical. So I have to find out whether having an insight into myself, which means into the world, and not drawing a conclusion from it is possible. If I draw a conclusion, I act on an idea, on an image, on a symbol, which is the structure of thought, and so I am constantly preventing myself from having insight, from understanding things as they are.

On Mind and Thought, p 34

The first step is the last step

Good morning everyone,

Today's quote is quite relevant to one of the conversations we had at the study group last night:

... The first step is the last step. The first step is to perceive, perceive what you are thinking, perceive your ambition, perceive your anxiety, your loneliness, your despair, this extraordinary sense of sorrow, perceive it, without any condemnation, justification, without wishing it to be different. Just to perceive it, as it is. When you perceive it as it is, then there is a totally different kind of action taking place, and that action is the final action. Right? That is, when you perceive something as being false or as being true, that perception is the final action, which is the final step. Now listen to it. I perceive the falseness of following somebody else, somebody else’s instruction—Krishna, Buddha, Christ, it does not matter who it is. I see, there is the perception of the truth that following somebody is utterly false. Because your reason, your logic and everything points out how absurd it is to follow somebody. Now that perception is the final step, and when you have perceived, you leave it, forget it, because the next minute you have to perceive anew, which is again the final step.

Krishnamurti in India 1970-71, p 50

What is awareness?

Good morning everyone,

Awareness is not a commitment to something. awareness is an observation, both outer and inner, in which direction has stopped. You are aware, but the thing of which you are aware is not being encouraged or nourished. Awareness is not concentration on something. It is not an action of the will choosing what it will be aware of, and analysing it to bring about a certain result. When awareness is deliberately focused on a particular object, as a conflict, that is the action of will which is concentration. When you concentrate - that is, put all your energy and thought within your chosen frontiers, whether reading a book or watching your anger - then, in this exclusion, the thing you are concentrating upon is strengthened, nourished. So here we have to understand the nature of awareness: We have to understand what we are talking about when we use the word awareness.

The Urgency of Change.

Inattention and Attention

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

There are the states of inattention and of attention. When you are completely giving your mind, your heart, your nerves, everything you have, to attend, then the old habits, the mechanical responses, do not enter into it, thought does not come into it at all. But we cannot maintain that all the time, so we are mostly in a state of inattention, a state in which there is not an alert choiceless awareness. What takes place? There is inattention and rare attention and we are trying to bridge the one to the other. How can my inattention become attention or, can attention be complete, all the time?

Talks and Dialogues Saanen 1968

Here is my reflection.

Can the mind that is disordered be aware of its disorder? This is a question that K poses a lot. What is the effect of trying to impose order on a disordered mind, either through a teacher or a method that we find ourselves? Is this not a continuation of the disorder, a continuation of the lack of self-awareness? Surely, the attempt to build the bridge from inattention to attention is an example of disorder, rather than the ending of it? Isn't it just an escape?

It's important to consider the consequences for our whole existence as a planet if we cannot be aware of ourselves, if we depend for our transformation on another person, a guru, a technique that is other than self-observation. But it's really qute simple too. Can you, in all of your relationships, not just to people, see your disorder in the way that you relate to this person or thing. The person is the gift to you, the mirror that will reveal your disorder to you, but you have to look at yourself and not expect the person to show it to you.

Best wishes

Robert

More on attention and concentration

Good morning everyone,

Yesteday and today together. There internet went off-line a crucial time yesterday morning for about 20 minutes.

Tuesday: Attention is not concentraion.

Attention is not concentration. When you concentrate, as most people try to do—what takes place when you are concentrating? You are cutting yourself off, resisting, pushing away every thought except that one particular thought, that one particular action. So your concentration breeds resistance, and therefore concentration does not bring freedom. Please, this is very simple if you observe it yourself. But whereas if you are attentive, attentive to everything that is going on about you, attentive to the dirt, the filth of the street, attentive to the bus which is so dirty, attentive of your words, your gestures, the way you talk to your boss, the way you talk to your servant, to the superior, to the inferior, the respect, the callousness to those below you, the words, the ideas—if you are attentive to all that, not correcting, then out of that attention you can know a different kind of concentration. You are then aware of the setting, the noise of the people, people talking over there on the roof, your hushing them up, asking them not to talk, turning your head; you are aware of the various colours, the costumes, and yet concentration is going on. Such concentration is not exclusive, in that there is no effort. Whereas mere concentration demands effort.

The Collected Works vol XV, p 321

Wednesday: Concentration implies narrowing down our energy.

You know what concentration is—from childhood, we are trained to concentrate. Concentration is the narrowing down all our energy to a particular point, and holding to that point. A boy in school looks out of the window at the birds and the trees, at the movement of the leaves, or at the squirrel climbing the tree. And the teacher says: “You are not paying attention, concentrate on the book”, or “Listen to what I am saying.”This is to give far more importance to concentration than to attention. If I were the teacher I would help him to watch; I would help him to watch that squirrel completely; watch the movement of the tail, how its claws act, everything. Then if he learns to watch that attentively, he will pay attention to the book.

Questions and Answers, p 43

Difference between concentration and attention

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

There is a difference between concentration and attention. Concentration is to bring all your energy to focus on a particular point. In attention there is no point of focus. We are very familiar with one and not with the other. When you pay attention to your body, the body becomes quiet, which has its own discipline; it is relaxed but not slack and it has the energy of harmony. When there is attention, there is no contradiction and therefore no conflict. When you read this pay attention to the way you are sitting, the way you are listening, how you are receiving what the letter is saying to you, how you are reacting to what is being said and why you are finding it difficult to attend. You are not learning how to attend. If you are learning the how of attending, then it becomes a system, which is what the brain is accustomed to, and so you make attention something mechanical and repetitive, whereas attention is not mechanical or repetitive. It is the way of looking at your whole life without the centre of self-interest.

There was no clear reference for the quote today.

Here is my reflection.

This distinction came up at the study group last night. Concentration comes from a mind that is in contradiction with itself. It is the effort to end contradiction, which is the movement of thinking that creates the "me" and the "you." Effort involves a method and a teacher, even if that teacher is only the author of a book. Around all of this is subordination and domination. We submit ourselves and our mind to domination, we force our mind to concentrate on this or that idea or object. Concentration, force, and subordination go hand in hand. We don't end the contradiction this way because there is no moment of self-awareness, no moment when we ask why are we doing that this, acting as we are acting.

Instead, we just want the result. It is fed by desire, the desire to be free, which can never lead to freedom. Only by observing the movement of desire within ourselves, which is very subtle as it appropriates the high and the low of life, can we be free. This observation is awareness. It has no focus and so it is total attention; there is no seen and unseen. This can't be learned as K says. Instead you have to be a light to yourself. Can the mind that is in contradiction observe its own contradiction?

Best wishes

Robert

Attention involves seeing and hearing

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

Attention involves seeing and hearing. We hear not only with our ears but also we are sensitive to the tones, the voice, to the implication of words, to hear without interference, to capture instantly the depth of a sound. Sound plays an extraordinary part in our lives: the sound of thunder, a flute playing in the distance, the unheard sound of the universe; the sound of silence, the sound of one’s own heart beating; the sound of a bird and the noise of a man walking on the pavement; the waterfall. The universe is filled with sound. This sound has its own silence; all living things are involved in this sound of silence. To be attentive is to hear this silence and move with it.

Letters to the Schools vol II, p 30

Here is my reflection.

I guess some of you might be humbing the Simon and Garfunkel soung right now! :-) If you can also remember the words, or at least some of them, they are actually pretty interesting in the context of what K is saying.

How often has the tone that someone was speaking in said far more to you than their actual words? This is what K would probably call "total listening". Listening with all of you, just just with the ears but the heart too.

Best wishes

Robert

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

Just be aware; that is all you have to do, without condemning, without forcing, without trying to change what you are aware of. Then you will see that it is like a tide that is coming in. You cannot prevent the tide from coming in; build a wall, or do what you will, it will come with tremendous energy. In the same way, if you are aware choicelessly, the whole field of consciousness begins to unfold. And as it unfolds, you have to follow; and the following becomes extraordinarily difficult—following in the sense to follow the movement of every thought, of every feeling, of every secret desire. It becomes difficult the moment you resist, the moment you say, “That is ugly”, “This is good”, “That is bad”, “This I will keep”, “That I will not keep.”

The Collected Works vol XV, p 85.

Here is my reflection.

As long as there is the "me" there, who chooses, who has an image, and has desire around that image, there will be resistance. The resistance does stop the following, the observing without judgement, the movement of intelligence. It is the ego defending itself. It is the ego that says I will not listen to this, I will not take part, I am not interested, I have my plan and my desire. To be other than this, which is to be alive, the mind must be extraordinarily alert, sensitive, innocent, and passionate. As soon as you make a choice, you are basically dead. This is not the same as indecision. It's much bigger than that. It is watching the place of chosing in the mind. It is living without resolving duality, without the way of the ego and certainty.

To be aware without condemnation

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

Do not think about doing it, but actually do it now. That is, be aware of the trees, the palm tree, the sky; hear the crows cawing; see the light on the leaf, the colour of the sari, the face; then move inwardly. You can observe, you can be aware choicelessly of outward things. It is very easy. But to move inwardly and to be aware without condemnation, without justification, without comparison is more difficult. Just be aware of what is taking place inside you—your beliefs, your fears, your dogmas, your hopes, your frustrations, your ambitions, and all the rest of the things. Then the unfolding of the conscious and the unconscious begins. You have not to do a thing.

The Collected Works vol XV, p 85.

Here is my reflection.

This process that K is describing corresponds to the one in yoga where the mind moves from Dharana or concentration to Dhyana or meditation. There is a movement from objectifying the object with names and labels to experiencing a continuous flow of attention between you and it, unmeditated, one not filtered by our conditioning. Concentration on an object will create heat or tapas as we experience deeper levels of concentration. As this moves into a free flow of attention, it releases prana, which is also termed intelligence in classical yoga, to move downwards and cleanse the nadis or energy channlels. When these are blocked they prevent clear perception of what it is. They are usually clogged with all our conditioning and pre-conceptions. These are called samskaras, layers of concepts and ideas that build up over years, like sandbanks build up with the action of waves over years. The cleansing allows you to just look at the object because now you are not there looking.

K is indirectly critical of this because it begins outside yourself, because it has a method and a progression and involves time. This movement from concentration to meditation is part of an 8-limbed path, and although it appears that one might reach the end, samadhi or true compassion, from any one limb or practice, there is the idea that we are moving from here to there, and that practicing one limb sets the foundation for the next.

Best wishes

Robert

Watching though there is nothing to learn

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

I am learning about myself—not according to some psychologist or specialist—I am watching and I see something in myself; but I do not condemn it, I do not judge it, I do not push it aside—I just watch it. I watch that I am proud—let us take that as an example. I do not say, “I must put it aside, how ugly to be proud.”—but I just watch it.

As I am watching, I am learning. Watching means learning what pride involves, how it has come into being. I cannot watch it for more than five or six minutes—if one can, that is a great deal—the next moment I become inattentive. Having been attentive and knowing what inattention is, I struggle to make inattention attentive. Do not do that, but watch inattention, become aware that you are inattentive—that is all.

Stop there. Do not say, “I must spend all my time being attentive”, but just watch when you are inattentive. To go any further into this would be really quite complex . There is a quality of mind that is awake and watching all the time, watching though there is nothing to learn. That means a mind that is extraordinarily quiet, extraordinarily silent. What has a silent, clear mind to learn?

The Impossible Question, pp 25-26

Here is my reflection.

This practice of watching the inattention is negative inquiry, seeing the false as false so that the true can be revealed. If you start to go further and focus on trying to cultivate the positive - attention - then you start creating problems. Then you'll need an image of what attention is, a method to bring it into beeing, a teacher to teach you the method, and from there you start to accumulate further conditioning. All you really need is intelligence, for which only a simplicity is needed, the inward simplicity of being alone. Intelligence is that quality of the mind that is awake and watching all the time. With intelligence we learn about ourselves from ourselves, and for ourselves. It's not a selfish action, it is self-observation, studying onself, becoming free without becoming dependent and becoming lost in a new pattern of conditioning that is only a step away from the one we just had.

One ceases to learn the moment one argues with life

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

The act of listening is the act of learning.One has to learn so much about life, for life is a movement in relationship. And that relationship is action. We have to learn—not accumulate knowledge from this movement that we call life and then live according to that knowledge, which is conformity. To conform is to adjust, to fit into a mould, to adjust oneself to the various impressions, demands, pressures of a particular society.

Life is meant to be lived, to be understood. One has to learn about life, and one ceases to learn the moment one argues with life, comes to life with the past, with one’s conditioning as knowledge. So there is a difference between acquiring knowledge and the act of learning. You must have knowledge; otherwise you will not know where you live, you will forget your name, and so on.

So at one level knowledge is imperative, but when that knowledge is used to understand life—which is a movement, which is a thing that is living, moving, dynamic, every moment changing—when you cannot move with life, then you are living in the past and trying to comprehend the extraordinary thing called life. And to understand life, you have to learn every minute about it and never come to it having learned.

The Collected Works vol XV, pp 13-14

Here is my reflection.

When we learn from the past, from past experiences, from past relationships, there is then a conformity to those relationships in everyone thing that comes afterwards. Learning is dynamic, moving, ongoing. Can you treat everyone as new, with fresh eyes, can you enter this movement called life by just looking, being impartial in what you see. Most of all, can you free yourself from this conformity by seeing it working within you?

The very act of listening is a great miracle

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

Listening is an art which very few of us are capable of. We never actually listen. The word has a sound and when we do not listen to the sound, we interpret it, try to translate it into our own particular language or tradition. We never listen acutely, without any distortion. So, the speaker suggests, respectfully, that you so listen and not interpret what he says.

When you tell a rather exciting story to a little boy, he listens with a tremendous sense of curiosity and energy. He wants to know what is going to happen, and he waits excitedly to the very end. But we grown-up people have lost all that curiosity, the energy to find out, that energy which is required to see very clearly things as they are, without any distortion.

We never listen to each other. You never listen to your wife, do you? You know her much too well, or she you. There is no sense of deep appreciation, friendship, amity, which would make you listen to each other, whether you like it or not. But if you do listen so completely, that very act of listening is a great miracle.

That Benediction is Where You Are, pp 22-23.

Here is my reflection.

Memory constantly distorts the world we have in front of us. It puts a coating over it that makes it look glossy and appealing, but this is only because it is of your own making. All we recognise here is our desire. It takes away the passion to find out. Memory is there as the reassuring background that we constantly drop into. It allows us to live in a state of presumption and superiority. Not knowing changes everything. It creates a senstivity and an appreciation for what is said. Take time today to see when you have a conclusion about something or someone. Might that be based upon a fragment, your desire frustrated by them? Have you understood the totality of them?

Best wishes

Robert

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

There is an art of listening. The word “art” implies putting everything in its right place. If you understand the meaning of that word, the real art is not painting pictures, but the art of putting your life in its proper place, which is to live harmoniously. When you have put everything in yourself in its right place, you are free. Putting everything in its right place is part of intelligence. You will say we are giving a new meaning to that word “intelligence”. One must. Intelligence implies reading between the lines, between the words, between two silences, between speech, listening with your mind all the time alert to listen. You hear not only with the ear, but also without the ear.

On Love and Loneliness, pp 87-88

Here is my reflection.

Here K is talking about an opening to listening, which is an art. To put everything in yourself in order such that you can listen. This is to observe everything within you that doesn't listen, that reduces listening to the "science" of what has already been heard. To live harmoniously is to make life an art. There is an art to inteligence and it is listening. The listening is the miracle; one who listens has experienced a radical inward transformation.

Best wishes

Robert

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

You know, there are two ways of listening: to listen casually, to hear a series of ideas, agreeing or disagreeing with them; or there is another way of listening, which is not only to listen to the words and the meaning of those words, but also to listen to what is actually taking place in yourself.

If you listen in this way, then what the speaker says is related to what you are listening to in yourself; then you are not merely listening to the speaker—which is irrelevant—but to the whole content of your being. And if you are listening in that way with intensity, at the same time and at the same level, then we are both of us partaking, sharing together, in what is actually taking place. Then you have the passion which is going to transform that which is.

Beyond Violence, pp 37-38.

Here is my reflection.

I think this is what is taking place in the conversations between K and Alan Anderson. This was Anderson's gift, to be able to observe himself as he was speaking and thinking. This is what made it such an expansive inquiry.

It now seems see onvious that just to listen to someone, what they are saying and no more, is such a small way of living. It seems so obvious that we must observe ourselves as we speak. If we understand ourselves then there is understanding; not of one thing but a total understanding; one of the whole mechanism of living.

Best wishes

Robert

Is there seeing without preconception?

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

The dictionary meaning of the word 'perception' is to become aware of, to apprehend. That is, you see the cupboard, you have a preconception of it; that is not perception. Is there seeing without preconception? Only the mind that has no conclusion, such a mind can see. The other cannot. If I have previous knowledge of that cupboard, the mind identifies it as cupboard. To look at that cupboard without the previous accumulation of prejudices or hurts, is to look. If I have previous hurts, memories, pain, pleasure, displeasure, I have not looked.

Tradition and Revolution

Knowing what you are by watching yourself

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

By looking at the mirror every day, you begin to know your own face, and you say: “That is me.” Now, can you in the same way know what you are by watching yourself? Can you watch your gestures, the way you walk, the way you talk, the way you behave, whether you are hard, cruel, rough, patient? Then you begin to know yourself. You know yourself by watching yourself in the mirror of what you are doing, what you are thinking, what you are feeling. That is the mirror—the feeling, the doing, the thinking. And in that mirror you begin to watch yourself. The mirror says this is the fact; but you do not like the fact. So you want to alter it. You start distorting it. You do not see it as it is.

Krishnamurti on Education, p 61

Here is my reflection.

Here is a good way of understanding negative inquiry. What do you look for when you inquire into yourself? The short answer is everything. You begin to see your reactive tendencies, which come from habit, and from your fear, which is also your greatest desire; the fear that your greatest desire won't be fulfilled. It takes courage to watch all this in what you are doing, thinking, and saying.

Your fear will also separate you from those you want to be close close to, because fear makes a demand of the other: be this way, be that way. All the time this conversation goes on in the mind. This is who we are.

Best wishes

Robert

To see without the shadow of yourself

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

Seeing is a very complex affair. One sees casually with one’s eyes and swiftly passes by, never seeing the details of a leaf, its form and structure, its colours, the variety of greens. To observe a cloud with all the light of the world in it, to follow a stream chattering down the hill; to look at your friend with the sensitivity in which there is no resistance and to see yourself as you are without the shades of denial or easy acceptance; to see yourself as part of the whole; to see the immensity of the universe—this is observation: to see without the shadow of yourself.

Letters to the Schools vol II, pp 30-31

Here is my reflection.

To look at something without your needs, without your desire imprinting itself on that thing or person. Your past catses a shadow over everything and everyone you meet. They are haunted by your shadow, your words, your projections, your desire for them to be this way or that way for you, not just when you are with them but long after. They carry that mark, that brand; it buries deep into their psyche. Your words, which are always words of judgement, imprison them, condition them, give them their reactive tendencies, their pain. Can you stop all this and just be sensitive to them and let them live? Can you end your resistance to them in a moment of startling self-awareness that you are doing all this and that it is creating the distance between the two of you? Can you start to live too?

Best wishes

Robert

What is perception?

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

What is perception, what is seeing? How do you see that tree? Look at it for the moment. With what sight do you see it? Is it solely an optical observation, just looking at the tree with the optical reaction, observing the form, the pattern, the light on the leaf? Or do you, when you observe a tree, name it, saying. “That is an oak” and walk by? By naming it you are no longer seeing the tree—the word denies the thing. Can you look at it without the word? So, are you aware how you approach, how you look at, the tree? Do you observe it partially, with only one sense, the optical sense; or do you see it, hear it, smell it, feel it, see the design of it, take the whole of it in? Or, do you look at it as though you are different from it—of course, when you look at it you are not the tree. But can you look at it without a word, with all your senses responding to the totality of its beauty?

The Flame of Attention, p 34.

Here is my reflection.

Without the name, reality is just what it is. Add the name and it becomes aomething. The reality of something can only be experienced. Take a river. You can only experience what a river is; you jump into it and feel the current and flow of the water. Stay on the back, which means you give it a name, and all you have is the appearance of it. K is all about the reality of things, not the appearance.

Best wishes

Robert

You learn a great deal by watching

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

You learn a great deal by watching, watching the things about you, watching the birds, the tree, watching the heavens, the stars, the constellation of Orion, the Dipper, the Evening star. You learn just by watching not only the things around you but also by watching people, how they are dressed. You not only watch that which is outside but also you watch yourself, why you think this or that, your behaviour, the conduct of your daily life, why parents want you to do this or that. You are watching, not resisting. If you resist you don’t learn. Or if you come to some kind of conclusion, some opinion you think is right and hold on to that, then naturally you will never learn. Freedom is necessary to learn, and curiosity, a sense of wanting to know why you or others behave in a certain way, why people are angry, why you get annoyed.Learning is extraordinarily important because learning is endless. Learning why human beings kill each other for instance. Of course there are explanations in books, all the psychological reasons why human beings behave in their own particular manner, why human beings are violent. All this has been explained in books of various kinds by eminent authors, psychologists and so on. But what you read is not what you are. What you are, how you behave, why you get angry, envious, why you get depressed, if you watch yourself you learn much more than from a book that tells you what you are.

Letters to the Schools vol II, pp 75-76

Here is my reflection.

There is so much difference between learning about something in the traditional way and learning about something from observing yourself. The latter will transform you totally. If you learn about what violece is from yourself you will not be violent anymore; if the learn about it from books or taking a course you will be. The latter is clearly a path of avoidance, as is all knowledge.

When the whole organism becomes highly sensitive

Good morning everyone,

Looks like it will be bringht and sunny today!

Here is today's quote:

Isn’t there a danger, the questioner asks, in the mind when the whole human organism becomes highly sensitive; isn’t there a danger of nervous tension? Why should we have tension at all? Doesn’t tension exist only when there is resistance? There are noises going on here: a dog is barking, the buses are going by, and there is a child crying. When you resist, tension is built up. This actually takes place.

If you don’t build any resistance but let the noise go through, listen to it quietly, without resistance, not saying that it’s is good or bad, not saying, “I wish that dog wouldn’t make that noise; that bus is terrible”, but just listen—then, since there is no resistance, there is no strain, no effort.

I think one of the problems of modern life is living in boxed-up houses called flats, where there is no space, no beauty, but constant strain. If you are vulnerable to it all—I’m using the word “vulnerable” in the sense of to receive, to let everything come—then I don’t see how you can have nervous breakdowns or nervous tension.

The Collected Works vol XVI, pp 148-149

Here is my reflection.

To be vulnerable, in our culture, is seem as a poor state of being, but to be vulnerable is to truly meet life life. It is the same as being innocent. So many people today, very young people, want to loose their innocence, but it is really the greatest strength we have. The innocent are not in boxes, feel no strain and tension. In them is the river of life; there is no resistant to life. They are not foolhardy; they don't jump in to things for the thrill of sensation; they are completely aware of their innocence because they have observed their resistance, which is what innocence is not. So innocence and vulnerability are not related to anxiety and neurosis, rather they come with a profound feeling of being alone, individuated - which is to be undivided, independent. To be vulnerable is to have a strength that allows for gentleness and compassion, a strength that few of us have experienced.

Best wishes

Robert

Sensitivity of mind and heart

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

You have to have this extraordinary feeling, this sensitivity to everything—to the animal, to the cat that walks across the wall, to the squalor, the dirt, the filth of human beings in poverty, in despair. You have to be sensitive—which is to feel intensely, not in any particular direction, which is not an emotion which comes and goes, but which is to be sensitive with your nerves, with your eyes, with your body, with your ears, with your voice. You have to be sensitive completely all the time. Unless you are so completely sensitive, there is no intelligence.

Intelligence comes with sensitivity and observation. Sensitivity does not come with infinite knowledge and information. You may know all the books in the world; you may have read them, devoured them; you may be familiar with every author; you may know all the things that have been said; but that does not bring intelligence. What brings intelligence is this sensitivity, a total sensitivity of your mind, conscious as well as unconscious, and of your heart with its extraordinary capacities of affection, sympathy, generosity. And with that comes this intense feeling, feeling for the leaf that falls from a tree with all its dying colours and the squalor of a filthy street—you have to be sensitive to both; you cannot be sensitive to the one and insensitive to the other. You are sensitive—not merely to the one or the other.

The Collected Works vol XIV, p 143

Here is my reflection.

This is, I think, was makes K a real yogi. To be a yogi is to move beyond the play of opposites; this is mentioned in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. One be sensitive to light and not dark is not to sensitive; it is insensitive, no matter how much sunlight affects you. It is not sensitive to be sensitive to when one is happy, but to be senstive to saddness as well. To live totally is to see the interconnectedness of the two things, and to be in this place of pure observation is equanimity. Such a person is truly free; it is the first and last freedom, as K would put it.

Best wishes

Robert

The analyser and the analysed

Good morning everyone,

Well, it's stopped rainy!

Here is todays' quote:

Please do follow this carefully. There is the analyser and the thing to be analysed. We have never questioned who the analyser is. He is obviously one of the many fragments and he proceeds to analyse the whole structure of oneself. But the analyser himself, being a fragment, is conditioned. When he analyses there are several things involved. First of all, every analysis must be complete or otherwise it becomes the stone round the neck of the analyser when he begins to analyse the next incident, the next reaction. So the memory of the previous analysis increases the burden. And analysis also implies time; there are so many reactions, associations and memories to be analysed that it will take all your life. By the time you have completely analysed yourself—if that is ever possible—you are ready for the grave.

Beyond Violence, p 102

Here is my reflection.

So analysis must be like fire. To actually be effective it must analyse everything. If there is something left, something not understood, it remains in the memory, in the unconscious, of the analyser. It must include an awareness of the analysis itself. And analysis does imply time. As you analyse you accumulate information and knowledge, fitting the clues together. But this allows the analyser the authority of anlysis; the analysis then depends upon the analyser.

Best wishes

Robert

The experiencer and the experienced

Good morning everyone,

Still very dark outside! :-)

Here is today's quote:

You can experiment with this for yourself very simply and very easily. Next time you are angry or jealous or greedy or violent or whatever it may be, watch yourself. In that state, “you” are not. There is only that state of being. The moment, the second afterwards, you term it, you name it, you call it jealousy, anger, greed; so you have created immediately the observer and the observed, the experiencer and the experienced.

When there is the experiencer and the experienced, then the experiencer tries to modify the experience, change it, remember things about it and so on, and therefore maintains the division between himself and the experienced. If you don’t name that feeling—which means you are not seeking a result, you are not condemning, you are merely silently aware of the feeling—then you will see that in that state of feeling, of experiencing, there is no observer and no observed, because the observer and the observed are a joint phenomenon and so there is only experiencing.

The First and Last Freedom, pp 175-176.

Here is my reflection.

K would say, don't decide that this is possible or not possible, but go into it, experiment, and find out. We each might discover the unforced force of attention.

Best wishes

Robert

Controller is part of chattering

Good morning everyone,

So many things to do this morning that it's actually after the sun is up as I get to the blog. :-)

Here is today's quote:

You don’t ask: Why is my mind chattering, so restless? Have you ever asked that question of yourself, why you are so restless, moving from one thing to another, seeking constant entertainment? Why is your mind chattering? And what will you do about it? Your immediate response is to control it, to say, “I must not chatter.” Which means what? The very controller is chattering. There is a controller who says, “I mustn’t chatter”; he is himself part of chattering. See the beauty of it! So what will you do?

On Mind and Thought, p 75

Here is my reflection.

This is the whole question of yoga, especially as meditation. It is the controller that says "I must meditate," "I must control my mind," and it is the controler too who decides when that has been done. But how is this possible? It isn't of course. We are still within our mind. We can't say, "I want to control my thoughts so that I am free of suffering, anxiety, and everything," and then not know whether we have got there or not. That would be ridiculous. So we invent lots of techniques to work on and we say that the techniques will take us there: the asanas, the paranayama, the regular meditation practice. And we defer the question of when will we get there; so it is really just a way of keeping the anxious mind occupied, just as one keeps an upset child occupied with a toy. We distract ourselves from the real problem of the mind by working on techniques. We become great at these techniques but we have no understanding of our mind and so no understanding of ourselves. We really need to put yoga in perspective a little. All we really get from it is a healthy body; which is wonderful. But the mind needs more than techniques I think.

Best wishes

Robert

The controller and the controlled

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

Is there in daily existence a way of living in which every form of psychological control ceases to exist?—because control means effort, it means division between the controller and the controlled; I am angry, I must control my anger; I smoke, I must not smoke and I must resist smoking. We are saying there is something totally different and this may be misunderstood and may be rejected altogether because it is very common to say that all life is control—if you do not control you will become permissive, nonsensical, without meaning, therefore you must control. Religions, philosophies, teachers, your family, your mother, they all encourage you to control. We have never asked: Who is the controller?

The Network of Thought, p 79

Here is my reflection.

So is there a controller without control? Is it only in the act of controlling that the controller comes into being? Is the object to which control is directed, just a cloak, a distraction from the real question? Is there a away of relating to another without control, and how does this relate to love? Would love reveal the real question?

Bets wishes

Robert

The division between the observer and the observed

Good morning!

Sun today! :-)

Here is today's quote:

There is a division between the observer and the observed. That is, you are looking at your life as an observer, as something separate from your life. Right? So there is a division between the observer and the observed. Now, this division is the essence of all conflict, the essence of all struggle, pain, fear, despair. That is, where there is a division between human beings—the division of nationalities, the division of religions, social divisions—there must be conflict.

This is law; this is reason, logic. There is Pakistan on one side and India on the other, battling with each other. You are a Brahmin and another is a non-Brahmin, and there is hate, division.

So, that externalized division with all its conflict is the same as the inward division as the observer and the observed. You’ve understood this? If you don’t understand this, you can’t go much further, because a mind that is in conflict is a tortured mind, a twisted mind, a distorted mind.

Mind in Meditation, p 6.

Here is my reflection.

The point is that the observed is something that thought creates in the process of, and at the same time as, creating the observer, the me. The observed that is outside us is simply the manifested representation of what thought creates within us. It legitimates action towards and upon the observed. Thought, then, provides its own internal justification system through the act of representation, which is what all thought is. Until there is thought, the observed just is; in the same way that the observer, the me, just is. Representation therefore brings the world into existence, yet at the same time divides it, makes it fragmented. Until then, in its just is-ness, there is togetherness, affection, love. The thought of the observer is the thing thats fragmented the world, and all sorrow dates from this moment.

Best wishes

Robert

How does the observer come into being?

Good morning everyone,

Still dark outside as I seem to be on an early-morning roll this week and the days are getting shorter!

Here is today's quote:

So how does the observer come into being? When you look at this flower, at the moment you observe it closely, there is no observer, there is only a looking. Then you begin to name that flower. Then you say, “I wish I had it in my garden or in my house.” Then you have already begun to build an image about that flower. So the image-maker is the observer. Right? Are you following all this? Watch it in yourself, please. So the image and the image-maker are the observer, and the observer is the past. The “me” as the observer is the past, the “me” is the knowledge which I have accumulated: knowledge of pain, sorrow, suffering, agony, despair, loneliness, jealousy, and the tremendous anxiety that one goes through. That’s all the “me”, which is the accumulated knowledge of the observer, which is the past. Right? So when you observe, the observer looks at that flower with the eyes of the past. And you don’t know how to look without the observer and, therefore, you bring about conflict.

Mind in Meditation, pp 8-9.

Here is my reflection.

I think this gets nicely at the way that observing from the past creates conflict. The observer is the past, is everything that he or she has accumulated from experience. So now when he looks it is never her that he looks at but rather what his past experience shows him. This might be fear, anger, desire, ambition, hurt, remorse, sorrow, all his life's possibilities, but it is still not her that he sees. Only if he is deeply alert to all of this in himself can he truly love her.

Best wishes

Robert