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Post by sree on May 24, 2022 11:19:54 GMT -5
I noticed that you keep hijacking this thread, which is about Krishnmaurti. He had rejected all the gurus and their Hinduism (Ramana, Ramakrishna, Advaita, Mahesh Yogi, samsara, nirvarna); and yet, you keep shoving them and their beliefs into our discussion. Why?
Samsara is about a soul that gets reborn over and over again. Nirvana is the ending of that cycle of birth and death. And you say one is not different from the other.
I'm hijacking because I'm engaging in a discussion about themes that have emerged from Krishnamurti on what he accepts which is worthy of discussion and what he rejects which is also worthy of discussion? I see. Well I'll gladly step aside in that case. Oh no, please don't step aside. I am just curious and want to know where you are going with this conversation. I welcome any point of view but you need to explain the relevance of Hindu beliefs and their proponents that Krishnamurti flatly rejected as rubbish. robertk doesn't see you doing anything wrong but offers no argument in support of your tack.
Until Krishnamurti came along, the selfless state was the Holy Grail of westerners imbued with a sense of spirituality. Easterners are quite content with traditional Hinduism and Buddhism that have shaped their cultures. Religion is a matter of faith in the East. You either accept it or you don't. You don't reflect and question. Such an attitude is abhorrent to the western mind that submits to nothing it cannot take apart and put together again. Blind superstition is beneath them. Consequently, scientific-minded westerners had reversed-engineered all religions of the East and came out with modernized versions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, etc. These religions are "researched" and taught in the West but neither preached in temples nor practiced by devotees in the East.
The Krishnamurti Foundations and schools are packed with westerners and westernized easterners expounding an ancient spiritual philosophy that is compatible with the Unified Theory of Everything, an all-inclusive spiritual form palatable even to atheists.
East or West, Krishnamurti condemned the whole shebang. Nothing emerged from Krishnamurti, satch. And that is my contention.
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Post by laughter on May 24, 2022 21:38:41 GMT -5
I'm hijacking because I'm engaging in a discussion about themes that have emerged from Krishnamurti on what he accepts which is worthy of discussion and what he rejects which is also worthy of discussion? I see. Well I'll gladly step aside in that case. Oh no, please don't step aside. I am just curious and want to know where you are going with this conversation. I welcome any point of view but you need to explain the relevance of Hindu beliefs and their proponents that Krishnamurti flatly rejected as rubbish. robertk doesn't see you doing anything wrong but offers no argument in support of your tack.
Until Krishnamurti came along, the selfless state was the Holy Grail of westerners imbued with a sense of spirituality. Easterners are quite content with traditional Hinduism and Buddhism that have shaped their cultures. Religion is a matter of faith in the East. You either accept it or you don't. You don't reflect and question. Such an attitude is abhorrent to the western mind that submits to nothing it cannot take apart and put together again. Blind superstition is beneath them. Consequently, scientific-minded westerners had reversed-engineered all religions of the East and came out with modernized versions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, etc. These religions are "researched" and taught in the West but neither preached in temples nor practiced by devotees in the East. The Krishnamurti Foundations and schools are packed with westerners and westernized easterners expounding an ancient spiritual philosophy that is compatible with the Unified Theory of Everything, an all-inclusive spiritual form palatable even to atheists. East or West, Krishnamurti condemned the whole shebang. Nothing emerged from Krishnamurti, satch. And that is my contention.
Western Christianity is certainly about not questioning, and instead, worshipping. My impression of Zen Buddhism is quite different from that though, in that it seems to me to involve an overt search. As does what's described as traditional Advaita Vedanta. It always struck me that western secular humanism and the sciences were a sort of outward facing version of the self-inquiry of Advaita Vedanta. I've also read that, just like the branches of Christianity, there are many different branches of Hinduism, with most of them being as "bhakti" as the Christians. I'm also aware of the idea of "Christian mysticism", but never took the time to read anything about it. Perhaps there is some tradition of self-inquiry there, but I suspect this was reserved for the clergy. It strikes me as an irony that the American and British elites had to go to India, China and Japan to spark and import a thread of spirituality that was about insight, rather than devotion. My reading on this is quite thin compared to several other writers here - satch, zd, reefs, zazeniac and siftingtothetruth, to name a few, and I think abscissa as well, although she doesn't often write about that much, and what she did spans many different account names over the years. lolly turned me on to J.K. (I like to call him lolz), and J.K.'s rejection of the "Star of the East" is certainly, quite admirable. |
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2022 21:50:56 GMT -5
I'm hijacking because I'm engaging in a discussion about themes that have emerged from Krishnamurti on what he accepts which is worthy of discussion and what he rejects which is also worthy of discussion? I see. Well I'll gladly step aside in that case. Oh no, please don't step aside. I am just curious and want to know where you are going with this conversation. I welcome any point of view but you need to explain the relevance of Hindu beliefs and their proponents that Krishnamurti flatly rejected as rubbish. robertk doesn't see you doing anything wrong but offers no argument in support of your tack.
Until Krishnamurti came along, the selfless state was the Holy Grail of westerners imbued with a sense of spirituality. Easterners are quite content with traditional Hinduism and Buddhism that have shaped their cultures. Religion is a matter of faith in the East. You either accept it or you don't. You don't reflect and question. Such an attitude is abhorrent to the western mind that submits to nothing it cannot take apart and put together again. Blind superstition is beneath them. Consequently, scientific-minded westerners had reversed-engineered all religions of the East and came out with modernized versions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, etc. These religions are "researched" and taught in the West but neither preached in temples nor practiced by devotees in the East.
The Krishnamurti Foundations and schools are packed with westerners and westernized easterners expounding an ancient spiritual philosophy that is compatible with the Unified Theory of Everything, an all-inclusive spiritual form palatable even to atheists.
East or West, Krishnamurti condemned the whole shebang. Nothing emerged from Krishnamurti, satch. And that is my contention.
I agree with Krishnamurthi that Hindu beliefs are rubbish. But that's a million miles away from what sages like Ramana Maharshi taught or what traditional Advaita Vedanta or Yoga teaches, which has been called the science of Being. What you call Hindu beliefs are a wide and diverse range of beliefs, rituals and superstitions attributed to the peoples of the Hindu Kush region. It is much more diverse and eclectic than the judeo-christian religions even though let's say within Christianity there are many different sects and divisions. In a typical Hindu household you might find every member of the family worshiping a different Hindu God. I wonder if you have come across the other Krishnamurthi ,UG, who was far more radical than Jiddu in his dismissal of even the notion of enlightenment. Actually UG was also very dismissive of Jiddu for not being radical enough! No, religion is not what generally interests us here, but the direct experience and knowledge of what we are fundamentally which is beyond all ideas, concepts and beliefs. That is what sages such as Ramana Maharshi taught when he advocated the practice of going within to inquire into the very essence of what we are. There's not one belief anywhere to be seen in that process! I advise you to dismiss Krishnamurthi and move on to someone like Adi Shankara. Read his Crest Jewel of Discrimination to discover what is of real relevance on the road to discovery of what you are. So the interest is more in Vedic knowledge rather than what you would call Hinduism. It is true that many of the early Vedic texts were very religious in tone but when you get to the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and other later texts about non-duality it has much more to do with the direct knowledge of oneself. So what I present is not a hijacking, it's simply putting Krishnamurthi within the context of knowledge. Krishnamurti describes a moment when he was in a room and he was watching some workers outside drilling a hole in the road and he described an experience where he became one with that experience where he was no different to the work that was going on in the road below his room. You described an interesting shift when you looked at the circular rainbow. It is that kind of experience which is the essence and you could say the culmination of all religion. There is a saying that all religions contain yoga but yoga is not a religion. The literal translation of yoga is Union with oneself. But then Krishnamurthi muddies the waters when he starts talking about very convoluted conceptual aspects within the sphere of what it is to be human. In my opinion anyone who reads his books is going to end up confused. I think you give too much emphasis to Krishnamurti's influence. Most westerners who are interested in Indian philosophy are into non-duality and quote sages such as Ramana and Nizargadatta Maharaj and the teachings of Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism and Yoga. (And by Yoga I do not mean physical exercises). I never hear any mention of Krishnamurthi these days. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on May 25, 2022 11:39:22 GMT -5
This guy is just so adorable and funny!  And great wisdom there too re: why it is called the pathless path. What is not funny is Krishnamurti's answer that whatever we are looking for can only happen when the self is not. And he had always emphasized that there is no path to it. I don't think it is possible to get rid of the self before getting rid of the body. Krishnamurti implied that it is possible. How? Hunger compels the awakening of the self to get off my butt to get food. Can't get food without money. Can get money without a job. Can get a job without an ID.
This is the fundamental issue I have with the Krishnamurti teaching.
J Krishnamurti talked in terms of two different kinds of conditioning (basically, what is learned). One is the conditioning that forms the self, a self-point-of-view. This is the conditioning that causes all sort of problems, basically the majority of all problems in the world. [Everyone functions from their own point of view, in their own interests. With everyone functioning in this way, there is always conflict, there is a kind of unspoken rule we seem to live by, a zero sum world of limited resources]. But, secondly, he also talked in terms of things necessary to learn to be able to function in the world. Language, writing, reading, driving a car, learning a skill to make money to make one's way in the world. So, once learned, the second can operate in the absence of the first, it's possible. I discovered J Krishnamurti in 1971. I pulled the book down, Think On These Things, from a wire rack in The International Book Stand in downtown Charlotte. I browsed, and browsed. In a few minutes this became a definite buy. My spiritual journey had started in earnest in 1969. It basically started with Theosophical literature, Leadbeater and others. {Oddly, it was years later that I learned the connection between Leadbeater/Theosophy and J Krishnamurti and his brother Nitya}. So I learned the importance of meditation. The easiest route was TM, which I practiced regularly as it was given for a year. (Then the student fee was $10). When I found JK he became ~IT~ for me for about 5 years. A new book by Harper & Row came out every year, plus I ordered previous books. In the five years I learned that attention is the key. (Incidentally, zd talks about Gary Weber who had discovered evidence for two different types of neural circuits in the brain. One type of circuit is the default self mode. Other neural circuits concern ordinary functioning in life, ordinary learned skills). This gets us to your question, your fundamental issue. So what is self? Is a self necessary, as you say, to put a roof over your head, clothes on your back and food in your mouth?, to have a job, etc. Does having an ID, a passport or drivers license, necessarily mean a self? Now, the following didn't all come from J Krishnamurti, it's from 50+ years of exploring. JK asks, is it possible to operate free from one's (self) conditioning, bearing in mind the distinction he makes (above), from this point, will assume the distinction is understood. The conditioning from which self arises, comes from information stored in the brain, our memories. That is, they come from the past. So what is JK always pointing to in everything he says? He's pointing to the possibility of living without that burden of past learning, he always comes back to that. But he is almost never explicit, but the key is attention. In focused attention one is in the present moment. In the present moment, self doesn't operate. In the present moment there is no burden of the past. But self always jumps back in, that is, conditioned thinking and conditioned feelings are elicited by chains of associations. What does that mean? It means that thoughts, feelings and events ~take back attention~, it means your attention ~goes back into~, and disappears into thinking, feeling and events. [Another aside. We know from people who suffer from amnesia that they forget *who they are*, they don't forget how to speak English or how to drive a car. This also seems to show Gary Weber's two different circuits]. Does this resolve your dilemma? It's not so easy to ~stay in the present moment~, but it is possible. Now, most people here are going to tell you that once you see through the illusion of self, then the journey is over, self is no longer a problem. You just go about you life. ~MY~ view is different. As long as the circuits which constitute self, are in operation, the journey is not over. Only in unconditioned attention do we journey into the unknown. J Krishnamurti's known was much larger than ours. To his credit he never tried to describe "the other". But each has to find their own way. Everybody has to decide what it all means, for themselves. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on May 25, 2022 19:17:14 GMT -5
Sounds like a troll. Collective labels and ideas like "women are __", "men are __" are actually the dead things, ironically. See people uniquely, alive, in the moment. People are alive? You wish. Perhaps, you live in a different world. Mine is the world of the living dead, robots who are uniquely alive in the moment. "Moreover, it happens fairly often that essence dies in a man while his personality and his body are still alive. A considerable percentage of the people we meet in the streets of a great town are people who are empty inside, that is, they are actually already dead. It is fortunate that we do not see it and do not know it. If we knew what a number of people are actually dead and what a number of these dead people govern our lives, we should go mad with horror. And indeed people do often go mad because they find out something of this nature without the proper preparation, that is, they see something they are not supposed to see. Only this happens rarely. In order to see without danger one must be on the way. Usually everything is so arranged that a man can see nothing prematurely". page 164 "Let us take some event in the life of humanity. For instance, war. There is a war going on at the present moment. (note sdp, WWI). What does it signify? It signifies that several millions of sleeping people are trying to destroy several millions of other sleeping people. They would not do this, of course, if they were to wake up. Everything that takes place is owing to this sleep. ...He sees that it is the life of sleeping people, a life in sleep". page 143 "After this there followed a strange period of time. It lasted about three weeks. And during this period from time to time I saw "sleeping people". This requires a particular explanation. ...I was walking along the Troitsky street and suddenly I saw that the man who was walking towards me was asleep. There could be no doubt whatever about this. Although his eyes were open, he was walking along obviously immersed in dreams like clouds across his face. But he passed on. And after him came another also sleeping. Everyone around me was asleep. It was an indubitable and distinct sensation. ...for so long as I had energy enough not to be diverted, that is, not to allow things and everything around me to attract my attention. When attention was diverted I ceased to see "sleeping people" because I had obviously gone to sleep myself. Afterwards everything became normal. I could not give myself a clear account of what exactly had taken place. But everything in me had been turned upside down. ...There could be no doubt about it and although I afterwards became the same as I had been before I could not help knowing that this had been and I could forget nothing". page 265 from In Search of the Miraculous, Fragments of an Unknown Teaching by PD Ouspensky, 1949 |
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Post by sree on May 25, 2022 22:35:01 GMT -5
What is not funny is Krishnamurti's answer that whatever we are looking for can only happen when the self is not. And he had always emphasized that there is no path to it. I don't think it is possible to get rid of the self before getting rid of the body. Krishnamurti implied that it is possible. How? Hunger compels the awakening of the self to get off my butt to get food. Can't get food without money. Can get money without a job. Can get a job without an ID.
This is the fundamental issue I have with the Krishnamurti teaching.
This gets us to your question, your fundamental issue. So what is self? Is a self necessary, as you say, to put a roof over your head, clothes on your back and food in your mouth?, to have a job, etc. Does having an ID, a passport or drivers license, necessarily mean a self? The self is necessary. You walk on your own two legs to move about. You shove food into your own mouth, chew it with your own teeth and swallow it down your own throat. The self exists to serve the body. When the body dies, the self is fired from its job as caretaker of the body. It's pretty heartless.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on May 26, 2022 9:57:17 GMT -5
But the you that feels protected is temporary, ephemeral, bound for death in the end. Like all of us.  What do you mean by "the you that feels protected"?
I am yoked to the "human body" that is indeed temporary, ephemeral, and bound for death.
All of you are convinced that consciousness is private and personal, and it comes out of the human brain. I don't share that belief which, incidentally, is a scientific one.
I know for a fact that my consciousness is not sree's consciousness, and it has nothing to do with that grey stuff inside the human skull.
Let's debate this and have a good laugh at each other's expense without malice. What do you say, my ticklish friend?
You have acknowledged elsewhere there are times when self ( sree's consciousness) is absent. Is it not a possibility that life can run more smoothly, actually, when self is absent? Does a newborn baby have a self? Yet it eats immediately upon birth, and it learns to roll over, crawl, walk, run, speak. What is the ' operating system' until a cultural self is formed? So maybe life can go more smoothly when the cultural self is not in control. What is responsible for most of the misery in life? Attention in and of itself is unconditioned. |
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Post by sree on May 27, 2022 14:06:55 GMT -5
What do you mean by "the you that feels protected"?
I am yoked to the "human body" that is indeed temporary, ephemeral, and bound for death.
All of you are convinced that consciousness is private and personal, and it comes out of the human brain. I don't share that belief which, incidentally, is a scientific one.
I know for a fact that my consciousness is not sree's consciousness, and it has nothing to do with that grey stuff inside the human skull.
Let's debate this and have a good laugh at each other's expense without malice. What do you say, my ticklish friend?
You have acknowledged elsewhere there are times when self ( sree's consciousness) is absent. Is it not a possibility that life can run more smoothly, actually, when self is absent? Does a newborn baby have a self? Yet it eats immediately upon birth, and it learns to roll over, crawl, walk, run, speak. What is the ' operating system' until a cultural self is formed? So maybe life can go more smoothly when the cultural self is not in control. What is responsible for most of the misery in life? Attention in and of itself is unconditioned. You said: "You have acknowledged elsewhere there are times when self (sree's consciousness) is absent."
I don't recall having said that. If you are referring to my report on that circular rainbow experience I had, that amounted to several moments when I lost a sense of space. But I was fully cognizant of the bizarre situation. If that situation had persisted longer, the sense of self could be seriously challenged due to perceptual disorientation. Nothing like that actually happened and I don't want to speculate.
The sense of self has always been present from my earliest memory as a four-year-old riding about on my tricycle. Culture is a way of life. Eating is culture, a way of life, whether it is with a knife and fork, chopsticks, or just sucking at your mother's breasts. Riding a tricycle is culture. Getting on and riding a horse is culture. Chatting with you on a computer is culture. Alighting on your arm, as a mosquito, and sucking your blood is culture. Your argument is based on a distinction between drinking water and drinking whiskey. I think the caveman was miserable with his lot even before he became an acculturated American.
Misery is something else. Misery was being forced to go to school when I wanted to wander through the woods all day every day with my dog. Education is mind-binding, a cultural practice as cruel as foot-binding for women in imperial China. In either case, the finished product is equally grotesque. Those women couldn't walk properly and we can no longer perceive reality unconditionally.
When I said that my consciousness is not sree's consciousness, I meant that I am not "a human being with a name and a body". This is a belief of the culture of science.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on May 27, 2022 15:41:12 GMT -5
You have acknowledged elsewhere there are times when self ( sree's consciousness) is absent. Is it not a possibility that life can run more smoothly, actually, when self is absent? Does a newborn baby have a self? Yet it eats immediately upon birth, and it learns to roll over, crawl, walk, run, speak. What is the ' operating system' until a cultural self is formed? So maybe life can go more smoothly when the cultural self is not in control. What is responsible for most of the misery in life? Attention in and of itself is unconditioned. You said: "You have acknowledged elsewhere there are times when self (sree's consciousness) is absent." I don't recall having said that. If you are referring to my report on that circular rainbow experience I had, that amounted to several moments when I lost a sense of space. But I was fully cognizant of the bizarre situation. If that situation had persisted longer, the sense of self could be seriously challenged due to perceptual disorientation. Nothing like that actually happened and I don't want to speculate.
The sense of self has always been present from my earliest memory as a four-year-old riding about on my tricycle. Culture is a way of life. Eating is culture, a way of life, whether it is with a knife and fork, chopsticks, or just sucking at your mother's breasts. Riding a tricycle is culture. Getting on and riding a horse is culture. Chatting with you on a computer is culture. Alighting on your arm, as a mosquito, and sucking your blood is culture. Your argument is based on a distinction between drinking water and drinking whiskey. I think the caveman was miserable with his lot even before he became an acculturated American.
Misery is something else. Misery was being forced to go to school when I wanted to wander through the woods all day every day with my dog. Education is mind-binding, a cultural practice as cruel as foot-binding for women in imperial China. In either case, the finished product is equally grotesque. Those women couldn't walk properly and we can no longer perceive reality unconditionally.
When I said that my consciousness is not sree's consciousness, I meant that I am not "a human being with a name and a body". This is a belief of the culture of science.
. Thanks for the clarification. |
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Post by sree on May 27, 2022 15:44:58 GMT -5
J Krishnamurti talked in terms of two different kinds of conditioning (basically, what is learned). One is the conditioning that forms the self, a self-point-of-view. This is the conditioning that causes all sort of problems, basically the majority of all problems in the world. [Everyone functions from their own point of view, in their own interests. With everyone functioning in this way, there is always conflict, there is a kind of unspoken rule we seem to live by, a zero sum world of limited resources]. But, secondly, he also talked in terms of things necessary to learn to be able to function in the world. Language, writing, reading, driving a car, learning a skill to make money to make one's way in the world. So, once learned, the second can operate in the absence of the first, it's possible. I discovered J Krishnamurti in 1971. I pulled the book down, Think On These Things, from a wire rack in The International Book Stand in downtown Charlotte. I browsed, and browsed. In a few minutes this became a definite buy. My spiritual journey had started in earnest in 1969. It basically started with Theosophical literature, Leadbeater and others. {Oddly, it was years later that I learned the connection between Leadbeater/Theosophy and J Krishnamurti and his brother Nitya}. So I learned the importance of meditation. The easiest route was TM, which I practiced regularly as it was given for a year. (Then the student fee was $10). When I found JK he became ~IT~ for me for about 5 years. A new book by Harper & Row came out every year, plus I ordered previous books. In the five years I learned that attention is the key. (Incidentally, zd talks about Gary Weber who had discovered evidence for two different types of neural circuits in the brain. One type of circuit is the default self mode. Other neural circuits concern ordinary functioning in life, ordinary learned skills). This gets us to your question, your fundamental issue. So what is self? Is a self necessary, as you say, to put a roof over your head, clothes on your back and food in your mouth?, to have a job, etc. Does having an ID, a passport or drivers license, necessarily mean a self? Now, the following didn't all come from J Krishnamurti, it's from 50+ years of exploring. JK asks, is it possible to operate free from one's (self) conditioning, bearing in mind the distinction he makes (above), from this point, will assume the distinction is understood. The conditioning from which self arises, comes from information stored in the brain, our memories. That is, they come from the past. So what is JK always pointing to in everything he says? He's pointing to the possibility of living without that burden of past learning, he always comes back to that. But he is almost never explicit, but the key is attention. In focused attention one is in the present moment. In the present moment, self doesn't operate. In the present moment there is no burden of the past. But self always jumps back in, that is, conditioned thinking and conditioned feelings are elicited by chains of associations. What does that mean? It means that thoughts, feelings and events ~take back attention~, it means your attention ~goes back into~, and disappears into thinking, feeling and events. [Another aside. We know from people who suffer from amnesia that they forget *who they are*, they don't forget how to speak English or how to drive a car. This also seems to show Gary Weber's two different circuits]. Does this resolve your dilemma? It's not so easy to ~stay in the present moment~, but it is possible. Now, most people here are going to tell you that once you see through the illusion of self, then the journey is over, self is no longer a problem. You just go about you life. ~MY~ view is different. As long as the circuits which constitute self, are in operation, the journey is not over. Only in unconditioned attention do we journey into the unknown. J Krishnamurti's known was much larger than ours. To his credit he never tried to describe "the other". But each has to find their own way. Everybody has to decide what it all means, for themselves. Can you see the contradiction between your sentences - the second at the beginning and the last one in your post above?
There is much to unravel in our exploration into our nature, and you have been at it in earnest. You are an "expert". For that, I am grateful. I used to work with some of the leading experts in their fields on cutting-edge engineering projects. I had admiration for those guys, and there is nothing better than cooperating with smart people doing exciting things. A technical expert is not a know-all but he knows best from his point of view. And that is how, together, mankind has succeeded at great feats of technological achievement. I don't see why we can't make a breakthrough in a "fundamental transformation" of the human consciousness.
The human consciousness has different points of view: your view, my view, but not Ramana's view, or even Krishnamurti's view. Consciousness is a living existential state, and we are that. Only the living can explore that which is alive.
Technology is a different matter pertaining to building on experience, using knowledge acquired in the past, to achieve practical results.
So, I have no issue with different points of view as long as they are reflective of a holistic state of harmony like the various facets that bring forth the brilliance of a beautifully cut diamond.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on May 27, 2022 16:10:11 GMT -5
J Krishnamurti talked in terms of two different kinds of conditioning (basically, what is learned). One is the conditioning that forms the self, a self-point-of-view. This is the conditioning that causes all sort of problems, basically the majority of all problems in the world. [Everyone functions from their own point of view, in their own interests. With everyone functioning in this way, there is always conflict, there is a kind of unspoken rule we seem to live by, a zero sum world of limited resources]. But, secondly, he also talked in terms of things necessary to learn to be able to function in the world. Language, writing, reading, driving a car, learning a skill to make money to make one's way in the world. So, once learned, the second can operate in the absence of the first, it's possible. I discovered J Krishnamurti in 1971. I pulled the book down, Think On These Things, from a wire rack in The International Book Stand in downtown Charlotte. I browsed, and browsed. In a few minutes this became a definite buy. My spiritual journey had started in earnest in 1969. It basically started with Theosophical literature, Leadbeater and others. {Oddly, it was years later that I learned the connection between Leadbeater/Theosophy and J Krishnamurti and his brother Nitya}. So I learned the importance of meditation. The easiest route was TM, which I practiced regularly as it was given for a year. (Then the student fee was $10). When I found JK he became ~IT~ for me for about 5 years. A new book by Harper & Row came out every year, plus I ordered previous books. In the five years I learned that attention is the key. (Incidentally, zd talks about Gary Weber who had discovered evidence for two different types of neural circuits in the brain. One type of circuit is the default self mode. Other neural circuits concern ordinary functioning in life, ordinary learned skills). This gets us to your question, your fundamental issue. So what is self? Is a self necessary, as you say, to put a roof over your head, clothes on your back and food in your mouth?, to have a job, etc. Does having an ID, a passport or drivers license, necessarily mean a self? Now, the following didn't all come from J Krishnamurti, it's from 50+ years of exploring. JK asks, is it possible to operate free from one's (self) conditioning, bearing in mind the distinction he makes (above), from this point, will assume the distinction is understood. The conditioning from which self arises, comes from information stored in the brain, our memories. That is, they come from the past. So what is JK always pointing to in everything he says? He's pointing to the possibility of living without that burden of past learning, he always comes back to that. But he is almost never explicit, but the key is attention. In focused attention one is in the present moment. In the present moment, self doesn't operate. In the present moment there is no burden of the past. But self always jumps back in, that is, conditioned thinking and conditioned feelings are elicited by chains of associations. What does that mean? It means that thoughts, feelings and events ~take back attention~, it means your attention ~goes back into~, and disappears into thinking, feeling and events. [Another aside. We know from people who suffer from amnesia that they forget *who they are*, they don't forget how to speak English or how to drive a car. This also seems to show Gary Weber's two different circuits]. Does this resolve your dilemma? It's not so easy to ~stay in the present moment~, but it is possible. Now, most people here are going to tell you that once you see through the illusion of self, then the journey is over, self is no longer a problem. You just go about you life. ~MY~ view is different. As long as the circuits which constitute self, are in operation, the journey is not over. Only in unconditioned attention do we journey into the unknown. J Krishnamurti's known was much larger than ours. To his credit he never tried to describe "the other". But each has to find their own way. Everybody has to decide what it all means, for themselves. Can you see the contradiction between your sentences - the second at the beginning and the last one in your post above? There is much to unravel in our exploration into our nature, and you have been at it in earnest. You are an "expert". For that, I am grateful. I used to work with some of the leading experts in their fields on cutting-edge engineering projects. I had admiration for those guys, and there is nothing better than cooperating with smart people doing exciting things. A technical expert is not a know-all but he knows best from his point of view. And that is how, together, mankind has succeeded at great feats of technological achievement. I don't see why we can't make a breakthrough in a "fundamental transformation" of the human consciousness.
The human consciousness has different points of view: your view, my view, but not Ramana's view, or even Krishnamurti's view. Consciousness is a living existential state, and we are that. Only the living can explore that which is alive.
Technology is a different matter pertaining to building on experience, using knowledge acquired in the past, to achieve practical results. So, I have no issue with different points of view as long as they are reflective of a holistic state of harmony like the various facets that bring forth the brilliance of a beautifully cut diamond.
You will have to explain what you see as a contradiction. Through a process which happens mostly unconsciously from birth to about age 6, most people form what I call a cultural self, because it arises from the child collecting 'data' from its encounter with the world. Now, most people accept the self so formed as their self, throughout their life. Some don't, most everybody on ST's forum have in some manner looked more deeply into the matter, and find this self not to be their real identity. There is a continuum here as well as with people still living wholly in the consensus world. Everybody in some sense has to come to terms with who they are in relation to the world. (I see the cultural self as a false sense of self, ~what/who-we-are~ goes more deeply). I don't see a contradiction. |
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Post by laughter on May 27, 2022 21:46:11 GMT -5
This gets us to your question, your fundamental issue. So what is self? Is a self necessary, as you say, to put a roof over your head, clothes on your back and food in your mouth?, to have a job, etc. Does having an ID, a passport or drivers license, necessarily mean a self? The self is necessary. You walk on your own two legs to move about. You shove food into your own mouth, chew it with your own teeth and swallow it down your own throat. The self exists to serve the body. When the body dies, the self is fired from its job as caretaker of the body. It's pretty heartless.
These are all ideas about objects in your perception as filtered through your mind: the "self", the body, you, your legs, food, your mouth, chewing, swallowing, your throat, service, the reason for the self, death, what happens after death, jobs and getting fired. The heartlessness of it all ("oh! despair!  "). I agree with what you wrote here about the mystery But it is a mystery that can be penetrated, (But) 2, that penetration means setting aside all these ideas about all of these objects that appear to you because of the conditioned filter of your mind. |
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Post by laughter on May 27, 2022 21:50:41 GMT -5
What do you mean by "the you that feels protected"?
I am yoked to the "human body" that is indeed temporary, ephemeral, and bound for death.
All of you are convinced that consciousness is private and personal, and it comes out of the human brain. I don't share that belief which, incidentally, is a scientific one.
I know for a fact that my consciousness is not sree's consciousness, and it has nothing to do with that grey stuff inside the human skull.
Let's debate this and have a good laugh at each other's expense without malice. What do you say, my ticklish friend?
You have acknowledged elsewhere there are times when self ( sree's consciousness) is absent. Is it not a possibility that life can run more smoothly, actually, when self is absent? Does a newborn baby have a self? Yet it eats immediately upon birth, and it learns to roll over, crawl, walk, run, speak. What is the ' operating system' until a cultural self is formed? So maybe life can go more smoothly when the cultural self is not in control. What is responsible for most of the misery in life? Attention in and of itself is unconditioned. Yes. |
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Post by sree on May 27, 2022 22:13:31 GMT -5
The self is necessary. You walk on your own two legs to move about. You shove food into your own mouth, chew it with your own teeth and swallow it down your own throat. The self exists to serve the body. When the body dies, the self is fired from its job as caretaker of the body. It's pretty heartless.
These are all ideas about objects in your perception as filtered through your mind: the "self", the body, you, your legs, food, your mouth, chewing, swallowing, your throat, service, the reason for the self, death, what happens after death, jobs and getting fired. The heartlessness of it all ("oh! despair! "). I agree with what you wrote here about the mystery But it is a mystery that can be penetrated, (But) 2, that penetration means setting aside all these ideas about all of these objects that appear to you because of the conditioned filter of your mind. I don't know what you mean by penetrating the mystery of the self. If you can clarify and solve this existential puzzle for us, we can shut down this forum and celebrate. All drinks will be on me.
Please, I am serious. After ten years of intense but fruitless searching, I am willing to check out any discovery you have made. |
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Post by laughter on May 27, 2022 22:30:41 GMT -5
These are all ideas about objects in your perception as filtered through your mind: the "self", the body, you, your legs, food, your mouth, chewing, swallowing, your throat, service, the reason for the self, death, what happens after death, jobs and getting fired. The heartlessness of it all ("oh! despair! "). I agree with what you wrote here about the mystery But it is a mystery that can be penetrated, (But) 2, that penetration means setting aside all these ideas about all of these objects that appear to you because of the conditioned filter of your mind. I don't know what you mean by penetrating the mystery of the self. If you can clarify and solve this existential puzzle for us, we can shut down this forum and celebrate. All drinks will be on me. Please, I am serious. After ten years of intense but fruitless searching, I am willing to check out any discovery you have made. Well, I am writing about that. You can always ask me to get more specific about one topic or another.  |
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"). 