Death

[sree]

Last night, I was awakened by flashing lights. From my bedroom window I saw an ambulance, a police cruiser and a fire truck out in the street. My “next-door neighbor to the north” (she called herself that when we first met). They must have come for her. Poor woman. She has been struggling with lung cancer for ten years now. Once a bubbly, cheerful person, an aspiring writer, I have not seen any sign of her for months, nor her husband – a professor (in business management) full of stories to tell me over whiskey and wine in my basement bar whenever he returned from his teaching assignments abroad. Three weeks ago, I ran into him in the back alley throwing his garbage while I was out there throwing mine. “I thought you were away overseas. How’s Martha?” I asked. Apparently, he had been at home all that time tending to his wife. “She is very weak now,” he said.

The video below is about death, and Krishnamurti is not someone who gives comfort the way your priest would. Reincarnation and Nirvana? Forget it. This old boy had his own way out. End it! Die now before the body dies. But not for any reason. Just give up everything! He would ask, “Can you do it?”

For no reason? This is where Krishnamurti falls down the rabbit hole; especially, after he (at 4.40 seconds into the video clip below) reinforced the realness of being a person that can be absolutely and completely extinguished when the body dies.

[sree]

Freedom from the known. What is the known? A habit, he said. Drop it. Sure; especially, a bad one – such as smoking - and a good reason to be free of it. To dump the entirety of the known, which is “everything that thought had put together” (Krishnamurti) doesn’t make sense. There is a lot of the known that is not only vital for human survival but is necessary for living a pleasant life. I wouldn’t want to live off-grid like a barefooted caveman.

I wouldn’t dump Krishnamurti entirely either just because he didn’t make sense. This guy had something to say but he didn’t say it right. He was using the English language, the lingua franca of the conditioned mind, my mind. And it is incumbent on me to figure out what the hell he was trying to communicate.

[stardustpilgrim]

Jun 13, 2022 16:41:42 GMT -5 sree said:

Freedom from the known. What is the known? A habit, he said. Drop it. Sure; especially, a bad one – such as smoking - and a good reason to be free of it. To dump the entirety of the known, which is “everything that thought had put together” (Krishnamurti) doesn’t make sense. There is a lot of the known that is not only vital for human survival but is necessary for living a pleasant life. I wouldn’t want to live off-grid like a barefooted caveman.

I wouldn’t dump Krishnamurti entirely either just because he didn’t make sense. This guy had something to say but he didn’t say it right. He was using the English language, the lingua franca of the conditioned mind, my mind. And it is incumbent on me to figure out what the hell he was trying to communicate.

You can skip to minute seven, where K tells where thought is necessary. He often mentions this, but doesn't spend much time on it. IOW he makes a distinction between psychological thought centered on the me, and the necessary function of thought. So when K talks about dumping the entirety of the known, he means only the psychological self.

[sree]

Thank you for your response. You came in a time when I feel a need for company to share a burden.

Martha has been on my mind. And a couple of hours ago, a truck pulled up next door to unload equipment: medical stuff, respirator, hospital bed. Signs on the truck said “home care, long term care, hospice”. I guess Martha will be coming home from the hospital to die.

[stardustpilgrim]

Jun 13, 2022 18:26:42 GMT -5 sree said:

Thank you for your response. You came in a time when I feel a need for company to share a burden.

Martha has been on my mind. And a couple of hours ago, a truck pulled up next door to unload equipment: medical stuff, respirator, hospital bed. Signs on the truck said “home care, long term care, hospice”. I guess Martha will be coming home from the hospital to die.

Six and a half years ago my Dad had some health problems where he needed somebody to be with him 24/7. I stayed 5 days and my sister came on the weekends. One year 3 months later he died, 88. Basically, diabetes killed him, it just destroys the body. The last 3 months there was a domino effect of fixing one problem and that fix causing another problem, etc., in and out of the hospital and nursing home. It's a very long story. He had memory issues also, he couldn't for new memories. If you weren't with him constantly, you would know this, he seemed pretty normal. There's a feeling of being helpless. My Mother was in fair health but couldn't live alone, diabetes also, but on oxygen with pretty severe lung issues too. I rented my condo and moved in. She died 2 & 1/2 years ago from complications from surgery, 89. This was just before COVID hit 3 months later. She would have been a prime candidate to be taken out by COVID. She was just beginning to have memory issues, basically where Dad was 10 years ago. Helping them was the hardest thing I've ever done in life, for that length of time, that was almost 3 years total. There were some times with Daddy when I had to pick a time to walk for 45 minutes.

I don't know a lot about Hospice, but somebody will probably be there from Hospice at all times.

For some people, dying is a burden. For some people, living is a burden.

[Peter]

Jun 14, 2022 9:18:00 GMT -5 stardustpilgrim said:

Helping them was the hardest thing I've ever done in life, for that length of time, that was almost 3 years total. There were some times with Daddy when I had to pick a time to walk for 45 minutes.

I'm sorry that you had to go through that SDP. Thank you for sharing it with us.

[stardustpilgrim]

Jun 14, 2022 10:08:34 GMT -5 Peter said:

Jun 14, 2022 9:18:00 GMT -5 stardustpilgrim said:

Helping them was the hardest thing I've ever done in life, for that length of time, that was almost 3 years total. There were some times with Daddy when I had to pick a time to walk for 45 minutes.

I'm sorry that you had to go through that SDP. Thank you for sharing it with us.

I couldn't be a caretaker, I couldn't have done it for anyone else. There were good times as well as difficult times. I resolved stuff with my Mother, on my end only. She would have never understood my issues with her...which went way back. Over the long haul, 18 years, being a good parent, is the hardest thing one can do. Tiny things, and every day, matters. On the whole, the 3 years was a good experience.

[sree]

Jun 14, 2022 9:18:00 GMT -5 stardustpilgrim said:

Jun 13, 2022 18:26:42 GMT -5 sree said:

Thank you for your response. You came in a time when I feel a need for company to share a burden.

Martha has been on my mind. And a couple of hours ago, a truck pulled up next door to unload equipment: medical stuff, respirator, hospital bed. Signs on the truck said “home care, long term care, hospice”. I guess Martha will be coming home from the hospital to die.

Six and a half years ago my Dad had some health problems where he needed somebody to be with him 24/7. I stayed 5 days and my sister came on the weekends. One year 3 months later he died, 88. Basically, diabetes killed him, it just destroys the body. The last 3 months there was a domino effect of fixing one problem and that fix causing another problem, etc., in and out of the hospital and nursing home. It's a very long story. He had memory issues also, he couldn't for new memories. If you weren't with him constantly, you would know this, he seemed pretty normal. There's a feeling of being helpless. My Mother was in fair health but couldn't live alone, diabetes also, but on oxygen with pretty severe lung issues too. I rented my condo and moved in. She died 2 & 1/2 years ago from complications from surgery, 89. This was just before COVID hit 3 months later. She would have been a prime candidate to be taken out by COVID. She was just beginning to have memory issues, basically where Dad was 10 years ago. Helping them was the hardest thing I've ever done in life, for that length of time, that was almost 3 years total. There were some times with Daddy when I had to pick a time to walk for 45 minutes.

I don't know a lot about Hospice, but somebody will probably be there from Hospice at all times.

For some people, dying is a burden. For some people, living is a burden.

You can say that again.

I don't have personal relationships. Literally killed them off when I gave up conventional life. Neither Martha nor her husband is a personal friend. Friendships grow if you let them. I didn't let them because of my awareness of the tentacles of emotional attachment. They must have found me strange when I kept my polite distance. Still, I could feel their pain dealing with a debilitating illness that darkened their lives.

Why must we suffer? Even Krishnamurti was not spared: problematic personal relationships, and legal squabbles as contentious as those of the Dalai Lama's fight with the Chinese over Tibet. And his final days battling cancer were sad.

Do you feel it is wrong to avoid suffering? A life guided by intelligence is, in my opinion, a spiritual life. Such a life is free of suffering through conscious avoidance. I did say that the only ruler in life is the body. One cannot live in defiance of it without paying a painful price. If you treat it right, it opens the way for coming upon that "otherness" Krishnamurti talked about. And if we all treat it right, we won't have to die to the known to reach that other shore. It comes to us as it did to Krishnamurti.

What do you say?

        

[Reefs]

Jun 14, 2022 17:33:41 GMT -5 sree said:

Jun 14, 2022 9:18:00 GMT -5 stardustpilgrim said:

Six and a half years ago my Dad had some health problems where he needed somebody to be with him 24/7. I stayed 5 days and my sister came on the weekends. One year 3 months later he died, 88. Basically, diabetes killed him, it just destroys the body. The last 3 months there was a domino effect of fixing one problem and that fix causing another problem, etc., in and out of the hospital and nursing home. It's a very long story. He had memory issues also, he couldn't for new memories. If you weren't with him constantly, you would know this, he seemed pretty normal. There's a feeling of being helpless. My Mother was in fair health but couldn't live alone, diabetes also, but on oxygen with pretty severe lung issues too. I rented my condo and moved in. She died 2 & 1/2 years ago from complications from surgery, 89. This was just before COVID hit 3 months later. She would have been a prime candidate to be taken out by COVID. She was just beginning to have memory issues, basically where Dad was 10 years ago. Helping them was the hardest thing I've ever done in life, for that length of time, that was almost 3 years total. There were some times with Daddy when I had to pick a time to walk for 45 minutes.

I don't know a lot about Hospice, but somebody will probably be there from Hospice at all times.

For some people, dying is a burden. For some people, living is a burden.

You can say that again.

I don't have personal relationships. Literally killed them off when I gave up conventional life. Neither Martha nor her husband is a personal friend. Friendships grow if you let them. I didn't let them because of my awareness of the tentacles of emotional attachment. They must have found me strange when I kept my polite distance. Still, I could feel their pain dealing with a debilitating illness that darkened their lives.

Why must we suffer? Even Krishnamurti was not spared: problematic personal relationships, and legal squabbles as contentious as those of the Dalai Lama's fight with the Chinese over Tibet. And his final days battling cancer were sad.

Do you feel it is wrong to avoid suffering? A life guided by intelligence is, in my opinion, a spiritual life. Such a life is free of suffering through conscious avoidance. I did say that the only ruler in life is the body. One cannot live in defiance of it without paying a painful price. If you treat it right, it opens the way for coming upon that "otherness" Krishnamurti talked about. And if we all treat it right, we won't have to die to the known to reach that other shore. It comes to us as it did to Krishnamurti.

What do you say?

        

You mean physically? That's optional. Even mentally, that's also optional. It's just a matter of alignment. Existentially, that's a different story. That's a matter of realization.

I think wanting to thrive is only natural, that's how everyone is wired, on a biological level already. It's a natural drive in all of us, animals too. To deny that seems silly. If suffering becomes too extreme or prospects too bleak, the individual life force usually will withdraw. 

But interesting how all these gurus suffered from cancer, Ramana, Ramakrishna, Niz, Krishnamurti... always made me wonder. They must not have know about this alignment business. Because yogis you usually don't see ending this way. And yogis know about alignment. Ultimately, these gurus probably didn't see anything fundamentally going wrong there. Usually they've been very clear and unwavering in their message till the (bitter) end (unlike Foster). But they did suffer physically, that's a fact, in Niz' and Ramakrishna's case it was actually very painful. So on the one hand you could say, from the perspective of the Absolute, nothing gone wrong or anything that needs to change, just another expression of THIS, but then on the other, from the individual perspective, why settle for less? And Ramana actually did opt for surgery. So there you see this natural will to live and drive to thrive again.

I think what trips these gurus up that have a large following and later become very sick is that large following. 

[sree]

Jun 13, 2022 18:09:53 GMT -5 stardustpilgrim said:

Jun 13, 2022 16:41:42 GMT -5 sree said:

Freedom from the known. What is the known? A habit, he said. Drop it. Sure; especially, a bad one – such as smoking - and a good reason to be free of it. To dump the entirety of the known, which is “everything that thought had put together” (Krishnamurti) doesn’t make sense. There is a lot of the known that is not only vital for human survival but is necessary for living a pleasant life. I wouldn’t want to live off-grid like a barefooted caveman.

I wouldn’t dump Krishnamurti entirely either just because he didn’t make sense. This guy had something to say but he didn’t say it right. He was using the English language, the lingua franca of the conditioned mind, my mind. And it is incumbent on me to figure out what the hell he was trying to communicate.

You can skip to minute seven, where K tells where thought is necessary. He often mentions this, but doesn't spend much time on it. IOW he makes a distinction between psychological thought centered on the me, and the necessary function of thought. So when K talks about dumping the entirety of the known, he means only the psychological self.

Am I not pointing to the same thing? The body is the only thing that matters. Food, clothing, and shelter.

Psychological relationships (father, mother, wife, children, love of God and country, zen, Krishnamurti, etc.) are extraneous baggage. This does sound heartless. Sentiments are thought-generated emotions of the psychological entity.

Try looking at your image in the mirror. If you see only the body, it can be disturbing. 

       

[sree]

Jun 14, 2022 22:42:27 GMT -5 Reefs said:

Jun 14, 2022 17:33:41 GMT -5 sree said:

You can say that again.

I don't have personal relationships. Literally killed them off when I gave up conventional life. Neither Martha nor her husband is a personal friend. Friendships grow if you let them. I didn't let them because of my awareness of the tentacles of emotional attachment. They must have found me strange when I kept my polite distance. Still, I could feel their pain dealing with a debilitating illness that darkened their lives.

Why must we suffer? Even Krishnamurti was not spared: problematic personal relationships, and legal squabbles as contentious as those of the Dalai Lama's fight with the Chinese over Tibet. And his final days battling cancer were sad.

Do you feel it is wrong to avoid suffering? A life guided by intelligence is, in my opinion, a spiritual life. Such a life is free of suffering through conscious avoidance. I did say that the only ruler in life is the body. One cannot live in defiance of it without paying a painful price. If you treat it right, it opens the way for coming upon that "otherness" Krishnamurti talked about. And if we all treat it right, we won't have to die to the known to reach that other shore. It comes to us as it did to Krishnamurti.

What do you say?

        

You mean physically? That's optional. Even mentally, that's also optional. It's just a matter of alignment. Existentially, that's a different story. That's a matter of realization.

I think wanting to thrive is only natural, that's how everyone is wired, on a biological level already. It's a natural drive in all of us, animals too. To deny that seems silly. If suffering becomes too extreme or prospects too bleak, the individual life force usually will withdraw. 

But interesting how all these gurus suffered from cancer, Ramana, Ramakrishna, Niz, Krishnamurti... always made me wonder. They must not have know about this alignment business. Because yogis you usually don't see ending this way. And yogis know about alignment. Ultimately, these gurus probably didn't see anything fundamentally going wrong there. Usually they've been very clear and unwavering in their message till the (bitter) end (unlike Foster). But they did suffer physically, that's a fact, in Niz' and Ramakrishna's case it was actually very painful. So on the one hand you could say, from the perspective of the Absolute, nothing gone wrong or anything that needs to change, just another expression of THIS, but then on the other, from the individual perspective, why settle for less? And Ramana actually did opt for surgery. So there you see this natural will to live and drive to thrive again.

I think what trips these gurus up that have a large following and later become very sick is that large following. 

Yes, primarily physically. I think it is the root of all suffering that people and other animals must face. For us, physical suffering causes psychological suffering of anxiety and fear. I don’t think other sentient life forms have the susceptibility to suffer psychologically.

Physical suffering was the single thing that shocked Siddharta in the Buddha story. Awakened to that reality, he lost all interest in the conventional life he was living. I had the same awakening as a kid going to a classmate’s home in New York City. There was no furniture, just a mattress thrown on the floor.

Are we all not cognizant of the fact that ALL people need food clothing and shelter? Have you ever wondered by it is not your business to fix the problem of homelessness and hunger?

[sree]

Jun 14, 2022 22:42:27 GMT -5 Reefs said:

Jun 14, 2022 17:33:41 GMT -5 sree said:

You can say that again.

I don't have personal relationships. Literally killed them off when I gave up conventional life. Neither Martha nor her husband is a personal friend. Friendships grow if you let them. I didn't let them because of my awareness of the tentacles of emotional attachment. They must have found me strange when I kept my polite distance. Still, I could feel their pain dealing with a debilitating illness that darkened their lives.

Why must we suffer? Even Krishnamurti was not spared: problematic personal relationships, and legal squabbles as contentious as those of the Dalai Lama's fight with the Chinese over Tibet. And his final days battling cancer were sad.

Do you feel it is wrong to avoid suffering? A life guided by intelligence is, in my opinion, a spiritual life. Such a life is free of suffering through conscious avoidance. I did say that the only ruler in life is the body. One cannot live in defiance of it without paying a painful price. If you treat it right, it opens the way for coming upon that "otherness" Krishnamurti talked about. And if we all treat it right, we won't have to die to the known to reach that other shore. It comes to us as it did to Krishnamurti.

What do you say?

        

You mean physically? That's optional. Even mentally, that's also optional. It's just a matter of alignment. Existentially, that's a different story. That's a matter of realization.

I think wanting to thrive is only natural, that's how everyone is wired, on a biological level already. It's a natural drive in all of us, animals too. To deny that seems silly. If suffering becomes too extreme or prospects too bleak, the individual life force usually will withdraw. 

But interesting how all these gurus suffered from cancer, Ramana, Ramakrishna, Niz, Krishnamurti... always made me wonder. They must not have know about this alignment business. Because yogis you usually don't see ending this way. And yogis know about alignment. Ultimately, these gurus probably didn't see anything fundamentally going wrong there. Usually they've been very clear and unwavering in their message till the (bitter) end (unlike Foster). But they did suffer physically, that's a fact, in Niz' and Ramakrishna's case it was actually very painful. So on the one hand you could say, from the perspective of the Absolute, nothing gone wrong or anything that needs to change, just another expression of THIS, but then on the other, from the individual perspective, why settle for less? And Ramana actually did opt for surgery. So there you see this natural will to live and drive to thrive again.

I think what trips these gurus up that have a large following and later become very sick is that large following. 

You need to unpack this. I agree that physical suffering is definitely avoidable. Optional suffering makes no sense. It’s like saying, “whacking your own head with a hammer is optional”. You could be talking about something else. Please explain.

[sree]

Jun 14, 2022 22:42:27 GMT -5 Reefs said:

Jun 14, 2022 17:33:41 GMT -5 sree said:

You can say that again.

I don't have personal relationships. Literally killed them off when I gave up conventional life. Neither Martha nor her husband is a personal friend. Friendships grow if you let them. I didn't let them because of my awareness of the tentacles of emotional attachment. They must have found me strange when I kept my polite distance. Still, I could feel their pain dealing with a debilitating illness that darkened their lives.

Why must we suffer? Even Krishnamurti was not spared: problematic personal relationships, and legal squabbles as contentious as those of the Dalai Lama's fight with the Chinese over Tibet. And his final days battling cancer were sad.

Do you feel it is wrong to avoid suffering? A life guided by intelligence is, in my opinion, a spiritual life. Such a life is free of suffering through conscious avoidance. I did say that the only ruler in life is the body. One cannot live in defiance of it without paying a painful price. If you treat it right, it opens the way for coming upon that "otherness" Krishnamurti talked about. And if we all treat it right, we won't have to die to the known to reach that other shore. It comes to us as it did to Krishnamurti.

What do you say?

        

You mean physically? That's optional. Even mentally, that's also optional. It's just a matter of alignment. Existentially, that's a different story. That's a matter of realization.

I think wanting to thrive is only natural, that's how everyone is wired, on a biological level already. It's a natural drive in all of us, animals too. To deny that seems silly. If suffering becomes too extreme or prospects too bleak, the individual life force usually will withdraw. 

But interesting how all these gurus suffered from cancer, Ramana, Ramakrishna, Niz, Krishnamurti... always made me wonder. They must not have know about this alignment business. Because yogis you usually don't see ending this way. And yogis know about alignment. Ultimately, these gurus probably didn't see anything fundamentally going wrong there. Usually they've been very clear and unwavering in their message till the (bitter) end (unlike Foster). But they did suffer physically, that's a fact, in Niz' and Ramakrishna's case it was actually very painful. So on the one hand you could say, from the perspective of the Absolute, nothing gone wrong or anything that needs to change, just another expression of THIS, but then on the other, from the individual perspective, why settle for less? And Ramana actually did opt for surgery. So there you see this natural will to live and drive to thrive again.

I think what trips these gurus up that have a large following and later become very sick is that large following. 

What do you mean? Are you talking about giving up in the face of insurmountable adversity? Individually, millions are hopelessly struggling in misery from which they will not escape while millions more are sucked into the river of sorrow and drown. We – as humanity - are not there yet. And that’s why we are discussing our situation.

Prospects will be definitely bleak for all humanity if we don’t rein in our politicians rooting for international conflict. Governmental systems are dangerous when they transform individuals into super humans, each with the power of an entire nation to wage wars.

Krishnamurti had been talking about the “urgency of change” till he died. Selfishness is a natural trait. Each animal (including man) feeds its own body. The only exception is when maternal instinct kicks in to insure that newborns are nourished and protected by their mothers with a fierce devotion. This communion fades out in a timely fashion to free both parent and offspring to live on their own. Human bonds are unnatural. They are created by thought and the cause of the suffering that being part of a family and a nation brings.

The word “selfishness” has a negative connotation. Putting the idea of an egotistic ass aside, let’s look at the self. The body is an undeniable fact based on the evidence: the need to breathe and eat and sleep, etc. The compulsion to tend to the body brings about a way of life in which the observer arises. This observer, that is me, is the self. The self tends to the body, and in that sense, every action is naturally and basically selfish in nature. This doesn’t mean that you and I, two selves, cannot live as unfragmented humanity for our mutual protection as one indivisible organism. Thought is definitely in action in the conduct of this conversation. Thought is not necessarily evil, and love can be when the self is fully present.

[sree]

Jun 14, 2022 22:42:27 GMT -5 Reefs said:

Jun 14, 2022 17:33:41 GMT -5 sree said:

You can say that again.

I don't have personal relationships. Literally killed them off when I gave up conventional life. Neither Martha nor her husband is a personal friend. Friendships grow if you let them. I didn't let them because of my awareness of the tentacles of emotional attachment. They must have found me strange when I kept my polite distance. Still, I could feel their pain dealing with a debilitating illness that darkened their lives.

Why must we suffer? Even Krishnamurti was not spared: problematic personal relationships, and legal squabbles as contentious as those of the Dalai Lama's fight with the Chinese over Tibet. And his final days battling cancer were sad.

Do you feel it is wrong to avoid suffering? A life guided by intelligence is, in my opinion, a spiritual life. Such a life is free of suffering through conscious avoidance. I did say that the only ruler in life is the body. One cannot live in defiance of it without paying a painful price. If you treat it right, it opens the way for coming upon that "otherness" Krishnamurti talked about. And if we all treat it right, we won't have to die to the known to reach that other shore. It comes to us as it did to Krishnamurti.

What do you say?

        

You mean physically? That's optional. Even mentally, that's also optional. It's just a matter of alignment. Existentially, that's a different story. That's a matter of realization.

I think wanting to thrive is only natural, that's how everyone is wired, on a biological level already. It's a natural drive in all of us, animals too. To deny that seems silly. If suffering becomes too extreme or prospects too bleak, the individual life force usually will withdraw. 

But interesting how all these gurus suffered from cancer, Ramana, Ramakrishna, Niz, Krishnamurti... always made me wonder. They must not have know about this alignment business. Because yogis you usually don't see ending this way. And yogis know about alignment. Ultimately, these gurus probably didn't see anything fundamentally going wrong there. Usually they've been very clear and unwavering in their message till the (bitter) end (unlike Foster). But they did suffer physically, that's a fact, in Niz' and Ramakrishna's case it was actually very painful. So on the one hand you could say, from the perspective of the Absolute, nothing gone wrong or anything that needs to change, just another expression of THIS, but then on the other, from the individual perspective, why settle for less? And Ramana actually did opt for surgery. So there you see this natural will to live and drive to thrive again.

I think what trips these gurus up that have a large following and later become very sick is that large following. 

Seems like you are calling all of them out as fakes. Perhaps, this may come across as unkind but I follow what you are implying and consider yours as fair comment. If there is any fault to be assigned, I would put it all on us: the followers who created them. Where would you be without Simon and Garfunkle and the Summer of Love?

Anyway, your observation of their physical suffering proves once again my point: the only ruler is the body. This doesn't mean that there is nothing else to life but the body. Actually, the body doesn't exist but you can't say that to your dentist or gynecologist or even your therapist feeding you drugs to deal with your anxieties.

With regard to the physical suffering brought on by disease of the body, it can be avoided. As Krishnamurti would say, "end it, completely!" I know that he meant psychological suffering but I feel it is applicable to physical suffering too.

When my dog was ailing, I could see pain in his large Brussels Griffon eyes even though he didn't whimper. The vet said he had liver cirrhosis and was hurting. Best way out was to put him down. Verdell was my last personal relationship. The vet slipped a needle into the skin of his front leg as he laid in my arms. He looked at me and a few moments later, eyes still opened, he was gone. Was there an ending to life or an ending to pain?

Krishnamurti was 90 when he was diagnosed with untreatable pancreatic cancer. 90. Think of that. And they fed him painkiller drugs for days and days after all those years of organic vegetarian food and avoidance of the best coffees, fine wines and whiskies.

We live in our bodies, so to speak, the way we fly in a private jet that takes off the day we were born. And that plane never lands but keeps flying till it falls apart in the air. Do we ever think of retiring our bodies the way we decommission our airplanes when they can no longer function reliably?

If you don't believe in God, when is a good time to call it a day, in your opinion?    

 

[Deleted]

Jun 15, 2022 11:39:20 GMT -5 sree said:

Jun 14, 2022 22:42:27 GMT -5 Reefs said:

You mean physically? That's optional. Even mentally, that's also optional. It's just a matter of alignment. Existentially, that's a different story. That's a matter of realization.

I think wanting to thrive is only natural, that's how everyone is wired, on a biological level already. It's a natural drive in all of us, animals too. To deny that seems silly. If suffering becomes too extreme or prospects too bleak, the individual life force usually will withdraw. 

But interesting how all these gurus suffered from cancer, Ramana, Ramakrishna, Niz, Krishnamurti... always made me wonder. They must not have know about this alignment business. Because yogis you usually don't see ending this way. And yogis know about alignment. Ultimately, these gurus probably didn't see anything fundamentally going wrong there. Usually they've been very clear and unwavering in their message till the (bitter) end (unlike Foster). But they did suffer physically, that's a fact, in Niz' and Ramakrishna's case it was actually very painful. So on the one hand you could say, from the perspective of the Absolute, nothing gone wrong or anything that needs to change, just another expression of THIS, but then on the other, from the individual perspective, why settle for less? And Ramana actually did opt for surgery. So there you see this natural will to live and drive to thrive again.

I think what trips these gurus up that have a large following and later become very sick is that large following. 

What do you mean? Are you talking about giving up in the face of insurmountable adversity? Individually, millions are hopelessly struggling in misery from which they will not escape while millions more are sucked into the river of sorrow and drown. We – as humanity - are not there yet. And that’s why we are discussing our situation.

Prospects will be definitely bleak for all humanity if we don’t rein in our politicians rooting for international conflict. Governmental systems are dangerous when they transform individuals into super humans, each with the power of an entire nation to wage wars.

Krishnamurti had been talking about the “urgency of change” till he died. Selfishness is a natural trait. Each animal (including man) feeds its own body. The only exception is when maternal instinct kicks in to insure that newborns are nourished and protected by their mothers with a fierce devotion. This communion fades out in a timely fashion to free both parent and offspring to live on their own. Human bonds are unnatural. They are created by thought and the cause of the suffering that being part of a family and a nation brings.

The word “selfishness” has a negative connotation. Putting the idea of an egotistic ass aside, let’s look at the self. The body is an undeniable fact based on the evidence: the need to breathe and eat and sleep, etc. The compulsion to tend to the body brings about a way of life in which the observer arises. This observer, that is me, is the self. The self tends to the body, and in that sense, every action is naturally and basically selfish in nature. This doesn’t mean that you and I, two selves, cannot live as unfragmented humanity for our mutual protection as one indivisible organism. Thought is definitely in action in the conduct of this conversation. Thought is not necessarily evil, and love can be when the self is fully present.

Jiddu died 36 years ago.. if you want to see the data for the genuine decrease in global poverty over the last four decades, then here it is.

iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNet/povDuplicateWB.aspx