What is a Fact?
Firstly I would like to say that after reading Krishnamurti, it simply confirmed for me the sort of questions that I had asked, and continue to ask within myself. This is why I see Krishnamurti not as a ‘teacher’ or even someone ‘special or chosen’, but rather I see him as a friend that I would simply enjoy having a dialogue with. Also, what is asked and talked about below are all things that I have observed within myself.
Well where do we start? To look at what is a fact is a simple yet potentially large place of discovery. Often people like to ‘believe’ that there are facts that are irrefutable, but what happens when you bring in the fact of impermanence? When we speak of a fact, are we talking about something that is static? Or are we talking about something that we can look at dispassionately and understand its nature? If impermanence is a fact, then all life is in constant movement. This means life can not freeze when the big ‘being in moment’ arrives. Quite frankly one can not freeze anything, and to live with this and watch the whole movement is meditation, is it not? So to meditate on the fact - does not this mean to watch something in ourselves or in our relationship with the world, with full energy on the awareness that everything is moving and in constant flux, right from the atoms to the galaxies?!
Inner and outer conflict arrives when one tries to change, control or resist a fact. If we do this we are going against the very energy that is creating and re-creating ourselves in each passing moment. To learn not to resist a fact is a liberating insight. This is because inner conflict hinges on this resistance and reliance upon something that is not real such as: your expectations of thought, ideals, romantic imaginings, and escape tendencies, etc. However all these dissolve and lose their power when one stops resisting a fact and simply watches it, all the while learning as life continues.
Yet when we learn about a fact and ask questions into its nature, are we using our own thought? And if we are using thought to ask these questions, are we simply digging ourselves a hole in which we may never find ‘the answers’, and hence never be enriched by our very questioning and learning? Put another way, are we asking questions with some hidden motive, desire or want behind them? And will this hidden agenda mask our very seeing of what the questions reveal?
This then raises another important aspect - do all of our questions have to give us answers?
Joseph R. Cleary
~ DM: Impermanence is an undoubted fact, is it not? You can see it in yourself, you can see it in nature. Yet there are things that we consider to be 'permanent' in life, relatively speaking - the sun for instance, and a tree. Similarly, fear is a 'permanent' factor in our lives, is it not? The fears may change, and do, but fear itself is constant. So is the illusion of a separate self.
So, what then does it mean to learn about fear? Does learning have anything to do with thought, or is it in the immediate, in the present moment - instant perception that happens and is immediately over? If it is carried, it becomes memory, which is thought. Thought itself is resistance to the fact. Is it possible for thinking to have no motive?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Joseph: Impermanence is an undoubted fact, is it not? You can see it in yourself, you can see it in nature. Yet there are things that we consider to be 'permanent' in life, relatively speaking - the sun for instance, and a tree. - The sun and trees are not permanent for they, like all life energy, are in perpetual movement. So we can say that they are impermanent. To bring ‘relativity’ into the question is simply a ploy to confuse the issue. It is very tempting to argue everything as ‘relative’, yet when it is looked at directly then there is no question that impermanency is the only fact in life.
~ 'The word 'relative' was used merely as a manner of speaking - it did not refer to relativity in general. Obviously the universe is impermanent but for the purposes of our lives it is physically 'permanent'.
Similarly, fear is a 'permanent' factor in our lives, is it not? - Again one may be misled to think that fear is ‘permanent’. However, if one can look at and understand the whole landscape of their inner activity in each moment, then this fear you speak of loses its ‘grip’ over your living, as you move through life. This does not mean that fears will not surface. It just means that when they do one must be intimate with them, in order to understand them - and it is only in this understanding that they dissolve.
~ If fear surfaces occasionally then one is still in fear, are they not? One has to understand the whole nature of fear - not just particular fears as they arise. One must understand fear as an integral factor of the mind's makeup, like pleasure and violence. You cannot see fear in isolation from the movement of the mind itself. So, it is 'permanent' in that sense in our daily life, unless one sees its origin and completely frees oneself from it.
So, what then does it mean to learn about fear? - Learning about fear is about looking at it directly. This means not running away from it, escaping into the past/future, distracting yourself, or avoiding facing it. If you employ any of these, then you will not be learning in a deep way. When a fear arises, to ask questions honestly about where it comes from, and where its source may reside, brings clarity. However, this clarity will only be true when listening is present. So this seeing is the doing, and here lies the learning that brings insight - and it is insight that gives you ‘space’ within to look at fear directly. This all means you will not give fear undue power. Acknowledge it yes, but empower it you will not.
~ Learning brings insight? Has anyone had a total insight into thought which breeds fear, or the whole working of the mind - or has one only had a partial insight, which amounts to an abstraction? If it is a partial insight, the movement of thought continues with all its confusion, which is what actually occurs.
Does learning have anything to do with thought, or is it in the immediate, in the present moment - instant perception that happens and is immediately over? - Raw learning is pure. In that it is all about seeing things directly in each passing moment. Yet within us we have aspects which often say ‘oh but what about this or that’ - so this deliberating voice brings in thought which makes our seeing things ‘foggy’. In this moment the essence of what is true is still there, however thought has brought in a veil/mask and is covering it.
~ As stated, this is thought reacting to what has been seen, and hence carrying it over into memory. It then has no value whatsoever.
If it is carried, it becomes memory, which is thought. Thought itself is resistance to the fact. Is it possible for thinking to have no motive? - There is a certain amount of memory that has a function, like remembering how to get from A to B, or how to operate a machine or drive your car. If you watch your thoughts, you will notice that they move and pass within you; so they too are impermanent. For reasons that are very deep and also linked to our particular conditioning, we re-tell the story of the ‘me or I’. One often feels they are energised from this storytelling . Yet what is really happening is energy is being dispersed and new/fresh energy from the present moment is not able to enter. So to be without the craving to keep telling ‘our’ stories, and stand naked in the moment, scares people. For they ask ‘what will I be if I don’t feed/have my conditioning/story’? People are frightened of being nothing. In fact it is their egos that are scared. And the ego is the biggest fan of hearing the conditioning/story be told and re-told.
Motive in the way I used it above is based around a selfish desire to increase your situation for your own benefit/pleasure. When one sees directly their story and the re-telling of it, and are simply left naked facing their situation, they will see their ‘selfish ways’. And so from this point their thinking is reflected back to them and they get to see in the moment if it has any selfish motive within it. This going deeper, is the journey of self-knowledge - which is truly never ending. Furthermore, this going within is arduous work - which does not attract people who want a quick dose or download of ‘wisdom’.
This going deeper into ourselves is impermanent, as it also keeps moving. When realising this in each passing moment, a beauty beyond words arrives. And like most things that are spoken, words are easy to say (although sometimes hard with the limitations of language), yet raw learning only comes when there is the doing, which comes from within each one of us.
~ Self-knowledge is a holistic understanding of the movement of thought in the moment, which annihilates the self, permanently. This is exactly why fear is the inhibiting factor, as mentioned. Yes, the self is frightened of its own ending. So, it plays games with itself, convincing itself it has understood itself, but it's just continuing in another disguise, another clever mask. All this is carefully covered up with words and high-sounding declarative statements. Dialogue is an exploration, not a series of flat statements - otherwise it is mere opinion and hence meaningless. So then, what is a right question, and does the mind need to be in a state of right questioning, for which there may or may not be any answers?
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| 'No-one has the physical capacity to do it'
Mark A. Wood: "You wrote [in the dialogue on site: 'There is only ever one insight']: 'So, there appears to be key issues not being explored here, which results in a circular dialogue, without any clear value to anyone.'
This was a sound observation. The dialogue is indeed circular (as most dialogues are) since, as you rightly pointed out, there are key issues not being explored here (or in the talks of Krishnamurti for that matter). This observation would of course apply to all those expounding upon K's talks, as well as other authors such as Eckhart Tolle and the various non-dual teachers of the present and the past.
There is no question that your mind/brain (and the brain of, say, Eckhart) is certainly functioning/perceiving in a less fragmented way than your average human. However, in some ways, it appears that the brain is stuck, almost as if it is traveling in a 'circle'. As if it cannot 'mutate', or rewire, any further.
Clearly K spoke of a physical mutation of the brain. Yet, there is very little attention given to the body, which is of course not separate from the brain - and I am sure we can agree that the body is not a sum of many parts - it is one movement. Throughout his talks, and yours, there is relatively little attention given to the body, diet, reproduction, sustainable living, nutrition, sunshine, light, soil, environment, etc etc. As I read the writings of K and others, I sometimes jokingly wonder if they even have bodies, or if they are just floating orbs of consciousness. One could almost conclude this from their writings.
K's brain clearly was able to see the fragmentary nature of thought. That is a rare breakthrough. This is certainly evidence of a mutation towards a more holistic perception of life. However, 99.9% of the 'importance' is placed on the capacity of the brain to understand this, and .01% of the importance is placed on the 'capacity of the body' to deal with the stimulus withdrawals and chemical addictions and actual physical pains and discomforts that come with moving beyond this habitual fragmented mode of operation.
As for ending the self, you say 'no-one wants to do it'. I say 'no-one has the physical capacity to do it'. Can you see the difference?
I can show you that throughout your dialogue you are actually revealing the chemical and physical addiction to thought/self, and even though you are showing the evidence of this, you are never quite making the connections. Always the emphasis is on the ideas, words, concepts, memories, and mental constructs preventing insight. I could just as easily argue that it is neurotransmitters, hormones, synapses, nerves, and enzymes that are getting in the way of insight. Of course, it is both. When one is given more importance (or one is seen as more essential) than the other, fragmentation occurs. This fragmentation causes the dialogue to become circular, as one cannot observe and explore the body fully, and see its capacities, or lack thereof.
Perhaps when one can face the fact that they are physically incapable of bringing thought to an end, they will see what action needs to be taken (if any).
Even if one clearly sees and understands the imminent danger of the movement of thought, this doesn't necessarily mean thought will come to an end. This is a fallacy that at first seems logical and convincing.
You asked: 'Or is there some other deep barrier to facing the fact we are not even considering?' Yes. The deep barrier involves physical capacity on every level. The conditioning and 'wiring' of the brain, the health and vitality of the senses, the health and functionality of the brain and body, the urge to survive, the urge to procreate, and many other factors. We could write volumes about just that one fragment that we call 'diet', as it pertains to the size of the brain, the functionality of the brain, damage to the brain, atrophy of the brain, circulation in the brain, and how this effects insight or holistic perception.
Thought emphasizes that which it has been conditioned to emphasize. That is all that is happening in these talks. Very few have moved outside of the consciousness of K, Eckhart and the rest. It is all the same, said 10001 different ways.
Rather than looking at someone's words to see if they are conditioned, I prefer to look at what they eat for breakfast (or perhaps take a glance at their trash can).
Perhaps you will find this of value."
* * *
~ DM: "It is an important point: Does the mind have ultimate overriding control over the physical organism? Mind being separate from the brain. That is, if one has a deep immediate insight, will not this produce a mutation within the neurons of the brain? Eliminate memory? Irrespective of the overall physical condition of the body, including that of the brain itself?
Of course, the point could be made that as this insight has not (apparently) occurred in anyone (even in Tolle), then the holistic mind/brain/body issue is the factor not taken into account. That there is indeed a physical/neurological blockage to total insight (substantiating his questioning as to whether he, Buddha and Jesus Christ were in fact 'freaks' of nature - Lutyens, Years of Fulfilment, page 230). However, this is immediately countered by him saying that non-freaks can also do it (the 'freak' is only required to do the pointing out; and is completely unimportant - see the same page ref).
There is no question that the conditioned response (in the brain) is hard-wired. That is, reactions are upon us before we know it. This implies that no-one has an actual silent mind, for this cannot be induced by any techniques or outside agencies. And do we actually see the danger of the movement of thought? - I doubt it.
Diet alone could not be the factor - there are many people who are on a so-called balanced diet. It is more likely that it is the total synergy of the physical organism, but even here there are many, surely, who are physically in tune with themselves. Physical and psychological addictions are another thing again, but the mind ultimately determines all these, surely.
So, I come back to a central issue: There is a real, tangible, resistance to change within the brain. And behind this resistance is fear. It is fear that actually prevents us from this deep insight, and from changing, is it not?
* * *
Mark Wood: "You say it is 'fear' that prevents us from changing. I say it is 'everything' that prevents us from changing. I say it is the totality of life that prevents us from changing. If we were to make a list of factors that prevent us from change, the list would be infinite. Literally. One could also say, that the very factors which prevent us from change cause suffering - and it is this suffering that ultimately brings about the change. It is all in perfect balance.
Is change supposed to come easy? Is not life survival of the fittest? Is it not a struggle pushing the limits of intelligence and physical capacity? Or is this all too primitive, barbaric, animalistic, and uncivilized for us to even consider?
Lets approach this through an analogy: I am hunting in the woods one day. I come upon a cabin in which a woman is screaming and groaning in the pains of childbirth. I feel an urge to peer in. Inside the cabin is a woman in labor surrounded by some of her family. The woman is eating a big steak and drinking coca cola. The TV is on. She has a laptop by her bedside. People are talking to her and giving her advice and she is telling them how much pain she is in and she is screaming in pain periodically. I come in and closely survey the situation, including the progress of her labor.
I observe her physical body and I see and instinctively sense the level of danger she is facing. I say to her, "You and the baby are in great danger, this challenge requires your full attention, or you will surely die. Your body requires your full attention, without distraction. All of your physical energies must go directly to your labor pains. You must feel them fully." She says, "Ok, but right now I must eat a hamburger to keep up my strength". I say, "Then, you will die". She says, "Ok, but I must finish up some work on my laptop or I will lose my job." I say, "Then you will die". She says, "Ok, but what about all the other women who are going through the same things as me, who will die. We must inform them too." I say, "You cannot give them your attention right now or you will die". She says, "Ok, but how can I trust what you are saying is true". I say "There is no time to explain, or you will die". She says, "This is all too much for me, I cannot take it. Please give me pain killers."
I leave and come upon 10 other cabins where the same thing is happening, but I am hungry and I must find food, or I will die. (the end of the analogy)
At this moment, I am only speaking to 'my' body, and the body known as Daniel Marks. I am not concerned with any others at the moment. Does your physical body clearly see/sense the imminent danger of the conditioned brain? Is it not that our conditioning has overpowered our instincts, our drives to survive, our thirst to protect our own intelligence? Has not our conditioning desensitized us to the point where our instinct to survive, the urge to escape the danger, to flee to safety, has been almost completely dulled?
Do you feel the urgency to be free of these conditioned responses to the challenges of life? Do you see the danger they bring? Are you sensitive to this danger to the point where you cannot give anything else your attention?
Does this challenge not require all the energy of the body, like childbirth does? Or perhaps much more even? Does the enormity of this challenge not require that the body is healthy, full of vitality, full of energy, so that all this energy can be directed at this challenge of freeing one's body from its deep physical conditionings?
This challenge requires an immense energy, an incredible amount of attention. It requires that one inhabit the body fully, and fully feel the sensations/pains/feelings as they arise.
In childbirth, the pain itself is what sets off a whole chain of reactions, mutations, and powerful chemical responses to the challenge, these reactions actually cause the birth to happen, timely, efficiently, and safely. Is it not a fact that we have been conditioned to escape from the intense feeling and the pain, to shy away from it, to relieve it somehow? Has society not channeled an enormous amount of energy toward inventing ways to escape and avoid feeling these physical pains and disturbances? Is it not totally unacceptable in this society to fully feel? Would sensitivity not totally disrupt one's daily civilized life? Would it not disrupt one's job, one's family life, one's relationships?
How would one live? Are you ready to actually find out? Do you see what is physically required? Do you see that one's attention must be gathered up by the physical organism, and cannot be fragmented in any way? Do you see that one must have a powerful physical urge to survive, or the danger has no relevance? Do you see the urgency of the challenge, like a woman in labor, or can it be put off for a while longer? Is your physical security not severely challenged by a conditioned body? Do you see what it really means to be physically secure?
That is the real challenge. To be sensitive to the lack of physical security that comes with this society and its ways of living, eating, sleeping, relating, reproducing, and all the rest of it. The danger of pursuing psychological security is that it actually destroys physical security, otherwise what would be the danger?"
* * *
~ DM: Yes, but it is precisely this sense of losing one's physical security - the job, the possessions, the comforting relationships, the house, the financial comfort zone, etc - which results in one being in fear, does it not? It is this fear that desensitizes, along with all the embedded physical and psychological conditioning. It is this fear, on a deeper level than the conscious mind, that is the blockage. One must directly contact this fear - and end it.
The talks explicitly address this situation of physical security: when you give up all psychological crutches, life will carry you along. You will not starve, your physical existence will not be threatened. One of the problems is that we don't trust life to carry us. Another problem is that we imagine what our life would be like if we completely changed - and this image is not pleasant. The mind is always looking at consequences - which is time (if I do this, that may, or will, happen). The mind is simply trapped in time. It is this sense of time, of all the tomorrows, of the luxury of procrastination, that removes the urgency. Have we ever been totally in the present, without any tomorrow?
There is no question that full energy is required for total change. Full attention. Does not this full attention and energy come when the observer, the self, ceases? When you are facing the facts of what you are (and what life is) from moment to moment, without the usual escape of the self-image, without the stand-apart removal of the watcher, watching the watched? Thus, the fragmentation of which you speak is this self, is it not? This fragmentation prevents or blocks the total energy that is required. The ending of this self is the primary thing - the condition of the body and the total physical environment around one is secondary to it.
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| A Plea for a Healer for a Dying Son
"Krishamurti made a statement about healing. Truth comes when there is observation without conclusion, without explanation, without words. There is communion with the observed only when the observer is not; and only then is there understanding, freedom from the problem.
My six year old son is suffering from a very large brain tumor and may not survive. The medical profession are doing their best to prevent this. The tumour is inoperable.
I used to be an alternative therapist, and have turned to healing to try and prevent him from leaving us and to cure him.
In observation, I can see his energy field and around his head there is darkness. I can clear a lot of the darkness away with it only to come back.
I place my hands into his energy field and feel it. In meditation they connect and I feel his energy raise or we become one energy field. He responds to this with a very deep sleep, even turning his head in sleep towards my hand.
The energy field around his body gets brighter and the darkness clears around his head. When he awakes he is calm, happier and more alert, so I don't think what is happening is an illusion.
The problem that we have is the darkness around his head keeps coming back and it is coming back worse.
I want him to be healed or help heal him in conjunction with the chemotherapy. Could someone please help us to understand what else is needed that I'm not doing to keep this darkness away and improve my son's condition. My son needs help and we require any asistance that anyone can give."
With kind regards
George Kinkela
(Note: The writer has requested this plea be publicly discontinued and his email address withdrawn, so the contribution has been moved to the archives. His son is alive and showing signs of improvement; he wishes to pass on his thanks to those site readers who have emailed him with advice.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Firstly I would like to say that after reading Krishnamurti, it simply confirmed for me the sort of questions that I had asked, and continue to ask within myself. This is why I see Krishnamurti not as a ‘teacher’ or even someone ‘special or chosen’, but rather I see him as a friend that I would simply enjoy having a dialogue with. Also, what is asked and talked about below are all things that I have observed within myself.
Well where do we start? To look at what is a fact is a simple yet potentially large place of discovery. Often people like to ‘believe’ that there are facts that are irrefutable, but what happens when you bring in the fact of impermanence? When we speak of a fact, are we talking about something that is static? Or are we talking about something that we can look at dispassionately and understand its nature? If impermanence is a fact, then all life is in constant movement. This means life can not freeze when the big ‘being in moment’ arrives. Quite frankly one can not freeze anything, and to live with this and watch the whole movement is meditation, is it not? So to meditate on the fact - does not this mean to watch something in ourselves or in our relationship with the world, with full energy on the awareness that everything is moving and in constant flux, right from the atoms to the galaxies?!
Inner and outer conflict arrives when one tries to change, control or resist a fact. If we do this we are going against the very energy that is creating and re-creating ourselves in each passing moment. To learn not to resist a fact is a liberating insight. This is because inner conflict hinges on this resistance and reliance upon something that is not real such as: your expectations of thought, ideals, romantic imaginings, and escape tendencies, etc. However all these dissolve and lose their power when one stops resisting a fact and simply watches it, all the while learning as life continues.
Yet when we learn about a fact and ask questions into its nature, are we using our own thought? And if we are using thought to ask these questions, are we simply digging ourselves a hole in which we may never find ‘the answers’, and hence never be enriched by our very questioning and learning? Put another way, are we asking questions with some hidden motive, desire or want behind them? And will this hidden agenda mask our very seeing of what the questions reveal?
This then raises another important aspect - do all of our questions have to give us answers?
Joseph R. Cleary
~ DM: Impermanence is an undoubted fact, is it not? You can see it in yourself, you can see it in nature. Yet there are things that we consider to be 'permanent' in life, relatively speaking - the sun for instance, and a tree. Similarly, fear is a 'permanent' factor in our lives, is it not? The fears may change, and do, but fear itself is constant. So is the illusion of a separate self.
So, what then does it mean to learn about fear? Does learning have anything to do with thought, or is it in the immediate, in the present moment - instant perception that happens and is immediately over? If it is carried, it becomes memory, which is thought. Thought itself is resistance to the fact. Is it possible for thinking to have no motive?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Joseph: Impermanence is an undoubted fact, is it not? You can see it in yourself, you can see it in nature. Yet there are things that we consider to be 'permanent' in life, relatively speaking - the sun for instance, and a tree. - The sun and trees are not permanent for they, like all life energy, are in perpetual movement. So we can say that they are impermanent. To bring ‘relativity’ into the question is simply a ploy to confuse the issue. It is very tempting to argue everything as ‘relative’, yet when it is looked at directly then there is no question that impermanency is the only fact in life.
~ 'The word 'relative' was used merely as a manner of speaking - it did not refer to relativity in general. Obviously the universe is impermanent but for the purposes of our lives it is physically 'permanent'.
Similarly, fear is a 'permanent' factor in our lives, is it not? - Again one may be misled to think that fear is ‘permanent’. However, if one can look at and understand the whole landscape of their inner activity in each moment, then this fear you speak of loses its ‘grip’ over your living, as you move through life. This does not mean that fears will not surface. It just means that when they do one must be intimate with them, in order to understand them - and it is only in this understanding that they dissolve.
~ If fear surfaces occasionally then one is still in fear, are they not? One has to understand the whole nature of fear - not just particular fears as they arise. One must understand fear as an integral factor of the mind's makeup, like pleasure and violence. You cannot see fear in isolation from the movement of the mind itself. So, it is 'permanent' in that sense in our daily life, unless one sees its origin and completely frees oneself from it.
So, what then does it mean to learn about fear? - Learning about fear is about looking at it directly. This means not running away from it, escaping into the past/future, distracting yourself, or avoiding facing it. If you employ any of these, then you will not be learning in a deep way. When a fear arises, to ask questions honestly about where it comes from, and where its source may reside, brings clarity. However, this clarity will only be true when listening is present. So this seeing is the doing, and here lies the learning that brings insight - and it is insight that gives you ‘space’ within to look at fear directly. This all means you will not give fear undue power. Acknowledge it yes, but empower it you will not.
~ Learning brings insight? Has anyone had a total insight into thought which breeds fear, or the whole working of the mind - or has one only had a partial insight, which amounts to an abstraction? If it is a partial insight, the movement of thought continues with all its confusion, which is what actually occurs.
Does learning have anything to do with thought, or is it in the immediate, in the present moment - instant perception that happens and is immediately over? - Raw learning is pure. In that it is all about seeing things directly in each passing moment. Yet within us we have aspects which often say ‘oh but what about this or that’ - so this deliberating voice brings in thought which makes our seeing things ‘foggy’. In this moment the essence of what is true is still there, however thought has brought in a veil/mask and is covering it.
~ As stated, this is thought reacting to what has been seen, and hence carrying it over into memory. It then has no value whatsoever.
If it is carried, it becomes memory, which is thought. Thought itself is resistance to the fact. Is it possible for thinking to have no motive? - There is a certain amount of memory that has a function, like remembering how to get from A to B, or how to operate a machine or drive your car. If you watch your thoughts, you will notice that they move and pass within you; so they too are impermanent. For reasons that are very deep and also linked to our particular conditioning, we re-tell the story of the ‘me or I’. One often feels they are energised from this storytelling . Yet what is really happening is energy is being dispersed and new/fresh energy from the present moment is not able to enter. So to be without the craving to keep telling ‘our’ stories, and stand naked in the moment, scares people. For they ask ‘what will I be if I don’t feed/have my conditioning/story’? People are frightened of being nothing. In fact it is their egos that are scared. And the ego is the biggest fan of hearing the conditioning/story be told and re-told.
Motive in the way I used it above is based around a selfish desire to increase your situation for your own benefit/pleasure. When one sees directly their story and the re-telling of it, and are simply left naked facing their situation, they will see their ‘selfish ways’. And so from this point their thinking is reflected back to them and they get to see in the moment if it has any selfish motive within it. This going deeper, is the journey of self-knowledge - which is truly never ending. Furthermore, this going within is arduous work - which does not attract people who want a quick dose or download of ‘wisdom’.
This going deeper into ourselves is impermanent, as it also keeps moving. When realising this in each passing moment, a beauty beyond words arrives. And like most things that are spoken, words are easy to say (although sometimes hard with the limitations of language), yet raw learning only comes when there is the doing, which comes from within each one of us.
~ Self-knowledge is a holistic understanding of the movement of thought in the moment, which annihilates the self, permanently. This is exactly why fear is the inhibiting factor, as mentioned. Yes, the self is frightened of its own ending. So, it plays games with itself, convincing itself it has understood itself, but it's just continuing in another disguise, another clever mask. All this is carefully covered up with words and high-sounding declarative statements. Dialogue is an exploration, not a series of flat statements - otherwise it is mere opinion and hence meaningless. So then, what is a right question, and does the mind need to be in a state of right questioning, for which there may or may not be any answers?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| 'No-one has the physical capacity to do it'
Mark A. Wood: "You wrote [in the dialogue on site: 'There is only ever one insight']: 'So, there appears to be key issues not being explored here, which results in a circular dialogue, without any clear value to anyone.'
This was a sound observation. The dialogue is indeed circular (as most dialogues are) since, as you rightly pointed out, there are key issues not being explored here (or in the talks of Krishnamurti for that matter). This observation would of course apply to all those expounding upon K's talks, as well as other authors such as Eckhart Tolle and the various non-dual teachers of the present and the past.
There is no question that your mind/brain (and the brain of, say, Eckhart) is certainly functioning/perceiving in a less fragmented way than your average human. However, in some ways, it appears that the brain is stuck, almost as if it is traveling in a 'circle'. As if it cannot 'mutate', or rewire, any further.
Clearly K spoke of a physical mutation of the brain. Yet, there is very little attention given to the body, which is of course not separate from the brain - and I am sure we can agree that the body is not a sum of many parts - it is one movement. Throughout his talks, and yours, there is relatively little attention given to the body, diet, reproduction, sustainable living, nutrition, sunshine, light, soil, environment, etc etc. As I read the writings of K and others, I sometimes jokingly wonder if they even have bodies, or if they are just floating orbs of consciousness. One could almost conclude this from their writings.
K's brain clearly was able to see the fragmentary nature of thought. That is a rare breakthrough. This is certainly evidence of a mutation towards a more holistic perception of life. However, 99.9% of the 'importance' is placed on the capacity of the brain to understand this, and .01% of the importance is placed on the 'capacity of the body' to deal with the stimulus withdrawals and chemical addictions and actual physical pains and discomforts that come with moving beyond this habitual fragmented mode of operation.
As for ending the self, you say 'no-one wants to do it'. I say 'no-one has the physical capacity to do it'. Can you see the difference?
I can show you that throughout your dialogue you are actually revealing the chemical and physical addiction to thought/self, and even though you are showing the evidence of this, you are never quite making the connections. Always the emphasis is on the ideas, words, concepts, memories, and mental constructs preventing insight. I could just as easily argue that it is neurotransmitters, hormones, synapses, nerves, and enzymes that are getting in the way of insight. Of course, it is both. When one is given more importance (or one is seen as more essential) than the other, fragmentation occurs. This fragmentation causes the dialogue to become circular, as one cannot observe and explore the body fully, and see its capacities, or lack thereof.
Perhaps when one can face the fact that they are physically incapable of bringing thought to an end, they will see what action needs to be taken (if any).
Even if one clearly sees and understands the imminent danger of the movement of thought, this doesn't necessarily mean thought will come to an end. This is a fallacy that at first seems logical and convincing.
You asked: 'Or is there some other deep barrier to facing the fact we are not even considering?' Yes. The deep barrier involves physical capacity on every level. The conditioning and 'wiring' of the brain, the health and vitality of the senses, the health and functionality of the brain and body, the urge to survive, the urge to procreate, and many other factors. We could write volumes about just that one fragment that we call 'diet', as it pertains to the size of the brain, the functionality of the brain, damage to the brain, atrophy of the brain, circulation in the brain, and how this effects insight or holistic perception.
Thought emphasizes that which it has been conditioned to emphasize. That is all that is happening in these talks. Very few have moved outside of the consciousness of K, Eckhart and the rest. It is all the same, said 10001 different ways.
Rather than looking at someone's words to see if they are conditioned, I prefer to look at what they eat for breakfast (or perhaps take a glance at their trash can).
Perhaps you will find this of value."
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~ DM: "It is an important point: Does the mind have ultimate overriding control over the physical organism? Mind being separate from the brain. That is, if one has a deep immediate insight, will not this produce a mutation within the neurons of the brain? Eliminate memory? Irrespective of the overall physical condition of the body, including that of the brain itself?
Of course, the point could be made that as this insight has not (apparently) occurred in anyone (even in Tolle), then the holistic mind/brain/body issue is the factor not taken into account. That there is indeed a physical/neurological blockage to total insight (substantiating his questioning as to whether he, Buddha and Jesus Christ were in fact 'freaks' of nature - Lutyens, Years of Fulfilment, page 230). However, this is immediately countered by him saying that non-freaks can also do it (the 'freak' is only required to do the pointing out; and is completely unimportant - see the same page ref).
There is no question that the conditioned response (in the brain) is hard-wired. That is, reactions are upon us before we know it. This implies that no-one has an actual silent mind, for this cannot be induced by any techniques or outside agencies. And do we actually see the danger of the movement of thought? - I doubt it.
Diet alone could not be the factor - there are many people who are on a so-called balanced diet. It is more likely that it is the total synergy of the physical organism, but even here there are many, surely, who are physically in tune with themselves. Physical and psychological addictions are another thing again, but the mind ultimately determines all these, surely.
So, I come back to a central issue: There is a real, tangible, resistance to change within the brain. And behind this resistance is fear. It is fear that actually prevents us from this deep insight, and from changing, is it not?
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Mark Wood: "You say it is 'fear' that prevents us from changing. I say it is 'everything' that prevents us from changing. I say it is the totality of life that prevents us from changing. If we were to make a list of factors that prevent us from change, the list would be infinite. Literally. One could also say, that the very factors which prevent us from change cause suffering - and it is this suffering that ultimately brings about the change. It is all in perfect balance.
Is change supposed to come easy? Is not life survival of the fittest? Is it not a struggle pushing the limits of intelligence and physical capacity? Or is this all too primitive, barbaric, animalistic, and uncivilized for us to even consider?
Lets approach this through an analogy: I am hunting in the woods one day. I come upon a cabin in which a woman is screaming and groaning in the pains of childbirth. I feel an urge to peer in. Inside the cabin is a woman in labor surrounded by some of her family. The woman is eating a big steak and drinking coca cola. The TV is on. She has a laptop by her bedside. People are talking to her and giving her advice and she is telling them how much pain she is in and she is screaming in pain periodically. I come in and closely survey the situation, including the progress of her labor.
I observe her physical body and I see and instinctively sense the level of danger she is facing. I say to her, "You and the baby are in great danger, this challenge requires your full attention, or you will surely die. Your body requires your full attention, without distraction. All of your physical energies must go directly to your labor pains. You must feel them fully." She says, "Ok, but right now I must eat a hamburger to keep up my strength". I say, "Then, you will die". She says, "Ok, but I must finish up some work on my laptop or I will lose my job." I say, "Then you will die". She says, "Ok, but what about all the other women who are going through the same things as me, who will die. We must inform them too." I say, "You cannot give them your attention right now or you will die". She says, "Ok, but how can I trust what you are saying is true". I say "There is no time to explain, or you will die". She says, "This is all too much for me, I cannot take it. Please give me pain killers."
I leave and come upon 10 other cabins where the same thing is happening, but I am hungry and I must find food, or I will die. (the end of the analogy)
At this moment, I am only speaking to 'my' body, and the body known as Daniel Marks. I am not concerned with any others at the moment. Does your physical body clearly see/sense the imminent danger of the conditioned brain? Is it not that our conditioning has overpowered our instincts, our drives to survive, our thirst to protect our own intelligence? Has not our conditioning desensitized us to the point where our instinct to survive, the urge to escape the danger, to flee to safety, has been almost completely dulled?
Do you feel the urgency to be free of these conditioned responses to the challenges of life? Do you see the danger they bring? Are you sensitive to this danger to the point where you cannot give anything else your attention?
Does this challenge not require all the energy of the body, like childbirth does? Or perhaps much more even? Does the enormity of this challenge not require that the body is healthy, full of vitality, full of energy, so that all this energy can be directed at this challenge of freeing one's body from its deep physical conditionings?
This challenge requires an immense energy, an incredible amount of attention. It requires that one inhabit the body fully, and fully feel the sensations/pains/feelings as they arise.
In childbirth, the pain itself is what sets off a whole chain of reactions, mutations, and powerful chemical responses to the challenge, these reactions actually cause the birth to happen, timely, efficiently, and safely. Is it not a fact that we have been conditioned to escape from the intense feeling and the pain, to shy away from it, to relieve it somehow? Has society not channeled an enormous amount of energy toward inventing ways to escape and avoid feeling these physical pains and disturbances? Is it not totally unacceptable in this society to fully feel? Would sensitivity not totally disrupt one's daily civilized life? Would it not disrupt one's job, one's family life, one's relationships?
How would one live? Are you ready to actually find out? Do you see what is physically required? Do you see that one's attention must be gathered up by the physical organism, and cannot be fragmented in any way? Do you see that one must have a powerful physical urge to survive, or the danger has no relevance? Do you see the urgency of the challenge, like a woman in labor, or can it be put off for a while longer? Is your physical security not severely challenged by a conditioned body? Do you see what it really means to be physically secure?
That is the real challenge. To be sensitive to the lack of physical security that comes with this society and its ways of living, eating, sleeping, relating, reproducing, and all the rest of it. The danger of pursuing psychological security is that it actually destroys physical security, otherwise what would be the danger?"
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~ DM: Yes, but it is precisely this sense of losing one's physical security - the job, the possessions, the comforting relationships, the house, the financial comfort zone, etc - which results in one being in fear, does it not? It is this fear that desensitizes, along with all the embedded physical and psychological conditioning. It is this fear, on a deeper level than the conscious mind, that is the blockage. One must directly contact this fear - and end it.
The talks explicitly address this situation of physical security: when you give up all psychological crutches, life will carry you along. You will not starve, your physical existence will not be threatened. One of the problems is that we don't trust life to carry us. Another problem is that we imagine what our life would be like if we completely changed - and this image is not pleasant. The mind is always looking at consequences - which is time (if I do this, that may, or will, happen). The mind is simply trapped in time. It is this sense of time, of all the tomorrows, of the luxury of procrastination, that removes the urgency. Have we ever been totally in the present, without any tomorrow?
There is no question that full energy is required for total change. Full attention. Does not this full attention and energy come when the observer, the self, ceases? When you are facing the facts of what you are (and what life is) from moment to moment, without the usual escape of the self-image, without the stand-apart removal of the watcher, watching the watched? Thus, the fragmentation of which you speak is this self, is it not? This fragmentation prevents or blocks the total energy that is required. The ending of this self is the primary thing - the condition of the body and the total physical environment around one is secondary to it.
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| A Plea for a Healer for a Dying Son
"Krishamurti made a statement about healing. Truth comes when there is observation without conclusion, without explanation, without words. There is communion with the observed only when the observer is not; and only then is there understanding, freedom from the problem.
My six year old son is suffering from a very large brain tumor and may not survive. The medical profession are doing their best to prevent this. The tumour is inoperable.
I used to be an alternative therapist, and have turned to healing to try and prevent him from leaving us and to cure him.
In observation, I can see his energy field and around his head there is darkness. I can clear a lot of the darkness away with it only to come back.
I place my hands into his energy field and feel it. In meditation they connect and I feel his energy raise or we become one energy field. He responds to this with a very deep sleep, even turning his head in sleep towards my hand.
The energy field around his body gets brighter and the darkness clears around his head. When he awakes he is calm, happier and more alert, so I don't think what is happening is an illusion.
The problem that we have is the darkness around his head keeps coming back and it is coming back worse.
I want him to be healed or help heal him in conjunction with the chemotherapy. Could someone please help us to understand what else is needed that I'm not doing to keep this darkness away and improve my son's condition. My son needs help and we require any asistance that anyone can give."
With kind regards
George Kinkela
(Note: The writer has requested this plea be publicly discontinued and his email address withdrawn, so the contribution has been moved to the archives. His son is alive and showing signs of improvement; he wishes to pass on his thanks to those site readers who have emailed him with advice.)
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Copyright © 2007-2010 Daniel Marks | beyondthemind.net. All Rights Reserved.
This website went online on November 22, 2007 and is being continually developed.
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"To watch, to observe everything, is to be aware of totality, never to limit any thought, to let everything flower. A mind that is completely quiet, without any reaction, is only an instrument of observation. It is alive, sensitive. Mutation is only possible when you have brought this about through awareness, without effort."
(Jayakar, Chapter 21, "The Mind That Goes Into Itself", p. 240)
(Jayakar, Chapter 21, "The Mind That Goes Into Itself", p. 240)
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Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons; taken by Böhringer Friedrich, under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5
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