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To give up the self, of course, necessitates giving up all of one's dreams, goals and ambitions; it is to just Be (this is not stagnation).
People simply cannot accept that so they would rather live with the pain of time than relinquish the false pursuit of becoming someone, someday. It is held that this is the central reason the talks have never caught on with the mainstream public.
People simply cannot accept that so they would rather live with the pain of time than relinquish the false pursuit of becoming someone, someday. It is held that this is the central reason the talks have never caught on with the mainstream public.
It is clear now why no-one has changed.
No-one has actually listened to him, without any resistance, without any conclusion, without any motive ...
"A good mind has no self. When a mind is in a state of complete attention,
attending, listening, then there is no place for the self.
The self manifests itself afterwards. The clue is listening."
(Pupul Jayakar Biography: Chapter 44, 'The Good Mind' - p. 461)
And again:
"What takes place if the Buddha says to me, 'Ending of sorrow is the bliss of compassion'?
I am one of his audience. I don't examine this statement. I don't translate the statement
into my way of thinking. I am only in a state of acute total attention of listening. There is
nothing else. Because that statement has enormous truth ... The moment you have
perception into the fact you are free of the fact. ..."
"Is it a question of seeing the totality of that statement of the Buddha, 'Be detached,' without the words?" I asked.
"Of course, the word is not the thing. The statement, the flowering is not the thing. There must be freedom from
the word. Intensity of listening is the crux of it."
(Pupul Jayakar Biography: Chapter 32, pp. 372-373; ellipses added)
There it is. The quintessential point of the whole talks. Without actually listening to the talks, the entire thing is meaningless.
Are we listening? Can we listen without wanting to gain anything? Can we listen completely dispassionately, without any motive?
~~~~~~~
Man doesn't really listen with full attention because he senses on one level or another that listening may bring change. Man (thought) does not want change, he or she does not want freedom, he or she prefers the way of resistance and suffering. (This is also, incidentally, the message of that notable literary parable by Dostoyevsky, "The Grand Inquisitor" - Wikipedia article.)
He has been born in chains and only knows the chains and wants them to continue restraining him. (This, too, is the underlying message contained in Plato's noted allegory, "Plato's Cave" - Wikipedia article.) We all live in a mental comfort zone, where any disturbance is to be avoided at all costs. Whereas, all we have to do is face the fact, without a self looking at it.
"The object of attachment offers me the means of escape from my own emptiness.
Attachment is escape, and it is escape that strengthens conditioning."
(Commentaries on Living: Series 11: Chapter 2, 'Conditioning')
Yet, the fear of standing alone, of inner emptiness, is apparently too great for thought to face directly. We are attached - to our ideas, to our conclusions, to our self-image, to our material possessions, to our comforting life. To give up all our attachments is, most contend, simply too much to ask, which in itself is another escape ...
Important Note: These observations on the significance of listening (above) were written long before a new and recent understanding occurred to this writer on the strange but demonstrable correlation between suffering and individual awakening:
See: The Supreme Paradox: Is Transformation Only for a Select Few?
No-one has actually listened to him, without any resistance, without any conclusion, without any motive ...
"A good mind has no self. When a mind is in a state of complete attention,
attending, listening, then there is no place for the self.
The self manifests itself afterwards. The clue is listening."
(Pupul Jayakar Biography: Chapter 44, 'The Good Mind' - p. 461)
And again:
"What takes place if the Buddha says to me, 'Ending of sorrow is the bliss of compassion'?
I am one of his audience. I don't examine this statement. I don't translate the statement
into my way of thinking. I am only in a state of acute total attention of listening. There is
nothing else. Because that statement has enormous truth ... The moment you have
perception into the fact you are free of the fact. ..."
"Is it a question of seeing the totality of that statement of the Buddha, 'Be detached,' without the words?" I asked.
"Of course, the word is not the thing. The statement, the flowering is not the thing. There must be freedom from
the word. Intensity of listening is the crux of it."
(Pupul Jayakar Biography: Chapter 32, pp. 372-373; ellipses added)
There it is. The quintessential point of the whole talks. Without actually listening to the talks, the entire thing is meaningless.
Are we listening? Can we listen without wanting to gain anything? Can we listen completely dispassionately, without any motive?
~~~~~~~
Man doesn't really listen with full attention because he senses on one level or another that listening may bring change. Man (thought) does not want change, he or she does not want freedom, he or she prefers the way of resistance and suffering. (This is also, incidentally, the message of that notable literary parable by Dostoyevsky, "The Grand Inquisitor" - Wikipedia article.)
He has been born in chains and only knows the chains and wants them to continue restraining him. (This, too, is the underlying message contained in Plato's noted allegory, "Plato's Cave" - Wikipedia article.) We all live in a mental comfort zone, where any disturbance is to be avoided at all costs. Whereas, all we have to do is face the fact, without a self looking at it.
"The object of attachment offers me the means of escape from my own emptiness.
Attachment is escape, and it is escape that strengthens conditioning."
(Commentaries on Living: Series 11: Chapter 2, 'Conditioning')
Yet, the fear of standing alone, of inner emptiness, is apparently too great for thought to face directly. We are attached - to our ideas, to our conclusions, to our self-image, to our material possessions, to our comforting life. To give up all our attachments is, most contend, simply too much to ask, which in itself is another escape ...
Important Note: These observations on the significance of listening (above) were written long before a new and recent understanding occurred to this writer on the strange but demonstrable correlation between suffering and individual awakening:
See: The Supreme Paradox: Is Transformation Only for a Select Few?
Can it really be this simple?
It was a talk on how psychological freedom implies the ending of all inward authority,
including all of the past, through memories and experiences - you know, all the usual issues.
He then said: “What we are saying is really quite simple
and it is because of its very simplicity that you will miss it.”
(The Impossible Question: page 23)
Deny all the remembrances of the past
You cannot deny the actual events of the past - you can deny your remembrances of them. When they arise you can negate them, deny them, wipe them away. However, you cannot do this selectively, retaining only the pleasant ones and denying all the others. You have to deny all of them, for the simple reason that the chooser is the self, which is built on these remembrances. If you pick and choose, you are only strengthening the self These remembrances are the known and you have to be free of them.
The mind wants to be occupied. It wants something to be engaged with, all the time. When present activities are insufficient, it brings forth past memories. It also creates problems - nothing is more effective for an unoccupied mind than to create a problem so that it can mull over it. This is a really simple statement: In order to be occupied the mind creates things to work on and worry over; it is actually uninterested in solving problems, for if it did, what would it then be occupied with?
Can the talks be summarized?
The central premise is that all the thought that fills the mind is the known, which cannot know the unknown (truth); only the quiet mind can contact it.
1: The Self -- The dominant illusory creation of the mind, created by thought for security and continuity (ie, psychological time);
2: Desire -- Which is will. This is the thought/self that is carrying over and pursuing sensations and past experiences, for reasons of pleasure;
3: Time -- Psychological time is an invention of this self in order to progressively achieve its goals, over chronological time;
4: Total Awareness -- A state where one just observes all one's thoughts and feelings throughout the day, without any judgment or evaluation;
5: The Silent Mind -- The quiet mind/brain brings direct perception. It is only a silent or quiet mind that can have an insight into the nature of thought, the self, and all psychological conditioning. This perception is the awakening of intelligence..
For over 60 years the talk was about being choicelessly aware of the ways, reactions and processes of the mind. To be passively indifferent to what is observed - fear, envy, hatred, desire - just to observe the whole movement of the thought/self. This is very arduous, as the normal response of thought is to react to what is seen, and these reactions are so fast they are upon you before you are aware of it, setting off a chain of further reactions/associations/feelings. This passive and non-reactive observation stills the mind; there is then a possibility of direct perception, or insight.
The mind is imprisoned in this paradigm of thought/ideas, based on urges and cravings to become something. So-called 'free will' is the pursuit of one or more of those ideas, based around the central idea of the self. Will itself is the expression of desire. When the mind is silent through an understanding of desire in all its forms, when there is a complete cessation of all seeking, then there is a possibility of direct insight into all the problems created by the psyche. It is the silent/empty/still mind that stands at the heart of all the talks.
The ending of the observer, the self, is paramount. Freedom from the observer must be first for choiceless awareness to take place:
“Awareness is the silent and choiceless observation of what is;
in this awareness the problem [ie, the self] unrolls itself, and thus it is fully and completely understood.”
(Commentaries on Living: Series I, Chapter 41, 'Awareness')
The self always compares that which is to that which should be - and here is the very origin of all conflict. So, the talks are revolutionary in that they point out that all psychological memory has to end for the truth to be, which means all comparison must cease.
Technical memory in order to live is already stored in the brain circuits, you don't have to consciously be aware of it; it will arise when life demands it. So all conscious psychological memory can cease and one can still live in a technical society.
It really is this simple. The central difficulty is that the thought/self, imbedded and programmed into the neural pathways of the brain, is so swift and automatic in its reactions that we are unable to observe anything at all, even nature, without these reactions, without the naming - the word - which blocks that state of mind where there is no movement of thought whatsoever.
~~~~~~~
We complicate things. Unnecessarily. This is because we have been conditioned from the earliest to believe in a superior authority, in the rigid social hierarchy of a society which consistently devalues the individual and considers only the mass, the so-called ‘greater good’. We look to political leaders, to experts, to books, to ideological systems and philosophies to solve all our problems, never realizing that we can solve all our problems. We think that in this complex world, with all its political, economic, social and environmental problems, what we need is a super-expert, a grand guru, or savior - one who comes in and has the ultimate answer to everything. Or we cling to the persistent notion that, one day, some clever technological advance will occur that will do it. In both cases, the solution is bound to be complex, in order to match the complexity of the myriad problems.
So the solutions to the problems themselves become complex, only really understood by others who have done all the appropriate academic study. Forgetting that all the experts, lawyers, economists and academics in history have never solved a single thing; they have improved things materially to be sure, the standard of living has demonstrably risen and medical advancement and overall material progress has undeniably occurred, yet all our human problems remain.
Hence the authoritarian approach may in fact be all wrong. And authority includes all our own recorded experiences stored as memory. So the only approach to the talks is to put aside all authority, including all one's experiences and conclusions. When you do that, you can then actually listen.
It’s entirely possible the central point behind the talks is so simple we have entirely missed it. This really is an extraordinary proposition. At the very heart of the talks, is what they are saying so simple we have passed over it, looking for or believing in complexity in all things? Is this possible? Is this the real secret to why ‘no-one has got it’?
Has anyone actually listened, not to the noise of one’s own conclusions and judgments, but carefully, simply and openly, without
choice, resistance, or selectivity, to what has been said across all the talks? Does one have the intention to listen?
“So, the questioner wants to know why it is that he cannot go beyond all these superficial wrangles of the mind. For the simple reason that, consciously or unconsciously, the mind is always seeking something, and that very search brings violence, competition, the sense of utter dissatisfaction. It is only when the mind is completely still that there is a possibility of touching the deep waters.”
(Collected Works, Ojai, 6th Public Talk, July 21, 1955)
Here is a significant quote on understanding. What is it that we have to understand?:
“Now, what is there to understand about a fact? There is nothing, is there? A fact is a fact, it is self-evident. The struggle to understand comes only when the thinker is trying to do something about the fact. The action of the thinker upon the fact is shaped by his memory, by his past experience; therefore, the fact is always shaped by the thinker, and therefore he never understands the fact. But if there is no thinker, but only the fact, then the fact has not to be understood - it is a fact; and when you are face to face with a fact, what happens?
When there is no escape, when there is no thinker trying to give the fact a meaning to suit himself or shape it according to his particular pattern, what happens? When you are face to face with a fact, surely then you have understood it, have you not? Therefore, there is freedom from it....
As long as we are seeking a result there must be the thinker, there must be the process of isolation; and a person who, in his thoughts, is isolated as the thinker, can never find what is true. The so-called religious person who is seeking God is merely establishing himself as a permanent entity apart from his thoughts, and such a person can never find reality.”
(Collected Works, Volume 6, New York, 1st Public Talk, June 4, 1950)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“... If you say that it is not possible, then there is nothing that can be done; then you have closed the door yourself.”
(Book of Life: 'A mind without anchorage or haven' - October 19, 2007)
“It is definitely possible to bring about a totally new mind.”
(Collected Works: Volume 8, Madras, 4th Public Talk, December 3, 1961)
Is it not the case that, deep down, many people who look into all these talks are already convinced that instant transformation is not possible? That is, the argument goes, this man was unique, a freak of nature (as were the few who went before him), whose entire life was so different from ours, from all the economic and social pressures of our lives in the 21st century, that the state of mind he was in is simply not possible for us. Hence, most people who are at all interested are defeated before they even start.
Is it not the case that if you are serious about something, you must first consider that the thing you are serious about is possible? Otherwise, what is the point in going into it?
Does one really feel then, deep down, that change is possible?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Understanding is now or never; it is a destructive flash, not a tame affair; it is this shattering that one is afraid of
and so one avoids it, knowingly or unknowingly. Understanding may alter the course of one’s life… it may be
pleasant or not but understanding is a danger to all relationship.”
(Krishnamurti’s Notebook: page 125)
Is this the very essence of it? What is being said is so simple, yet we have this constant fear of it shattering our defenses and walls of self-protections and thus our comfortable life that we do everything we can to avoid it? In other words, the problem is not only our lack of understanding - but simple fear? And is it possible to end not just this fear, but the root of all fear? (Facing Fear)
"So you have to understand fear - I mean by 'understand' not verbally, not intellectually, but face it - and be completely free of it, totally, right
through your being. And you can only do it when there is no escape of any kind - escape through activity, through some form of running
away, or escape through the word which, for most people, takes the place of the actual fact."
(The Collected Works: Volume XIV: 4th Public Talk, New Delhi, November 1, 1964)
For all of us, of course it may be possible to stop escaping and face the fact - of fear and the emptiness within.
After all, it's been done.
~~~~~~~
It was a talk on how psychological freedom implies the ending of all inward authority,
including all of the past, through memories and experiences - you know, all the usual issues.
He then said: “What we are saying is really quite simple
and it is because of its very simplicity that you will miss it.”
(The Impossible Question: page 23)
Deny all the remembrances of the past
You cannot deny the actual events of the past - you can deny your remembrances of them. When they arise you can negate them, deny them, wipe them away. However, you cannot do this selectively, retaining only the pleasant ones and denying all the others. You have to deny all of them, for the simple reason that the chooser is the self, which is built on these remembrances. If you pick and choose, you are only strengthening the self These remembrances are the known and you have to be free of them.
The mind wants to be occupied. It wants something to be engaged with, all the time. When present activities are insufficient, it brings forth past memories. It also creates problems - nothing is more effective for an unoccupied mind than to create a problem so that it can mull over it. This is a really simple statement: In order to be occupied the mind creates things to work on and worry over; it is actually uninterested in solving problems, for if it did, what would it then be occupied with?
Can the talks be summarized?
The central premise is that all the thought that fills the mind is the known, which cannot know the unknown (truth); only the quiet mind can contact it.
1: The Self -- The dominant illusory creation of the mind, created by thought for security and continuity (ie, psychological time);
2: Desire -- Which is will. This is the thought/self that is carrying over and pursuing sensations and past experiences, for reasons of pleasure;
3: Time -- Psychological time is an invention of this self in order to progressively achieve its goals, over chronological time;
4: Total Awareness -- A state where one just observes all one's thoughts and feelings throughout the day, without any judgment or evaluation;
5: The Silent Mind -- The quiet mind/brain brings direct perception. It is only a silent or quiet mind that can have an insight into the nature of thought, the self, and all psychological conditioning. This perception is the awakening of intelligence..
For over 60 years the talk was about being choicelessly aware of the ways, reactions and processes of the mind. To be passively indifferent to what is observed - fear, envy, hatred, desire - just to observe the whole movement of the thought/self. This is very arduous, as the normal response of thought is to react to what is seen, and these reactions are so fast they are upon you before you are aware of it, setting off a chain of further reactions/associations/feelings. This passive and non-reactive observation stills the mind; there is then a possibility of direct perception, or insight.
The mind is imprisoned in this paradigm of thought/ideas, based on urges and cravings to become something. So-called 'free will' is the pursuit of one or more of those ideas, based around the central idea of the self. Will itself is the expression of desire. When the mind is silent through an understanding of desire in all its forms, when there is a complete cessation of all seeking, then there is a possibility of direct insight into all the problems created by the psyche. It is the silent/empty/still mind that stands at the heart of all the talks.
The ending of the observer, the self, is paramount. Freedom from the observer must be first for choiceless awareness to take place:
“Awareness is the silent and choiceless observation of what is;
in this awareness the problem [ie, the self] unrolls itself, and thus it is fully and completely understood.”
(Commentaries on Living: Series I, Chapter 41, 'Awareness')
The self always compares that which is to that which should be - and here is the very origin of all conflict. So, the talks are revolutionary in that they point out that all psychological memory has to end for the truth to be, which means all comparison must cease.
Technical memory in order to live is already stored in the brain circuits, you don't have to consciously be aware of it; it will arise when life demands it. So all conscious psychological memory can cease and one can still live in a technical society.
It really is this simple. The central difficulty is that the thought/self, imbedded and programmed into the neural pathways of the brain, is so swift and automatic in its reactions that we are unable to observe anything at all, even nature, without these reactions, without the naming - the word - which blocks that state of mind where there is no movement of thought whatsoever.
~~~~~~~
We complicate things. Unnecessarily. This is because we have been conditioned from the earliest to believe in a superior authority, in the rigid social hierarchy of a society which consistently devalues the individual and considers only the mass, the so-called ‘greater good’. We look to political leaders, to experts, to books, to ideological systems and philosophies to solve all our problems, never realizing that we can solve all our problems. We think that in this complex world, with all its political, economic, social and environmental problems, what we need is a super-expert, a grand guru, or savior - one who comes in and has the ultimate answer to everything. Or we cling to the persistent notion that, one day, some clever technological advance will occur that will do it. In both cases, the solution is bound to be complex, in order to match the complexity of the myriad problems.
So the solutions to the problems themselves become complex, only really understood by others who have done all the appropriate academic study. Forgetting that all the experts, lawyers, economists and academics in history have never solved a single thing; they have improved things materially to be sure, the standard of living has demonstrably risen and medical advancement and overall material progress has undeniably occurred, yet all our human problems remain.
Hence the authoritarian approach may in fact be all wrong. And authority includes all our own recorded experiences stored as memory. So the only approach to the talks is to put aside all authority, including all one's experiences and conclusions. When you do that, you can then actually listen.
It’s entirely possible the central point behind the talks is so simple we have entirely missed it. This really is an extraordinary proposition. At the very heart of the talks, is what they are saying so simple we have passed over it, looking for or believing in complexity in all things? Is this possible? Is this the real secret to why ‘no-one has got it’?
Has anyone actually listened, not to the noise of one’s own conclusions and judgments, but carefully, simply and openly, without
choice, resistance, or selectivity, to what has been said across all the talks? Does one have the intention to listen?
“So, the questioner wants to know why it is that he cannot go beyond all these superficial wrangles of the mind. For the simple reason that, consciously or unconsciously, the mind is always seeking something, and that very search brings violence, competition, the sense of utter dissatisfaction. It is only when the mind is completely still that there is a possibility of touching the deep waters.”
(Collected Works, Ojai, 6th Public Talk, July 21, 1955)
Here is a significant quote on understanding. What is it that we have to understand?:
“Now, what is there to understand about a fact? There is nothing, is there? A fact is a fact, it is self-evident. The struggle to understand comes only when the thinker is trying to do something about the fact. The action of the thinker upon the fact is shaped by his memory, by his past experience; therefore, the fact is always shaped by the thinker, and therefore he never understands the fact. But if there is no thinker, but only the fact, then the fact has not to be understood - it is a fact; and when you are face to face with a fact, what happens?
When there is no escape, when there is no thinker trying to give the fact a meaning to suit himself or shape it according to his particular pattern, what happens? When you are face to face with a fact, surely then you have understood it, have you not? Therefore, there is freedom from it....
As long as we are seeking a result there must be the thinker, there must be the process of isolation; and a person who, in his thoughts, is isolated as the thinker, can never find what is true. The so-called religious person who is seeking God is merely establishing himself as a permanent entity apart from his thoughts, and such a person can never find reality.”
(Collected Works, Volume 6, New York, 1st Public Talk, June 4, 1950)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“... If you say that it is not possible, then there is nothing that can be done; then you have closed the door yourself.”
(Book of Life: 'A mind without anchorage or haven' - October 19, 2007)
“It is definitely possible to bring about a totally new mind.”
(Collected Works: Volume 8, Madras, 4th Public Talk, December 3, 1961)
Is it not the case that, deep down, many people who look into all these talks are already convinced that instant transformation is not possible? That is, the argument goes, this man was unique, a freak of nature (as were the few who went before him), whose entire life was so different from ours, from all the economic and social pressures of our lives in the 21st century, that the state of mind he was in is simply not possible for us. Hence, most people who are at all interested are defeated before they even start.
Is it not the case that if you are serious about something, you must first consider that the thing you are serious about is possible? Otherwise, what is the point in going into it?
Does one really feel then, deep down, that change is possible?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Understanding is now or never; it is a destructive flash, not a tame affair; it is this shattering that one is afraid of
and so one avoids it, knowingly or unknowingly. Understanding may alter the course of one’s life… it may be
pleasant or not but understanding is a danger to all relationship.”
(Krishnamurti’s Notebook: page 125)
Is this the very essence of it? What is being said is so simple, yet we have this constant fear of it shattering our defenses and walls of self-protections and thus our comfortable life that we do everything we can to avoid it? In other words, the problem is not only our lack of understanding - but simple fear? And is it possible to end not just this fear, but the root of all fear? (Facing Fear)
"So you have to understand fear - I mean by 'understand' not verbally, not intellectually, but face it - and be completely free of it, totally, right
through your being. And you can only do it when there is no escape of any kind - escape through activity, through some form of running
away, or escape through the word which, for most people, takes the place of the actual fact."
(The Collected Works: Volume XIV: 4th Public Talk, New Delhi, November 1, 1964)
For all of us, of course it may be possible to stop escaping and face the fact - of fear and the emptiness within.
After all, it's been done.
~~~~~~~
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(Webpage investigating whether there is a specific key or precondition to enlightenment;
Page last updated September 2, 2010 ; 40-Pages ; Total site page loads: > 150,000)
Page last updated September 2, 2010 ; 40-Pages ; Total site page loads: > 150,000)
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“If there is no ego, there is no problem, there is no conflict, there is no time - time in the sense of becoming or not becoming; being or not being.”
(The Ending of Time: Chapter I, April 1980)
(The Ending of Time: Chapter I, April 1980)
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"We are concerned only with perceiving what is; and it is the perception of what is that releases the creative fire. You cannot perceive if you do not ask the right question and a right question has no answer, because it needs no answer. It is wrong questions that invariably have answers. The urgency behind the right question, the very instance of it, brings about perception."
(Bombay, 1st Public Talk, 23rd December 1959, The Collected Works: Vol. XI)
(Bombay, 1st Public Talk, 23rd December 1959, The Collected Works: Vol. XI)
There Is No Fulfillment Through Desire
"This is a very important question to go into because, as you grow older, you will find that your desires are never really fulfilled. In fulfilment there is always the shadow of frustration, and in your heart there is not a song but a cry.
The desire to become -to become a great man, a great saint, a great this or that - has no end and therefore no fulfilment; its demand is ever for the "more," and such desire always breeds agony, misery, wars.
But when one is free of all desire to become, there is a state of being whose action is totally different. It is. That which is has no time. It does not think in terms of fulfilment.
Its very being is its fulfilment."
(Think on These Things; paragraphs added)
We miss this, as the mind thinks that all of life cannot possibly be down to just being. There has to be an overarching purpose, a goal, a search toward a greater life. This is the essence of suffering; because the mind is always seeking, all fulfillment just leads to more futile searching. It is like someone in the desert walking relentlessly towards a mirage.
The great paradox is that when all this seeking fades away and one just is, in the present, then all things come to it.
"This is a very important question to go into because, as you grow older, you will find that your desires are never really fulfilled. In fulfilment there is always the shadow of frustration, and in your heart there is not a song but a cry.
The desire to become -to become a great man, a great saint, a great this or that - has no end and therefore no fulfilment; its demand is ever for the "more," and such desire always breeds agony, misery, wars.
But when one is free of all desire to become, there is a state of being whose action is totally different. It is. That which is has no time. It does not think in terms of fulfilment.
Its very being is its fulfilment."
(Think on These Things; paragraphs added)
We miss this, as the mind thinks that all of life cannot possibly be down to just being. There has to be an overarching purpose, a goal, a search toward a greater life. This is the essence of suffering; because the mind is always seeking, all fulfillment just leads to more futile searching. It is like someone in the desert walking relentlessly towards a mirage.
The great paradox is that when all this seeking fades away and one just is, in the present, then all things come to it.
Is there a common thread
to all cases of enlightenment?
This is a long video. It is the Iain McNay interview on the Conscious.tv website of the former spiritual seeker and now spiritual teacher, Jeff Foster, which goes into his background and his emerging understanding. It is the essence of ancient spirituality.
A remarkable thing comes out of it. It is that enlightenment may only come as a result of suffering. The self, which is forever seeking more, and more, is suffering in itself. This seeking is in the spiritual or materialistic sense - there is no difference. When the pain of non-fulfillment reaches its nadir - when the suffering reaches the end point of: 'change or suicide' - only then does the awakening occur. (An intense drive and commitment is also present.)
And this invariably occurs around the mid-to-late twenties age range.
History shows it: the Buddha, at age 26, (according to the story) went through 6 years of agonising physical and psychological denial; Jesus Christ may well have suffered prior to the temptations in the wilderness, before his ministry commenced and well before the Via Dolorosa; Tolle came to the very brink of suicide; Byron Katie, to a lesser extent, reached the lowest point in her life before change occurred. (This is not to necessarily state that the latter two are what we call 'enlightened,' though certainly their life changed at these critical points; there also may be others.) Foster outlines here how his depression in his mid-twenties reached the point of being life-threatening; as well as a nervous breakdown; and a physical illness requiring hospitalization. Then his perspective - and his life - changed. (Book: An Extraordinary Absence: Liberation in the Midst of a Very Ordinary Life, 2009.)
What can we read into all this? Is it that one has to traverse the very depths of the valley before one reaches the mountain top?
to all cases of enlightenment?
This is a long video. It is the Iain McNay interview on the Conscious.tv website of the former spiritual seeker and now spiritual teacher, Jeff Foster, which goes into his background and his emerging understanding. It is the essence of ancient spirituality.
A remarkable thing comes out of it. It is that enlightenment may only come as a result of suffering. The self, which is forever seeking more, and more, is suffering in itself. This seeking is in the spiritual or materialistic sense - there is no difference. When the pain of non-fulfillment reaches its nadir - when the suffering reaches the end point of: 'change or suicide' - only then does the awakening occur. (An intense drive and commitment is also present.)
And this invariably occurs around the mid-to-late twenties age range.
History shows it: the Buddha, at age 26, (according to the story) went through 6 years of agonising physical and psychological denial; Jesus Christ may well have suffered prior to the temptations in the wilderness, before his ministry commenced and well before the Via Dolorosa; Tolle came to the very brink of suicide; Byron Katie, to a lesser extent, reached the lowest point in her life before change occurred. (This is not to necessarily state that the latter two are what we call 'enlightened,' though certainly their life changed at these critical points; there also may be others.) Foster outlines here how his depression in his mid-twenties reached the point of being life-threatening; as well as a nervous breakdown; and a physical illness requiring hospitalization. Then his perspective - and his life - changed. (Book: An Extraordinary Absence: Liberation in the Midst of a Very Ordinary Life, 2009.)
What can we read into all this? Is it that one has to traverse the very depths of the valley before one reaches the mountain top?
The Foster Tape
Finally, of course, there is Krishnamurti himself. At the age of 27, in Ojai, he went through a period of intense physical pain for a prolonged period (which to this day has never been explained). Just when it appeared that he could take no more, the pain ceased, followed by a demonstrable awakening of some sort (which was witnessed by others). Three years later he went through intense psychological distress for many days due to the sudden and unexpected death of his cherished younger brother. This was the death of attachment; the final death of the self. Through it all he came out stronger and with unwavering resolve to abolish the organization which he headed - a life-changing decision. Then it was a process over time of greater understanding, which is the case for all the others mentioned. Everything, then, was essentially born out of suffering itself. Not choiceless awareness, as the talks point out.
So, are the talks wrong in their basic approach? Is there a clear precondition to enlightenment after all? This would explain a great deal... about humanity itself.
And about the so-called failure of the talks to bring about transformation in the world.
So, are the talks wrong in their basic approach? Is there a clear precondition to enlightenment after all? This would explain a great deal... about humanity itself.
And about the so-called failure of the talks to bring about transformation in the world.
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