The Talks on Freedom - Enlightenment: Can it Really Be this Simple?

                           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)


   There is a prevailing and common misconception among many that the talks contain nothing new, nothing that has not been previously stated by the so-called “gurus” of the past. Or that they are just a modern reworking of ancient truths. This is said by people who have read little of the talks and understood even less.

There is some truth in this in only the very broadest sense: if you look at the overarching theme of the ending of suffering (that is, the ending of the self), which is the central basis behind the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, for example. But the detail in these talks is found nowhere else. Try as you might, you will not find in another writer (philosopher, psychologist, spiritual teacher, ‘guru’) the intricate and elaborate exposition and unfolding of the myriad deceptive ways of thought and the self, as well as fear, desire, conditioning and all the other aspects comprising the total consciousness of man. Others have covered some particular areas - some branches of the tree - but you can search forever, to no avail: you will not find anywhere else the entire mirror laid out of the content of the human mind.

In the end, of course, such a diversion into the realm of, “It doesn’t say anything new; anything that has not already been said before”, allows a clever escape from facing what has actually been said. One more escape among all the rest in which we constantly indulge.

There has also been ongoing discussion to the effect that, because no-one has ‘got it’, then the talks themselves (or the speaker) must somehow be at fault. There is, for instance, the charge that they are too vague to be fully understood. When it comes down to it, the talks appear to be unspecific in the area of awareness as mentioned elsewhere in these discussions, but this may well be deliberate. The words after all are not the thing - you have to see the thing for yourself, you have to do all the work yourself. One must also always bear in mind that the talks approach everything negatively, that is, the approach is about what things are not. What things are and the so-called positive approach of how to achieve them has never been the intention.

Similarly, the talks are not final answers and were never meant to be answers, for that would be self-defeating to their whole purpose. The answers are in ourselves. Neither are the talks ‘help’ in the accepted sense of that word, as nothing can help or assist you in the understanding of yourself. The talks are a mirror only to ourselves; they point out things concerning the structure and process of thought, the self and the mind. No more, no less. The rest is entirely up to us.
~~~
Is it possible that the entire talks are actually about the ending of the self?

It is always dangerous to give an overarching summation of anything, as life and truth are dynamic processes, in constant change. Notwithstanding this, when taken in their totality, the essential thrust of the talks (which is the essential thrust of ourselves) can be expressed thus:

a): They are all about the myriad ways of the self, which is entirely based on the past, on memory;
b): They are all about the ending of the self, which effectively means the ending of thought;
c): They are all about that certain state of choiceless, passive awareness, fully in the present, that brings the self to an end.

The self is the grand illusion in which the human mind is caught. It is the illusory observer, seemingly separate from that which is. Only when the self ends does the observer end; there is then direct contact with the actuality of life. The extraordinary statement that underlies the talks is that the ending of the observer comes first in awareness, not that awareness brings about the demise of the observer:
                                                                       “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'}

"Silent and choiceless" means the complete absence of the observer, the self. When you observe yourself as something separate from yourself (in order to judge it or change it) then you are in the world of duality, and you cannot obdserve.

The observer as the self is knowledge. Knowledge is the accumulation of memory, of experiences. If you didn't accumulate memories you would start each day as a new day, afresh. Freedom is freedom from the known, from all psychological knowledge of the past. One must have freedom to end thought, it is not that the ending of thought brings freedom. Freedom is freedom from all conclusions, so that one continually looks at things anew, without any verbal reaction whatsoever.

The self is founded on comparison. The what is is always compared to the what should be, and here is the very origin of all conflict. As desire, in internal conflict, the self is unable to live peacefully in the present, but is endlessly seeking to change or improve on the actual fact. It is the full understanding, via insight or direct perception, of the self as desire, as the master judger and comparer, that brings freedom from it, and thus a free, silent mind.

It really is this simple. The central difficulty is that the self, imbedded and programmed into the neural pathways of the brain, is so intrinsic in its reactions that we are unable to observe anything at all, even nature, without these reactions, the ceaseless verbalization, without the sense of a separate observer who is looking at the world around and in us.

Thought, which is the word, must die for truth to be.
~~~
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 entirely missed it? 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 or selectivity, to what has been said across all the talks?

“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, 21st July 1955}
                                ~~~~&~~~~

                  “... 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^rd 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 21^st century, that the state of mind he was in is simply not possible for us. Hence, many (if not most) of the people who are at all interested in this 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 mind and thus our comfortable life that we do everything we can to avoid it? In other words, the problem is not our lack of understanding - but simple fear? And is it possible to end not just this fear, but the root of all fear?

Of course it’s possible.