I don't care to discuss abstractions .
Krishnamurti:This evening I would like to talk out what is confusion and what is clarity. But before we go into that, I think we ought to understand for ourselves what is the intention of these talks. It would be a great pity if we listened merely to find answers to our problems. As I have often pointed out, and I hope you will not mind if I say it again, there is only the problem, there is no answer; for in the understanding of the problem lies its dissolution.

So I think it would be wise to listen, not in order to find an answer or to receive instructions, but to discover for oneself, in the very process of listening, the truth about confusion and clarity.

That is why I say that I am here to learn from Krishnamurti , not from second handed knowledge which is merely intellectual without any basis.

As I have pointed out to you before if you don't give a citation for a quote it is meaningless and invalid. Not only is it rude and inconsiderate and arrogant to quote without giving a reference it's ignorant.

What I was trying to say in my post before this is that there is no value in discussing something abstractly or theoretically unless maybe you're discussing something involving science. You wanted to talk about confusion and I merely asked which you preferred to do. Talk theoretically or exam what you are actually feeling.

Jack Pine wrote:
As I have pointed out to you before if you don't give a citation for a quote it is meaningless and invalid. Not only is it rude and inconsiderate and arrogant to quote without giving a reference it's ignorant.

First of all tell that to patrisia who didn't even bother to say that what she posted was from Krishnamurti. And secondly I am not here to satisfy you desire. The highschool time is over fellow ,welcome to the new world of the internet!

One Self wrote:
That is why I say that I am here to learn from Krishnamurti , not from second handed knowledge which is merely intellectual without any basis.

This very description is pointing to second-hand knowledge !

As long as one is not investigating one self, but swallow or swollowed the Teaching of K. It is second hand knowledge.

Truth will unfold itself to those who enquire their own actions.

One Self wrote:
First of all tell that to patrisia who didn't even bother to say that what she posted was from Krishnamurti.

That's right. She didn't say what she said was a quote from K. Therefore no need for a citation. You, on the other hand did claim to be quoting K because you posted his name before the words.

You're an ignorant, uneducated person who apparently doesn't know the difference between paraphrasing someone and quoting. You have shown your great and consistent propensity for misunderstanding K on numerous occasions. When you paraphrase someone you are essentially interpreting what they might have said and putting that into your own words. I don't know of anyone who wants or needs either your or my interpretation of K.

You can't give citations for your bogus quotes from K because there aren't any. This shows you have a lack of integrity because you make up these quotes. Not giving a citation has nothing to do with satisfying anyone it's just plain dishonest.

This post was last updated by Jack Pine Fri, 25 Jan 2019.

Jack if you don't like it leave it. You don't own this site. If someone else asks for citation I will provide it but I won't do anything for Mr false.

K:What is the root cause of all this confusion? When one can find the cause, then one can end it. A cause has an end. We are asking what is the cause or what are the causes of this confusion, this lack of integrity, this sense of desperate degeneration. What is the root of all this? Most of us play with symptoms. We say it is due to overpopulation, bad government. Throughout the world it is the same - lack of leadership, lack of morality. These are all symptoms.

jamie f: A discussion on an empty mind is the antithesis of an empty mind and in the end we are all nothing as a natural consequence of life. Having a nice chat about it is not always an indication of passion or interest.

Agreed. But this is not a place for discussions and nice chats. This is a forum for a dialogue into the heart of life, into the deepest heart of oneself. Very probably this is the last thing we all want to undertake because none of us knows what we may find as we uncover the shallow layers of our daily lives. But it is my passion. For me, this is the only thing that matters throughout the whole of existence. And if you want to join me, that's good; if you don't, it doesn't matter. But I am here to enquire, that's all. I can only state my starting position. Without you or someone else to come with me into all this, it makes very little sense to say much more; for then it is just a lot of words and parroted phrases that sound very much like all the rest of them. We are all capable of spinning a lot of clever theories and nice-sounding explanations. We are all experts at that side of it, I am sure. But going inward, investigating, exploring a little together, there is no one here with a shred of expertise, including the speaker, because it is about moving into a different dimension of being.

We put the question: Can the mind be totally empty? (It was a while ago now; I don't remember exactly when.) I don't want a discussion about it. I want to find out first if the mind can be totally empty; that is why I am putting the question. It is not something being said to stir up a discussion or a debate. I want to find out something about the state of this very peculiar mind which, apparently, can never simply be silent and still; and we all seem to agree about that. All the experts say the mind can never be totally empty. Or a lot of other experts say it is the easiest thing in the world to achieve. So the experts are all quite useless. And I am left only with this question, which I can dismiss or continue to listen to.

Not dismissing it, not clinging to any pet theory about it, I am left with only the opportunity to listen. This opportunity itself may be the empty mind.

This post was last updated by Paul Dimmock Fri, 25 Jan 2019.

Does the "empty mind" have anything to say and if he has something to say is it really empty? No.

The title of this discussion is "can we ask the right question?". One has responded to that question in detail. That itself may be the right question. The question is can we or can we not ask the right questions? If we cannot then why can't we ask the right question? Is it because our(yours and mine) brain is half sleep and not working properly?

One Self wrote:
Jack if you don't like it leave it. You don't own this site. If someone else asks for citation I will provide it but I won't do anything for Mr false.

Here you are then. You were recently complaining why I called you an asshole and you just provided another reason. You've more than earned the title, believe me.

Giving citations for quotes is not optional for the person with an education and a sense of consideration for others.

This post was last updated by Jack Pine Fri, 25 Jan 2019.

This is jack all day: blah blah blah

K: Precision comes to the mind only when one understands this whole process of confusion in which most of us are living. Most people - from the biggest politician to the poorest clerk who goes on his bicycle every day to repeat some ugly routine of business - are confused; and without understanding what it is that brings about this sorrowful state of confusion, the search for clarity is merely an evasion, an escape.

jamie f: Why would you want to empty the recycle bin? My life is in there - the first time I saw my wife, my kids in the nativity play at school, the faces of my parents who have passed away, the time I flipped the car and walked away without a scratch. This is my life. Why would I throw all that away? There is no reason to do that.... At the moment I don't want to come in and have a chat. It may be because I am not sufficiently passionate but it may equally be because of the vibe you are giving off and perhaps that should matter to you.

If you are attached to all that, you won't want to do it, obviously. But at the end of your life it is all going to be taken away whatever you feel about it. So we are talking about meeting death now. This is the only vibe we should really be concerned with; all the other stuff is fairly trivial.

jamie f: Agreed. But why should I not enjoy my attachments for as long as I can, fully accepting that it is not permanent? Kind of "live now, pay later"? Why do you say that it should end now?

I am not saying it should end now. One day it will all come to an end. Why wait to find out what happens? Life is very short and it will go by so fast; and at the end there is still death waiting. So attachments and all the pleasures that come with them may be a reaction to the prospect of death. But to meet death now, this may put attachment and pleasure into their proper place. They may not be what we think they are because death itself is not what we think it is.

K: First there must be order. And order begins only when there is no problem, when there is freedom. Not to do what you like - that's not freedom at all. Or to choose between this guru and that guru or between this book and that book - that's merely another form of confusion. No? Where there is choice there is no freedom. And choice only exists when the brain is confused. When the brain is clear then there is no choice, only direct perception and right action.

Paul Dimmock wrote:
jamie f: Why would you want to empty the recycle bin? My life is in there - the first time I saw my wife, my kids in the nativity play at school, the faces of my parents who have passed away, the time I flipped the car and walked away without a scratch. This is my life. Why would I throw all that away? There is no reason to do that....

Jamie, everything you described above is the past, dead, gone. Is the present so horrible? I realize you live in Britain somewhere which is known to have some of the most miserable weather of any place on earth. And then there are other factors that might be affecting your outlook. I realize that. Is the recycle bin what are lives are? Is that all they are, the past?

Is the question, why should anyone change? Why not just be comfortable with what has always been? Is that what you are asking?

Look around you. Look at the world. It's not just you who must change. The world is being destroyed by all of us doing what we have always done. Feeling as we have always felt and not wanting to change. Arguably, humanity is not only a dead end but quite possibly a virus-like life form that is, in effect, attacking and killing the earth along with all of it's larger lifeforms. I don't think we are having much of an affect on micro organisms but who knows.

It's an interesting point that you have raised. Why should we change? Why should we let go of the past, our memories, our hopes and dreams and just be attentive to the present? Is being truly alive only something that happens in the present? It appears so. I guess everyone has to answer that for themselves.

Jack Pine wrote:
Look around you. Look at the world. It's not just you who must change. The world is being destroyed by all of us doing what we have always done. Feeling as we have always felt and not wanting to change.

Jack Pine wrote:
Why should we change?

If there is a 'right question' that is the area in which to discover it. And it is exactly the reason for posting #139 in this thread. (And the earlier one which was of course ignored - therefore repeated.)

There seems to be a lot of wishing for 'change' because it will be better for 'me' - a happier more contented 'me'. A misinterpretation of the teaching of K which is pontificated upon endlessly.

Where is the overall passion for taking responsibility, and finding out first-hand everything about the depth of the disorder of humanity - for the insanity of human beings that destroys this beautiful earth?

Thank you Jack. And Paul - looking for the 'right question' is a myth unless it has its root in deep disorder, and the human (our) responsibility for it. We humans have been playing around on the surface forever - the "what's in it for 'me' or 'I' am not interested" game.

As Jack said: Look around you. Do you (me or anyone) understand the seriousness of what is taking place NOW?

jamie f:" Agreed. But why should I not enjoy my attachments for as long as I can, fully accepting that it is not permanent? Kind of "live now, pay later"? Why do you say that it should end now? "

At least Jamie is honest. That means there is truth in it. But those who lecture about how bad the situation is in the world they don't realize that they are the creator of the problems in the world and not part of the solution. They are the ones who create conflict by making image of everybody and then responding to that fictitious images. Thought is tricky. It is like a thief in the cloth of a policemen. Never to be trusted.

Generally speaking, in the so-called "Western World", we are conditioned from birth to perpetuate a wholly corrupt system epitomized by greed. The endless accumulation of not only material goods but experiences. Most of us here on this forum are aware of this. This conditioned need to accumulate is destroying the world.

I googled how much the US consumes per capita relative to some other parts of the world.emphasized text I came upon an article by SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN which is a popular magazine in the US. There was no date given for the article. Here is a blurb from that article:

*It is well known that Americans consume far more natural resources and live much less sustainably than people from any other large country of the world. “A child born in the United States will create thirteen times as much ecological damage over the course of his or her lifetime than a child born in Brazil,” reports the Sierra Club’s Dave Tilford, adding that the average American will drain as many resources as 35 natives of India and consume 53 times more goods and services than someone from China.

Tilford cites a litany of sobering statistics showing just how profligate Americans have been in using and abusing natural resources. For example, between 1900 and 1989 U.S. population tripled while its use of raw materials grew by a factor of 17. “With less than 5 percent of world population, the U.S. uses one-third of the world’s paper, a quarter of the world’s oil, 23 percent of the coal, 27 percent of the aluminum, and 19 percent of the copper,” he reports. “Our per capita use of energy, metals, minerals, forest products, fish, grains, meat, and even fresh water dwarfs that of people living in the developing world.”*

The point I'm trying to make, obviously, is that changing is not just about us personally but about whether life, itself, will be sustained on this planet. It seems fairly simple. Either we change or die. It might even be too late to change.

I recently read where K was asked if he thought his discoveries would change the world in time to save it. His reply was probably not. Then why continue to speak, he was asked? Because it's the right thing to do, K replied. Why change? Because it's the right thing to do. I have no reference for where I read this interchange.

This post was last updated by Jack Pine Sun, 27 Jan 2019.

It's not just the US that is a threat to the world through over consumption and other activities. We all are, in our own ways, a threat to peace, prosperity and our own health; physical and mental as well as the health of the world.

Jamie, I think we need to change and end living in the past because it may feel more comfortable. We all do it to some extent.

This post was last updated by Jack Pine Sun, 27 Jan 2019.

Jack Pine wrote:
I have no reference for where I read this interchange.

I can tell you without a doubt. It was with David Bohm in The End of Time.

Jack Pine wrote:
It might even be too late to change.

The selfish remains selfish and the selfless remains selfless. There is no connection between the two.

Patricia: Looking for the 'right question' is a myth unless it has its root in deep disorder...

It has its roots in our relationship. Our relationship may be in deep disorder or it may not be, but that's where the questions arise. They are the product of our personal history, our culture, our way of communicating, our way of looking at the world, and all the rest of it. So I come to you and I say, 'Please, let's see if we can together pose a question so that it allows us to open up a whole world of enquiry?' Our relationship will be at the centre of it; and, moving into the question, we may well find that our relationship is deeply flawed or limited or whatever else. But first, before we posit either order or disorder, are we free both to look and explore together? Simply, do we want to explore, enquire? Do we really want to do this? Or are we sick and tired of the whole enterprise? That's when we retreat into familiar and favoured positions and any enquiry or dialogue becomes quite impossible.

This post was last updated by Paul Dimmock Sun, 27 Jan 2019.

Rich Nolet wrote:
I can tell you without a doubt. It was with David Bohm in The End of Time.

Thank you. I seem to recall that now.

jamie f wrote:
Thank you for your thoughts. I am well and the weather over here is not so bad! :-)

OK Jamie. I'm glad to hear you're doing well. And my comment about the weather was a little tongue and cheek and a little based on what I have heard all my life. I have spent the better part of the past 50 years in a spot in the state of Colorado where it is known to average 320 days of sunshine a year. I expect I am a little prejudiced about rainy and cloudy weather.

And Jamie, you can live any way you want. Just as long as you live. I just thought the discussion you brought up was interesting and got me to thinking why should we change.

K: When one realizes, as one must have noticed within oneself, that actually one doesn't change, one gets terribly depressed, or one escapes from oneself. So the inevitable question arises, can there be change at all? We go back to a period when we were young, and that comes back to us again. Is there change at all in human beings? Have you changed at all? Perhaps there has been a modification on the periphery. but deeply, radically, have you changed? Perhaps we do not want to change, because we are fairly comfortable. We have a government that looks after one, a welfare state, an assured job, old age pensions, and all the rest of it; so perhaps there is no motive to change. And when there is a motive to change, it is change within the field of the known.

Paul Dimmock wrote:
It has its roots in our relationship. Our relationship may be in deep disorder or it may not be, but that's where the questions arise.

Paul - 'our relationship' with what? Each other? For the most part human relationship is a whole bunch of images banging around to see who can come out top of the heap. That is not relationship.

Relationship with the planet perhaps? We are destroying it.

Relationship with all the creatures on the earth? We kill and consume them. Or just kill them anyway - for entertainment.

Relationship with the the marvellous living and breathing trees? We clear-fell them.

Relationship with our waterways and oceans? We pollute it all with our rubbish.

Relationship with the air we breathe? We pollute that also - to fulfil our desires.

If you want to talk about relationship lets start there. Responsibility Paul.

Unless we act from the fact of the havoc we human beings create, how can there ever be 'relationship'?

One Self wrote:

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K: When one realizes, as one must have noticed within oneself, that actually one doesn't change, one gets terribly depressed, or one escapes from oneself."

We are terribly depressed, are we not? Let's live with the fact of what we are and not escape into environmental issues. It is easy to escape from oneself ..