Huguette . wrote:
If I believe that the crisis lies everywhere but within, if I believe that "others" are responsible, that means that I do not look within at MY greed, anxiety, conceit, ambition, fear, contradictions, and so on - it is these which are the PRIMARY causes of war. End those primary causes and can it be that what there is then in the human heart is love, not war?

Dan McDermott wrote:
I would agree Huguette that this is a fact: the 'outer' is the aggregate result of the 'inner'. The state of the outer is "secondary" to the state of the inner. If the root cause of the greed, fear, ambition, conflict, suffering, etc. is not discovered in myself for what it is, the outer can only change, if at all, superficially.

After writing that I saw little point in trying to investigate into the matter of “The Ground of all things”, as described by K, I started to ask myself what WAS the basic issue of the human mind, the thing one really needs to be concerned with. The most immediate. And I came up with the answer “Conflict”. One could call it struggle, and also is it not in essence the same as “suffering”?

But before starting on that, I felt, after reading the above messages, the issue of the inner and the outer needs to be addressed.

It is my experience, that if I ever discuss, in “Krishnamurti circles” the problems facing the world at large – environmental, political, social – I am soon pulled up, and it is pointed out that the real issue is the human mind, or is ME. Well, of course that is true, but still it seems to me that it is necessary, important, to look at the world “out there” - knowing that it is not just “out there”. The inner and the outer are one – just how they are one is something that could be looked at – and need to be looked at as a joint phenomena. And not to be considered as faux pas to look outwards.

Not just that, is it not distorting to limits one’s inquiry to that inner world? I don’t want to keep repeating phrases like “the inner is the outer”, “I am the world”, of course that is understood. Well, it may not be fully understood, that also can be examined. Is it really just an inner world? I don’t want to assume anything.

Let me put it this way, because I might look outwards, through some news item, or what I see in the street, in others, does not automatically imply that I am not also looking inwards.

I hope this can be understood, while examining the issue of “Does our daily life have to be one of constant struggle?”

Also, I have debated over using a thread subject K’s words: “We are all caught in the idea of progress”. This seems to me the essence of struggle, of conflict.

Clive,

When you, I or any of us say things like:

“What is this human mind that is capable of such infinite deception? [...] This is one thing we can do. Not be a hypocrite, not be dishonest with ourselves? We can face ourselves as we are, in the sense if we tell a lie, we can admit that we have told a lie”

... are we not separating ourselves from the hypocrites, even though we say “we” are doing it and “the human mind” is doing it?

I’m not saying that I don’t see the hypocrisy in them. I don’t say that it doesn’t revolt and sadden me. It does.

The greedy, the hard-hearted, the vengeful, are protecting themselves, aren’t they? So their behaviour is based on fear/self, isn’t it? That inner movement of division - fear/self - IS the movement of the stream, the world consciousness. It is the power of the stream carrying the mind along in its powerful current. There is no reasoning with fear. Fear/self denies its own existence, it lies, deceives, pretends.

Either the brain in my skull is a party to the chaos or it is not. Either there is one human brain or there is not. Maybe after all the crisis is NOT in consciousness. Maybe none of these things are so. Maybe the old ways of moralizing, condemning, denouncing, fighting, violence - are the only "action" the human being can take to change things.

It is one thing to see the horrors, the brutality, the hard-heartedness, the greed, the hypocrisy. One can - must - see “what is” - the horror, the beauty, the hate, the love. But is it necessary to condemn and judge? Or does seeing “what is” produce its own action?

Is the crisis “out there”, or is it within? Am “I” qualitatively different from the bullies and dictators or not? Is the disorder within “my” brain and “their” brain essentially the same disorder or not? Is the enormous weight, power, momentum, force, movement of thousands of years of self - the stream - operating on the brain or not?

If all this is NOT a fact, if seeing "what is" is not its own action, then I don't know what to do about what’s “out there”. Then I guess daily life DOES HAVE TO BE a struggle.

Again, this is what K had to say .... but maybe after all he was mistaken:

This mind is in constant operation; it is always judging, weighing, observing, interpreting; and I feel the crisis is there. If, being aware of this crisis, the mind puts its question within the field of the known, it will have an answer according to its own knowledge; therefore, the problem continues. Whereas, can one confront the problem without a motive? Can one see for oneself – actually, not merely verbally – that the crisis is there, without knowing how to answer it? Do you understand? Because you really don't know how to answer it, do you? You have been through this or that religion, you have tried yoga or some other system of meditation, you have read the usual books, attended this talk, that talk, and have done all the things that every human being does in search of the answer – and you have not found it. Perhaps the problem itself has not been clear to you because you have never felt the totality of consciousness; you have only known certain parts of it. But this evening you may have been able to feel the totality of this enormous thing. You know, when you suddenly see something extraordinarily beautiful – a mountain, a stream in the shade of a tree, or the face of a child – your whole being becomes quiet, does it not? You don't say, “Why is it so beautiful?” Your mind, your whole being is, for a moment at least, completely still because there is no answer. But that is merely an imposition. The beauty of something has momentarily knocked out your mind. It is like depending on a drug to make you quiet, taking LSD so that you will have marvelous visions.

What we are talking about has no answer, so we have only the crisis without the answer. But you have never faced the crisis in those terms. You have never lived in that crisis without seeking an answer – because there is no answer. The fields of the known may be traversed in one swift perception, or it may take many years to cross the fields of the known. But when you have come to that point where you are really faced with the crisis which has no answer, and the mind is silent with a silence that is not imposed, then you will see, if you have the patience, that there is a revolution – a tremendous revolution in which the mind is made innocent through death of the known; and only such a mind can discover that which is everlasting.

Third Public Talk in the Oak Grove, May 28, 1960

And:

To understand, mind must delve deeply and yet it must know when to be alertly passive. It would be foolish and unbalanced to keep on digging without the recuperative and healing power of passivity. We search, analyze, look into ourselves, but it is a process of conflict and pain; there is no joy in it for we are judging or justifying or comparing. There are no moments of silent awareness, of choiceness passivity. It is this choiceless awareness, this creative passivity that is even more essential than self-observation and investigation. As the fields are cultivated, sown, harvested and allowed to lie fallow so must we live the four seasons in a day. If you cultivate, sow and harvest without giving rest to the soil it would soon become unproductive. The period of fallowness is as essential as tilling; when the earth lies fallow the winds, the rains, the sunshine bring to it creative productivity and it renews itself. So must the mind-heart be silent, alertly passive after travail, to renew itself.

Thus through self-awareness of every thought-feeling the ways of the self are known and understood. This self-awareness with its self-observation and alert passivity brings deep and wide self-knowledge. From self-knowledge there comes right thinking; without right thinking there is no meditation.

(Ojai, California, 1945, from Collected Works, Vol. 4 - A Timeless Spring)

Huguette . wrote:
Am “I” qualitatively different from the bullies and dictators or not?

This is the crux of it, isn’t it? We likely think we are. Trump and the Congress persons all lie. But in essence, is my consciousness different from theirs? We DO, most of us, feel that we are somehow more moral...more righteous...than the ones in power that we condemn. Of course we can take practical actions to attempt to make positive changes in society...to protect the environment, for example...to have fair pay and safe conditions for workers. That is far different than the name calling and divisiveness that has become so much a part of our public life in recent years. Well, even way back in the late 60’s and early seventies so called liberal protesters of the war in Vietnam were shouting “Pigs,” at the police and the right wing politicians. They had become just as violent as the ones they were protesting about....some were even making bombs, tragically. Most of us are not going to resort to bomb throwing, fortunately, but when there’s conflict in my daily life between me and my wife or neighbor, for example, I might very well see my point of view as the righteous one and condemn them for being wrong or inferior to myself....’qualitatively different’, to use your phrase, Huguette. The division in mankind is right there in my daily living. This doesn't mean that one shouldn't speak out about a politician's lies or greed or some other kind of gross deception. Just stating the fact that someone is lying ...or even that someone is insane (like a Hitler)...is not necessarily feeling that one is superior...better...more moral...righteous. One simply sees the fact that a Hitler or a Trump is lying....manipulating public opinion...intentionally deceiving.

Let it Be

This post was last updated by Tom Paine Thu, 14 Jun 2018.

Tom Paine wrote:
This is the crux of it, isn’t it? We likely think we are. Trump and the Congress persons all lie. But in essence, is my consciousness different from theirs?

Even my optician lies to me. Yesterday I received a letter and on the back of the envelope were the words:

“A special gift just for you”

Inside was some “special offer” that must be applicable to everyone who had an eye test there recently. No, not “just for me”.

And,

I see that “politics” arises in me in human relationship. I may not lie, but the initial movement is there; from fear to avoid the fact of what I am at that moment. By deceit, by dodging, machinations, stratagems, artifices,

But if there is awareness of these movements as they arise, they are negated; they may never actually express themselves

Huguette . wrote, quoting K:
If, being aware of this crisis, the mind puts its question within the field of the known, it will have an answer according to its own knowledge; therefore, the problem continues.

That is so beautiful. I guess I mean the instant, pure truth of it is beautiful. I don’t know why but it brings tears.

and also Huguette . wrote, quoting K:
The beauty of something has momentarily knocked out your mind.

This is so strange. My intense response came immediately upon reading the first quote above; I did not read further. And later I go on to this second quote, and see that this is exactly what happened. The beauty of the truth of K’s words did “knock out my mind”.

Huguette . wrote, quoting K:
We search, analyze, look into ourselves, but it is a process of conflict and pain;

I was composing a post on struggle, conflict, earlier this morning, and I was trying to express exactly this. Analysis might explain conflict, but it will in no way bring conflict to an end.

The last few days I was working on making a table for my gazebo built earlier this year.
A tool fell from my hand and as I looked at it the following went through my mind:

"Holding on costs energy, letting go only a moment and falling to the ground is a natural phenomenon and that goes for all the knowledge you pick up when necessary and otherwise it will leave you alone .. Inside and outside is one unit!"

Maybe you also have something about this insight, or is this a thought flash?

But what does it matter, it was just an event!

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

This post was last updated by Wim Opdam Thu, 14 Jun 2018.

Clive Elwell wrote:
“A special gift just for you”

I had to laugh at that one :) probably I shouldn’t laugh as this kind of advertisement is obviously deceit as you say, but it’s so a part of our culture that we normally don’t even notice it. Like the air we breathe! But thought itself is deceit, isn’t it, when it operates in the psychological realm? I’m deceiving myself all the time with my image of myself and my images of ‘you’ because the image is never the actuality.

Let it Be

This post was last updated by Tom Paine Thu, 14 Jun 2018.

Tom Paine wrote:
but it’s so a part of our culture that we normally don’t even notice it.

And this is a terrible thing, isn't it, to get used to something? Get used to something beautiful so that we no longer notice it, get used to a relationship so that we take it for granted, get used to conflict, so that it wears us down with our being aware of it?

Tom Paine wrote:
I’m deceiving myself all the time with my image of myself and my images of ‘you’ because the image is never the actuality.

Yes, I take your point, Tom. So we live with - let us call it falseness, as deceit suggested some deliberate action - and we get used to that.

Clive Elwell wrote:
And this is a terrible thing, isn't it, to get used to something?

I was really puzzled as a child when I found out that TV commercials lied. It was quite a shock that they were doing that. Before that, I lived in blissful ignorance about this sort of thing. I can't even watch TV anymore. Haven't owned a TV for over 20 years...maybe 25. Not just because of the commercials, but the programs themselves, other than nature programs and documentaries, are for the most part unbearable for me to watch. I told a friend of my wife's that I never watch TV and she was really shocked.

Let it Be

This post was last updated by Tom Paine Fri, 15 Jun 2018.

To return to the issue of conflict, struggle. Because it seems to me to be at the very root of our being.

I was suggesting, or asking, if one can look simultaneously at conflict in the outer world and in ourselves, and see it is the same movement. To see that they produce each other. It is beyond question that we have built a society firmly rooted in division and so conflict. Listen to the news at any time, it is account of conflict – often out and out warfare – between all the identifications mankind has made, as Greek, Jew, American, Muslim, Shia Muslim, Sunni Muslim, Extremests and Moderates, Conservatives and Socialists, Communists, ….. I could spend all day listing them.

And then there are the divisions thought creates in each brain. This is what I have to deal with – but the very idea of “me” dealing with “it” is perhaps the very essence of conflict.

Surely we HAVE to be free of conflict? It is an absolute necessity. K says that conflict dissipates the energy that we need for transformation. Conflict is confusion, contradiction. It is the very denial of a clear, still, mind.

As we cannot pursue non-conflict, (pursuing anything psychologically implies more conflict), we have to understand conflict, don’t we? Which means what? I hesitate to use the word “accept”, but say not to resist it – resistance being yet another form of conflict. There has to be the determination – again, that is a word people might object to, but I will use it for now – the determination or intention to live with it, to just observe it. Conflict is there anyway, whether we like it or not, whether we accept it or not.

I am talking about ACTION, and action now. Not ideas. Not something to be done in the future. And significantly, I find that once that intention is there – once the necessity of staying with conflict is seen – then change has already started.

Will leave it there for now (I don’t mean leave staying with conflict there, that must go on all the time. I just mean reporting on it). Sorry if it is all very obvious - it is - but we have to DO it.

"So, please listen. We are in
conflict. Everything we do brings
conflict. We do not know a moment,
from school days till now, when we are
not in conflict. Going to the office
which is a terrible boredom, your
prayers, your search for God, your
disciplines, your relationships -
everything has in it a seed of
conflict. It is fairly obvious to any
man who wants to know himself; when he
observes himself as though in a
mirror, he sees he is in conflict. And
what does he do? Immediately he wants
to run away from it, or to find a
formula which will absorb that
conflict. What we are trying to do
this evening is to observe this
conflict, not to run away from it."

Clive Elwell quoting K. wrote:
Everything we do brings conflict. We do not know a moment, from school days till now, when we are not in conflict.

Do we accept this as truth ? In reply #6 there is a description of a moment, an event not of conflict , but of passing by let it go.

Not so long ago I WOULD have called myself stupid or clumsy giving my father credit for seeing me as such in manual activities.
Nothing of that.
Also the absence of proud to have fixed that only this flash which is very poor described and went on for hours with all kind of connections.

Clive Elwell quoting k. wrote:
everything has in it a seed of conflict.

That's very true, even this reply can be a source of debate.

My mind still makes quantum leaps,
This morning looking at the digital clock seeing 6:42 was my interpretation "be for two" is one !

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

This post was last updated by Wim Opdam Fri, 15 Jun 2018.

Wim Opdam wrote:
Do we accept this as truth ? In reply #6 there is a description of a moment, an event not of conflict , but of passing by let it go.

I am not quite sure that I understand you fully, Wim, but if you are saying that the movement of letting go, of surrender, of dying to the known, does not bring about conflict, then I would say that is so. But K's words are: "Everything we do brings conflict." Letting go is not something that we do, is it? Is it not a movement in a quite different direction altogether? It is not an action of will, it has no direction. Is it not the holding to a direction that contains the seeds of conflict?

It might be interesting to into the question of every thing that we do bringing conflict.

Wim Opdam wrote:
That's very true, even this reply can be a source of debate.

But it doesn't have to be that way, does it? I can look at what you say, listen to you, without the interpretation of the past - the past being my conditioning. Then there is no argument. I might doubt something you say, and we can discuss it, but there does not have to be argument, does there?

This post was last updated by Clive Elwell Sat, 16 Jun 2018.

Tom Paine wrote:
Not just because of the commercials, but the programs themselves, other than nature programs and documentaries, are for the most part unbearable for me to watch.

I also don't watch TV, although I watch documentaries on the internet. Often I cannot watch nature programs anymore, amazing as they often are, because of the knowledge that it all being destroyed.

Clive Elwell wrote:
I am not quite sure that I understand you fully, Wim, but if you are saying that the movement of letting go, of surrender, of dying to the known, does not bring about conflict, then I would say that is so. But K's words are: "Everything we do brings conflict." Letting go is not something that we do, is it? Is it not a movement in a quite different direction altogether? It is not an action of will, it has no direction. Is it not the holding to a direction that contains the seeds of conflict?

It might be interesting to into the question of every thing that we do bringing conflict.

That's just one part of the whole event and in that part you're right.
The other part is building the the gazebo and the table in it !
Here one can have a warm day/evening while dizzling so in this way one can sit outside and stay dry or if it is a very sunny day one can use it as a place in the shadow.
So this building is something one can do with this motive and goal and what is wrong whith that ?? That's also daily life.

Another possibility could be that I would do it to overcome the perception of my family members that I was unable to do such a thing ! that would be a struggle ' I wanting to proof their image of me as wrong ' Also my image of them having such an image of me is part of that struggle'. But this was not the case, so no struggle !!

so the seed is there without any energy to become alive.

realizing afterwards that there is a kind of being proud of my work and thinking of my dad words and also those of my brothers in law and my own brothers (9 of them !) when i tried something like that in the past. Seeing that, is that a struggle.?

It's very delicate to distinguish a border between the fysical and the psychological me/we and without knowledge of the K. Teaching that he is speaking of the psychological we do without mention it. So to take a part out of the whole can be the source of misinterpretation. It is a pitty that our language does not make this difference clear by using the same word with different meanings.

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

When one actually embarks on an inquiry – in this case into conflict – something unusual happens, I find. There is a certain energy – an energy I am tempted to call passion. There is a certain dropping away of the usual obstacles to inquiry.I think it is fair to say that, having determined to face what is, fear drops away. It is this dropping away of fear that releases the energy, perhaps.

I think I can see why this is so. When one merely contemplates facing what is, it remains at the level of idea. It is something that one will do in the future. And whenever one imagines what will happen in the future, there is fear. Fear of failing, of not achieving. But when one actually embarks on the voyage, the future is irrelevant. The inquiry is NOW. You are facing the ACTUALITY of what is, now. Because it is not some prospect in the future, there is no fear involved, There is only the ……… intense interest to face what is, now. And this brings about the energy to inquire, to see what is.

Huguette . wrote:
... are we not separating ourselves from the hypocrites, even though we say “we” are doing it and “the human mind” is doing it?

You had written this in post # 2, Huguette, and I am turning to it now. I see that I used the word “we” three times. The very origin of the post was the seeing of the movement of hypocricy inside myself. So it is not obvious to me that I am separating myself from “them”, imagining some group “out there” who are hypocrites – sorry, I don’t want to creat images; better to refer to people who manifest hypocrital behavour.

How else can I put it, Huguette? It is in essence “the human mind”, is it not? The stream. It would not be correct to describe states of being as peculiar to me, would it? That is as misleading as attributing things to “them”.

Or are you referring to a more subtle level, where the mind is continually separating itself from its atributes?

You also wrote:
“It is one thing to see the horrors, the brutality, the hard-heartedness, the greed, the hypocrisy. One can - must - see “what is” - the horror, the beauty, the hate, the love. But is it necessary to condemn and judge? Or does seeing “what is” produce its own action?”

Is it necessary to condemn/judge? It is certainly what the mind (me, if you prefer) strongly tends to DO, it is not clear that this movement is a necessity. In fact in order to seen things as they are, it is necessary NOT to judge and condemn, is it not? Both ourselves and others. And does this seeing produce its own action, you ask? A tentative “yes”. As you say, if it does not, there does not seem to be any other source of right action. I suppose belief has its own distorted form of “action”, perhaps better described as inaction, paralysis. But it is fragmented, and so not right action.

Clive Elwell wrote:
How else can I put it, Huguette?

I understand the difficulty very well, Clive, because I face the same difficulty. I’m just saying that when I get angry at others, blame others for the state of the world, blame the horrors all around on the hypocrisy, fear or cruelty I see in others, I’m avoiding the primary causes, which are within “me”, and my action of blaming, criticizing, denouncing - is incomplete action. It festers, it solves nothing. In doing so, in that too, I am the world.

I once again take the liberty of quoting K, right or wrong:

As I have said, I am talking to the individual because only the individual can change, not the mass; only you can transform yourself; and so the individual matters infinitely. I know it is the fashion to talk about groups, the mass, the race as though the individual had no importance at all, but in any creative action it is the individual who matters. Any true action, any important decision, the search for freedom, the enquiry after truth, can only come from the individual who understands. That is why I am talking only to the individual. You will probably say: "What can I, the individual do?" Confronted with this enormous complication, the national and religious divisions, the problems of misery, starvation, war, unemployment, the rapid degradation and disintegration, what can one individual do about it all? Nothing. The individual cannot tackle the mountain outside, but the individual can set a new current of thought going which will create a different series of actions. He cannot do anything about worldwide conditions because historically events must take their own brutal, cruel, indifferent course. But if there were half-a-dozen people who could think completely about the whole problem, they would set going a different attitude and action altogether, and that is why the individual is so important. But if he wants to reform this enormous confusion, this mountain of disintegration, he can do very little; indeed, as is being shown, he can have no effect on it at all, but if any one of us is truly individual in the sense that he is trying to understand the whole process of his mind, then he will be a creative entity, a free person, unconditioned, capable of pursuing truth for itself and not for a result.

[...]
So I can see, can I not?, that there must be conflict so long as there is an ideal, and that so long as the mind is concerned with the future, with what should be, it is not concerned with what is. It is fairly obvious that one cannot have a divided mind, part of the mind thinking of non-violence and the other part occupied with violence. Therefore you see that so long as there is any kind of ideal in the mind there must be a state of contradiction. This does not mean that you can merely accept what is, and just stagnate. For, here begins the real revolution, if you can put away all your ideals; and how difficult that is! You have been brought up with ideals. All the books, all the saints, the professors, the erudite people, everyone has said that you must have ideals, and that thought has become a habit. It is purely a habit. You are holding on to so many lovely ideals, and when someone comes along and tells you how absurd these ideals are, how they have no reality at all, then, for the mind to really see that ideals have no factual reality, that is to know the truth. Truth is not something away over the hills and mountains. It is the perception of the true in the simple things, and if you see the truth of what we have been saying now, you will break the habit.

[...]
You may reject outward authority, and fairly intelligent people have done that, but inwardly they still want to be something, not only the boss of the town or the boss of the school but they also want to be spiritual, to achieve a state of mind which is at perfect peace. But the desire to be at peace indicates that you are not at peace, so you have to tackle what is actual. So you see the complex nature of contradiction! Though you may consciously say how absurd these ideals are, they are embedded in the unconscious. Your whole race is steeped in ideals; it is not a matter of just removing a few silly ones, but you have to understand the whole process of the mind.

[...]
Similarly if you can see the truth that ideals have no reality, see it right through, completely, then the perception of the total truth that ideals have no value will begin to operate of itself. You do not have to operate. It will operate.

The quote is taken from POONA 2ND PUBLIC TALK 10TH SEPTEMBER 1958

http://jiddu-krishnamurti.net/en/1958/1958-09-1...

This post was last updated by Huguette . Mon, 18 Jun 2018.

Huguette . wrote:
I’m just saying that when I get angry at others, blame others for the state of the world, blame the horrors all around on the hypocrisy, fear or cruelty I see in others, I’m avoiding the primary causes, which are within “me”, and my action of blaming, criticizing, denouncing - is incomplete action. It festers,

You use the word "blame" here, Huguette. When I read through - usually plough through - the "comments columns" that sometimes follow news articles, about 90% of the comments consist of blaming others - political parties, particular politicians, big business, the capitalist system, other people on the thread, etc etc - and of course this does avoid the primary cause of all human problems. And blaming others has become, perhaps always has been, the principle activity of those politicians. And of the husband, the wife, the parent, the child, all of us in essence. You might say it is what I m doing now, in fact. But from "My point of view", I am seeing the facts, seeing what is.

One thing is sure - it gets nowhere, it resolves nothing. Worse than that, it diverts attention from where attention needs to be.

There is no question that "I am the world". But, as I just wrote to Tom, there is no awareness of that fact at the moment the "I" emerges from the world, from the The Stream. At least that is how it appears to me. Awareness may come a moment later, but this is then not complete action, it is the incomplete action that you mention. Have you any comment on this?

I will read the quote you have posted.

Clive, I’m certainly not suggesting that one should pretend not to see what one sees and not to feel what one feels. I’m not advocating hypocrisy! :o)

Of course, I can’t help but see what I see and feel what I feel. Seeing brutality, kindness, injustice, etc., and feeling pain, joy, sorrow, beauty, love, pleasure, hate, etc. - happens immediately, effortlessly.

But sorrow, as I see it, is not the action of conditioning, it is not reaction, not conditioned. K says sorrow is rooted in self. That’s something I don’t understand. It doesn’t seem that way to me. I see suffering, self-pity, as self-centredness, but not sorrow ... or switch the words around. The point is I see 2 essentially different movements, coming from 2 different places.

When I see children ripped from their parents’ arms at the border, the bombings, human trafficking, prisoners stuffed like sardines into cells, people toiling in harsh conditions for an unsustainable wage, brutality and injustice of all sorts, including indifference, there is immediate sorrow ... and THEN anger, it seems to me. Maybe someone can help me out with this. The futility, danger, toxicity and divisiveness of anger, I understand. But how can one see the pain inflicted by greed and selfishness upon the vulnerable and NOT feel hurt by it? I see no self-centred motive of self-protection in this.

Perhaps this question can only be answered by the mind which discovers “that which is everlasting”, which this particular mind ("me") certainly has not. Does the mind which discovers “that which is everlasting” NOT feel pain when it sees cruelty? What is clear is that as long as the mind is confused, fragmented, conflicted, whatever action it chooses to take is bound to contribute to the problem. What is clear is that there is no answer to be found in the known.

To repeat (sorry for that):

What we are talking about has no answer, so we have only the crisis without the answer. But you have never faced the crisis in those terms. You have never lived in that crisis without seeking an answer – because there is no answer. The fields of the known may be traversed in one swift perception, or it may take many years to cross the fields of the known. But when you have come to that point where you are really faced with the crisis which has no answer, and the mind is silent with a silence that is not imposed, then you will see, if you have the patience, that there is a revolution – a tremendous revolution in which the mind is made innocent through death of the known; and only such a mind can discover that which is everlasting.

Third Public Talk in the Oak Grove, May 28, 1960

This post was last updated by Huguette . Tue, 19 Jun 2018.

Huguette . wrote:
Clive, I’m certainly not suggesting that one should pretend not to see what one sees and not to feel what one feels. I’m not advocating hypocrisy! :o)

Of that I am sure, Huguette.

Of course, I can’t help but see what I see and feel what I feel. Seeing brutality, kindness, injustice, etc., and feeling pain, joy, sorrow, beauty, love, pleasure, hate, etc. - happens immediately, effortlessly.

But sorrow, as I see it, is not the action of conditioning, it is not reaction, not conditioned. K says sorrow is rooted in self. That’s something I don’t understand. It doesn’t seem that way to me. I see suffering, self-pity, as self-centredness, but not sorrow ... or switch the words around. The point is I see 2 essentially different movements, coming from 2 different places.

C: It is my understanding, my memory, that K does distinguish between “two sorts of sorrow” He does talk of sorrow as self pity, and clearly this is a reaction of the self. K asks if you are suffering because someone close to you has died, are you feeling for that person, or are you feeling for your own loss?

But K also talks of a greater sorrow, a sorrow because of the state of the human race, its great inhumanity, as you go on to describe, and its great suffering. This perception, I think, is beyond self concern; or nothing to do with self. If I come across a quote on this, I will share it, but I have an appointment soon.

When I see children ripped from their parents’ arms at the border, the bombings, human trafficking, prisoners stuffed like sardines into cells, people toiling in harsh conditions for an unsustainable wage, brutality and injustice of all sorts, including indifference, there is immediate sorrow ... and THEN anger, it seems to me. Maybe someone can help me out with this

C: You feel what you feel, Huguette. Do we have to justify our feelings? Do they have to be approved of or disapproved of? One would have to be insensitive indeed to see these horrors and not feel deeply moved by them.

The futility, danger, toxicity and divisiveness of anger, I understand. But how can one see the pain inflicted by greed and selfishness upon the vulnerable and NOT feel hurt by it? I see no self-centred motive of self-protection in this.

C: you appear to be equating anger and hurt, here, which I do not understand. In fact I do not understand this use of the word “hurt”. Is not hurt always associated with an image of oneself, which gets deflated? But perhaps you are saying anger is a reaction to hurt, which I do understand.

Perhaps this question can only be answered by the mind which discovers “that which is everlasting”, which this particular mind ("me") certainly has not. Does the mind which discovers “that which is everlasting” NOT feel pain when it sees cruelty? What is clear is that as long as the mind is confused, fragmented, conflicted, whatever action it chooses to take is bound to contribute to the problem. What is clear is that there is no answer to be found in the known.

Yes, Huguette, that becomes clearer and clearer. There is no answer to be found in the known. The known is a vast escape

Huguette . wrote:
Of course, I can’t help but see what I see and feel what I feel.

Strangely I was talking this over with a friend last night. Part of a deeper inquiry that had come to me concerning regret over things I had done in my life. The friend said that “you could not help it. You were not to blame. You were following your conditioning”. Perhaps that was so, I was lost in my own desires, my own pursuits, I did not see the harm I might be doing to others. But it came to me that now in my life there is a certain awareness of inner movements. In fact now “I cannot help” but see my motives, I cannot help but be aware of the greater picture. If I proceed with a destructive action in spite of this awareness, THEN I am at fault, then I am to blame.

Clive: But K also talks of a greater sorrow, a sorrow because of the state of the human race, its great inhumanity, as you go on to describe, and its great suffering. This perception, I think, is beyond self concern; or nothing to do with self. If I come across a quote on this, I will share it, but I have an appointment soon.

Yes, I first felt this as a young child when I felt deep sorrow in my mother. I was a typical carefree child, but feeling this sorrow in her, it became my own sorrow. A few years later when first viewing a newsreel on TV about the Holocaust I felt such overwhelming sorrow that I felt I was trapped in a living nightmare. Viewing the immeasurable horror and suffering of the victims, it became my own immeasurable sorrow.

Let it Be

Clive Elwell wrote:
In fact now “I cannot help” but see my motives, I cannot help but be aware of the greater picture. If I proceed with a destructive action in spite of this awareness, THEN I am at fault, then I am to blame.

Blamed by who? The one who says, “you should act with awareness”? That’s surely not awareness to blame.

Let it Be

This post was last updated by Tom Paine Thu, 21 Jun 2018.

Tom Paine wrote:
Blamed by who? The one who says, “you should act with awareness”? That’s surely not awareness to blame.

Ok, that was a poor choice of words. Let us stick with "I am at fault". Or I am responsible.

Tom Paine wrote:
A few years later when first viewing a newsreel on TV about the Holocaust I felt such overwhelming sorrow that I felt I was trapped in a living nightmare.

Tom Paine wrote:
I felt such overwhelming sorrow that I felt I was trapped in a living nightmare. Viewing the immeasurable horror and suffering of the victims, it became my own immeasurable sorrow.

"A living nightmare" is an apt description of the world we have created.

Huguette . wrote:
But sorrow, as I see it, is not the action of conditioning, it is not reaction, not conditioned. K says sorrow is rooted in self. That’s something I don’t understand. It doesn’t seem that way to me. I see suffering, self-pity, as self-centredness, but not sorrow ... or switch the words around. The point is I see 2 essentially different movements, coming from 2 different places.

To end sorrow is to face the fact of one's loneliness, one's attachment, one's petty little demand for fame, one,s hunger to be loved; it is to be free of self-concern arid the puerility of self-pity. And when one has gone beyond all that and has perhaps ended one's personal sorrow, there is still the immense collective sorrow, the sorrow of the world. One may end one's own sorrow by facing in oneself the fact and the cause of sorrow - and that must take place for a mind that would be completely free. But when one has finished with all that, there is still the sorrow of extraordinary ignorance that exists in the world - not the lack of information, of book knowledge, but man's ignorance of himself. The lack of understanding of oneself is the essence of ignorance, which brings about this immensity of sorrow that exists throughout the world. And what actually is sorrow?

Saanen 1962 talk 7

Huguette . wrote:
When I see children ripped from their parents’ arms at the border, the bombings, human trafficking, prisoners stuffed like sardines into cells, people toiling in harsh conditions for an unsustainable wage, brutality and injustice of all sorts, including indifference, there is immediate sorrow ... and THEN anger, it seems to me. Maybe someone can help me out with this. The futility, danger, toxicity and divisiveness of anger, I understand. But how can one see the pain inflicted by greed and selfishness upon the vulnerable and NOT feel hurt by it? I see no self-centred motive of self-protection in this.

Most of us are conditioned to have a certain sense of kindness, of fairness and when we see the things you say happening to others, we suffer for them. We feel their pain to a degree. It is 'compassion' but maybe you would agree that it is limited in each us depending on our history, background, experience, etc. The SS officer who explained why the children had to be killed because "they have jewish blood in them and when they grow up they could be a threat" obviously lacked any compassion regarding them though he may give up his life for his own children or those of other nazis. The 'self' to one degree or another with its beliefs, ideals, morals etc. is separative, divisive. Its attachments are selective. It is the impediment to true Compassion which is not separative. The self is the source of sorrow because it is always limited,'disturbed', always trying to maintain a balance between its pleasures and its pains and its fears.

K.-"The ending of sorrow is the bliss of Compassion".

I don't think that the pain we feel when we see a child - our child or another child - in pain, or the pain of the man struggling 16 hours a day in dangerous, uncomfortable conditions to feed his family the bare necessity, and so on and on .... I don't think that this inner movement of compassion is learned behaviour, a conditioned reaction. Compassion to me is spontaneous suffering with another, feeling another's pain. Like love, compassion is not related to thought, is not a movement of thought.

The Nazi guard, the slave master - I think that their heard-heartedness IS learned behaviour, conditioning.

If the ending of sorrow is the bliss of compassion, then it sounds as if compassion is something that is sought in order to end "my" sorrow, which sounds like the essence of selfishness or self-centredness.

I won't try to convince you of any of this if you see it differently.

In any case, this issue of compassion - feeling the pain of other human beings and animals - is one I must leave aside since I don't understand it, I can't make sense of it. I can't do anything about it, just as I cannot do anything about conditioning.

The issue of this suffering still does NOT take away from or invalidate the absolute logic (to me) and truth of what K says about the processes of the mind.

Huguette . wrote:
I don't think that this inner movement of compassion is learned behaviour, a conditioned reaction. Compassion to me is spontaneous suffering with another, feeling another's pain

Right...feeling another's pain is surely not learned. It's part of what makes us human. Perhaps even animals do this to some extent...at least some of the other mammalian species. My horror when watching a newsreel of the Nazi Holocaust as a young child was not learned. I never experienced such a thing before, nor heard of it! The horror was overwhelming...and outside of the thinking mechanism. Prior to that I had a happy childhood.

Let it Be