Laura/On Conditioning...

[Guest guest]

>Laura:

>Krishnamurti seems to say that if a person's conditioning is removed

>or transcended, then the person can think freely.

 

D: Krishnamurti said some good stuff. Let's see if I can look

into this with you, Laura....

Awareness can be as it is. That is, awareness can release the

" knots " in which it becomes entangled when orienting to

conditioning as the reality of who it is (who I am).

 

>L: This seems naive and silly to me. If you took away a person's

>conditioning -- his or her education, his upbringing, everything he

>learned in life -- he couldn't think at all.

 

D: Nothing outside takes it away. It's seen through.

Who am I? Am I this body, these reactions to pleasure and pain,

these hopes and fears, this collection of memories,

this thought process, this job that I do, these relationships

in which I'm involved? These are conditioned and conditional

states of being, identifications of awareness with conditions.

Releasing these, I am no-thing. We avoid no-thingness so we

can preserve our ordinary sense of reality, self, world. There's

nothing naive and silly about this that I can see. When we react

to one another as images, defining one another according to the

past - problems and reactivity abound. It seems urgent

to look at the activity of conditioning and the images we then

use to define self and world. This involves all of one's energy -

to be aware of identifications and " automatic tendencies " or

habits of thinking and reacting.

 

>L: He would have no ideas or

>knowledge or neural pathways to think with.

 

D: Thinking doesn't cease. It no longer revolves around an entity

that is positioned inside a mental or physical space.

The positioning of that entity is seen to be the result of

conditioning, the maintenance of past patterns of perception

that provided orientation and reality.

 

>L: He would have the intelligence of a fetus.

 

D: On the contrary, intelligence is much more flexible

and can respond freely within a present context without

depending on self-conscious deliberation or automatic

habitual response. Automatic responses may be allowed

when these are sufficient to meet present challenges.

Awareness arises from the present, rather than seemingly

being brought from the past by a biophysical (or " mental " )

being which it " inhabits " .

>

>The solution is not to try to eliminate conditioning and think

>freely at the same time. This is impossible.

 

D: The question here is whether one can observe how conditioning

operates. The activity of conditioning. Trying to eliminate

conditioning is silly - the very attempt is the continuation

of conditioning (i.e., there is an entity who desires a state

of freedom, who is trying to do something to get to that state).

 

>L: The point is to stop thinking, because in so doing, we stop

>responding automatically and emotionally to things.

 

D: A rock doesn't think. Does that mean we should try to

be rocks? There are various situations in which thinking

is useful. Should we be unable to respond in such situations?

If less thought is better, should two year old children be

running the country? (Hey, come to think of it, it might

be worth a try). Let me try this out: " Awareness " isn't thought

and doesn't depend on thought. " Awareness " can use thought as

appropriate. Thought doesn't need to be stopped because " Awareness "

never is defined by thought. " Awareness " can disidentify with

thought, and can release the thought-forms that construct beliefs

in an " entity " inhabiting the body or a mental space, an " entity "

which is supposedly the " one who is aware " . Then, thought becomes

a tool (which it is), rather than an ongoing and compulsive self-process.

I've worked with people who claimed to not be thinking (and

could meditate for long periods of time in silence) yet who clearly

were involved in an " ongoing identity project " that was thought-based,

and which involved unconscious thought-centered identifications (e.g.,

" I am really getting somewhere with this meditation, with this

spiritual group, " etc. or " I am important, I know a lot of important

spiritual things, " etc., or " People like us have an answer for the

world, " and so on). In other words, they were involved in maintaining

a self-image, responded to others and the world through projecting

images, yet believed themselves to be free of thought.

 

Laura - I enjoy your thoughts and contributions here, although

I see things a bit differently on this particular point.

Not trying to be " right " - just saying it how I see it.

-- Love -- Dan

[Guest guest]

Dear Dan,

 

I'll take you word for it that I misunderstood Krishnamurti.

Unfortunately I don't have time now to reread those selections,

and I was relying on my memory of them from a couple of

months ago.

 

> A rock doesn't think. Does that mean we should try to

> be rocks?

 

No, it means we should be in the state that many experienced

meditators call " not thinking. " (An aware not-thinking, not a

forcibly repressed not-thinking.)

 

> Let me try this out: " Awareness " isn't thought

> and doesn't depend on thought. " Awareness " can use thought as

> appropriate. Thought doesn't need to be stopped because " Awareness "

> never is defined by thought. " Awareness " can disidentify with

> thought, and can release the thought-forms that construct beliefs

> in an " entity " inhabiting the body or a mental space, an " entity "

> which is supposedly the " one who is aware " . Then, thought becomes

> a tool (which it is), rather than an ongoing and compulsive self-process.

 

I agree with this. I would add, however, that generally, the more aware I am,

the

fewer thoughts I have.

 

Habitual freedom from compulsive thought and compulsive fantasizing is a

defining

characteristic of enlightenment, in my opinion.

 

> I've worked with people who claimed to not be thinking (and

> could meditate for long periods of time in silence) yet who clearly

> were involved in an " ongoing identity project " that was thought-based,

> and which involved unconscious thought-centered identifications (e.g.,

> " I am really getting somewhere with this meditation, with this

> spiritual group, " etc. or " I am important, I know a lot of important

> spiritual things, " etc., or " People like us have an answer for the

> world, " and so on). In other words, they were involved in maintaining

> a self-image, responded to others and the world through projecting

> images, yet believed themselves to be free of thought.

 

Sure. They are using the phrase " not thinking " in a conventional way,

the same way I was using it.

 

I thought it was safe to use the phrase that way here -- that there was no

risk of misunderstanding -- because many or most of us are familiar

with the state it refers to.

 

That state, as you rightly say, has plenty of mental activity in it.

 

Love,

 

Laura