Is there anything like psychological time? Does it really exist in our minds? Can't it be another delusion we are trying to deceive ourselves with?

Transformation is instant

farha naaz wrote:

Is there anything like psychological time? Does it really exist in our minds? Can't it be another delusion we are trying to deceive ourselves with?

Life is like the tamarind fruit bound in its shell

Dear Farha Naaz, when you say "psychological time" how do you distinguish it from the diurnal rhythms?How do you define it?ALL TIME IS NOW and there is only a continuum of "NOW". Future& past may be the tricks of the individual mind that is built by thought&,memories.
Again, your questioning itself suggests that you may know the answer already and I await inTIME to hear it.
Regards,
Krishnan

Life is like the tamarind fruit bound in its shell

Farha: Welcome to our forum. I love your topic and even asked someone about it a couple of days ago. The problem I have with the statement "pyschological time" is that I can't get a grasp on it either conceptually or abstractly to the point of using it in a sentence. If I look at it in the moment and define it. I seem to understand it i.e. psychological time seems to be when we use the words yesterday, today and tomorrow and when we have memories and use memories in a state of movement which is what chronological time is. It appears though that using the words and using memory seems to create illusionarily the state of time. If I say tomorrow I will do something, then in the moment I am assuming a tomorrow and if I remember something and say it happened yesterday, then just viewing the memory in the moment but knowing it happened yesterday seems to create in the moment psychological time which is an illusion because there is only now.

In doing what I just did, I understood psychological time, but I dare say a few moments from now I wont understand it. In keeping with the goal of this forum, I cant figure out what is going on in the brain that causes this to happen either i.e. what causes the brain to have the illusion of movement which is not there? Maybe the very fact that I cant understand the term psychological time has to do with it? Great topic!

phil K wrote:
In doing what I just did, I understood psychological time, but I dare say a few moments from now I wont understand it. In keeping with the goal of this forum, I cant figure out what is going on in the brain that causes this to happen either i.e. what causes the brain to have the illusion of movement which is not there? Maybe the very fact that I cant understand the term psychological time has to do with it? Great topic!

What is the difference between psychological time, as you explained it (past=memory; future=imagination), and chronological or physical time as measured by the clock?

naturally, physically, time is experienced, chronologically.. and this perception is then turned into an imaginary projection ? that's what thought does, interpreting the incoming sensory informations, applying it to its invented world of concepts and ideas, and this process is creating the complexity of the psyche ?

Chronological time seems to be movement I think as defined by physics. In other words, something moves from one place to the other takes chronological time. The mind cant move, can it? Maybe when we go from one thought to the next...that takes chronological time but maybe it is an illusion by thought that since there is an observation of that movement, thought thinks it is thinking whereas it is just fragments. Perception is done that way in the brain apparently with bits of information that come in in the moment being perceived but the mind fills in the blanks with memory giving the illusion of movement. One of the videos had a woman having a problem with that. 3 minutes 10 seconds in to this video:

http://video.google.de/videoplay?docid=49885926...

So unless our brain is operating properly, we cant even observe movement and when it stops working correctly things are seen as fragmented movement. Could it be that this psychological time works the same way and we just think that thought is moving which creates this over all illusion which of course we need to have in order to function but the fact is the "I" , ego, self image is all just a fragment and not moving. Of course, emotion is happening over chronological time as an emotion is experienced over many moments thus maybe the illusion of the "I's" is perpetuated by the continuing fragmented thinking that is happening during the continued experiencing of the emotion.

Frankly, Yiming..it is true I dont understand the difference between chronological time and psychological time (donkeys butt as you say) i.e. that is why I am trying to investigate it here. I think a lot of K is difficult to explain simply even though it seemed simple to him and this is one of the things I have struggled with. I'll let you know when I get it and try to state it clearly. Please bear with us.

If, however, in the meantinme, you can find a statement by K where he explained it clear enough for you to understand it, I would appreciate your posting it.

phil K wrote:
If, however, in the meantinme, you can find a statement by K where he explained it clear enough for you to understand it, I would appreciate your posting it.

How about a statement by me where I explain it clear enough for you to understand? Will that cut it?

Bring it on!

This post was last updated by phil K Mon, 29 Jun 2009.

phil K wrote:
Bring it on!

I read your private message to me. I don't mean to disrupt your classroom. It's just my style. When the self is hurt, communication ends. And since you cannot bring yourself to ban me, I will leave.

glad to see you didnt leave and your statments have made me rethink somethings about K and the things he said. I truly have problems with some of the things he said but I wonder if our going in to all of them and trying to figure out every little thing he was talking about is really worth the chronological time to talk about it..I remember a discussion on K ning which turned in to an argument about the statement "content of consciousness" which I interpret one way and everyone else interpreted another way.. I finally just gave up when they gave me examples of the "authorities" on the site who agreed with their position and not mine. So maybe the lesson in all this is that we should stick to what we do understand and/or need to figure out. Frankly, I dont see how my understanding psychological time or content of consciousness at this time in my life does much for me so why do I even comment. I guess because I think I have to comment since I notice some of my students in the back of the room are carrying on a conversation...lol Phil

kirsten zwijnenburg wrote:

naturally, physically, time is experienced, chronologically.. and this perception is then turned into an imaginary projection ? that's what thought does, interpreting the incoming sensory informations, applying it to its invented world of concepts and ideas, and this process is creating the complexity of the psyche ?

Is thought itself time?

phil K wrote:
Chronological time seems to be movement I think as defined by physics. In other words, something moves from one place to the other takes chronological time. The mind cant move, can it?

The activation of the brain cells is a kind of movement, surely. Memory is a movement of the past into the present, is it not?

Stephen....again this is one of the statements of K that is difficult to understand...Is thought time...I have no clue what he meant by that. I did once but I lose it. Now, time is thought for sure as thought interprets what movement is but the word is not the thing so thought cant really understand time as it actually is...it is just a conceptualization or abstraction of it...

now your second statement is more interesting...the activation of the brain is for sure a movement as the circuitry of the brain is basically a set of wires and a chemical electrical current travels along it. Conscious and unconscious thought seems to happen as the cortex has this action of firing in various parts of the brain. Memory is always filling in the events that we see at the moment of perception with events that we have experienced giving us a sense that things are happening now that we observe and that the things we observe are as we see them now. This is just not the case obviously. Now when a memory of a past event comes up and it is perceived in the visual zones of the brain, we say "oh that is a memory" because we have the ability to have consciousness of memory, but that is just thought naming the event with the word "memory." The truth is that it is a memory mostly that we are perceiving when we look at everything. Different visual zones are used for actually seeing and for making visualizations but if memory is filling in, then what is the difference really? So now can we say that memory is a movement of past in to the present? I think that is a good question but maybe we could say that making a memory is a movement as in neurons firing, and brain studies say the same neurons fire that fired when making the memory when you recreate the memory. Past and present are not elements of memory as movement but definitions and, thus, the word is not the thing and therefore, we cant even comprehend the question except within the linguistic system which has created the definitions. The original event happened in the now and the memory of the event is happening in the now and it is all active movement in the brain.

Just a thought....Wouldnt that then answer why the self is a complete illusion as it only can exist in the now when memory is operating and therefore must be some kind of memory in itself. So how could I be a memory? Maybe I am an emotion instead of a thought!

farha naaz wrote:
Is there anything like psychological time? Does it really exist in our minds? Can't it be another delusion we are trying to deceive ourselves with?

Hi farha, I don't know why K introduced this idea of psychological time which, I don't think exists at all the way we perceive chronological time to exist. By creating this idea of psychological time, I feel, K has confused me for a while until I decided to reject it entirely.

Yesterday, today, tomorrow or past present, future is the way we refer to chronological time as "measured" by the clock. Even this aspect of time is an illusion. Naturally, no technical professional, sailor or airline pilot would accept this.

However, if you don't think I am crazy and want me to show you why I see chronological time as illusory, I would be more than happy to explain.

Cheers.

Sure sir, i'm very interested in the topic. I pondered over it for long, and the more i did more confused i became

Transformation is instant

farha naaz wrote:
Sure sir, i'm very interested in the topic. I pondered over it for long, and the more i did more confused i became

Why did you ponder about time? You wake up in the morning and look at the watch or clock to make sure you are not late for school or class. You check the time to see if you can rush to buy stuff before meeting up with friends for an appointment. You look at the calendar to count how many more days to go before you get out of prison. That's all quite practical and straightforward.

So, what is it about time that made you ponder? I ask you this question so I know where you are coming from and can deal with your question appropriately.
If you are served a lovely masala dosa, you don't ponder and just eat it. But if it tasted funny and strange and not like a masala dosa, then you ponder and shout to the waiter, "what the hell is this?"

So, what is it about time that made you ponder?

David Bohm did not seem to reject Krishnamurti's psychological time and I maybe deluded but it appears a reality to me as i observe the process that thought undertakes when it moves from anger or some other emotion that 'I' call real in the psyche.

Anger and other emotional responses that reveal the avoidance of 'my' hidden fears is also observed without an observer and is seen as an illusion of time and the inability to see this I suspect is the ego's wish to continue.

All thought is time as i dont think chronological time could exist without the brains ability to observe it but the conflict is really within the belief that the entity exists seperate from thinking.
Averil

averil harrison wrote:
David Bohm did not seem to reject Krishnamurti's psychological time and I maybe deluded but it appears a reality to me as i observe the process that thought undertakes when it moves from anger or some other emotion that 'I' call real in the psyche.

There are many realities in life and each serve a purpose to those who find use for it. In my case, things are only real when they have a PRACTICAL use for me. I cannot accept psychological time anymore than I can accept the Virgin Mary because I don't have a practical use for either.

Anger and other emotional responses that reveal the avoidance of 'my' hidden fears is also observed without an observer and is seen as an illusion of time and the inability to see this I suspect is the ego's wish to continue.

Neuroses can be problematic. Freedom from sickness is better than a good cure.

All thought is time as i dont think chronological time could exist without the brains ability to observe it but the conflict is really within the belief that the entity exists seperate from thinking. Averil

"Thought is time" is the mother of all confusion that Krishnamurti created for me. There I was holding "thought" in one hand and "time" in another and forcibly trying to equate the two. It was like holding an apple in one hand and an orange in another and then keep telling myself than apple is orange. Couldn't do it. So, I chucked it.

WOW....

When K spoke of psychological time, he made it quite clear that he was referring to 'becoming' - "I am this - I will be that". He also called that state being trapped in the corridor of sorrows.

It makes perfect logical sense.

Patricia Hemingway wrote:
When K spoke of psychological time, he made it quite clear that he was referring to 'becoming' - "I am this - I will be that".

In the physical realm, the movement of an object through space can be measured by the clock. And that measurement (minutes or hours) is called time.

In the psychological realm, the movement of the self in becoming something else can also be measured by the clock? In other words, I am a monk now and in 12 months time, I shall become the Buddha. If this is so, then it is still taking chronological time for the self to become: I am this - I will be that.

Instead of using the term "psycological time", K should have said: becoming is an imaginary movement of the self from "being this" to "being that" and that movement will take forever unless you put a deadline to it, take no time, and do it instantly!

Now, this is what I consider logical sense and consistent with the principles of deductive reasoning.

Yiming Zhang wrote:
Instead of using the term "psycological time", K should have said: becoming is an imaginary movement of the self from "being this" to "being that" and that movement will take forever unless you put a deadline to it, take no time, and do it instantly!

I have no problem with 'logical sense'.

But do you really think K needed you as his script-writer? What he said makes more logical sense that anyone else can even dream of. Your 'K-in-a-nutshell' explanation demonstrates how important it is to speak from the wholeness of understanding.

K did not make it easy because it is not easy.

Patricia...I am not so sure K didn't make it easy and we are the ones who complicate it. Maybe K needed to live a little longer to find out what is being discovered and what the newer person can perceive now. K is dead. It's up to us. If we dont make "K-in-a-nutshell" decisions now, we may just keep debating over some old man's statements made years ago that have progressed to a better understanding.

I have absolutely no clue what "the wholeness of understanding" means. Be careful, Patricia, you should not consider K as knowing anything. He is to be quoted and considered and studied for understanding, but he may be very outdated.

phil K wrote:
Be careful, Patricia, you should not consider K as knowing anything. He is to be quoted and considered and studied for understanding, but he may be very outdated.

Dear Phil -

You may have all the opinions you like about K and his teaching and whether or not he is 'very outdated', but not one of those opinions changes truth, now does it? So why bother? Either see it or not - what is the point of speculation and judgment?

And what's with the warnings?

This post was last updated by Patricia Hemingway Sun, 05 Jul 2009.

Patricia Hemingway wrote:
But do you really think K needed you as his script-writer?

K was probably a high school dropout. No matter how much they groomed him, he couldn't make it to university. He wasn't much of a student. Now, I am not saying that it was a bad thing. But the fact is, if you cannot apply yourself to acquire academic skills beyond high school, you are not going to be very articulate in written and verbal communication even if you are Jesus Christ. K conducted many discussions with various people from academia and those professors could talk rings around him in clarifying concepts. In that regard, Dr. Anderson really took the cake.

I am not asserting that all those learned men were better off than Krishnamurti. The sad thing for us all was that we had a situation where professors, who were adept at clarifying but could not see, tried to figure out things that was seen by Krishnamurti who could not speak. If we had been more fortunate and had a Krishnamurti who had no problem graduating MIT, he would have been able to turn Professor Bohm on his head and debunked Einstein's theories in a way that even you could understand.

If you think I am interpretating K's teaching, you are wrong. I am just figuring out what the teacher said. This is expected in people working for their Phd's. K was a good teacher, the best. He would have been pleased that I could take apart his thesis and put it back together in a better form. This is how mankind, working together, acquired such awesome capability. If we work this way on the K teaching too, we will certainly be capable of setting ourselves absolutely and unconditionally free.

So as a response to this posting of mine, Phil has privately requested that I leave this forum.

I have no intention of doing so - sorry Phil.

Yiming - You also may have all the opinions about K and what education standard he should have achieved to be effective, but opinions do not change the fact of the wholeness of understanding from whence he spoke.

While K was alive there were those who would have wished the teaching to be other than it is, and there are still, twenty-five years later, those who would - even more so perhaps - wish the teaching to be other than it is.

But it stands - clear and unadulterated - for anyone with the passion and strength to go into it and find the truth of it.

And I make no apology for seeing the purity of the teaching.

This post was last updated by Patricia Hemingway Mon, 06 Jul 2009.

Patricia Hemingway wrote:
So as a response to this posting of mine, Phil has privately requested that I leave this forum.
I have no intention of doing so - sorry Phil.

But this is Phil's forum. He could not only request you to leave but shut the topic down and throw us all out if he wished.

How would you explain your conduct even by everyday social standards?