As a limited process, limits are all I know so I can't honestly speak of the unlimited or the immeasurable. I can formulate an idea or image of what was, project probable futures, and I can see in hindsight how mistaken I can be, but I cannot see the totality of what actually is in the moment. Being so limited, I am shooting in the dark, so to speak, bumping into things, and generally getting things wrong.

So what am I to do? Logically, there must be light, full disclosure, if I am to operate properly, and apparently there is no light. Is this because light is a myth, a belief, a fantasy? Is it because my eyes are closed? Do I even have eyes? Could it be that inability to see is the salient functional limitation of the process I am and that expecting my eyes to open - or worse yet, believing my nonexistent eyes have opened - is my dysfunction?

Seeing as how I can't see myself except upon reflection and after the fact, what is missing is oversight (or insight, if you prefer), because if the totality of the process I am is not seen for what it actually is in the moment, wholistically, it can't operate properly, within the parameters of its utility. In other words, the process I am is blind, but if the whole process of I is not seen for what it is, darkness and dysfunction continues.

This post was last updated by nick carter Mon, 21 Sep 2009.

As all action of the self is limited, then can you bear to do nothing at all about any psychological problem? Can the problem exist and nothing else? That's to say, there is only the problem; there is no inner voice saying, 'Do this. Don't do that.'

I don't know why you mention the "inner voice". It seems to me that the self, the process I am, is several voices arguing, calculating, estimating, etc., all in the dark.

This post was last updated by nick carter Mon, 21 Sep 2009.

Then can you listen to those voices without adding yet another voice? That's all my question really means. Can you listen to the utter confusion of the many voices of the mind without saying, 'I must not be so confused' or 'I think I know what to do about this mess'?

In any gaggle of voices there will always be the one that catches your ear. In this case, it's the one that says, "Can you listen?".

Can you listen, can you look and can you learn? Or because you already know the nature of that which you are studying - which is oneself, one's own mind, one's own particular bundle of psychological content - there is no possibility of listening, looking and learning. There is no possibility of learning where there is knowledge.

This post was last updated by Paul Dimmock (account deleted) Tue, 22 Sep 2009.

We know nothing until we see knowledge for what it is

Therefore knowledge is out, and we are not interested in knowledge. But does one go as far as to abandon all knowledge? Or does one say, 'I know I am this,' and stops there?

One says, "I am knowledge, but I don't really know what that means until I am seen for what I am within the larger context of what actually is, and such Seeing is beyond me, knowledge."

Does one stop there? One stops imagining one can see. One admits that one can do nothing but accumulate and discard bits of information. One asks whether there can be a Seeing of this whole process.

You, Paul, have stated unequivocally, that such Seeing does take place, but only when there is no seer. I see the logic in that, but whether there's any truth to it, I don't know.

This post was last updated by nick carter Wed, 23 Sep 2009.

To abandon all knowledge, to abandon all interest - it sounds wonderful, but my inner squirrel is already digging a hole in the ground to squirrel it away.

nick carter wrote:
One says, "I am knowledge, but I don't really know what that means until I am seen for what I am within the larger context of what actually is, and such Seeing is beyond me, knowledge." Does one stop there? One stops imagining one can see. One admits that one can do nothing but accumulate and discard bits of information. One asks whether there can be a Seeing of this whole process. You, Paul, have stated unequivocally that such Seeing does take place, but only when there is no seer. I see the logic in that, but whether there's any truth to it, I don't know.

So to get to the truth of it, what will you do? You've already admitted that any action on your part is not going to help. But I wonder how you reach the point of admitting this. Is it out of resignation or despair? Is it through logical argument? So is knowledge playing a part in arriving at this point?

Paul Dimmock wrote:
So to get to the truth of it, what will you do? You've already admitted that any action on your part is not going to help. But I wonder how you reach the point of admitting this. Is it out of resignation or despair? Is it through logical argument? So is knowledge playing a part in arriving at this point?

I don't know whether I've arrived at this point through logical deduction, intuitively, or what.

nick carter wrote:
I don't know whether I've arrived at this point through logical deduction, intuitively, or what.

When you look at something like a sunset - and there is a beautiful one tonight over the skies outside - you don't arrive at a point of recognition of it. It is there and you see it. It's only if you want to express what you are seeing that it takes time to put it into the right words, to arrive at the best expression. Then the poet or the painter takes over. Similarly, with the recognition of the fact about oneself - 'I am knowledge' - it's there to be seen. But who is to see it? When the poet sees the sunset, he often usurps the sunset; he makes it his own. So his poem is really about him and not about the sunset. (Generally, generally - not every poetic word upon the subject.) And is the same thing happening with this fact about knowledge, with this fact about whom one is at the very deepest level? Does one accept or meet this fact as yet another form of knowledge about oneself? Or does the recognition of it shake something loose at a fundamental level? And if it doesn't shake something loose, why not? What's the value of learning this thing if it doesn't mean tremendous change?

Put it in your original terms: one is limited. That's a very easy thing to agree to, very glibly can it be verbalised and justified on a superficial intellectual level. But the truth of it must have enormous repercussions.

This post was last updated by Paul Dimmock (account deleted) Thu, 22 Oct 2009.

Thanks for the lecture.

No, forgive me, it is quite different from that. This is not a lecture.

Paul Dimmock wrote:
Put it in your original terms: one is limited. That's a very easy thing to agree to, very glibly can it be verbalised and justifed on a superficial intellectual level. But the truth of it must have enormous repercussions.

Yes, but I'm not being glib. My limited capacity for observation and logical deduction makes it clear that I am too limited, by nature and structure, to know just how limited I am, and therefore how to assume my proper place within the whole. As I said, I'm operating in the dark where one can find out only so much about oneself. The whole truth about oneself, the "enormous repercussions" can only be revealed in the light, if such revelation is possible.

This post was last updated by nick carter Thu, 24 Sep 2009.

nick carter wrote:
Yes, but I'm not being glib. My limited capacity for observation and logical deduction makes it clear that I am too limited by nature and structure to know just how limited I am, and therefore how to assume my proper place within the whole. As I said, I'm operating in the dark where one can find out only so much about oneself. The whole truth about oneself, the "enormous repercussions", can only be revealed in the light, if such revelation is possible.

I'm not accusing you of glibness. I am saying that it is very easy to accept the verbal definition that one is limited without inspecting what lies behind such a definition. Just as it is very easy for someone to accept that they are conditioned. They will accept this statement about themselves and yet remain blind to the fact itself of being conditioned. So the very acceptance of the statement is the greater part of their blindness and their conditioning. This is not just verbal trickery on my part, playing about with words to make the problem appear far simpler than it is, but rather a horror of accepting any conclusion about oneself - any conclusion. There's a most evident danger to it which we just don't see. In the same way, to say that one is limited without seeing the whole implication of it really has very little meaning. It has as much meaning as for a man to say, 'I am unlimited; I am unconditioned.' We'd look upon him as a crackpot for reaching this absurd conclusion, yet we don't see the danger of our own conclusions.

Knowledge is limited; experience is limited; thought is limited. So there can always be more of it - more knowledge, more experience, more thought. Right? Now is there something in life where this word 'more' doesn't apply? I don't say there is or there isn't. I am just asking. Is there something that's not rooted in knowledge, experience or thought? Is there something that's not tied to me yet I can see it?

To be as I am,to stay as you are.
Even thease statements are ideas.
Any statement is an idea.If I answer it is an idea.
to want,to be ambitious to know truth is ambition.We say one must be aware.This too is a wish.A wish is thought which is where ego is set to work,Not to want anything is also thought.
One has to be totally aware of all these.Even this statement is thought.
The question by Mr.Paul "Is there something that's not tied to me,yet I can see it?The I that can see it is is thought.

jothi

Perhaps I should be horrified that I have no horror of concluding that I am limited - "I" being this process we're calling "knowledge". As you yourself have concluded, there can always be more of it; enough is never enough.

You ask, "Is there something in life where this word "more" doesn't apply?"
In order for me, knowledge, to attempt to answer that question, I can only say that if there is, I can't find it because more is all I know. I can try to imagine what can never be more or less, but it's futile, so I can only assume that you're posing the question to some other part of the brain. The part we know, knowledge, is too limited to adequately address the question.

This post was last updated by nick carter Thu, 24 Sep 2009.

nick carter wrote:
Perhaps I should be horrified that I have no horror of concluding that I am limited - "I" being this process we're calling "knowledge".

We don't need to bring horror into it. All it means is that any conclusion one has arrived at about oneself is meaningless. So I don't know what I am. Now that's not a conclusion. I don't know what I am.

nick carter wrote:
Perhaps I should be horrified that I have no horror of concluding that I am limited - "I" being this process we're calling "knowledge".

There is some kind of awareness, isn't there, of a strong urgency and an ending, and I don't need thought for that do I? Fear is a word to us now, but in its inception there is an alertness, not of thought. I guess by association alertness in a moment of danger has made fear the word it is.

Paul Dimmock wrote:
We don't need to bring horror into it. All it means is that any conclusion one has arrived at about oneself is meaningless. So I don't know what I am. Now that's not a conclusion. I don't know what I am.

How can one honestly say, "I don't know what I am"? When I'm angry I know what I am. When I'm envious I know what I am. When I'm suspicious I know what I am. When I'm impatient I know what I am. When I'm exasperated I know what I am.

We know we respond and react in distinctive, characteristic ways, and we know that much of our response - perhaps all - is conditioned. This much we know.

This post was last updated by nick carter Sat, 26 Sep 2009.

Hermann Janzen wrote:
my inner squirrel is already digging a hole in the ground to squirrel it away

my inner weasel is already weaseling out of it

Health care is everyone's job, not just in treating illness but in promoting healthy living. We must take personal responsibility, engaging our minds and hands in meaningful work - all essential components of healthy, secure lifestyles and communities.

Peter Stephens wrote:
a moment of danger has made fear the word it is

im afraid so... is there a limit to fear?

Health care is everyone's job, not just in treating illness but in promoting healthy living. We must take personal responsibility, engaging our minds and hands in meaningful work - all essential components of healthy, secure lifestyles and communities.

nick carter wrote:
How can one honestly say, "I don't know what I am"? When I'm angry I know what I am. When I'm envious I know what I am. When I'm suspicious I know what I am. When I'm impatient I know what I am. When I'm exasperated I know what I am. We know we respond and react in distinctive, characteristic ways, and we know that much of our response - perhaps all - is conditioned. This much we know.

All that you mention - anger, envy, suspicion, impatience and exasperation - have the same common element: the desire for control. But if we really knew that we were conditioned then that would mean we'd have no such desires to control. So although we might accept our conditioning at the verbal level, not far below the surface we seem to fight against it with almost every action. So what are we?

Since you put it that way, we are the conflict between what-is and what-should-be, and everyone in the K-world would agree.

You go on to say that our problem is the desire to control and that if we really knew we were conditioned, we'd have no such desires. Are you saying that desire ends when one realizes that one is conditioned to desire; that desire itself is a conditioned response?

This post was last updated by nick carter Sat, 26 Sep 2009.

nick carter wrote:
Where did Paul say this? I don't recall reading it and it doesn't sound like him.

I am sorry Mr.Nick Carter.Mr.Paul had only said "what are we"I have only taken a context from his post.The balance in my post is mine.But unfortunately my post has come with my little context from Mr.Pauls post.

Please read the post of Mr.Paul's of 26th September.

I hope others who read my post will take notice of my error.That is Mr.Paul questioned 'What are we."and the balance is my reply. I regret for misleading.

jothi

Paul: All that you mention - anger, envy, suspicion, impatience and exasperation - have the same common element: the desire for control. But if we really knew that we were conditioned then that would mean we'd have no such desires to control. So although we might accept our conditioning at the verbal level, not far below the surface we seem to fight against it with almost every action. So what are we?

gv: it helps to consider this in terms of the conditioned mind and the unconditioned. The unconditioned cannot be known (in a dualistic sense)because what is known is of the conditioned mind. When the conditioned is not interfering as the me, the unconditioned is a presence in observation. There is what K called experiencing without the experiencer.

The benediction is where you are

Paul Dimmock wrote:
So what are we?

I don't think anyone who are in this forum can answer this as we are only worried of our present position.
The answers given by me and others for your posts are merely to confirm that that we know.We are neither humble nor free of greed.We can surmise but these too are from knowledge.The knowledge gathered from the teachings of ancient sages,Buddha, Jesus,and other teachers of old or from what Krishnaji have said.Krishnaji had only put this question but had asked us to find out.K also has said "it is not who am I or all that nonsense",but find out 'what am I'.

Is it possible for us to find out sir,till "I" is there,or at least say what it is?

jothi

Paul said, "So I don't know what I am. Now that's not a conclusion. I don't know what I am."

It depends on how we define "conclusion". I can look at something and not immediately know what it is, but upon further examination realize that I do know what it is, having figured it out, so to speak. It's our nature to figure things out so that we don't have to go around saying, "I don't know" all the time, even when we're just pretending to know.

So, for one to honestly say, "I don't know what I am" would imply that one has given up trying to figure oneself out and has abandoned all theories and ideas about what one is. Isn't that a conclusion? Isn't it conclusive when one ceases trying to do something?

This post was last updated by nick carter Sun, 27 Sep 2009.