We all know the history of K and the history of other sages who spoke for many years in an attempt to encourage if not convey the necessity of a changed humanity. Have they all failed? Is humanity better off today than it was when K started to talk?
Does discussion work, and if it does, what are the changes that one can be aware of ?
Why do we continue the discussion, when we know the silence and the answer is always within our own grasp?

This are the questions of anyone who has read and watched and discussed K for many years and has not seen that ?flash? out of time instant transformation that K is speaking of?..Why have we not changed? Can humanity change? What does it take?

Life is relationship

Eve Goodmon wrote:
that ?flash? out of time instant transformation that K is speaking of?..Why have we not changed?

What tells you such a flash has not happened? After all, it is said to be outside the field of knowledge, so we can neither confirm nor deny such a thing has occurred. Perhaps untold thousands of people have had a flash of insight followed by the ego stepping in and attributing the phenomenon to their particular god or to their particular process or belief, thus restoring the brain to its conditioned state. Does 'change' mean no more than the smallest incremental moment of non self interest in the brain as it relates to the world outside itself? Are we expecting too much from our 'discussions', something more than relating to others with interest in observing the operation of the conditioned brain as it occurs?

This post was last updated by Richard Kover Wed, 01 Jul 2009.

Eve Goodmon wrote:
We all know the history of K and the history of other sages who spoke for many years in an attempt to encourage if not convey the necessity of a changed humanity. Have they all failed? Is humanity better off today than it was when K started to talk?

Very interesting view ! In fact humanity has been the gullible victim of all such sages for generations and is one of the major causes of fragmentation in the human psyche. It is in K's view that the perception of this disintegrating state in human condition which opens an approach to the understanding of humanity's existential predicament.

There has been a perceptive change especially in the younger generations who have it in them to a great extent - if left alone - to act not only responsibly but are a lot more aware of the constant change in the Info-Age and have naturally put aside unnecessary psychological baggages in their every day lives.

This is probably due to the impact of the K and similar people who are unknown but have the similar pattern and style of learning and percieving which has had its own impact on the human consciousness; discussions perhaps only further network and affirm the presence of such beings who effect change in their and others daily lives and cannot be measured nor defined nor recognized in the traditional sense.

That is why even the titles of K's books reflect more than the content of the book itself - Freedom from the Known, The Only Revolution, The Awakening of Intelligence, Commentaries on Living, The Urgency of Change - to name only a few.

.....the lot marked out for me is my delight......welcome indeed the heritage that falls to me.....

Richard Kover wrote:
What tells you such a flash has not happened?

We still suffer the world is a mess, the transformaton which happens outside time, clearly creates a new human being that is not trapped by the self. Partial clarity and particial mess is not a transformation is it? As for expectations, is a reality check an expectation? One can be aware of fear after flashes of understanding and awareness of living in time, is that an expectation?

Life is relationship

Kingston Gilbert wrote:
There has been a perceptive change especially in the younger generations who have it in them to a great extent - if left alone - to act not only responsibly but are a lot more aware of the constant change in the Info-Age and have naturally put aside unnecessary psychological baggages in their every day lives.

Can you demonstrate this change? The sixty's also had this type of 'change'. But is it really change? Can techological change bring about a transformation of humanity?

Life is relationship

Is the purpose of discussion to notice commitment to past and future in our words and drop it? Is it to notice a fixed idea in our thought pattern and drop it? Is it to notice the influence of the ego in reaction to our own words and the words of others? Is it to notice desire for an outcome based on any particular discussion or based on any particular topic or with any particular person? Can we not know the answers to these questions together, but notice these things (and others no doubt) together?

Richard Kover wrote:

Is the purpose of discussion to notice commitment to past and future in our words and drop it? Is it to notice a fixed idea in our thought pattern and drop it? Is it to notice the influence of the ego in reaction to our own words and the words of others? Is it to notice desire for an outcome based on any particular discussion or based on any particular topic or with any particular person? Can we not know the answers to these questions together, but notice these things (and others no doubt) together?

Thems' are a lot of questions...and I am not sure I 'got it'. We are clever, the self is clever and tricky. If change in humanity was not critical or absolutely necessary as K often said, I would play with lots more words. The purpose of discussion is to bring about an understanding if not transformation. The reason we are here is that we have all read K's teaching and it resonate as truth as you wish to define it. But there has to be something in the teachings that awakens us. These flashes of understanding or AHHA moments where there is an understanding of something deeply. We all have experienced it on one level or another or we would not be here.

Had we all have ?experienced? this transformation, I wonder if we would be here. What is it that one wants? To share in the exploration of what is truth and the peeling process that accompanies it. The peeling of what is not true and allowing the ?flowering of goodness? to show itself. Since it is unlikely that the topics we discuss here are of any interest to most people, or are deemed to ?heavy? to many, we are here pointing out to each other where the blind spots maybe.

Does this lead to transformation? I sincerely doubt it. Does one feel passionate about it? Probably so or there would be little reason for exploring these topics. As many of us have been around the bend, and back again, it would be entirely hypocritical if we did not tell the truth.

One has explored life pains and pleasures and little is left but the understanding that all these roads lead to confusion and pain. So while K?s teachings are a mystery beyond the mind and language, there is a perfume that lingers after each discovery that points to the unknowable, to that mystery one may call the sacred. We all see the absolute necessity of a new humanity, we want the change that ?wanting? or will could not possibly obtain.

So where does all this leave us? Direction-less exploring to see what stands beyond the mind and time?

Life is relationship

Eve Goodmon wrote:
there has to be something in the teachings that awakens us

Is it something in the teachings, as if they were an outside agent, or is it "a light" in the teachings which occurs simultaneously with a 'light' in the listener's mind?

P.S. Can the many questions above be summarized as just one: Does discussion allow for the noticing of the influence of "me", and its ending?

Richard Kover wrote:

Eve Goodmon wrote:
there has to be something in the teachings that awakens us

Is it something in the teachings, as if they were an outside agent, or is it "a light" in the teachings which occurs simultaneously with a 'light' in the listener's mind?

P.S. Can the many questions above be summarized as just one: Does discussion allow for the noticing of the influence of "me", and its ending?

It appears as if the book is on the outside but is it? It awakens something that is timeless within the being more like a puzzle that comes together 'it feels' right. But the danger is that one has this kind of response to some things that turn very dangerous.

Discussion does allow for the mirror in which one sees the condition self. Yes. But is that the only way one sees it? Can one see the same in relationship to our own thinking and nature etc?

Life is relationship

Eve Goodmon wrote:
Can one see the same in relationship to our own thinking and nature etc?

These questions came to mind as I read your message. Can anyone really know in advance of a moment of such relationship? Would hanging on to past 'right feelings' and reactions be the danger of which you spoke in the first paragraph?

Eve Goodmon wrote:
Can you demonstrate this change? The sixty's also had this type of 'change'. But is it really change? Can techological change bring about a transformation of humanity?

"While technology changes, people in general do not. They retain basic needs not only for physical survival and passing their genes to future generations but also for social bonding ? we are today much like our earliest hunter-gatherer ancestors some 10,000 years ago ? the first true technologists.
Inside our 21st century skulls are essentially Stone Age brains."
Castells, M. 1996. The Rise of the network society. Oxford: Blackwell.

The present generation is subject to the technological revolutions and respond with more accuracy and sensitivity than in earlier times of K who tirelessly warned against the brain getting atrophied with the onset of technologies which was in abstraction to the then generation.

In oneself one can be aware of the impact of change in the process of dialogue, discussions and conversations.

Can transformation in humanity be measured or asessesed ?

Words in themselves have a peculiar meaning to each one of us and the word 'change' also conveys a myriad of images -

....whether the 60's or industrial age thinking or information age thinking....

there has been a paradigm shift in the emphasis of educational technologies where one has to change and adapt or perish - and this process of change has of late accelerrated to a great velocity - and exploited the human brain in many more ways than one.

The very nature of 'knowledge' and 'information' and how they are produced and consumed is changing...a very socially aware generation....with the distinction between human and machine becoming even more blurred ?

But then the question 'Can techological change bring about a transformation of humanity?'

.....the lot marked out for me is my delight......welcome indeed the heritage that falls to me.....

Eve Goodmon wrote:
Discussion does allow for the mirror in which one sees the condition self. Yes. But is that the only way one sees it? Can one see the same in relationship to our own thinking and nature etc?

.yes i think we can see in relationship to our own thinking, but sometimes the energy of two or more people looking into the same thing can furthr or hinder depending....?

Life is relationship

Kingston Gilbert wrote:
But then the question 'Can techological change bring about a transformation of humanity?'

.I have not seen evidence of this do you? I think we have stayed the same...

Life is relationship

Eve Goodmon wrote:
Why do we continue the discussion, when we know the silence and the answer is always within our own grasp?

Dear Madam,
we have not understood what real silence is!!! If we have understood what real silence is then, we have not continued any of the discussion.
Please correct me if I am wrong..

In every moment if there is pure observation, then we don't want to react to any moment or situation.

Eve Goodmon wrote:

We all know the history of K and the history of other sages who spoke for many years in an attempt to encourage if not convey the necessity of a changed humanity. Have they all failed? Is humanity better off today than it was when K started to talk?
Does discussion work, and if it does, what are the changes that one can be aware of ?
Why do we continue the discussion, when we know the silence and the answer is always within our own grasp?

This are the questions of anyone who has read and watched and discussed K for many years and has not seen that ?flash? out of time instant transformation that K is speaking of?..Why have we not changed? Can humanity change? What does it take?

It is interesting that the quote at the bottom of your post says :Life is relationship. Isn't discussion a natural human activity done in relationship? Perhaps there is no purpose in discussion here other than to be in relationship, albeit at a distance and through a rather difficult medium. But what about inquiry or do you see the terms here as synonymous? We are really attempting inquiry aren't we? It is notable to me that K often prefaces his talks with a comment about 'two friends going into things together, deeply, seriously without one taking on a position of authority' or words to that effect. Do you think this was what he was actually attempting to do or do you see him speaking from authority and attempting to change people according to his own view of things? I think the answer to this question is really a fundamental factor in any change that may take place through discussion or inquiry. Because inquiry means 'not actually forming conclusions'..or 'questioning' doesn't it? Is such a state of mind possible? It certainly is not possible for a mind that is seeking a result is it? Isn't the mind that is seeking an answer the same mind that wants to 'know the answer to every question' and then act from that?

If we say, can humanity change?..of whom are we asking the question? and what would we say to any answer that was given?

Would you like to discuss any of this?

clive

I wonder if inherited primal behaviors a part of the problem. One of the things K said many times was that we are primitive, while there has been many advances in science, it appears the primitive in are nature lives on. it seems that until suffering reaches unbearable heights , humans will not change . When faced with change or perish perhaps it may happen. I ask myself, if a person is content with their life are they likely to want change,? This speculation of course is not an answer, as who can predict the future. As far as ah ha moments , they are there then they are gone. I think K said in one of the books that constant sustained attention would not be possible . It seems that for many of us it has been a process, you stumble upon it lose it and pick it up again, moment to moment. On another note I saw the mention of humor for the first time in relation to this work, and was glad to see it. I find myself laughing at the lame things my mind occupies it'self with.

THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE

Q3: Why don't you encourage people to hold group discussions?

Anyone has this DVD?
1st Question & Answer Meeting, Brockwood Park, England, 30th Aug. 1983
Bottom of the page

I'd like to know what was his answer.

Be your own light. Don't look to somebody else.

Richard Kover wrote:
.S. Can the many questions above be summarized as just one: Does discussion allow for the noticing of the influence of "me", and its ending?
Hi Richard, and thank you. Yes, and Yes!

THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE