In my life, as in everyone's, there are things I cannot change about the past that continue to affect the way I live in the present. This interference, you might say, of my past experience upon the present seems to be something that happens automatically, almost unconsciously. There is also a tendency to reinforce my behavior by continually repeating it, making it into a pattern over time.

I do not think I am unique in respect to this problem of human nature. In fact I would say it is common to all people, and most probably goes back to the dawn of man's earliest beginnings - at least as far back as recorded civilization.

I know there are supposed authorities, both in the secular and in the non-secular world, who would advise me to employ various strategies in order to develop positive feedback. In other words, some people will tell me to cultivate certain patterns of thinking as if I am seperate from my thoughts, as if I am an entity directing and controlling what I think, which I think is a false concept to begin with. It is merely one thought dominating another - it is not freedom from the whole mechanical, mind-numbing nature of thought.

How can I be free from the constraints of the past if I don't first empty my mind of all vestiges of the past? How can I empty my mind of the past if I am constantly feeding my brain with instruction, which after all is drawn from the past.

Thinking has it's limitations, and unless I am keen to the limits of what I think then I will always be in a kind of servitude to the past.

Well described.

Of course, you are not unique in respect to this problem of human nature.

So, what is your point, Stephen?

nosce te ipsum

Stepehen, Is the topic not named or you have named it as 30th June, 2008 ?

Unless Advanced, K's Teachings May Remain As Ineffective As of Now

The name of the topic is simply the date it was written.

Victor Blackbird wrote:

Well described.

Of course, you are not unique in respect to this problem of human nature.

So, what is your point, Stephen?

I want to see if there is anyone who has anything to add or detract from what I said, to see how it fits with where others are at. I wrote something about a week later that I will also post here.

To be sure, thought is necessary in it's place. The problem is that, generally speaking, there is so little insight into how the way we think actually breeds psychological division, or fragmentation, and so inhibits individual freedom.

The identification of thought with a particular ideology, for example, acts to separate the world into competing cliques. I don't think most people are aware of how destructive this divisive nature of the way they think is.

We are encouraged from an early age to train ourselves to accept without question certain beliefs and practices passed down through the generations as truth. Of course that truth we are taught to accept is only one version of countless variations, based upon what specific influences we are raised with.

As we grow older and learn to fit in, most of us become advocates for the cultural milieu we are from, that we represent. Very few people, it seems, are able to step out of the mainstream of society and stand up as an individual, uncontaminated by the desire to conform. Just seeing the danger inherent in continuing on our present path is all that is really needed to take that step. Once made, you can never really go back - you have to find your own way. To me, this is the meaning behind being 'born again', and it doesn't involve the acquistion of belief.

July 6th, 2008

This post was last updated by Stephen Smalley Mon, 27 Jul 2009.

Is there a place in this world for a person who does not belong to any religion, who does not practice any faith, who does not profess any belief, who does not proclaim any book to be holy and therefore beyond common sense?

What place is there in society for one who does not conform to what is expected...

2008

Are [not] the images in my mind simply my own thoughts? Is [not] any image I have - no matter how grotesque or sublime - always a product of thought? If thought is based on memory, the recollection of experience, and all images are merely a projection of that experience, then are not images nothing but a projection from the past?

Is there anything holy about images about the past? Of course memories have a place in our lives. Memory serves a purpose and has a function that is useful and necessary, but why do we give so much importance to the images?

Perhaps one of the most profound things is that there is nothing sacred about thought, about the images thought creates. The sacred must reside totally outside the realm of thought. Thought can never express the Mind of God.

A few people in history, it seems, have grasped the significance of this and tried to convey it to others, with limited success. Instead, their words are turned into another religion for men to follow. Meanwhile the world continues in the darkness of ignorance, born out of the pride of knowledge and the arrogance of power.

2008

What is thought?

Is thought the images in our brain? Our individual images may be different from each other, yet we all share the fact in common that these images are what make up our thoughts.

Where do these images come from? Why are they there in the brain? Are images simply the operation of memory?

2008

Stephen Smalley wrote:
I want to see if there is anyone who has anything to add or detract from what I said,

Be sure, there is a lot.

I?ve followed with interest the series of your messages and would like to excerpt the essence as I see it.

Stephen Smalley wrote:
Is there a place in this world for a person who does not belong to any religion, who does not practice any faith, who does not profess any belief, who does not proclaim any book to be holy and therefore beyond common sense?

I think the countries we both, you and I, living in is exactly the same place, isn't it?

Stephen Smalley wrote:
Is there anything holy about images about the past? Of course memories have a place in our lives. Memory serves a purpose and has a function that is useful and necessary, but why do we give so much importance to the images?
Perhaps one of the most profound things is that there is nothing sacred about thought, about the images thought creates. The sacred must reside totally outside the realm of thought. Thought can never express the Mind of God.
A few people in history, it seems, have grasped the significance of this and tried to convey it to others, with limited success. Instead, their words are turned into another religion for men to follow. Meanwhile the world continues in the darkness of ignorance, born out of the pride of knowledge and the arrogance of power.

Very good point. And what do you think, why do we give so much importance to the images?

Stephen Smalley wrote:
What is thought?
Is thought the images in our brain? Our individual images may be different from each other, yet we all share the fact in common that these images are what make up our thoughts.
Where do these images come from? Why are they there in the brain? Are images simply the operation of memory?

Yes, have you find it out or do you want to find it out, at least?

nosce te ipsum

Victor Blackbird wrote:
why do we give so much importance to the images?

What am I without an image to sustain me?

Victor Blackbird wrote:
Stephen Smalley wrote:
What is thought? Is thought the images in our brain? Our individual images may be different from each other, yet we all share the fact in common that these images are what make up our thoughts. Where do these images come from? Why are they there in the brain? Are images simply the operation of memory?
Yes, have you f[ou]nd it out or do you want to find it out, at least?

One has to ask why the images keep running? Why is there so little space in the brain that is not occupied?

Stephen Smalley wrote:
What am I without an image to sustain me?
Stephen Smalley wrote:
One has to ask why the images keep running? Why is there so little space in the brain that is not occupied?

Indeed, what am I without those images constantly jumping in my consciousness like in a permanent movie totally occupying my brain, accumulating and laminating in the time of generations, and who is the person to ask?

nosce te ipsum

Does it matter who?

Victor Blackbird wrote:

Stephen Smalley wrote:
What am I without an image to sustain me?
Stephen Smalley wrote:
One has to ask why the images keep running? Why is there so little space in the brain that is not occupied?

Indeed, what am I without those images constantly jumping in my consciousness like in a permanent movie totally occupying my brain, accumulating and laminating in the time of generations, and who is the person to ask?

Do I ask what I am without an image because I don't want to look at what I am without an image?

Stephen Smalley wrote:
Do I ask what I am without an image because I don't want to look at what I am without an image?

Why don't you want to?
What does it actually mean 'to look at what I am without an image'?

It doesn't seem to be like an ordinary TV watching, do it?

nosce te ipsum

Victor Blackbird wrote:
...and who is the person to ask?

Stephen Smalley wrote:
Does it matter who?

Yes, it definitely does. Yet it is a matter of greatest importance.

You may ask at your church, you may ask your psychologist, you may ask me or you may ask yourself. There is a difference, you see.

nosce te ipsum

Victor Blackbird wrote:

Stephen Smalley wrote:
Do I ask what I am without an image because I don't want to look at what I am without an image?

Why don't you want to?
What does it actually mean 'to look at what I am without an image'?

It doesn't seem to be like an ordinary TV watching, do it?

Without an image, what is there to see? Who is there to see it?

Victor Blackbird wrote:

Victor Blackbird wrote:
...and who is the person to ask?

Stephen Smalley wrote:
Does it matter who?

Yes, it definitely does. Yet it is a matter of greatest importance.

You may ask at your church, you may ask your psychologist, you may ask me or you may ask yourself. There is a difference, you see.

The question is who. Who is an identity. The question is not who, is it, but what. What, how and why.

Before I come to answer the two your questions above look at yourself carefully and tell me, isn?t it that you are trying to have a look at the situation from a point of view that is lying beyond your consciousness?

It is quite important to find it out and to see it clearly; be very attentive.
Do you understand what I mean?

nosce te ipsum

Stephen Smalley wrote:
Do I ask what I am without an image because I don't want to look at what I am without an image?

I have an image of myself and I ask myself if it is possible to look without an image. If I can see that I am the image that I am seeing, that there is not a separate me from the action of observation, then there is the beginning of freedom in that insight, is there not?

Hi, Stephen

Stephen Smalley wrote:
I have an image of myself and I ask myself if it is possible to look without an image.

It is a very right question as long as we are not trying to answer it i.e. to find an intellectual answer. Finding any most beautiful, most truthful answer would inevitably create a new image and that way replace one image with another.

It is not our goal, is it?

Stephen Smalley wrote:
If I can see that I am the image that I am seeing, that there is not a separate me from the action of observation

If you (like anyone else) see that you are the image that you are seeing, if you really see it in all details, as clearly as you can see your monitor in front of you now ? you stop producing any images; no one image does exist any longer. Even the time itself stops with that.

And that is the end and the beginning all together.

nosce te ipsum

Hope you don't mind if I cut in here. This whole area is very important.

There is the physical organism with its brain/mind. Other than controlling the body, the brain/mind has two major functions: Observing (or sensing), and thinking (remembering what it has sensed).

Our problems stem from not understanding the place of the two. As our biggest error, we try to "observe" by thinking.

The only real "I" is the physical organism. The Self, the image we have, is a thought--a mere construct. It has only the reality that we choose to give it.

max

max greene wrote:
Hope you don't mind if I cut in here. This whole area is very important.

Of course not, Max, you are welcome.

max greene wrote:
Our problems stem from not understanding the place of the two. As our biggest error, we try to "observe" by thinking.

Now, try to look at my questions below very attentively, Max.
Being already involved and caught in this endless process of thinking, how could we observe the things inside and outside us WITHOUT thinking? Where is the ?error? of that ?trying??

max greene wrote:
The only real "I" is the physical organism.

Probably, we are talking about different kind of reality?

nosce te ipsum

The questioning mind has no sense in the unquestioning mind.

Victor,

To "try" to do something implies that it is not yet done. "Trying" to observe means that one is not actually observing.

Are you sure that thinking is an "endless process"?

max

max greene wrote:
To "try" to do something implies that it is not yet done.

Yes, of course it does. And I suppose, most of us haven?t done it yet. That is exactly what the trouble is about.

max greene wrote:
"Trying" to observe means that one is not actually observing.

That is the very point of enormous importance; that is exactly the brink of the ?impossible question?. That is the reason we don?t have to just ?try? it but really do it. That means we have to gather all our energy together to get through; just now, just at this point.

max greene wrote:
Are you sure that thinking is an "endless process"?

Not at all, just the opposite.

But seemingly it is so, isn?t it? Not everyone can stop by will their thinking-process and that is the entire problem. Man uses to think even while sleeping and, it is said in many places, even after death. Anyway, human being got caught in there, (mostly loves to be in there and has fear to go out), but now someone says, they have to get out:

Wake up!

nosce te ipsum

Victor & Stephen,

Getting back to the discussion about images, before I cut in,
I would say that all thought is image. Thinking is image making, and takes place after observation. Of course, with the thinking process we can make an image of a prior image, also.

It is the action we take based on thought, or images, that leads to difficulties because we are acting on what has already taken place, the past. We are acting on the image of a fact. A fact is Now, and is to be observed, and right action springs from this observation. K said somewhere that the observation is the action--which makes sense, as both must be immediate, Now. If there is a delay between the observation and the action, thought comes into the picture.

Observation is an entirely different procedure from thinking. It's impossible to observe something by thinking about it.

max

max greene wrote:
Victor & Stephen,
Getting back to the discussion about images, before I cut in, I would say that all thought is image. Thinking is image making, and takes place after observation. Of course, with the thinking process we can make an image of a prior image, also.

Exactly

max greene wrote:
It is the action we take based on thought, or images, that leads to difficulties because we are acting on what has already taken place, the past. We are acting on the image of a fact. A fact is Now, and is to be observed, and right action springs from this observation.

Quite like that

max greene wrote:
K said somewhere that the observation is the action--which makes sense, as both must be immediate, Now. If there is a delay between the observation and the action, thought comes into the picture.

It is so, again

max greene wrote:
Observation is an entirely different procedure from thinking. It's impossible to observe something by thinking about it.

That's right too. But you take an ideal case of observation that might bring you out into the truth-dimension. Krishnamurti reached it in his life.

Have you reached that quality of observation practically as well as he did or it is your intellectual, theoretical achievement? If you have not, what have you to do to get that practice?

That is the very question, Max.

Please, come back to my question to you in my response #24

Best regards

nosce te ipsum

Victor,

I hope I've picked out the questions you're referring to: "Being already involved and caught in this endless process of thinking, how could we observe the things inside and outside us WITHOUT thinking? Where is the ?error? of that ?trying??"

There isn't anything that can be observed by thinking about it. Observation is a different act. It's the act of seeing. Thinking is the act of creating images of what has been seen. Understanding starts with observation--and probably ends there, also.

Pardon me, and no offense meant, but I don't believe it is appropriate to discuss whether we have or have not reached some stage of "development." What matters is what we have to say to each other, and whether it makes good sense. That's all I'm shooting for.

max