When Krishnamurti talked about learning that is not accumulative, he was talking about the student learning as much about his own cognitive bias as the subject he applied himself to. He was talking about the student discovering for himself how he can never know more than what he is willing to believe. By K's definition, learning is burning away the learner with the light of what it doesn't know; the opening of itself to what it is not.

This post was last updated by lidlo lady Tue, 31 Jan 2012.

lidlo lady wrote:
he was describing a process...

He was pointing towards an action...

FLOW WITH LIFE!

If you want to quibble about words, I'll remove "process" but I won't use the K-word "action".

This post was last updated by lidlo lady Tue, 31 Jan 2012.

So, what is the question?

Nick has summarised his understanding of what K said about learning. So, may we critically examine his appraisal?

Nick stated as follows:

lidlo lady wrote:
He [K] was talking about the student discovering for himself how he can never know more than what he is willing to believe.

Is this truly what K talked of?

Can a person (student or any other) never know more than he is willing to believe? Or to put it another way, does the will limit all knowledge to belief? And, is there knowledge that is not based upon belief?

I see that where will exerts itself, belief will limit what can be learnt. But I do not see will as an absolute block on objective truth. In my life there have been so many occasions where reality has imposed itself in such a way that certain of my beliefs have been challenged and destroyed, despite will operating to prevent it.

The statement of Nick's, in my opinion, shows a belief in the omnipotence of will over objective knowledge. It seems to be an idealistic bias, that reality can never be known because one's subjectivity prevents it. Without any intention to name-call, I think this may be called cynicism.

Peng Shu Tse wrote:
But I do not see will as an absolute block on objective truth. In my life there have been so many occasions where reality has imposed itself in such a way that certain of my beliefs have been challenged and destroyed, despite will operating to prevent it.

How do you know there's any such thing as "objective truth"?

Beliefs are always being challenged, changed, and destroyed.

lidlo lady wrote:
How do you know there's any such thing as "objective truth"?

I do not. But it is a grounding assumption upon which I get out of bed each morning.

If all is subjective I have no basis upon which to act. I assume my action has some grounding in a reality that I have not created with my individual consciousness. I may be wrong in this. It is not a belief but a functional assumption. I admit I may be wrong and that I may have created the world in which I assume I live and all within it, including you. It does not seem likely, however.

I reject philosophical cynicism as it is rather boring and explains nothing . . . and I like explanations as they appear to mirror action rather well.

lidlo lady wrote:
Beliefs are always being challenged, changed, and destroyed.

Nick, if this is factual, then what is the agency that is doing that challenging, changing and destroying? If there is no objectively true world then it is all you, you and you, endlessly challenging yourself. Is this a belief you entertain?

Can you show that your consciousness is anything but you; that you are anything but consciousness?

This is not to deny the existence of the world you were born into and will exit through death, so don't mistake what I'm saying for that absurd position. What I'm talking about is what you are - not biologically - but psychologically. You are thought, content, the movement of conceptuality, be it intelligently or conditionally. As such, all you can know is what you are, if even that.

This post was last updated by lidlo lady Tue, 31 Jan 2012.

lidlo lady wrote:
Can you show that your consciousness is anything but you; that you are anything but consciousness?

No I cannot. I cannot prove it to myself, let alone show it to others. And I do not have a problem with this. I am not seeking to prove it and doubt it can be proven. I have even said (above) that it may be a false assumption. What I did say, is that it is an assumption which functions within me to direct my actions in the world I assume I inhabit.

If I am wrong, so what? Then you do not exist and cannot tell me otherwise. You are only a creation of MY mind, in that case. But to me, that whole line of philosophical critique appears counter to what I actually do, so I drop it.

Heavens, I went through philosophical idealism and that subjective-relativist babble when I was a teenager reading Lenin's Empirio-criticism. The idealists of his time said one could not prove one had a brain. Lenin called it a brainless philosophy.

It is like the games children play, saying that the other may not exist and may be a figment of the imagination. It is a tantalising conundrum for five minutes, in adolescence.

Peng Shu Tse wrote:
It is like the games children play, saying that the other may not exist and may be a figment of the imagination. It is a tantalising conundrum for five minutes, in adolescence.

You're jumping to a gratifying conclusion because you're not really interested in what I'm saying. You want to shut me down so you can carry on with your platitudinous drivel. Listen to what I'm saying and forget what you learned in school. I'll use K-talk to make it easier for you: you are thought, content, the response of memory, and that's all you are, so all you can possibly know is the limit of what you are, if even that, and clearly you're more interested in getting away with what you can than realizing what you cannot, in all honesty, do.

This post was last updated by lidlo lady Tue, 31 Jan 2012.

lidlo lady wrote:
you're not really interested in what I'm saying. You want to shut me down so you can carry on with your platitudinous drivel.

I stop reading at that point Nick.

I was interested in what you said as it was a stimulating theme and you were putting some work into it and being civil. I may have questioned the content of your thought but surely that shows interest, not disinterest.

But I still say that philosophical idealism is gamey. That's not a personal characterisation of you, Nick. Why did you identify with it? And now you go back to insults as if to say, "I'll show you what I child I can really be."

And you lose everyone.

lidlo lady wrote:
I'll use K-talk to make it easier for you: you are thought, content, the response of memory, and that's all you are, so all you can possibly know is the limit of what you are

I am also my body, Nick. Thought arises in the body. The brain is part of that. And I may be more than thought, emotion and body. You seem certain I am just thought, which is consciousness. That is philosophical idealism. K would have challenged it.

Your last statement is that 'you can know the limit of what you are.'

What does that mean?

It is only when you extend beyond a limit that you see the limit. If you know the limit of what you are you have already gone beyond it. People, as they are, do not know their limits and cannot possibly know them, although they may be aware of limitation in certain respects and may have generated some opinion about it.

Anyone who says they know their limits is actively limiting themselves.

Peng Shu Tse wrote:
It is only when you extend beyond a limit that you see the limit. If you know the limit of what you are you have already gone beyond it.

When thought realizes its limit, it has gone beyond it, but it is no more or less limited for having done so. It is just no longer confused or conflicted because it no longer entertains beliefs about itself.

As for the body, it takes care of itself. It doesn't need you or anyone to speak for it.

Peng Shu Tse wrote:
But I still say that philosophical idealism is gamey. That's not a personal characterisation of you, Nick. Why did you identify with it? And now you go back to insults as if to say, "I'll show you what I child I can really be."

And you lose everyone.

Do you listen to yourself? Really listen?

Peng wrote:
Heavens, I went through philosophical idealism and that subjective-relativist babble when I was a teenager reading Lenin's Empirio-criticism. The idealists of his time said one could not prove one had a brain. Lenin called it a brainless philosophy.

It is like the games children play, saying that the other may not exist and may be a figment of the imagination. It is a tantalising conundrum for five minutes, in adolescence.

Hello Peng, and....

As I see it we/I know very little.

One can go into that statement carefully and see the truth of it and it cannot be simply dismissed. I am not troubled by that. To know means to be certain. What we live by are assumptions. There are a tremendous number of assumptions each one here is making just to be on this forum. We can accept that and make the best assumptions we can. And each one is free to make his/her own assumptions.

Beliefs are also only assumptions. Probably each one has a continuum of assumptions from reasonable ones to unreasonable ones.

Here's an absolute truth: ....It is not the case that there is nothing.

Another truth, if one can call it that, is the whole field of perception as quallia that is entering ones own awareness in this moment. Another truth is this "light" in oneself.

If there are others like like this one writing this... all of you I assume are there... there is this "light" in them...in you... also. K was one of these others, I saw him and heard him, I touched his hand. He was as real as any of you. He saw truths about what one is, in relation to the assumptions one makes, and in relation to others. I see...if there are others... all of you, that most of what he was pointing out was and is true.

One such truth, I'm saying this gently if you permit, is if one is seeing what he was pointing out, in the moment, there will be affection only, never bullying, even with words.

Even K may not have been perfect in this.

Dear Peng, I am always your friend,

Peter

The assumption one makes that is most mistaken is identification of ones self as having a past.

This post was last updated by Peter Kesting Wed, 01 Feb 2012.

lidlo lady wrote:
learning is burning away the learner with the light of what it doesn't know; the opening of itself to what it is not.

The normal experience is other way round,the learner completely distorting the actual learening,and reduece it to a process of retraival of information from the memory.Ultmatly the great learener on behalf of whome the esteemed poster is taking side, is just fit to be condemned for his/her mechanical process of learning.

I am that Iam.

lidlo lady wrote:
Do you listen to yourself? Really listen?

Does one's listening is dependent on how one responds to the environment in which one lives?Or is just enough to shout at the top of one's voice what one wants, and make others fall in line with one's thinking?

I am that Iam.

lidlo lady wrote:
learning is burning away the learner with the light of what it doesn't know; the opening of itself to what it is not.

'Now that I have come in to his presence, I think the face of sun is intelligence. Let the Lord on High lead me to the sun that is in the rock and the darkness, so that I may see the marvel.
gb

We are watching, not waiting, not expecting anything to happen but watching without end. JK

ganesan balachandran wrote:
'Now that I have come in to his presence, I think the face of sun is intelligence. Let the Lord on High lead me to the sun that is in the rock and the darkness, so that I may see the marvel.

Would that we could be led to it, Ganesan!

All learning takes place, in purgatory, due to our own devices. Fortunately there is neither leader nor led but only the uncovering of what we are.

Peter Kesting wrote:
Beliefs are also only assumptions.

But a special type. We forget that it is an assumption and take it as truth.

It is not that objective truth may not or does not exist, but that thought cannot calculate it. The truths thought builds all turn out to be empty holes in the ground. Nevertheless, even those holes are filled with truth, though consciousness is loathe to perceive it.

Peter Kesting wrote:
Here's an absolute truth: ....It is not the case that there is nothing.

Yes, that has to be so. Logically perfect statement based upon experiential fact.

"I think, therefore I am" is not logically perfect.

K put it better:

"Where there is experience there must be the experiencer."

Peter Kesting wrote:
The assumption one makes that is most mistaken is identification of ones self as having a past.

. . . of having a separate and/or unique past. And also, the 'past' itself is another assumption.

Thank you Peter.

This post was last updated by Peng Shu Tse (account deleted) Fri, 03 Feb 2012.

Peng Shu Tse wrote:
"Where there is experience there must be the experiencer."

How is the reader to square this K-quote with today's quote:

"When there is true discernment there is the ecstasy of the immeasurable, which cannot be imagined or preconceived, but only experienced."

I don't doubt the parrots and devotees can explain it away.

If there is a real passion to understand something, it will be understood.

As for squaring, this with that, it does not seem that understanding is sought, but permanence.

Things change, including terminology.

Peng Shu Tse wrote:
Things change, including terminology.

So K changed his meaning of "experience" and didn't bother to notify his parroting followers...seems inconsiderate, to say the least.

As for squaring, this with that, it does not seem that understanding is sought, but permanence.

Why make this cynical assumption?

This post was last updated by lidlo lady Fri, 03 Feb 2012.

Peng Shu Tse wrote:
as if to say, "I'll show you what I child I can really be."

And you lose everyone.

lOL..the finger you point is a crooked one my friend,,because it points to you in the end...no gain..no lost..just what is !:)

THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE

RICK LEIN wrote:
no gain..no lost

Correction : no gain no loss

Hey!! Where are you Lidlo, Mr. Language Cop?

Besides Rick is a native speaker. You need to do some cleaning in your house (American English speakers) before correcting Africa, India and Europe. Come on go to work Lidlo, you have some dust to put under the carpet here... he, he.....

American English speakers are incorrigible.

K. Kennedy wrote:
Correction : no gain no loss

If you seek not to gain something nothing is lost,,like the point of the response was lost for you..sweet thing! LOL:)

THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE

RICK LEIN wrote:
If you seek not to gain something nothing is lost

Do not play this game Rick. I know you're good at it.

"If you seek not to gain something" you loose nothing.

Anyway, your sentence is grammatically no correct.

RICK LEIN wrote:
the response was lost for you..sweet thing!

I am not "sweet thing" Rick I am bitter, and unfortunately you are lost for me.

K. Kennedy wrote:
I am not "sweet thing" Rick I am bitter,

Really? Never would have guessed that O.M. LOL:)

THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE

K. Kennedy wrote:
unfortunately you are lost for me.

HOW LUCKY FOR ME..lol:)

THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE