Peng Shu Tse wrote:
Dan offered me an insult, that I was "entirely predictable."

Why is that an insult?:)

THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE

Peng Shu Tse wrote:
I answered him on this occasion when he offered me a personal insult. But you choose to ignore it.

Why not address a question your question about insults to the one who initiated an insult?

LOL:) You are so thin skinned!All that reading..all that pontificating...all that finger pointing...all that self justification for what end?:)

THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE

B Teulada wrote:
once I definitely understood what was behind the kind of ostracism I was being subjected to, it ceased to affect me.

I live in a box on a street not unlike the guy on PengPaul's street. Some people avoid, ostracize me, and others accept me. Understanding what's "behind the kind of ostracism" I'm "subjected to" matters less to me than the acceptance I need to remain here in my box on this street.

There will always be ostracizers and they're easily understood, but understanding them doesn't make me any more acceptable.

RICK LEIN wrote:
Peng Shu Tse wrote:
Dan offered me an insult, that I was "entirely predictable."

This was not an insult Paul..it was Dan's observation of your behavior...and had to do with predictability..which mean a rut..a groove... a method..a pattern...a habit..why not LOOK first..then respond?

THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE

For what it's worth, I don't think this insider-outsider business is a false dichotomy. Krishnmaurti himself drew a clear line between those who were a part of "the stream" - suffering, conditioned humanity - and those who had understood this condition and left it. Anyone who does leave will be outside the ruling fears and pressures of society. Not all distinctions or dichotomies are false ones.

lidlo lady wrote:
There will always be ostracizers and they're easily understood, but understanding them doesn't make me any more acceptable.

Right on, Lidlo...well said.

Thanks very much, Julian, for your reply (#125). Seeing this...

Lidlo Lady wrote:......I live in a box on a street not unlike the guy on PengPaul's street. Some people avoid, ostracize me, and others accept me. Understanding what's "behind the kind of ostracism" I'm "subjected to" matters less to me than the acceptance I need to remain here in my box on this street.

Hi LL,

Am just commenting to understand whose acceptance is being referred to. Do you mean the acceptance of others, or the acceptance by you of your circumstances?

There will always be ostracizers and they're easily understood, but understanding them doesn't make me any more acceptable.

But is that important to you? Is it important 'to you', to be understood and accepted by others?

incidentally, I think we are all living in boxes. If we don't put ourselves in one, others feel obliged to undertake the task for us.

You are your search

lidlo lady wrote:
To be truly outside is to be completely adaptable, psychologically untethered.

Yes.

Julian S wrote:
Krishnmaurti himself drew a clear line between those who were a part of "the stream" - suffering, conditioned humanity - and those who had understood this condition and left it. Anyone who does leave will be outside the ruling fears and pressures of society.

Yes, by K's definition, but in reality does anyone really live "outside the ruling fears and pressures of society"? Who are "those who had understood this condition and left it"? Do any such people (apart from K-patty) really exist? If it isn't your reality, talking about it is idle entertainment.

Robert Clarke wrote:
Is it important 'to you', to be understood and accepted by others?

It's important if you want to live in society, but not if you're a total recluse. I may be a street person living in a box, but if I'm considered unacceptable, intolerable, I may have to become a recluse.

RICK LEIN wrote:
This was not an insult Paul..it was Dan's observation of your behavior...and had to do with predictability..which mean a rut..a groove... a method..a pattern...a habit..why not LOOK first..then respond?

You are right, Rick. Apols to all concerned.

lidlo lady wrote:
Who are "those who had understood this condition and left it"? Do any such people really exist?

I would like to suggest a different way of looking at this. I suggest that there is (for want of a term) a K state. That state can come into existence in an individual and it can also end. That state is perfect when it is there and equivalent to that same state in any individual anywhere and any time including in K. There is no person there when that exists so also no outsider. The question does not come up.

There is such a state.

This post was last updated by Peter Kesting Sat, 14 Apr 2012.

What kind of medication are you on?

Hello lidlo

Going back to the original points on this thread:

There are strong points of social consensus arising in society. There is a flux of consensus points. But also, for longer or shorter periods there arise some very strong and wide points of agreement that divide those who are party to them from those who are outside. These can be hegemonic to the whole society, making a 'respectable' mainstream and a despised diaspora. Society splits into an 'inside' and an 'outside.'

What I have seen in my lifetime is a breaking down of such hegemonies. Societies have become more inclusive, not less. There is more tolerance, not less. In my lifetime I have seen the breaking down of Jim Crow segregation in the USA, the abolition of apartheid in southern Africa, the end of colonialism, the collapse of monarchical structures (except the UK, but even there constitutionally weakened), a concerted lessening of racism, sexism, sexuality-intolerance and religious bigotry (Ireland for example).

There has been a break of of belief systems, religious, political and philosophical. The caste system in India has dramatically weakened. xenophobia has diminished along with nationalism. Communism has all but come to an end and with it the great division between social systems. And the family continues in decline. Scientific and economic systems and theories are more in free-flow than ever before, as is the monetary system in its reliance on hitherto fixed exchanges based upon the metal, gold. Information has become more fluid and the internet revolution with the parallel new technology has enabled a communication unimaginable in past years which along with increased travel, education and social mobility has unfixed many more divisions between people.

Therefore the concept of insider/outsider continues to be devalued, in fact, by the changes happening before our eyes. Even in art, music, morality, many barriers have fallen. Where has all this left us? Are we freer than before? Has it been a step towards greater freedom? Is freedom of expression synonymous with actual freedom, the total freedom K spoke of? Do the two things even run along the same track?

K spoke of a crisis in modern society. He spoke of this crisis being one of values. All the old value-systems built by mankind over thousands of years and carried across generations by tradition and institution have come crashing down. This is positive, he said. But on its own it does nothing to lead us to freedom. Where it has led us is into an unrestricted and debased materialism which threatens to destroy us. War continues, but on a new basis. No longer wars for national interests but wars for 'international interests,' 'humanitarian wars,' which shed the same blood as before, even in greater quantities. Neither have any social problems been truly solved. Toleration of difference is not the ending of difference, even if it is a loosening of oppression.

The crisis of humanity is one of meanings.

Where is the individual in all of this? Is s/he inside or outside? The 'outsider' has to become ever more bizarre to maintain his or her status. It is now an aspiration to be different whereas in previous epochs people aspired to be the same. The outsider is now the insider. S/he is where it's at. Where there is no hegemonic consensus or respectability; where 'anything goes,' does having a different consciousness or a particular conscience lead to social ostracism, as it used to?

Is this abject materialism the new consensus? Perhaps it is. But it is not exclusionary. There is so much room to 'be what you want to be.' at least in the affluent countries. The resurgence in some religious fanaticism in the east (and the west, not forget) is a reaction against the inevitable changes that are sweeping the globe. They are dangerous but ultimately sterile. And it is happening in the east too. Look at China and India, even Burma, where the powerful sweep of modern materialism is bringing the old chapter to a rapid close.

Materialism and liberalism walk hand in hand. The question of the outsider is not as it was. The outsider is not who he was. The artist is now mainstream and has to perform all sorts of new tricks to get noticed. S/he has to fight for that valued status. What is avant guard any more?

To have an expectation that someone who rejects materialism will move any faster towards 'freedom' than one who is still beset by material pleasures is also an illusion. One cannot tell what will turn a person from one path to another (if I may use the 'path' word). Perhaps the one who has put his whole heart and soul into creating material wealth will be better able to get to the end of that life-game and renounce it than the one who did not.

Yet, one thing is clear, materialism and freedom do not walk hand in hand.

This post was last updated by Peng Shu Tse (account deleted) Fri, 13 Apr 2012.

Peng Shu Tse wrote:
Yet, one thing is clear, materialism and freedom do not walk hand in hand.

An excellent rant, but I don't know what to make of your conclusion. As a material being, I don't know anything but material and the illusions which are products of the material brain, so I don't know what you mean by "materialism".

Since I can't be any freer than the material I am allows, I don't know what you mean by "freedom".

lidlo lady wrote:
An excellent insight, but I don't know what to make of your conclusion.

Thank you, sir.

lidlo lady wrote:
I don't know anything but material and the illusions which are products of the material brain, so I don't know what you mean by "materialism".

I am not talking of philosophical materialism, the counterpart of philosophical idealism. We'll leave Hegel and Marx on one side.

I mean the tendency to derive life-meaning from shallow sensory pleasures. In short, fashion and consumerism. We have given up on the traditional beliefs which were supposed to guarantee the good life and good death, and we have fixed on the ever changing and fickle manifestations of industrial packaging. Now we ourselves are exchangeable products, each with his/her own brand.

lidlo lady wrote:
Since I can't be any freer than the material I am allows, I don't know what you mean by "freedom".

Yes, that statement is an example of philosophical materialism. "I am no more than the material. There is no other freedom."

Thank you for making it clear.

This post was last updated by Peng Shu Tse (account deleted) Sat, 14 Apr 2012.

lidlo lady wrote:
What kind of medication are you on?

Which brings me to another question:

Why did the Irishman take three prophylactics?

(Robert might know the answer to this one)

This post was last updated by Peng Shu Tse (account deleted) Sat, 14 Apr 2012.

Peng Shu Tse wrote:
Thank you, sir.

No thanks to you for deliberately misquoting me.

Peng Shu Tse wrote:
We have given up on the traditional beliefs which were supposed to guarantee the goof life and good death, and we have fixed on the ever changing and fickle manifestations of industrial packaging. No we ourselves are exchangeable products, each with his/her own brand.

Your Freudian slip aside, I would agree, but I don't think this is anything new...it's just the latest version of what we've been doing since we invented belief.

Peng Shu Tse wrote:
Yes, that statement is an example of philosophical materialism. "I am no more than the material. There is no other freedom."

Pray tell, what do you know that the rest of us don't? Do you spend much time out of the body, beyond the brain?

lidlo lady wrote:
No thanks to you for deliberately quoting me.

That's fine too.

lidlo lady wrote:
but I don't think this is anything new

It's not radically different but it brings the crisis to a high point. The beliefs change to rapidly to fix and people are left with utter emptiness and frenetic neuroses. We're at the crest of a very long wave that goes back a thousand years. K expressed that very powerfully and I agree with him.

lidlo lady wrote:
Do you spend much time out of the body, beyond the brain?

Only here on Kinfonet.

But actually, I was not talking of physical matter but, as I explained, the fixation on the acquiring and consuming of an ever increasing range of physical things which is jading our senses and creating mass-consumer neurosis. Do you have children Nick? The modern child is a consumer monster. Don't have them in your home. It only invites trouble. It won't send you out of your body but it will send you out of your mind.

I took my son to Brazil a few years back when he was 18. He trod in some dog dirt with the new white Nike trainers his mom had paid £150 for. "Oh no!" was his response, "Now I can't wear them any more."

This post was last updated by Peng Shu Tse (account deleted) Sat, 14 Apr 2012.

Lidlo Lady wrote:.......Since I can't be any freer than the material I am allows,

Man as material......'I'

Man as consumer.......'I am my Nike runners'...

Man as observer(parent)..... Shit happens!

Freedom? No shit!

You are your search

Lidlo Lady wrote:..........What kind of medication are you on?

This is no ordinary 'K',

This is Special 'K',

Much loved if you are also a 'K'runchy Nut fan.

You are your search

lidlo lady wrote:
Yes, by K's definition, but in reality does anyone really live "outside the ruling fears and pressures of society"? Who are "those who had understood this condition and left it"? Do any such people (apart from K-patty) really exist? If it isn't your reality, talking about it is idle entertainment.

I don't think it is just idle entertainment. The fact that Krishnamurti - and many others down the ages - have said that there is something outside the prison, doesn't mean you have to turn the idea of freedom into a dream or a drug. You can take on board the possibility that there is freedom without taking your eyes off the depressing sight of the prison walls. None of us would spend 10 minutes on this if K or The Buddha simply said you're in prison and there's no such thing as freedom.

As for who's actually lived it, who knows? I'm sure K-Patty hasn't, but if we're to believe writings from the East then there's a great long tradition of people who have. What else is there to do? Forget about it all and seek some other entertainment?

Julian S wrote:
None of us would spend 10 minutes on this if K or The Buddha simply said you're in prison and there's no such thing as freedom.

they say that, self don't accept it.
gb

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

Julian S wrote:
As for who's actually lived it, who knows? I'm sure K-Patty hasn't, but if we're to believe writings from the East then there's a great long tradition of people who have. What else is there to do? Forget about it all and seek some other entertainment?

There are moments for everyone when what they mistakenly think of as their personal self is not there. K sometimes points to that state when one suddenly sees something beautiful, a child, or a beautiful mountain. That state, free of self, is love. There is not a greater or a lesser such state. Same in K, same in the Buddha, same in each ordinary human being. Nothing more is necessary. Nothing is more than that. For us and for the world what is needed is for each to come upon that state, but also to sustain that state. Well that's the very rare part. Actually one needs to come upon it fresh in each moment

But not out of what the self wants, not because the self wants it, wants more of it. It is not a matter of living it in time . It can only be there in the present, in this nowness. In each this present moment.

Well we all know all of this.

Thinking of it as rare, or distant, or impossible, or only for some special people, or not real, especially this last, is more thought. Is thought only.

This post was last updated by Peter Kesting Sat, 14 Apr 2012.

Julian S wrote:
You can take on board the possibility that there is freedom without taking your eyes off the depressing sight of the prison walls.

The sight is not depressing when one is actually looking at the prison walls. Also the possibility that there is freedom is part of that wall. The understanding of difference between 'looking' and the 'contents of prison' will make lots of things clearer, Julian.

Julian S wrote:
As for who's actually lived it, who knows? I'm sure K-Patty hasn't,...

What about you?

FLOW WITH LIFE!

Peter Kesting wrote:
Thinking of it as rare, or distant, or impossible, or only for some special people, or not real, especially this last, is more thought. Is thought only.

Thinking of it as common, or close, or possible, or for everyone, or real or any comment about is also all thought. Is only thought.

FLOW WITH LIFE!

Julian S wrote:
None of us would spend 10 minutes on this if K or The Buddha simply said you're in prison and there's no such thing as freedom.

As for who's actually lived it, who knows? I'm sure K-Patty hasn't, but if we're to believe writings from the East then there's a great long tradition of people who have. What else is there to do? Forget about it all and seek some other entertainment?

Yes, we're here because we want/need to believe that freedom (whatever we think it is) is possible. We feel imprisoned, in need of liberation, and we're acting from that feeling. The problem is that we can be desperate enough to pretend we know more than we do, and for all we know, our prison is our dishonesty.