Krishnamurti once asked his audience if they'd ever, as an experiment, denied themselves a pleasure. After pretending to wait for an answer and receiving the requisite silence, he went on. "Deny yourself a pleasure", he said, "And you will find out what you are".

If you ever take K up on this experiment, you'll find that the only expedient way to deny a pleasure is to forget it, to lose the memory of that particular pleasure so it won't be there, goading you on to repeat it. But because we live for pleasure and treasure our memories too much to let them go, the experiment amounts to an exercise in self-denial.

What this tells us about what we are is that we're mostly memory and all the compulsive activity it engenders. Memory serves us well when it comes to words, images, colors, ideas, emotions, etc., but when it comes to sensations like pain and pleasure, all memory can do is label it good or bad, wanted or unwanted, and this is never enough information, so we have to repeat the experience, the experiment, to be reminded of the sensation and whether our label is still accurate.

So there is no should or should-not to denying yourself a pleasure. Do it to find out what it reveals about yourself, about the structure and operation of thought, and whether there's anything you can do about it other than expose it

This post was last updated by nick carter Mon, 20 Sep 2010.

I kind of got lost there Nick, but try this. Eat that ice-cream (or whatever) but take no pleasure in it. Then, what are you?

If the answer comes out the same, start again with a different flavour.

What are you waiting for?

nick carter wrote:
Krishnamurti once asked his audience if they'd ever, as an experiment, denied themselves a pleasure.

Will you provide quote please?

Don't need K or any, do yourself

nick carter wrote:
If you ever take K up on this experiment, you'll find that the only expedient way to deny a pleasure is to forget it, to lose the memory of that particular pleasure.

Doing anything with the intention of denying pleasure is to strengthen its roots in memory. Some will say that pleasure/pain are to be undestood by giving them total attention not realising that if this is done to forget or for anyother purpose, their roots become stronger.

Can one deal with pleasure/pain bypassing concern/ denial/ interest/ satisfaction of self ?

FLOW WITH LIFE!

Dr.sudhir sharma wrote:
Some will say that pleasure/pain are to be undestood by giving them total attention not realising that if this is done to forget or for anyother purpose, their roots become stronger.
Can one deal with pleasure/pain bypassing concern/ denial/ interest/ satisfaction of self ?

It's unclear what it is you're trying to say. Don't complicate the issue. What I'm saying is that if you perform the experiment of denying yourself a pleasure, what you're dealing with is the memory of that pleasure. Therefore, the most expedient way to deny yourself the pleasure is to forget it because without the memory of it there's no desire for it.

Why do we remember pleasure? There are a lot of experiences we need to remember for practical reasons, but is it practical to remember pleasure? Pleasure is not a problem, not something that needs to be thought about, pondered over, solved. There's no need to remember or reflect on pleasure. It's to be enjoyed, forgotten, and discovered over and over again for the first time.

nick carter wrote:
Pleasure is not a problem, not something that needs to be thought about, pondered over, solved. There's no need to remember or reflect on pleasure. It's to be enjoyed, forgotten, and discovered over and over again for the first time.

Now that's interesting.

THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE

Soham netti wrote:
Will you provide quote please?

How does one deny? Does one deny the known, not in great dramatic incidents but in little incidents? Do I deny when I am shaving and I remember the lovely time I had in Switzerland? Does one deny the remembrance of a pleasant time? Does one grow aware of it, and deny it? That is not dramatic, it is not spectacular, nobody knows about it. Still this constant denial of little things, the little wiping's, the little rubbing's off, not just one great big wiping away, is essential. It is essential to deny thought as remembrance, pleasant or unpleasant, every minute of the day as it arises. One is doing it not for any motive, not in order to enter into the extraordinary state of the unknown. You live in Rishi Valley and think of Bombay or Rome. This creates a conflict, makes the mind dull, a divided thing. Can you see this and wipe it away? Can you keep on wiping away not because you want to enter into the unknown? You can never know what the unknown is because the moment you recognise it as the unknown you are back in the known.

Kinfonet Quote of the day for July 27, 2009

Soham netti wrote:
nick carter wrote:
Krishnamurti once asked his audience if they'd ever, as an experiment, denied themselves a pleasure.

Soham netti wrote:
Will you provide quote please?

I can't remember where I came across it. Ask Ken to find it.

Emma T wrote:
How does one deny? Does one deny the known, not in great dramatic incidents but in little incidents? Do I deny when I am shaving and I remember the lovely time I had in Switzerland? Does one deny the remembrance of a pleasant time? Does one grow aware of it, and deny it? That is not dramatic, it is not spectacular, nobody knows about it. Still this constant denial of little things, the little wiping's, the little rubbing's off, not just one great big wiping away, is essential. It is essential to deny thought as remembrance, pleasant or unpleasant, every minute of the day as it arises. One is doing it not for any motive, not in order to enter into the extraordinary state of the unknown. You live in Rishi Valley and think of Bombay or Rome. This creates a conflict, makes the mind dull, a divided thing. Can you see this and wipe it away? Can you keep on wiping away not because you want to enter into the unknown? You can never know what the unknown is because the moment you recognise it as the unknown you are back in the known.

This is not the quote I had in mind. What's more, this one has always bothered me, this wiping away business.

I'm shaving, let's say, and some random thought or memory occurs. It might be interesting, relevant, pertinent. It might be annoying, depressing, inane. It might be an insight. Whatever it is, it's what happens. Thought does what it does and if it's operating in disorderly fashion, who's to say? Certainly not thought. If, on the other hand, the wiping away is done not by thought but by so-called Intelligence, then thought is talking about an invisible hand that keeps coming out of nowhere and wiping thought's nose, mopping its drool, and brushing the hair out of its eyes. Not that thought minds...

Or you could just grow a beard . . .

What are you waiting for?

nick carter wrote:
This is not the quote I had in mind. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

You have no understanding of what you're talking about. Look at the implicit.

"Thought shattering itself against its own nothingness, is the explosion of meditation."

KRISHNAMURTI'S NOTEBOOK PART 6

"See thought arising; watch it. Without that, all else is illusion and becoming."

Dean R. Smith wrote:
nick carter wrote:
This is not the quote I had in mind. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
You have no understanding of what you're talking about. Look at the implicit.

Whatever you say, boss.

Dean R. Smith wrote:
You have no understanding of what you're talking about.

Is it necessary to be such a boor?

Emma T wrote:
Is it necessary to be such a boor?

Ah, there is nothing quite like a dose of humility Miss,please let us not mistake intellectual snobbery for truth? Is it in turn necessary to speak from supposition,born on the wings of snobbery as in the statement above? Why not challenge the statement on points of fact,instead of taking it tom the realm of the personal?

THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE

This post was last updated by RICK LEIN Fri, 17 Sep 2010.

nick carter wrote:
Whatever you say, boss.

Nick,

You dismissed the jewel, the direct approach! The negation of thought is thoughts highest intelligence. Try it for a day. See what happens.

"See thought arising; watch it. Without that, all else is illusion and becoming."

Dean R. Smith wrote:
You have no understanding of what you're talking about.

Emma T wrote:
Is it necessary to be such a boor?

Apparently that's what happens when you're enlightened.

Emma T wrote:
Is it necessary to be such a boor?

RICK LEIN wrote:
Ah, there is nothing quite like a dose of humility Miss,please let us not mistake intellectual snobbery for truth? Is it in turn necessary to speak from supposition,born on the wings of snobbery as in the statement above? Why not challenge the statement on points of fact,instead of taking it tom the realm of the personal?

It would appear, Rick, you don't know boorishness from borscht.

nick carter wrote:
It would appear, Rick, you don't know boorishness from borscht.

Actually Nick you have stated a truth,Rick knows nothing,and you?

THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE

It's not boorish to tell someone that they have no understanding of what they're talking about. In this case, it was just an obvious fact.

"See thought arising; watch it. Without that, all else is illusion and becoming."

This post was last updated by Dean R. Smith Sat, 18 Sep 2010.

Emma T wrote:
Is it necessary to be such a boor?

No,but we will not hold that against you zzzzzzzz!

THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE

Paul Davidson wrote:
Or you could just grow a beard . . .

Or a Georgie G stash!

THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE

RICK LEIN wrote:
No,but we will not hold that against you zzzzzzzz!

You noticed! :)

"See thought arising; watch it. Without that, all else is illusion and becoming."

RICK LEIN wrote:
Or a Georgie G stash!

If Paul's avatar is an actual Paul head shot, he's already got one.

"See thought arising; watch it. Without that, all else is illusion and becoming."

Dean R. Smith wrote:
If Paul's avatar is an actual Paul head shot, he's already got one.

A mystery to deep to be plumbed,it would however make for an interesting comb over?

THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE

nick carter wrote:
It would appear, Rick, you don't know boorishness from borscht.

What does the mirror show my well intended friend!

THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE

nick carter wrote:
I can't remember where I came across it

Well. K didn't said it.

Don't need K or any, do yourself

Soham netti wrote:
K didn't said it.

so what? one can open to that experiment.
gb
p.s: i do have the faint memory of that quote.

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

nick carter wrote:
If you ever take K up on this experiment, you'll find that the only expedient way to deny a pleasure is to forget it, to lose the memory of that particular pleasure.

let me try. thank you.
gb

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

ganesan balachandran wrote:
one can open to that experiment

Denying the pleasure had been experimented by millions from more than 5000 years, Why to repeat same mistake?

Don't need K or any, do yourself

Soham netti wrote:
Why to repeat same mistake?

Here what is being proposed is not the denial of an habit, but the denial of the memories of the sensation it gives.
gb

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