Today I ate trout. That may not seem a grand statement and hardly rebellious, and believe me, it was not an act of rebellion at all. But I am staying at a K school and apparently it is an act of betrayal. Let me explain.

I was having lunch a month back when I was told that not only is the K centre and school vegetarian, in keeping with K's wishes, but that also, those who live here, staff, students and mature students, are told that they should not eat any meat or fish when outside the complex, lest they bring back the bad energy pertaining to that practice.

So, having returned a little late from visiting my aging and ailing parents I stopped off to eat at an Italian restaurant in a nearby town and perviewing the menu I wanted the grilled trout. I questioned my desire and found that it was only the intellect that was engaged in the questioning. The intellect was asking whether I was betraying the trust of the school by breaking its rule. I could not see nor feel that I would be conveying some malignant carnivorous energy by so-doing and I could see that I was trying to condition myself NOT to order the trout which I wanted. Being honest with myself I could see that my heart did not find the argumentations of my intellect convincing at all and also, my intellect had its doubts.

I had been on a raw-food diet some years back and had been disavowed of that after realising the emoto-ideological trickery being played by its advocates. I still eat mainly 'live-food' but I refuse to be a nutro-fascist in this regard. And I feel the same about the vegetarianism being shoved down my throat, as it were. For heavens sake, Hitler was a vegetarian! It didn't make him green.

I really enjoyed my meal this evening and I knew that all those long amino-acids would do me more good than a million raw vege-enzymes. I also enjoyed a half-bottle of chianti and recalled K's words that life is to be lived, not repressed, and Gurdgieff's pointed remark, 'if eat, then eat!'

What are you waiting for?

Paul Davidson wrote:
Hitler was a vegetarian! It didn't make him green.
Paul Davidson wrote:
they bring back the bad energy pertaining to that practice.

There may be a connection..
gb

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

ganesan balachandran wrote:
There may be a connection.. gb

Yes! There is a "force" behind all our actions, a "genetic force" and one can not do any thing about it unless there is a "radical change" in the "Psyche" as pointed by "K". This change can not be brought about by mere "intellectual understanding". It has to felt "deeply" with in such that the "cells" undergo a "mutation"

Regards
Sunyata

sunyata sunyata wrote:
Yes! There is a "force" behind all our actions, a "genetic force" and one can not do any thing about it unless there is a "radical change" in the "Psyche"

Yes. How is this force felt in your everyday existance, Sunyata? Can you write about a challenge you have faced in this respect?

regards, Paul

What are you waiting for?

Paul,

First of all, congratulations on a new forum! Wishing it 'all possible
success' (not in the wordly(=of thought) sense though). :-)

Enjoyed reading your post. Laughed out loud upon reading the words
about "malignant carnivorous energy"...:-)

Let us have a closer look at what you say..if you will...

paul:Today I ate trout. That may not seem a grand statement and hardly
rebellious, and believe me, it was not an act of rebellion at all. But
I am staying at a K school and apparently it is an act of betrayal.
Let me explain.

mina: It just came to be felt today how the only betrayal is to NOT follow the heart, and replace that which is real with image. (not that there is anyone separate to follow the heart of course, separation is created only when action comes from thougt). So it seems you betrayed an image, which sounds a sane thing to do! :-)

Paul: I was having lunch a month back when I was told that not only is
the K centre and school vegetarian, in keeping with K's wishes, but
that also, those who live here, staff, students and mature students,
are told that they should not eat any meat or fish when outside the
complex, lest they bring back the bad energy pertaining to that
practice.

Mina: here it seems the 'bad energy' is not an outcome of eating meat
or fish , but it is rather to be found in the conditioned thought itself
about whether one should eat fish or not! (in any conditioned thought) Of course both thoughts are the same in essence, the two sides of the same coin. And i say 'bad energy' not because there is anyone judging it as 'evil', but because its contradictory confused nature is simply seen.

Interesting how easily we overlook the essence and the expression (here: fish or not) becomes all important. But it is also clear that thought cannot but overlook it, as it is not the source, but the expression, in itself.

Paul:So, having returned a little late from visiting my aging and ailing
parents I stopped off to eat at an Italian restaurant in a nearby town
and perviewing the menu I wanted the grilled trout. I questioned my
desire and found that it was only the intellect that was engaged in
the questioning. The intellect was asking whether I was betraying the
trust of the school by breaking its rule. I could not see nor feel
that I would be conveying some malignant carnivorous energy by
so-doing and I could see that I was trying to condition myself NOT to
order the trout which I wanted. Being honest with myself I could see
that my heart did not find the argumentations of my intellect
convincing at all and also, my intellect had its doubts.

Mina: wonderful observations paul, seeing the limitation of thought/intellect.

Paul: I really enjoyed my meal this evening and I knew that all those long
amino-acids would do me more good than a million raw vege-enzymes. I
also enjoyed a half-bottle of chianti and recalled K's words that life
is to be lived, not repressed, and Gurdgieff's pointed remark, 'if
eat, then eat!'

Mina: Good to hear! One senses it is the suppression that is the problem, and not the enjoying of one's meal (or doing anything else at all) in gratitude and whole-heartedly.

This post was last updated by Mina Martini Thu, 28 Oct 2010.

Paul Davidson wrote:
Today I ate trout. That may not seem a grand statement and hardly rebellious, and believe me, it was not an act of rebellion at all. But I am staying at a K school and apparently it is an act of betrayal.

So you weren't a rebel but you were a traitor.

nick carter wrote:
traitor.

trouter:)
gb

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

Paul Davidson wrote:
Yes. How is this force felt in your everyday existance, Sunyata? Can you write about a challenge you have faced in this respect?

Dear Paul,
It is felt like that the ocean is being churned!. In Hindu "mythology", Devatas (good people) and the demons (bad people) churned the ocean to get "nectar" and finally the devatas got the "nectar".

This writer is going back in time to find the reasons why one is acting one way or other (both father side and mother side). He has not completed this study (the hindus call it as "karma"). What all this writer can say is that "one's', a human being is impritend with "killing" ( 5 or 6 times aday), then it becomes part of human consciousness), then the person will see it as "Right". This kind of thinking should undergo a "mutation".

Regards
Sunyata

This post was last updated by sunyata sunyata Fri, 29 Oct 2010.

sunyata sunyata wrote:
This writer is going back in time to find the reasons why one is acting one way or other (both father side and mother side). He has not completed this study

Thank you Sunyata. It may not be necessary to go so far back to begin the understanding and therefore the healing. Because it is in everyday life that one can best observe one's hinderences, when they are at work. The acts of the past are now dead and as the Jesus character said, "Let the dead bury the dead."

Trying to understand the past is like digging a huge hole. One digs and digs and never gets to the bottom of it. That is the nature of holes, the bottom is being constantly recreated by the digging. And at the end of it you cannot change the past. The question is, why am I still in the hole I am in, and not, how did I get here?

Do you see what I mean?

There is another side of you that has no past. It has yet to come together. It comes together through the sensitivity of observation in the present, in actual life.

What are you waiting for?

Paul Davidson wrote:
And at the end of it you cannot change the past.

Nobody can change the past, agreed. However, one can "learn" from the past.

sunyata sunyata wrote:
What all this writer can say is that "one's', a human being is impritend with "killing" ( 5 or 6 times aday), then it becomes part of human consciousness), then the person will see it as "Right". This kind of thinking should undergo a "mutation

The reason I stated the above is that certain sects of humanity preach the above constantly to its followers. Luckily, this writer belongs to a very old culture where non-violence/truthfullness is a requirement/corner stone for any human/spirtitual advancement (that's how this follower received from the system).

Regards
Sunyata

Paul Davidson wrote:
Trying to understand the past is like digging a huge hole. One digs and digs and never gets to the bottom of it. That is the nature of holes, the bottom is being constantly recreated by the digging.

So let's just bury the whole endeavor of history. Let's just burn and bulldoze all evidence of the past and skip around with smiley faces spewing positive affirmations.

nick carter wrote:
Let's just burn and bulldoze all evidence of the past and skip around with smiley faces

We are discussing past experiences, Nick, and what we can learn from them. The question is whether understanding comes from pawing over past hurts or whether it can only come from facing squarely one's new experiences in the moment that they are occurring, which is being in the now.

One cannot re-experience the past and therefore all one is doing when trying to understand in retrospect what one did not understand at the time is analysing dead stuff, taking the watch to pieces in the endeavour to find out what made it tick.

Experience is like a meal. One takes it in but does not necessarily digest it. The body only absorbs fragments, then passes the rest out. One cannot pine and paw over this residue and wish to eat again what the body failed to digest first time. There is no nutrition in it now. It is dead. That is not what I call 'nouveau cuisine.'

One must move on and look for this day's food. What you missed, you missed. OK, you got badly hurt as a child. But you are not a child now. Are you present, here, now? What can you learn today?

Understanding can only come in the present when dealing wholly with the relationship one is actually facing, now. It is not a question of burying the past, Nick, but of being buried in one's particular past, the story of one's pile of confusions. That is the hole we are digging. You say, keep digging. I say, leave the hole. But that doesn't mean, bury the hole! Let the hole bury itself. Let the past bury itself.

Truth is in everyday life, now, not in the dead past and likewise, not in some fanciful or metaphysical conception, and also, not in some future time.

Facing oneself in the present moment is not to have a smiley face or to be an optimist. It is not a strategy to bring ephemeral happiness. In fact it will probably bring you more distress, if and when you see how inadequately you face the world each day, if you really look at it.

If you have truly understood an experience in the present, only then can that understanding apply itself to the past, which is precisely the dissolution of the past, not its resurrection.

In analysis, the past is resurrected and disected, which leads to paralysis of present action. Present action is put aside while the past dominates attention. This is an escape from the present, not a means to understand it.

The opportunity presented by this forum is to encourage attention to the daily life in order to better understand how we are ordered by life, manipulated and conditioned and what is it in us that allows this, what it is that is behind our suseptability to be controlled by events rather than to control those events. Why we are turned inside out.

As long as we are divided internally we will be ruled by 'life.'

It remains to be seen whether or not people are willing to use this opportunity to relate everyday experience or whether they are not, in which case the forum will have no value and will become another theoretical talking shop.

What are you waiting for?

This post was last updated by Paul Davidson (account deleted) Sat, 30 Oct 2010.

Paul Davidson wrote:
Today I ate trout.

It's not an act of treachery or rebellion. It's killing. That's all.

Some killing is necessary to live. Your body automatically kills off a certain number of micro-organisms. But we can kill a lot less than many of us choose to.

Thank you for the times you have not killed.

Paul Davidson wrote:
We are discussing past experiences, Nick, and what we can learn from them. The question is whether understanding comes from pawing over past hurts or whether it can only come from facing squarely one's new experiences in the moment that they are occurring, which is being in the now.

You can't "be in the now" if the past isn't behind you, and the past can't be behind you if you're not "in the now". Do you want the reader to believe that you are in the now, and that you're not, like everyone else, responding conditionally, then glancing back at the mess you've made, choosing to ignore, justify, rationalize, or deny it because there's no use "pawing over past hurts"?

Be accountable. Honestly acknowledge your mistakes and quit pretending to be what you're not.

nick carter wrote:
Do you want the reader to believe that you are in the now

No, Nick. I do not want the reader to believe that. And I have not said that. There is nothing I have said that would indicate it. You are side-stepping the real content in order top stoke up more controversy, which is a childish game.

So, having refuted your claim that I want to 'bury the past' we go to the next episode of the game and I refute that also.

There is a great difference, Nick, between having a critical mind and merely opposing something.

nick carter wrote:
Be accountable. Honestly acknowledge your mistakes and quit pretending to be what you're not.

But Nick, recalling all your many postings, I cannot remember one instance where you acknowledged a mistake. It is all attack, attack, attack. It is you who pretend to be an anti-Krishnamurtian, and yet when there is an opening to think newly about something you reflex the other way and say, 'This should have no place on a site dedicated to the teachings of Krishnamurti!" and "Where do you get such stuff?"

It is all reflex oppositionism and quite boring.

Now here, on this forum you have ample opportunity to examine your own life experiences but instead, you posture.

What are you waiting for?

Paul Davidson wrote:
But Nick, recalling all your many postings, I cannot remember one instance where you acknowledged a mistake. It is all attack, attack, attack. It is you who pretend to be an anti-Krishnamurtian, and yet when there is an opening to think newly about something you reflex the other way and say, 'This should have no place on a site dedicated to the teachings of Krishnamurti!" and "Where do you get such stuff?"
It is all reflex oppositionism and quite boring.
Now here, on this forum you have ample opportunity to examine your own life experiences but instead, you posture.

Talk about "attack". Be specific. When I criticize you, you know exactly why. I don't generalize. In this case in particular, you talk about "being in the now", then, when asked whether you expect the reader to believe you're in the now, you practically deny having said anything about it.

I don't attack. I criticize, and I have to say there's far too little critical thinking in this forum, and far too much platitudinizing purporting to be "an opening to think newly about something". Nothing you've said so far is even remotely new. It's all recycled positivity and feel-good bromides.

Paul Davidson wrote:
staff, students and mature students, are told that they should not eat any meat or fish when outside the complex, lest they bring back the bad energy pertaining to that practice.
So, having returned a little late from visiting my aging and ailing parents I stopped off to eat at an Italian restaurant in a nearby town and perviewing the menu I wanted the grilled trout.

And he ate the trout. And he posted the fact online for all - including, "staff, students, and mature students" - to read. Why? Why does he want them all to know what a bad boy he is?

NIck, it is actually impossible to have any sort of dialogue with you and from now on I will not try.

What are you waiting for?

I didn't know you were trying. You just say what you say, whether its pointed at me or not. I just keep pointing out things you say that I question or find fault with. That's what a discussion forum is all about. You post words and others comment on what you've posted. Actual dialogue is impossible in this forum because nobody does any thinking. Everyone just falls back on their stuff, and when you suggest that their stuff is rubbish, they get angry and hurt.

Paul Davidson wrote:
There is another side of you that has no past. It has yet to come together. It comes together through the sensitivity of observation in the present, in actual life.

Dear Paul,

There are no two sides of "consciousness". It has "content" (an illusory content) and one has to wipe out (burn) this content for "new" to happen.

As long as one lives in "space and time", one can not bulldoze the past. It's a catch 22 situation. If this writer is not mistaken, K had said that one has to accept "what one is" and try not to bulldoze it or not to ignore it. Just "aware" of it!

Regards
Sunyata

sunyata sunyata wrote:
There are no two sides of "consciousness". It has "content" (an illusory content) and one has to wipe out (burn) this content for "new" to happen.

If we can agree about consciousness, Sunyata, if we are actually seeing the same thing, then maybe we can also look together at the other thing I am referring to, that which does not yet exist.

Your statement is correct in the sense that the whole of consciousness, the entire structure that we have created, is useless from the standpoint of finding truth.

And further, I am saying that we do have the capacity to find truth but that this capacity, not being part of the above consciousness, has yet to come into existance and so, has no history. To say that we have something but that it does not yet exist is a paradox. But words create paradox when we try to describe the indescribable. To be more concrete however it could be said that mind has a capacity for unity which it has never yet discovered in itself.

sunyata sunyata wrote:
K had said that one has to accept "what one is" and try not to bulldoze it or not to ignore it.

This seems true to me, Sunyata. And it is not just that one 'should not' bulldoze the past - one cannot! If you suppress the past, which is consciousness, it becomes the unconscious and acts from there, which is what actually happens.

So there is no danger of 'burying the past. This is a myth. One cannot do it. The actual danger we face, the actual situation we are in, is the bulldozing of the present, by the past. And when we are willfully directing our attention to the past, to resolve it (which is also impossible), we are burying the present.

The past is an escape. Sentiment about sediment!

What are you waiting for?

Paul Davidson wrote:
So there is no danger of 'burying the past. This is a myth. One cannot do it. The actual danger we face, the actual situation we are in, is the bulldozing of the present, by the past. And when we are willfully directing our attention to the past, to resolve it (which is also impossible), we are burying the present.

This is quite a mouthful and I wonder if you've even masticated it, let alone digested it. You admit you can do nothing about the past that demands resolution, but you advocate not trying to resolve it for the sake of the present. If you think you can be entirely present when the past is demanding resolution you're seriously deluded.

Paul,

It would have been surprising if you were not an alcohol drinking, meat eater. Do you smoke, too? It's the big 3, you know? :)

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

Dean R. Smith wrote:
It would have been surprising if you were not an alcohol drinking, meat eater. Do you smoke, too? It's the big 3, you know? :)

Dean, you are of course welcome to post on this forum, as elsewhere, but as I have stated previously, I do not enter into insulting and sarcastic mutual harranges, which only result in inflating negative emotions. If you have no better occupation for your time then I certainly do. I will not answer any more postings from you.

What are you waiting for?

Dean R. Smith wrote:
It would have been surprising if you were not an alcohol drinking, meat eater. Do you smoke, too? It's the big 3, you know? :)

Paul Davidson wrote:
Dean, you are of course welcome to post on this forum, as elsewhere, but as I have stated previously, I do not enter into insulting and sarcastic mutual harranges, which only result in inflating negative emotions. If you have no better occupation for your time then I certainly do. I will not answer any more postings from you.

My guess is that if he felt guilty about eating fish, he probably doesn't smoke. I'd be surprised if anyone at Brockwood smokes, but who knows?

nick carter wrote:
My guess is that if he felt guilty about eating fish, he probably doesn't smoke. I'd be surprised if anyone at Brockwood smokes, but who knows?

It doesn't make sense to be insulted because someone is not surprised about the way you confirm you are. He said he drank vino and ate meat, but he's insulted because someone said it's not a surprise that he's an alcohol drinking meat eater.

Here's a news flash, Nick: The world is full of hypocrites and some of the worst are those that are involved with J. K's teachings.

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