Theos-Talk Archives (December 1997 Message tl00042)

I know I'm committing the sin of posting the same thing on two lists.
However, I just finished posting this to the theos-talk, when your post
popped up.  I thought what I just wrote goes with your post.

Krishnamurti:  A state of awareness is observation "without justification,
without condemnation and without identification".  It is observation of
truth and false, as opposed to good or bad.  It doesn't mean that you have
to give up your morals, etc., but it means subordinating it to pure
observation.  The mind has several weaknesses that creates conflict.
Firstly, it divides the totality into pieces where we often see only a very
tiny part of the picture.  Secondly, it is often not in the present.
Relying on our past prejudices and conditioning makes us generalize a
situation instead of seeing it for its freshness.  Lastly, it is strong in
"I".  "I" is inevitable because fragmentizing forces us to side with a
particular piece.  It takes ego and "I" to take up a cause.

Jung:  We need to know our total self, shadow and light, in order to be
aware of evil.  We need to know ourselves at our very best, and at our very
worst.  We have to realize that both are realities, both shadow and light,
both are a part of us, and both require loving.  In this way, we will not
delude ourselves.  In this way, we will become more moral.  Working with
our shadow forces us to be responsible for our actions, to be aware of
them, to realize our duality, to rid ourselves of our perfect ideals, and,
in getting rid of them, we judge less and open our hearts more.

Hegel:  In dialectic, an idea (thesis) will cause its opposite
(antithesis), and yet they mutually interpenetrate.  The more extreme an
idea, the more extreme its antithesis.  For example, a nation of extreme
conservatism will eventually cause a nation of extreme liberalism.

Unless we're arhats or been lobotomized, we each have plenty of
opportunities to observe conflicts within ourselves and others.  In each of
those observations, condemnation for an idea will only cause a greater
defending of an opposing idea.  We become separated, our shadow from the
light.  As light forces itself, so will shadow rear its head in opposition.


Thoa :o)







>In ML to APS, there is a statement that leave your world and you have to
>come to ours. Looks like what K talks about in the following excerpt a
>friend e-mailed me. Worth thinking about.
>
>mkr
>==================================================
>
>
>  Questioner:  You say that we should revolt against society, and at same
>               time you say that we should not have ambition.  Is not the
>               desire to improve society an ambition?
>
>  Krishnamurti:  I have very carefully explained what I mean by revolt, but
>  I shall use two different words to make it much clearer.  To revolt within
>  society in order to make it a little better, to bring about certain
>  reforms, is like the revolt of prisoners to improve their life within the
>  prison walls;  and such revolt is no revolt at all, it is just mutiny.  Do
>  you see the difference?  Revolt within society is like the mutiny of
>  prisoners who want better food, better treatment within the prison;  but
>  revolt born of understanding is an individual breaking away from society,
>  and that is creative revolution.
>    Now, if you as an individual break away from society, is that action
>  motivated by ambition?  If it is, then you have not broken away at all, you
>  are still within the prison, because the very basis of society is ambition,
>  acquisitiveness, greed.  But if you understand all that and bring about a
>  revolution in your own heart and mind, then you are no longer ambitious,
>  you are no longer motivated by envy, greed, acquisitiveness, and therefore
>  you will be entirely outside of a society which is based on those things.
>  Then you are a creative individual and in your action there will be the
>  seed of a different culture.
>    So there is a vast difference between the action of creative revolution,
>  and the action of revolt or mutiny within society.  As long as you are
>  concerned with mere reform, with decorating the bars and walls of the
>  prison, you are not creative.  Reformation always needs further reform, it
>  only brings more misery, more destruction.  Whereas, the mind that
>  understands this whole structure of acquisitiveness, of greed, of ambition
>  and breaks away from it--such a mind is in constant revolution.  It is an
>  expansive, a creative mind;  therefore, like a stone thrown into a pool of
>  still water, its action produces waves, and those waves will form a
>  different civilization altogether."
>                       -- Krishnamurti, "Think On These Things", pp. 155-156