r/Krishnamurti

"Sorrow is part of our self-interest, is part of our egotistic self-centred activity. I cry for another, for my son, brother, mother – why? Because I have lost something that I am attached to, lost something which gave me companionship, comfort, etc. And with that ending of that person I realise how utterly empty my life is, or how lonely my life is, and then I cry. And there are many, many thousands of people ready to comfort me, and I slip very easily into that network, into the trap of comfort. There is the comfort of God, which is an image put together by thought, or the comfort of some illusory concept, idea, but it gives me comfort and that is all I care. But I never question the very urge, the desire for comfort, whether there is any comfort at all.⁠"

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J. Krishnamurti⁠

Bombay (Mumbai) 1985 - Public Talk 3 - Sorrow is part of our self-centred activity⁠

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A couple months ago, I heard someone tell a story of a pilot who'd died in a crash on a nearby lake, in a training exercise during WWII. They had worked on the lake when drought exposed part of the propeller and fuselage that'd remained hidden all these years.

He talked about what was known of the pilot. He had come back from many successful, daring missions abroad to train new pilots at home. They talked about what good things people said of his character, of how he'd signed up immediately to protect his community. He began to break down as he told of his young age, only 23 years old when he died on the lake. The story teller apologized and had to take a break.

The idea of this self-sacrifice for the greater good was too much for them, they said. Their own brother was also 23, they relayed, as they became overwhelmed by emotion. Several people tried to comfort him, moved by the apparent sympathy for someone who'd died some +80 years ago. In a few moments they had talked themselves through to somewhere more comfortable and were able to continue.

And now we are asking if this wasn't all self-pity and questioning comfort. So he wasn't really crying for the young man who died in the 1940's: he was reacting to his sentiment. His body felt sorrow relaying the story, from fear of his own death and attachments. From that discomfort his brain predicted sorrow, and then the tears flowed. For at least several minutes.

Kinda messed up when you think about it? That even talking about another persons death, a stranger or a loved one, we only think of ourself?

I could never say to this person, "hey, this is your own selfish pity, knock it off." But I do think there is something to watch in sorrow myself here.

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I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on Krishnamurti, and, to be honest, I’ve come to a controversial conclusion. While his message was about freedom from authority, isn’t it ironic that he became an authority himself, with books, talks, and institutions? Could his rejection of being a guru have been a clever way to draw people in, reverse psychology, perhaps? I’m not saying this lightly, but could he have been, in some sense, a grifter? Would love to hear everyone’s thoughts—am I missing something?

K says, “Be aware,” & also says, “There is no center or self,” & “self is an illusion.”

If there is no self or center, then who is interested in being aware? Doesn’t it feel like attaching one more thought to another thought?

"You know, the clever people, the intellectuals have examined all this, the outward processes; they have examined the churches, the beliefs, the dogmas, the saviours, and after examining, they are in despair; and out of despair they have a philosophy to accept the immediate, and to live as completely in the immediate as possible, in the now. I don’t mean that at all. That, any materialistic, any shallow person can do. That’s very easy, not to think about tomorrow, but to live completely today. That’s what most of us do, unfortunately. We don’t have to be very clever. We live for today. That today is extended into many tomorrows. I don’t mean that at all. I mean to die, to deny ambition totally, completely and immediately. That is, to die psychologically to the social structure so that your mind is never caught in time, in ambition to be something or not to be."

https://kfoundation.org/transcript/public-talk-1-london-5-june-1962/

Interesting comparison to the modern "in the now" guru movement.

To live in the now or to die psychologically? I suppose some will argue that to live in the now is to die to the past/future in the same sense, so why is a distinction apparently drawn here? Can I not be relatively in the "now" and yet still carry in my unconcious time, the social structure, ambition..?

Can anyone explain what j k meant by the observer is the observed

I have spent the last few days trying to understand what this word truly means

The root meaning of the word is to seek after

But what am seeking after?

Do I inquiring into something trying to find the answer?

Before inquiring do I need to know or have a sense of what I’m going to find?

Well that’s not inquiring truly.

That’s programmatic questioning

So I went deep and deeper

I spent all day, searching for an answer, why?

Because there has to be a true meaning of inquiring that it is undeniably true.

So what is it?

Then I realized something.

What if inquiring truly means to question something not hoping to have an answer?

Or to search for something not knowing what you will find

What kind of mental state is that?

Is that mental state even possible?

That’s when I realized it

Inquiring means the search for what’s not there, the questioning without not knowing.

But the questions that hit me was

How can you know what you don’t know?

How can you use what you know to find what you don’t know?

You can find what you know by remembering. Simple.

But how can you find what you don’t know?

Do you use the mental state of knowing to look for what you don’t know?

See the inequality

Any mathematical equation will tell you that 2 does not equal 3

So if you want to dive into what you don’t know, you need to have a "don’t know” mind.

Drop all your knowledge, forget who you are, put it aside. Act like a baby who just came to this world.

Then you will enter into the field of the unknown.

From there you question what you don’t know.

Why are you all here apart of this Reddit group? I’m asking humbly. Are we not still seeking hoping even worshipping K and his words? Are we not still acting from the self? Are we here out of habit, pattern, and being afraid of letting it all go including K? For myself I am guilty of all the above

He made me realised that the cause of psychological suffering is thought that has divided itself as a me and my thoughts. Sufficient viewing of his videos really help

I see so many people in society trying to reach for something

And I look at them and I feel like they are going to path that has an end

And of course I ended up being right

The fulfillment happens but then it is not enough

Like someone who’s trying to reach a level

They get it the level and realize there’s no level

All of this things J Krisnamurti has been talking about it for years

K has realized this since he was almost 20 or 30 years.

And this is bizarre and also scary for K

He was living in a world in which he was the only one who truly understood life and was eager to dive into it without having chains of knowledge preventing further exploration into it

At the same time, this should serve as a warning to all of us who are in this journey

You are going to feel more isolated then ever because there is not a lot of people who are eager to explore life like you are

What’s desire?

Wanting something that it is not there.

So the thought jumps him, and gives you what you want in that moment.

However, the issue is that thought needs to work itself to give you the illusion of having what you want.

Then when it gives you what you want. But it needs to be constantly thinking about it so you "feel" you have it.

However, you are going into loop of thought for the benefit of having constant desire. So you gonna want more and more.

But what’s wrong with that?

Nothing.

It is just dissipation of energy.

Thought needs energy to operate itself. And it is not using that energy to give you want, and by doing that, it is also keeping itself alive. Because thought needs to operate, it has its own "body".

But thought, who’s constantly thinking about desire is harming you without knowing it is harming you.

That’s why it is important for you to see thought for what thought is.

A reactive engine loop that doesn’t have a fixed pattern. It is dynamically choosing its own pattern of thinking.

Linear thinking, circular thinking,etc are patterns that thought uses intelligently to operate depending on the situation, and the materials it has in front of it.

So trying to be beat thought, it is like trying to beat someone who has all the data about you and it knows you, like trying to beat your own hand.

Is K basically just asking us to remember that our brains are not ours alone? Like, I feel like he appeals to objectivity, in a way; like, we take our brains very personally, but when you think about it: yeah! There is an element of all this that has literally nothing to [do] with my preferences, my desires, ect. It's just... the brain; ya know? Our brain.

A parent's attachment to her adult children individually is isolating each of her adult children and preventing the flowering of relationship between the adult children themselves.

Prognosis? 🤔

I have listened to a growing number of excerpts from K lectures at this point. Initially it felt really cryptic due to his constratints to be able to express himself, but I think I am starting to have a better grasp at what he says.​

However, I am having an issue with an idea. When he talks about fear and loneliness, he seems to talk about it being a thought pro​​cess of sorts that is generated by identifying with the word or concept instead of really grabbing at the real thing.

However if you hear the koan "Eat when you are hungry, sleep when you are t​ired", you would get the idea that if we go beyond words, "lonely" would​ be ad​dressed by "socialization". So loneliness is phy​siological phenomene of your body just as much as hunger and being tired.

All in all, as someone who has never had a relationship in his 29 years of life​ I feel conflicted if a "stable relationship" would be a game that gets me. On the other hand I empirically feel that my body craves stability as such.

Any thoughts? I feel like wanting stability as such is a farce, but on the other hand I also feel like my body will eventually give out if needs are not met.