u/JellyfishExpress8943

In our last dialogue the question of methods and paths to liberation came up again - which necessarily includes the question of sudden or gradual awakening.

I found a couple of quotes from K to start us off - with the reminder that we are experimenting with our capacity to listen without resistance.   Resistance being the sign of authority - be it K’s authority as the guru, the authority of what I already know, or the authority of what I want.

I like the 4 Noble Truths of Buddhism, and its Eightfold path - but what K says also seems to make sense - does this mean I’m suffering from a form of cognitive dissonance?  That I’m being intellectually dishonest?

>Real change is possible only from the known to the unknown, not from the known to the known. 

>In the change from the known to the known, there is authority - “You know, I do not know. Therefore, I worship you, I create a system, I go after a guru, I follow you because you are giving me what I want to know, you are giving me a certainty of conduct that will produce the result, the success and the result.” 
Success is the known. I know what it is to be successful. That is what I want. So we proceed from the known to the known in which authority must exist—the authority of sanction, the authority of the leader, the guru, the hierarchy, the one who knows and the other who does not know—and the one who knows must guarantee me the success, the success in my endeavor, in change, so that I will be happy, I will have what I want. Is that not the motive for most of us to change? 
Do please observe your own thinking, and you will see the ways of your own life and conduct.

>Change, revolution, is something from the known to the unknown in which there is no authority, in which there may be total failure. But if you are assured that you will achieve, you will succeed, you will be happy, you will have everlasting life, then there is no problem. Then you pursue the well-known course of action, which is, yourself being always at the center of things.   

____________________________

>You know, when you see a snake, a wild animal, instinctively there is fear; that is a normal, healthy, natural fear. 

>But the psychological protection of oneself—that is, the desire to be always certain—breeds fear. A mind that is seeking always to be certain is a dead mind, because there is no certainty in life, there is no permanency...When you come directly into contact with fear, there is a response of the nerves and all the rest of it.
Then, when the mind is no longer escaping through words or through activity of any kind, there is no division between the observer and the thing observed as fear. It is only the mind that is escaping that separates itself from fear. But when there is a direct contract with fear, there is no observer, there is no entity that says, “I am afraid.” So, the moment you are directly in contact with life, with anything, there is no division—it is this division that breeds competition, ambition, fear. 

>So what is important is not “how to be free of fear?” If you seek a way, a method, a system to be rid of fear, you will be everlastingly caught in fear. But if you understand fear—which can only take place when you come directly in contact with it, as you are in contact with hunger, as you are directly in contact when you are threatened with losing your job—then you do something; only then will you find that all fear ceases—we mean all fear, not fear of this kind or of that kind.  

(Krishnamurti, the book of life)

nb. we're meeting this Saturday on Zoom at 5:30pm CEST (thats 9pm in India and 11:30am EDT) - message me if you'd like an invite/link

Does the Eightfold Path actually lead anywhere (like Nirvana)? Or could it be better described as the practice of enlightened living?

The Eightfold Path follows from the Four Noble Truths, which were the first teachings Gautama Buddha gave after his awakening:

1)The truth of suffering (ie. suffering is unavoidable)

2)The cause of suffering (ie. the self centered experience of fear/desire - dogma, karma, and illusion of independent existence are also often mentioned)

3)The solution to suffering (ie. insight into and freedom from the process of suffering)

4)The path to the end of suffering (ie. the correct practise).

The Eightfold Path then describes forms of enlightened or “right” living, including speech, action, effort, mindfulness, and concentration.

If we take "Right concentration", it basically points to the correct focus of someone who understands that self-centered activity, be that mental, emotional or behavioural, is the source of all suffering in the world. Right concentration means meditation, it means being woke to the process of self, it means enlightened action/attention.

Right action is less about doing some specific action in order to obtain future goods, and more about allowing awareness to loosen the grip of self - moment by moment - so that action becomes less driven by fear, desire, and psychological conditioning.

Nirvana in this context, means living with insight into the Four Noble Truths: that suffering is the movement of self-concern. 

Through awareness of this process, we become less governed by the process, and therefore more capable of right speech, right conduct, right effort, right concentration, and so on.
“Right” means acting with the understanding of suffering and the avoidance of harm.

Does the Eightfold Path actually lead anywhere (like Nirvana)? Or could it be better described as the practice of enlightened living?

The Eightfold Path follows from the Four Noble Truths, which were the first teachings Gautama Buddha gave after his awakening:

1)The truth of suffering (ie. suffering is unavoidable)

2)The cause of suffering (ie. the self centered experience of fear/desire - dogma, karma, and illusion of independent existence are also often mentioned)

3)The solution to suffering (ie. insight into and freedom from the process of suffering)

4)The path to the end of suffering (ie. the correct practise).

The Eightfold Path then describes forms of enlightened or “right” living, including speech, action, effort, mindfulness, and concentration.

If we take "Right concentration", it basically points to the correct focus of someone who understands that self-centered activity, be that mental, emotional or behavioural, is the source of all suffering in the world. Right concentration means meditation, it means being woke to the process of self, it means enlightened action/attention.

Right action is less about doing some specific action in order to obtain future goods, and more about allowing awareness to loosen the grip of self - moment by moment - so that action becomes less driven by fear, desire, and psychological conditioning.

Nirvana in this context, means living with insight into the Four Noble Truths: that suffering is the movement of self-concern. 

Through awareness of this process, we become less governed by the process, and therefore more capable of right speech, right conduct, right effort, right concentration, and so on.
“Right” means acting with the understanding of suffering and the avoidance of harm.

Does the Eightfold Path actually lead anywhere (like Nirvana)? Or could it be better described as the practice of enlightened living?

The Eightfold Path follows from the Four Noble Truths, which were the first teachings Gautama Buddha gave after his awakening:

1)The truth of suffering (ie. suffering is unavoidable)

2)The cause of suffering (ie. the self centered experience of fear/desire - dogma, karma, and illusion of independent existence are also often mentioned)

3)The solution to suffering (ie. insight into and freedom from the process of suffering)

4)The path to the end of suffering (ie. the correct practise).

The Eightfold Path then describes forms of enlightened or “right” living, including speech, action, effort, mindfulness, and concentration.

If we take "Right concentration", it basically points to the correct focus of someone who understands that self-centered activity, be that mental, emotional or behavioural, is the source of all suffering in the world. Right concentration means meditation, it means being woke to the process of self, it means enlightened action/attention.

Right action is less about doing some specific action in order to obtain future goods, and more about allowing awareness to loosen the grip of self - moment by moment - so that action becomes less driven by fear, desire, and psychological conditioning.

Nirvana in this context, means living with insight into the Four Noble Truths: that suffering is the movement of self-concern. 

Through awareness of this process, we become less governed by the process, and therefore more capable of right speech, right conduct, right effort, right concentration, and so on.
“Right” means acting with the understanding of suffering and the avoidance of harm.

What do we mean by the word “spirituality”?  

Often it seems to be related to crystals, chakras, auras, ghosts or the worship of dangerous, violent gurus.  And these behaviors seem to be motivated by some desire for happiness that might be acquired via magical means.

And the more sceptical amongst us are turned away by this kind of behavior.  Spirituality looks like dangerous nonsense, like a form of confused, weirdly oriented greed.

Would it be helpful if we knew what we meant by the word?  Would an understanding of the concept be useful?

Here’s a modern definition : Spirituality relates to the search for meaning and purpose, connection to the sacred, the transcendent, or to the inner-self.  And we can also say that it's got something to do with the “spirit”.

Unfortunately that's still a long way off from useful - at best it's vague; nearly word salad.  

A useful definition of Spirituality includes an understanding that Spirit is an old word which could be replaced by mind or consciousness.  That by sacred meaning and purpose we mean the highest essence and values of humanity - and that which needs to be transcended is the incoherent (ie. harmful) behavior of our inner-self (ie. psyche).

Such an understanding could transform the Spiritual mind from a movement of greed based in the supernatural, to a movement of curiosity akin to an interest in Psychology, self-awareness or the Philosophy of mind.

As an aside : meditation is a concept that is shared by both the woo and the rational branches of spirituality - for some meditation is a magical means to an end, for others it's the state of choiceless awareness - an allowance for compassion and intelligence moment to moment.

https://preview.redd.it/8sydo0rz35yg1.jpg?width=704&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ff0de8376a8618044fa3550dca5955d416140311

David Bohm tells us that :

>"If five or six people get together, they can usually adjust to each other so that they don’t say the things that upset each other - they get a “cozy adjustment.” People can easily be very polite to each other and avoid the issues that may cause trouble.

>It is clear that if we are to live in harmony.. we need to be able to communicate freely in a creative movement in which no one permanently holds to or otherwise defends his own ideas.

>Why then is it so difficult actually to bring about such communication? This is a very complex and subtle question".

What if we turned our world upside down by playing a game? So that we might be freed from acting in the proper manner? Let's make it fun to speak freely. Let's experiment with our emotions and beliefs.

The game is called "why I believe". Everyone can participate - but we do need some brave souls to share a strongly or deeply held belief.

So if you could all think of some beliefs you have about the world, eg. Karma is real, the god of my religion is real, souls are real, we never went to the moon etc.. whatever it might be. And those that feel okay about sharing those beliefs can share them this Saturday.

And we'll take it from there - if we have some beliefs to share we'll play a game based loosely on SE - if not, we can share why.

Life as we know it, our daily life, is a process of becoming. I am poor and I act with an end in view, which is to become rich. I am ugly and I want to become beautiful. Now, this becoming is strife, this becoming is pain, it is not? It is a constant struggle: I am this, and I want to become that.

Self-knowledge, comes into being when we.. see ourselves as we actually are. But most of us are incapable of looking at ourselves, because we immediately begin to condemn or justify what we see. (Krishnamurti, the book of life)

Freedom implies acceptance and forgiveness. In dialogue we give ourselves space to be who we are.

During dialogue we sometimes wish for cohesion - that we all be on the same wavelength - that we finally manage to agree with each other, that we dialogue in the proper manner - whatever that means.

What does dialogue mean to you? What are you expecting from our meetings? How do we deal with our expectations?

We are still new to this whole idea of dialogue. This week, let's look at a couple of key concepts as proposed by David Bohm : Suspension & Coherence.

Suspension is the idea that we suspend (as in pause and hold up for inspection) our opinions and reactions.

Coherence is about whether our thoughts, our intentions and our brains are in phase.

We can start our next dialogue with these words and questions, and see where that takes us - see you there, its this Saturday 18th April at 5:30pm CEST (thats 9pm in India and 11:30am EDT)

nb. message me or comment if you'd like a zoom invite

I felt so sentenced by your words,
I felt so judged and sent away,
Before I go I’ve got to know
Was that what you meant to say?

Before I rise to my defense,
Before I speak in hurt or fear,
Before I build that wall of words,
Tell me, did I really hear?

Words are windows, or they’re walls.
They sentence us, or set us free.
When I speak and when I hear,
Let the love light shine through me.
There are things I need to say,
Things that mean so much to me,
If my words don’t made me clear,
Will you help me to be free?
If I seemed to put you down,
If you felt I didn’t care,
Try to listen through my words
To the feelings that we share.

by Ruth Bebermeyer