The Book of Yourself Newsletter
Issue 36: November 2024
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That we are the world is demonstrably true. The inner is the outer. Society is the expression of our conditioning in relationship with things, people and ideas. Our time-bound consciousness, which is the common ground of mankind, is the field of reality. Our identities are the product of thought in its search for meaning, security and immortality. Desire, pleasure, fear and sorrow are the revolving active principles of the self-centered movement of consciousness. Self-interest, with its comparative measurements, reduces existence, which is relationship, to a series of calculated actions. Our identities, with all their attachments and escapes, are inherently divisive and as such condemn us to an everlasting round of conflict with each other and with ourselves. That’s perhaps why K viewed this whole psychological dynamic as inherently self-contradictory and destructive, as the radial space of thought in which there is no love. And there is no question that, judging by the current state of the world, something is definitely rotten in the State of Denmark.
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One of the things that keeps coming across to me in relation to this chaotic state is the pervasive sense of avoidance and obfuscation of the issues that really matter. We are being deliberately kept in the dark about the true nature of what is taking place. The information is out there and is being provided by such trustworthy sources as the UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine, Francesca Albanese, principled historians like Ilan Pappé or conscientious reporters like Gideon Levy and Chris Hedges. They provide a reliable knowledge of facts as well as of the relevant and applicable international legislation, but their testimonies are systematically ignored or else subjected to a barrage of biased and aggressive questioning in the mainstream media. The latter limits itself to providing the daily number of casualties and to quoting exculpatory declarations from those directly responsible for the genocide. This word is not even uttered, whereas it is the obvious and universal verdict being pronounced by the UN representatives and international human rights agencies on the ground. The collusion is massive and seems to have no other purpose than to support the sinister status quo. Power is evil and our news agencies seem to have become the willing servants of Sauron.
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Of course one can go on railing against all this until the cows come home, but that becomes its own distraction. Such problems cannot be solved at their own level because they have deeper causes. We need to delve past the surface phenomena, however devastating and tragic, to uncover the actual sources of the profound sickness afflicting mankind. Our daily occupation with specific issues causes us to lose sight of their universal source and implications; in other words, we cannot see the forest for the trees. This piecemeal approach becomes an impediment to real understanding and, however necessary, it is ultimately ineffective because it is only a palliative treatment, not a radical one. If our earlier statement that we are the world is true, then the radical approach involves every one of us, for we all share in the same consciousness, and it is in consciousness where the real answers are to be found. And that means we have to stop fooling around and become serious about it.
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The quality of seriousness is to pursue to the very end a thought, an idea, a feeling; to go to the very end of it, not to be dissuaded by any other factor, to enquire into every thought to the very end of it, whatever may happen to you, even if you have to starve in that process, lose all your property, everything; to go to the very end of thought is to be serious.
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Krishnamurti on Education, pg. 67
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K’s view of seriousness is as radical as the radical approach it is meant to inform. It involves such a total commitment that we must be willing to face every calamity, to lose all our property and even starve. And what would we be risking it all for? To pursue or inquire into every thought and feeling to the very end, delving past their phenomenal display in order to discover, to begin with, whether they are true or false. But something deeper than tracing every thought to its source is being called for, namely going to the very end, and perhaps the ending, of thought itself. And why would this journey to the end of thought be of such significance that we should be willing to die for it? We human beings are willing to die for so many things, but going to the end of thought is not on the list. That’s because we are not aware that our life is in a mess because thinking makes it so and therefore, if we are to solve our human problems, it is of vital importance that we understand the true nature and function of thought, for without such understanding there will be no order, peace and creative happiness in ourselves or in the world.
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That is a diagnosis that one does not find practically anywhere else. We are all trusting that thinking is the one instrument that can solve our problems. After all, it appears to be able to solve so many of them by incessantly advancing its scientific knowledge and its adjunct technical applications. Give it enough time, and it will find the anwer. But thought as such does not seem to figure among the root causes of our conflicts, miseries and travails. If anyone were to say that thought is the key factor of human fragmentation and as such the primary cause of our existential sickness, we would feel compelled to ask on what basis they might feel entitled to make such an assertion. After all, without thought we would not even be human. We would be animals. We are still animals, of course, but thinking ones, which seems to have made all the difference. Or has it? K would doubt it because thought, with all its higher abstract powers, has not been able to free us from the core issue in our existence, namely selfishness.
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Most human beings are selfish. They are not conscious of their own selfishness; it is the way of their life. And if one is aware that one is selfish, one hides it very carefully and conforms to the pattern of society, which is essentially selfish. The selfish mind is very cunning. Either it is brutally and openly selfish, or it takes many forms. If you are a politician, the selfishness seeks power, status and popularity; it identifies itself with an idea, a mission, all for the public good. If you are a tyrant, it expresses itself in brutal domination. If you are inclined to be religious, it takes the form of adoration, devotion, adherence to some belief, some dogma. It also expresses itself in the family; the father pursues his own selfishness in the ways of his life, and so does the mother.
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The Whole Movement of Life is Learning, pg. 76
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By this reckoning, selfishness, whether open or subtle, would seem to be so prevalent that few would escape it. As it is the habitual way of our life, we are not even conscious of it. And then there is that curious game of finding we are selfish and hiding it, among other things by cunningly conforming to the respectably selfish ways of society. The politicians, whether democratic or dictatorial, cultivate it through their search for power in the name of the greater good. In religious people it expresses itself in sectarian dogma, devotion and belief and in the family the father and mother carry on with it. Most of us would not be surprised to discover it in the very stream of consciousness and in its reflection in the mirror of relationship. This egocentric quality is not only a matter of individual personalities but of the intrinsic limitations of thought and its bondage to self-interest, ambition, envy and possessiveness.
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In the very process of using the mind, of thinking clearly, reasoning critically and sanely, one discovers for oneself the limitations of thought. Thought, the response of the mind in human relationship, is tethered to self-interest, positive or negative; it is bound by ambition, envy, by possessiveness, fear, and so on. Only when the mind has shaken off this bondage, which is the self, is the mind free. The understanding of this bondage is self-knowledge.
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Commentaries on Living, Third Series, pg. 234
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The limitation of thought is not only due to lack of information but inherent to its own nature as the response of memory, for memory is always limited. Thought is therefore inevitably tethered to the stake of the past, which determines its radius of movement. To that we must add the bondage of self-interest, with its envy, ambition and greed. This inbuilt limitation of thought with its psychological bondage is discovered in the process of following every thought to the end, i.e. to its source. These are its characteristics as it now exists in its unconscious reflex or conditioned state. There is, nonetheless, a possible freedom from this bondage through self-knowledge. However, this understanding is not just knowing about the self but actually comprehending how it comes into being.
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The knowing of the self is one thing and the understanding of how the self comes into being is another. One presupposes the existence of the self as a primary entity. The other, through observation, learns how the self is put together by thought. So the understanding of thought, its ways and its subtleties, its activities and its divisions, is the beginning of meditation. But if you consider the self as a permanent entity, you are studying a self which is non-existent, for it is merely a bundle of memories, words and experiences. So self-knowing is not the knowledge of the self but seeing how the self has been put together and how it makes for the fragmentation of life. One must see very clearly this misunderstanding. There is no permanent self about which to learn. But learning about the ways of thought and its activities is to dissipate self-centered activity. This is the foundation of meditation.
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Beginnings of Learning, pg. 243
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This is fascinating, because it indicates that the self is not, as we generally assume, an independently existing and permanent entity but something that is put together by thought. Rather than having an independent existence, the self turns out to be a bundle of memories, knowledge and experiences. So there is no self to understand but only the activities of thought that produce it. The self, which is responsible for the fragmentation of life, relationship and consciousness, turns out to be a dangerous illusion. As K points out, the common notion of self is a misunderstanding because there is no permanent entity which we are learning about but only the activities of thought that constitute the reality behind the self-image. The thinker is the fictional creation of thought as an independent entity, which is self-deception.
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This discovery would seem to confirm the deep seriousness of going to the end of thought as a potentially life-transforming journey of self-understanding worth risking it all for. In the process we uncover not only the inherent limitation of thought as the response of memory but that the psychological entity at the center of our consciousness is made up of the same substance and is a delusional holographic projection of thought. So the very awareness of the movement of thought turns out to be the way out of our selfishness, the ending of the bondage of thought to the phantom self it has created. With the ending of self there is an end to division and a radical transformation of the world and consciousness. It is in this awareness and learning where K places the foundation of meditation, which is the portal to inner freedom and wholeness.
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Merry Christmas, amigos, and let’s take these festive days to go to the end of thought.
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Photos by J. Gómez Rodríguez: 1 & 2 Sunset, Fishing Boat, Markermeer, Lelystad, The Netherlands.
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