Sounder » Tue Dec 06, 2016 7:18 am wrote:lunarmoth wrote...
There seems to be an attempt to cut us off from our own being and our connection to everything that is, and one reason it's been so successful is that we collaborate with this process. We intellectualize and there is always a component of fear motivating even our most brilliant thoughts because thinking is a method of self-defense. It's the quitessential human activity and look where it's got us: an increasingly artificial and fragmented world which will shatter under the pressure of its own expansive drive.
A friend and I started the University of Modern non-Thought back in the early 80's, but it never got off the ground.
Ah Phil, I miss you so.
Good stuff.
Maybe it never got off the ground because it
is the ground!
I had a friend like Phil once, one that I miss so. We were 'doing the work.' I always thought we'd end up in rocking chairs on a porch, strumming guitars and batting it around like old sufi masters. Funny how life takes so many unexpected turns. Today is his birthday, actually.
In the spirit of 'two friends trying to say the unsayable,' here's a good book. 'The Ending of Time,' talks between Krishnamurti and Dr. David Bohm.
http://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ending-of-Time.pdfIt's very simple. One person will read it and get nothing out of it at all. For another it will be the breakthrough they've been waiting for. The trick is to see through the words.
K: Yes. And is my mind, my brain, willing to see that there is absolutely nothing if I give up the past?
DB: And nothing to reach for.
K: Nothing. There is no movement. Sometimes people dangle a carrot in front of me and, foolishly, I follow it. But I see that there are really no carrots, no rewards or punishments. Then how is this past to be dissolved? Because otherwise I am still living in the field of time that is man-made. So what shall I do? Am I willing to face absolute emptiness?
DB: What will you tell somebody who is not willing to face this?
K: I am not bothered. If somebody says that he can't do all this, I say, `Well, carry on'. But I am willing to let my past go completely. Which means there is no effort or reward; nothing. And the brain is willing to face this extraordinary and totally new state of existing in nothingness. That is appallingly frightening.
DB: Even these words will have their meaning rooted in the past.
K: Of course. We have understood that; the word is not the thing. The mind says it is willing to do that, to face this absolute emptiness, because it has seen for itself that all the places where it has taken refuge are illusions...
DB: I think this leaves out something that you brought up earlier - the question of the damage of scars to the brain.
K: That is just it.
DB: The brain that isn't damaged could possibly let go the past fairly readily.
K: Look, can I discover what has caused damage to the brain? Surely one of the factors is strong, sustained emotions, like hatred.
DB: probably a flash of emotion doesn't do so much damage, but people sustain it.
K: Of course. Hatred, anger and violence not only shock but wound the brain. Right?
DB: And getting excessively excited.
K: Of course; and drugs, etc. The natural response doesn't damage the brain. Now the brain is damaged; suppose it has been damaged through anger?
DB: You could even say that nerves probably get connected up in the wrong way, and that the connections are too fixed. I think there is evidence that these things will actually change the structure.
K: Yes, and can we have an insight into the whole nature of disturbance, so that the insight changes the cells of the brain which have been wounded?
DB: Well, possibly it would start them healing.
K: All right. That healing must be immediate.
Both his words and manner of speech seemed at first totally unfamiliar to me, and yet somehow they stirred memories - as an actor might be stirred by the forgotten lines of some role he had played far away and long ago.
