In Seeing Is Ending

If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation." "The little book on LIVING: J.Krishnamurti

The core of J krishnamurti`s philosophy is to be aware.A man of awareness carries no cargo.He is unburdened.To be aware about one`s cravings and aversions.How cravings lead to attachment and continuity of pleasure seeking.How aversion leads to violent behaviour.How thought creates "me "which is nothing but psychological time.It is continuity of past modified to the present and projected towards future.Such a process create a life of regret,discontent,conflict and disequilibrium.In the sense that one is always restless towards better tomorrow.When time ends there is a different propelling force.The momentum of life is governed by a choiceless action.Such awareness is brought about by attention and the same is not to be mistaken with concentration.A man is light unto himself and no amount of reading can deliver him from ignorance nor can guru offer deliverance.At the most guru can point a finger and the rest is on the individual .It is so clear when one is attentive in which one can see himself naked in the mirror of relationship with the world.The hidden motives, the cunningness of self,the self flattery that is sought, the repugnance to inconvenient truth,the vulnerability and fragility of self to insults( basically other people`s opinion about you,the projection of self etc can be seen emerging in the mind.To see this one has to be choiceless and non judgemental then the designs of mind can be seen taking shape.In that one can see that there is myriad web of relationship between images.Image of oneself.Image of others.Image of what others think about you and so on.It is a conflicting cobweb.There is no real relationship or real living.Real freedom is the emancipation of self from rigors of compulsive mind.How cleverly mind enslaves and any attempt to free oneself is futile because mind trap cannot free itself from the trap.Like knife cannot cut itself.In order to quell mind one has to choicelessly observe the shenanigans of mind.In that observer sees that observation and observer are the same.Perceiver is perception.Thinker is thought and analyser is analysed.In that lies true freedom because on seeing there is ending .Thats the moment of insight.Any action from that insight is freed of self interest and has to be therefore right action. In his own words:Insight is not an act of remembrance, the continuation of memory. Insight is like a flash of light. You see with absolute clarity, all the complications, the consequences, the intricacies. Then this very insight is action, complete. In that there are no regrets, no looking back, no sense of being weighed down, no discrimination. This is pure, clear insight - perception without any shadow of doubt.

Love, compassion and intelligence belong to that ground of being which is not from the field of thought.He called it Freedom from the Known.A life free of conflict and unconditioned by established notions.Again most of what he preaches is not one way discourse but an attempt to handhold listeners to see the actuality of truth himself.It is therefore not based on belief system but is on realising oneself.Is there a scientific background to this thinking? Lots and well supported by eminent scientists in enormous dialogues with K when he was alive.

In his dialogues with Dr Bohm in Ending of Time there is exploration whether brain cells can mutate and if it does then there is hope for mankind.Today modern science corroborate that brain cells can mutate at any age.Quantum physics say that matter can be either wave or particle and the choice is made on observation.Accordingly, matter when under observation undergoes a change.If so brain under choiceless observation can undergo a change. Then phenonmenon such as envy, greed and competetion undergo a natural, spontaneous change.There is no changer at work.Change happens when the changer realises he is not seperate from the changed(envy,greed etc)

Attention is to be attentive to thoughts as it emerges and thats true meditation.Meditation is not sitting crosslegged and trying to catch tthoughts and supress it.Meditation is not a game of catch me if you can with thoughts.In a lighter vein there goes a joke on meditation.There are three monks, who had been sitting in deep meditation for many years amidst the Himalayan snow peaks, never speaking a word, in utter silence. One morning, one of the three suddenly speaks up and says, ‘What a lovely morning this is.’ And he falls silent again. Five years of silence pass, when all at once the second monk speaks up and says, ‘But we could do with some rain.’ There is silence among them for another five years, when suddenly the third monk says, ‘Why can’t you two stop chattering?”
.It is obliteration of thoughts by attention.Content and consciousness is the same when content is emptied there is living.Then consciousness as we know it doesnot exist.It is different dimension where the psychological" me " is absent.He beautifully described it as Living is dying to every moment.When you do so there is no baggage of past.There is no self image to be serviced nor there is any need to conform against will.No conformity,no peer pressure .How does one do it? Self-knowledge is not knowing oneself, but knowing every movement of thought. Because the self is the thought, the image, the image of K and the image of the `me.' So, watch every movement of thought, never letting one thought go without realizing what it is. Try it. Do it and you will see what takes place.
Masters, gurus, teachers, cannot help to free thought from its own self-imposed bondage and suffering; neither ceremonies, nor priests, nor organizations, can liberate thought from its attachments, fears, cravings; these may force it into a new mould and shape it, but thought can free itself only through its own critical awareness and self-reliance. (J.K.)
Where does God and religion stand in the life of man? Conventional religion is highly conditioning and sets man in another loop of self enhancement.It may be palliative, it may prescribe certain right truism like not to be angry etc but may not help deliverance.God and God`s Grace ascend when when there is no seeking.When psychological me and its chattering stops there is ending of time.In that attention there is no experiencing,there is silence which is not induced by any mantra or disciplined approach. It happens outside the fielld ofthought.Sacred is that which is not touched by anything manmade.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1AvljMbU8c

Its not a Groundhog day anymore

Groundhog Day is a holiday celebrated onFeb 2 in the US and Canada.According to folklore, if a groundhog emerging from its burrow on this day fails to see its shadow, it will leave the burrow, signifying that winter will soon end. If on the other hand, the groundhog sees its shadow, the groundhog will supposedly retreat into its burrow, and winter will continue for six more weeksThats the the background of the movie by Harold Ramis in which the protoganist ,a TV news reporter finds himself struggling day in and day out.Actually he is caught in a time loop and finds that everyday is the same day.He has to do reporting ad infinitum ,ad nauseum with similar situations and same set of people.If he doesnot do reporting he still finds himself condemned to the same day as he wakes up each morning and everything repeats itself predictably.In frustration he does every conceivable self destructive behaviour including an attempt to suicide but finds himself waking up to the same day.In short he is trapped in the time loop.He finds himself isolated and alienated as people around him donot have any memory of his existence as each day is FEB 2, the groundhogday.
The whole movie is about how he discovers that each day is not the same day and that each day can be a new day.Inthe process he finds meaning of life,his love in his life and the satisfaction of alleviating other people`s suffering.Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMtWAcVy6-w
So why am I writing about GroundHog day on a blog suppossedly to be more serious and labeled metaphysics?.What has philosophy got to do with a comedy hollywood movie?
The movie is a clever metaphor to the daily grind of living that each individual is condemned to live.One makes a brave attempt to battle it out or seemingly indulge in escapist fare to give an illusion of happiness.Is there a true freedom in the way we live life conforming to a pattern of earning and becoming on a day to day basis.Are we not trapped in a time loop with each day being hardly different structurally.The so called progress or achievements also fall in the same matrix of predictability and compulsive routine.There is no real freedom as one is either a slave to one`s success or frustration.Real freedom is freedom from the known as krishnamurti always mentions in his talks.Awareness is to to see that self is trapped and is a slave to becoming and in that lies the meaning of living .To go beyond the resentment of problems of daily life is a transformational change difficult to achieve.Like the protaganist its a long and arduos journey of self destruction before one finds that each day can be a different day. Each individual has to strike his chord of freedom to his life.Then its no more a groundhog day.

If only... Lorenz Effect and Destiny

"If only one thing had happened differently: if that shoelace hadn't broken; or that delivery truck had moved moments earlier; or that package had been wrapped and ready, because the girl hadn't broken up with her boyfriend; or that man had set his alarm and got up five minutes earlier; or that taxi driver hadn't stopped for a cup of coffee; or that woman had remembered her coat, and got into an earlier cab, Daisy and her friend would've crossed the street, and the taxi would've driven by. But life being what it is — a series of intersecting lives and incidents, out of anyone's control — that taxi did not go by, and that driver was momentarily distracted, and that taxi hit Daisy, and her leg was crushed." Brad Pitt in Benjamin Button

Would the destiny of Daisy been different if only ....? Life is a criss crossing conundrum as if a part of a holistic world wide web.Touch any part of the web and the entire web reverberates.Thats why they say that a a change in butterfly fluttering in rain forest can have a significant change in climate elsewhere.No exxageration, it is called as the Lorenz Effect.Lets see what wikipedia says:
The butterfly effect is a phrase that encapsulates the more technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory. Small variations of the initial condition of a dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system. This is sometimes presented as esoteric behavior, but can be exhibited by very simple systems: for example, a ball placed at the crest of a hill might roll into any of several valleys depending on slight differences in initial position.The phrase refers to the idea that a butterfly's wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately alter the path of a tornado or delay, accelerate or even prevent the occurrence of a tornado in a certain location. The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale alterations of events. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajectory of the system might have been vastly different. While the butterfly does not cause the tornado, the flap of its wings is an essential part of the initial conditions resulting in a tornado.

Comong back to Benjamin Button would Daisy`s destiny been different if there was a small change in initial condition? How would our personal destiny changed if only ... small insignificant things in the past had panned out differently? A very interesting question with no definite answer as we are in the realm of speculative scenario in the world of uncertanity.However one can guess.Life can be assumed to have a varied set of circumstantial probabilities.Each scenario will result into a different outcome for sure.The external variation can be huge but does it really matter? For instance under a particular scenario the person happens to be a successful surgeon, falls in love with his collegue who eventually is unfaithful to him and he eventually messes up on a surgery with a huge suit against him.If only things were different and lets assume he meets with an accident whilst going for his exams and therefore he would not have become a surgeon and instead would have become realtor with no steady income. Lets assume he lives under the burden of regret of not being able to pursue surgery.He marries a very understanding wife who supports him enough to salvage his self esteem and eventually he wins a huge lottery which enables himto pursue flying which was his passion .In both the scenario lady luck is playing a part in case one by averting an accident to enable him to be a surgeon and in another case by bestowing a gamble winning.The pros and cons of the alternate scenario are never known to us even though as humans we are wired to beieve the brighter side of a hypothethical situation and highlight the poorer side of existing situation.Surgeon or failed realtor are two of the many probabilities that are embedded on the path of life .Ultimately how you weave the tapestry of life under a given situation is all matters.What you make out of given circumstances and live according to that reality is destiny.In that understanding is the richness of life.In that understanding lies contentment.Live your life of dream in a continuum and not in only if scenario because only if is probable and hence unreal.What is is reality and certainty.Meaning of life is in its present reality and not in alternate probability.
In the hilarious movie Bedazzled devil comes in the form of seductress Liz Hurley and gives seven wishes to the protagonaist who is a loser in life.He signs a contract with devil to trade his soul for his seven wishes.He gets what he wants alongwith situation he doesnot want inall the seven scenarios. In the end he begs the devil to release him from his contract and finally discovers his true self and wins his self esteem in his present circumstances.

In the end it is zero sum for what alters reality for one favourably may alter unfavourably for someone else or still further may alter reality in further future in an entirely different manner to the same person. Carrying the speculative scenario further if only the shoelace was not broken Daisy would have not met with accident .Benjamin would not have come to see her and they wouldnot have had a wonderful daughter. Only if ........