Choice

I cannot agree or disagree for to do so is to choose. We choose according to our conditioning both from within, through our fears, and from without from a world that continually entreats us to see someone else’s view of the world or some vested small interest within the world. This is how we got to where we are and where we are is the root of our problem is it not?

So is the root of our problem is that we choose and from choice we say something is right or wrong.

For example if I require a certain amount of money to fund all my desires, and in this way if I satisfy my desires I will be happy. So I choose what I want according to those desires. This is my choice. All desires above those of basic survival, warm shelter and food are probably selfish and driven by the ego needs all the trappings that we think give us our identity, our personality. We may want land to build our dream home on or we may just like the security we superficially think we gain if we have a lot of money. These choices, as with all other choices, lead to conflict, either within ourselves because our path to our desires will not always go smoothly, or from without as someone or something gets in our way and we get angry and frustrated with whatever stops us from our goal.

If you think you can choose which part of the worldly system you like and be able to adopt that as your mantra then you will be in conflict with the other parts of life that that you have not chosen or rejected. This is the partial thinking we have adopted and this fragmentary behaviour stops us from understanding the whole and seeing what is.

We deny, disagree, fighting our own little corner and we become defensive. Please do not take my word for it. Take a look at your own actions and feelings for yourself and see what actually takes place within you. This is not theory. It is nothing if it is not fact. What is the fact of your desires and choices? Where do your desires come from? Why do you have them and what purpose do they serve if any?

The world is practically full of people who have made choices from their desires and we see them, at least verbally, fighting each other constantly over who is right and who is wrong. In the meantime for the vast majority our modern gods has become financial institutions and we have become petrified of them. The god of today is like the religion of the past where people cowered to the orthodoxy in case they may be condemned to hell for all eternity because it was preached that not to believe in behaving in certain ways was to sentence oneself to such a fate.

What a dreadful mess we are in yet we spend so little of our educational time discussing this and looking for a real relationship with the world. It seems we want to prepare our children for the same conflicts and misery we have. Like working in jobs that retain the dysfunctional status quo in our societies and leading a life of fear if we step out of what we think our own culture expects of us.

It is of little surprise that we have institutions that want to cover up their misdemeanours and powerful individuals that abuse their power. We have grown up with greed and selfishness, desire and choice. Only when you have nothing to loose can you clearly see what is and be totally honest and then be able to understand the revolutionary change that is required within every one of us.

Cheapness comes at a price

It has been three months since I last posted anything on this blog. The Olympics will have soon come and gone and medals gained and some lost. For some time it was big news but it is transitory for most of us and therefore a temporary distraction, a passing feeling that the people of the world can work together in peaceful harmony. Of course this is not true all the time wars have continued, religious bigotry been maintained and distrust and hatred persisted.

Human endeavour seems to be able to put on a great show when we are dealing with showing off our physical prowess as some undoubtedly did during the Olympics. Surely some of us, even if we do the best we can physically, will only have the ability to come somewhere in the rest of the field as our physical best just doesn't have the right attributes to come first at the highest level.

This is not a problem, looking after our bodies helps the rest of our wellbeing but our most important performance comes from within and we can all be the very best there is of ourselves.

When we can look at what we see without judging, without comparison, without being for or against something, then we can see what is really going on both in ourselves and in the world. When we look with our blinkers on and our selfish vested interests at the forefront, we often only see what our personal desires want to see.

We hear comments like “it is only human nature to be selfish and only thinking for oneself and one's immediate family”, but it is not true that we are only one people on one planet? As this is obviously so (but do check it out for yourself) then to think about our own self-centred ways is fragmented and only partial thinking at best. We are after all from the same source. The chemical atoms and molecules that make up our physiology are either in the Earth's crust or have come from massive explosions of huge stars in the universe.

We regularly see people's inhumanity to other individuals, groups and nations. We have ceased to understand holistically and now use intellectual arguments to make enemies of everyone but our own small group. We deny rights, argue with those who disagree and fight those we cannot persuade. Is this a sane way to go about our lives?

We have all around us a wonderful nature, a dynamic life with innocent humour, compassion and love yet we scurry around saying we have no time for beauty or for understanding, with only time to buy the cheapest products for our own and our families selfish needs. We in the Western World have many good things but we have squandered so much in gaining the wealth from the sweat of poorer people in far off lands. Cheapness comes at a price.

We can only pretend to be happy if we deny what we know to be the truth of our selfish actions.

Something to give your attention to?

The following is an extract from Krishnamurti's book 'Beginnings of Learning' published by Penguin in 1978. I do own a copy of the book and could have typed this extract in but being a two fingered typist I actually found the text at http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=17&chid=69154&w= and copied and pasted the piece. I thank the J.Krishnamurti Online organisation for making the text available.

If you want to get the context of the following extract I guide you to page 220 and the pages preceeding it from the above publication.

"You have tried to give significance to a life that has very little meaning, that is very shallow and petty, and failing in this you try to expand it on the same level. This expansion can go on endlessly but it has no depth, no profundity. The horizontal movement will lead to all kinds of places that are exciting and entertaining, but life remains very shallow. You may try to give depth to it intellectually but it is still trivial. To a mind that is really enquiring, not merely verbally examining or intellectually putting together hypotheses, to the enquiring mind the horizontal movement has very little significance. It can offer nothing except the very obvious, and so the revolt again becomes trivial because it is still moving in the same direction - outward, political, reformatory and so on. The only revolution is within oneself. It is not horizontal but vertical - down and up. The inward movement in oneself is never horizontal and because it is inward it has immeasurable depth. And when there is really this depth it is neither horizontal nor vertical."

"This you don't offer. Your Gods, your preachers, your leaders are concerned with the superficial, with better arrangements, better systems and organizations which are necessary for efficiency; but that is not the total answer. You may have a marvellous bureaucracy but it inevitably becomes tyrannical. Tyranny brings order to the superficial. Your religion which is supposed to offer depth is the gift of the intellect, carefully planned, recognized and believed in, a thing of propaganda."

"But this has no inward beauty. As long as education is concerned merely with the culture of the outer, specializing, enforcing conformity, the inner movement with its immense depth will inevitably be for the few, and in that also there lies great sorrow. Sorrow cannot be solved, cannot be understood when you are running with tremendous energy along the superficial. Unless you solve this through self-knowing you will have revolt after revolt, reforms which need further reformation, and the endless antagonism of man against man will go on. Self-knowing is the beginning of wisdom and it does not lie in books, in churches or in the piling up of words."

You may find this interesting - The Krishnamurti Foundation

I went to Brockwood Park, Bramdean, Hampshire where Krishnamurti used to speak to audiences in the early 1970's

 I do not remember much about the content of the talks but some time later I bought some of his published books. I may have read one or two of the 8 I have but they did not have a lasting impact. I have however now read Awakening of Intelligence right through and I now know, that, where perhaps I wasn't ready previously, I am now in the right frame of mind to see for myself what he means. In short I get it, so now I live differently. 

Take a look if you want to and see what impact it has for you.

The following is taken from the home page of the The Krishnamurti Foundation http://www.kfoundation.org/. 

Krishnamurti was born in India in 1895 and died in the United States in 1986. He spoke throughout his life in many parts of the world to large audiences as well as with numerous individuals, including writers, scientists, philosophers and educators. Asked to describe what lay at the heart of his teaching, he said,

"Truth is a pathless land. Man cannot come to it through any organisation, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, nor through any philosophic knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection..."

 Krishnamurti was concerned with all humanity and stated repeatedly that he held no nationality or belief and belonged to no particular group or culture. In the latter part of his life, he travelled mainly between the schools he had founded in India, Britain and the United States, schools that educate for the total understanding of man and the art of living. He stressed that only this profound understanding can create a new generation that will live in peace.

 If you want to see many of the texts of Krishnamurti on line you can find them here: http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/

How Do You See The World, Your World?

Is it someone else who is making the world a bad place? Who is this someone else? Is the world such a bad place and what, if anything, can you do about it?

Do you think our leaders are a different breed not made of the same stuff as you or I, or are they the essentially same with just extra opportunities that helped them get to where they are today? Do you think your goals are different to theirs or are they very similar only you cannot effect such widespread change as they can?

We are driven by many desires and I ask how many of them you are truly aware of. Perhaps you are running on autopilot with automated responses to situations where you call upon your past experience rather than deal dynamically with a situation in the present. Dealing with what is, in the now, requires attention and awareness not relying on past responses that may not be relevant in the current situation.

Have you seen if you understand how you are responding, see how you are use the past in the present just because it may be easier to do that.

Is your response to something following an old pattern or are you coming to it afresh every time? It is easier to have your ready made response but is it the best way to deal with a situation. Do you find yourself being backed into your corner by nobody else other than yourself? If so stop, see, understand and be aware of how you are responding.

Sometimes we 'read' the response we think other people require from us. You may think this helps to keep the peace and build friendships but is it really what you want to say and what is your motive for placating a comment or a behaviour that you may deeply disagree with? It will neither keep the peace or build friendship as you will have a growing resentment to someone you do not tell the truth to and once that process has begun it is difficult to start again, only this time honestly.

The way you see the world, your world, is crucial to how you behave in it. If you see a corrupt human race scheming in the world and the only way to function in it is to be corrupt yourself then you will not want to go any further with what I am saying. See the world as corrupt and you really want to do something about it then you may want to read on. Don't be fooled by thinking it is easy to make change. The type of change required is fundamental and you have to do it for yourself as no other authority can speak for you.

Can you truly change yourself to living in the 'now', reacting to life afresh and not just regurgitating past experiences? I am talking about our relationship with each other and the world; I am not talking about how we have to understand some types of knowledge in the work place. This is about our relationship on the personal level: our true interaction with nature, other sentinel beings and with each other. Are we part of the solution or part of the problem? You have a choice. Which is it to be?

Be aggressive to the aggressors so nothing changes or change yourself and start the process of being truly free at last.


You can view this article on the following link where it was first published: http://EzineArticles.com/6876899