Seeking external solutions without understanding the self is pointless.

Why do we want others to support us, be on our side, and why do we separate ourselves from those who see things differently to our self and our group? What is it that is so important for our own sense of who we are, that we require the acceptance of others?

It seems we all do this. Even  the anti-social criminal belongs to the tough group of prisoners when they are locked up together in prison. This needing to be in a group for some sort of approval or belonging seems to affect nearly all of us.

Is it because we do not feel complete when we are alone, and in order to have security as we see it, and not feel alone, we find an approving group to join whether this is political, sectional, religious, sexual or even as an outward appearance grouping with clothes and hair styles, musical tastes etc. Such is our feeling of loneliness and isolation that we are so driven to escape it that we search until we feel comforted.

Is then the question, not why do we do this, but why do we in the first place feel so isolated and incomplete if that is the fact? Firstly is it a fact? Find out for yourself, enquire and understand your own actions, ask yourself. Do not search books because they will not tell you how you feel. At best they will only tell you how someone else felt or worse still how you ought to feel. How you feel is a living movement from moment to moment so anything in a book is already of the past and static.

So if we want to enquire into our feeling of isolation, loneliness and separation we need to observe our self and understand our need and our sense of emptiness. To go off and find a group solves nothing  without first understanding the the whole process of the search.

Every day in the world

There are moments when one is caught in the horror of what is going on in the world. The complete destruction of humans irrespective of sex, race or age who is not of the same belief as oneself.

We may be particularly aware of a current atrocity being carried out in the name of some religious values but in the past it has been different ideologies and different nationalistic philosophies that have perpetrated similar crimes against humanity.

Is it therefore pointless to have opinions of right or wrong? Isn't it surely that all ideologies and nationalism can breed hate of other ideologies and national interests, and wars may follow hate.  As soon as we separate ourselves from one another by belonging to a particular group trouble and conflict can start.

What is war? We may give it labels and so called righteous meaning, but it is still the murder of another human being which is surely insane behaviour especially from those who call themselves civilised.

Can we see our desire to belong to this sect or that, whether it is cultural, national, ethnic or religious, only leads to separation and where we have divided ourselves from the rest there must surely be conflict.

Our desire to belong is strong but to just be part of something without question and without understanding the the root of the desire, will not bring an end to the desire for safety, security or whatever it is.

Perhaps the question is can we understand our deep desires and needs by just observing ourselves, seeing without bias where our actions come from and what is the real reason we are driven in certain directions.

This may not be easy and that will make it difficult for us because we like things to be easy, to follow the line of least resistance, but isn't it the case until we really see the way we attach ourselves to authority's philosophies without question there will be conflict?

Achieving virtue and ideals

Imposing ideals and virtues on ourselves if we have no deep understanding of oneself is going to lead to conflict and a poor image of ourselves as we experience the non-achievement of what we rather superficially set out to do. To impose anything without understanding the real root of our motives is going to fail often. The parts we rarely look at or understand are those which drive us at a deep level so any superficial activity of thought and force of will is not going to overcome the 'real' us even though the motive may be honest.

We talk about achieving a virtuous life through effort because we have an image of what we want to become by reading about it, or listening to those in authority, leaders in society etc. Without understanding ourselves to any great depth we impose the ideal and then struggle to achieve those ideals to become virtuous. Often we do not reach the heights we set out to reach and then we become unhappy with ourselves. After many so called 'failures' we start to have a poor image of ourselves even if we still sound confident to others by acting that way socially. Inside us there is conflict; the what is, as opposed to what one actually wants to achieve.

It is the 'what is' that needs to be observed without judgement and be understood. With clarity and understanding of our root desires and wants we can stop being in conflict and struggle by always imposing a supposedly higher ideal and then finding it is impossible to live that way. We seem to be programmed to become something we 'think' we should be rather than understanding what we are.

Listen to yourself, have quiet when the mind is not analysing, see the world as it is not as we would like it to be. Feel the space that exists when the mind is at peace. Find out everything for yourself do not take the word of others.

A friend asked this

A friend suggested that there should be answers to questions of how one should live not just what the problems are.

One could say that we should do this or that to make changes; to work to change the government to one that believed in real equality; to limit the power that organised religions have over people; to make sure the rich do not get richer and the poor do get richer. Perhaps one should get rid of capitalism which exploits people for profit by joining a radical group. Would all these things, activities, get rid of the ugly world human beings have created for themselves? All these things would be pointless even if one could do them.

It is people, you and I, humanity, who have created all these institutions and continue to support them. If we could get rid of them we would create something else just as self centred and corrupt if we ourselves don't change. So it is not the external things that are the problem in our lives it is us. Is this not clear? We are the world! It there are unequal things in the world it is us, humanity, and we are all humanity, who has created them.

We have to find a different way of living and that has to start with oneself not the external societies that humanity have set up. They have come from self centred thought projected outwardly, however knowledgeable that thought may be, and it is driven by desire for power, security and control.

All the time we compare, acquire, despise and are aggressive or violent, in thought as well as deeds, there is no point in changing anything externally.

Without the self, the 'me', we may be able to work co-operatively with compassion but to say we must work co-operatively is meaningless if we are still in the realm of satisfying ourselves for when we satisfy ourselves we only ultimately want what suits us and that is where humanity is now, trying to satisfy all its desires and wants.

Change

Real change is not political. Real change is transformation of the self, not through surrender to a religious or some other belief, but by understanding all the things we do and feel. Can we see that it is we who are violent, selfish, aggressive, competitive, jealous and envious or do we only shout about external injustices we see in the world around us? What about the selfish injustices we perpetrate in the name of the self?

To say we cannot do this and we must live in the 'real' world is essentially lazy because we are not treating the subject seriously. We say we haven't the time or we feel justified with our own ugly behaviour because we compare ourself to someone who may be behaving even more uglier than ourselves. Taking this course of action which is really no action keeps the society in which we life and complain about in place so the hate, selfishness and aggression never changes because we never change ourselves at the deepest level.

Life as it is and death

We are surrounded by images of the fantastic and the deeply disturbing. We have conversations of despair, of hope, wishes and of imagined scenarios. We dream of being better, have illusions about who we are. We hear others tell us how we should behave and what we really should want from our lives.

We are confused, doing one thing whilst wishing we were doing another. We are in conflict being unsure what to do next, how to carry out our lives. We may follow the patterns of others so it becomes all mapped out for us how to live so we can drift through life without ever having to work it out for ourselves.

We may have invented elaborate beliefs that allow us not to have to worry about death. We have heavens and immortality to comfort us without knowing the facts of what happens at death. We don't know how to live and we create illusions about death so we can give meaning to our lives.

Surely living is more important than death? Yet we seem so helpless in our own lives driven by the society one is in with all its social conditioning, chasing money and our own selfish desires. We have created psychological time for several reasons and one of them is to put a distance between now and death. This gives great comfort as we can place death in some distant time that is not now.

Having put death out of harms way with beliefs and psychological time we carry on attaching to things like power and wealth that cause us to be ambitious, aggressive, selfish, jealous and envious. These are the attributes that are promoted in most societies and so we become trapped by the conditioning all around us.

Many of us end up with ideals that are not what we currently are, they are a wish list made by thought working to an image of being a better person and so conflict follows us around as a chain around our necks. Before we can live properly we have to understand all the improper things we do. We have to see without judgement what it is we have become so attached to and ask if we can live without all the attachments and ideals we have built around ourselves. Without this serious enquiry there will not be any fundamental change to the self and so real love and compassion will not flourish.

More bombs?

So it seems yet another nation is about to go and drop some bombs in another part of the world in the name of democracy.

Do we not have any idea or understanding of what it is like for the ordinary non-fighting people of the area that is bombed? Have we become so in-sensitised to the horrors caused by our own actions?

Perhaps we have become so dislodged and separated from each other that if they are far enough away and culturally different enough we don't mind what we are doing to people and their already fragile infrastructure.

We are not British, American, Russian, Chinese, European, Turkish or whatever first, we are human beings first living on an organic planet that sustains us so far. How have we set ourselves so adrift from the simplicity and whole of life?

If we conquer the foe and decimate the planet do we think we will have peace?

The insanity of life as most of us live it now is that we seem to think that we should be ambitious as individuals and for our nation, and therefore conquer everything in our way and take what we desire for our own selfish wants. This we call "in our interest" as justification. Do we think peace will be the outcome of this kind of action?

We have let our leaders fool us into stupefying thinking and behaviours because they are trapped in it also therefore we can only destroy peace because we know only how to be competitive, with our conditioned beliefs and self righteousness.

When will we stop listening to the powerful and those in high office because we live in fear of their ability to control the superficial things of life we have become so attached to and dependent on? When will we start listening to ourself beyond the conditioning we have allowed to be distilled within us because of our own fears, uncertainties and desire for psychological security.

To go beyond our conditioning and act completely peacefully cannot be done if we are not free, and if we use will and force to impose a new state of unconditioning upon ourselves. If we can understand our conditioning as it is at the deepest level we may see the truth of the illusions of it, and then it may dissolve so we can act correctly, peacefully and with real compassion in the world.

 

Response to the polarization of arguments about rights and wrongs in the Middle East.

Surely if anything is truly sacred in this world and universe it is all living things and nature rather than the organised religions, nation states, global economics, corporations and our own selfish desires that we so often worship at the cost of all life and nature.

War, and our part in its creation

Listening to the world news one hears again about the ceaseless wars in the middle east. Both sides sight right on their side and so the death and destruction continues. This is not an intellectual discussion this is a fact is it not?

Both sides are loosing as suffering is taking place and this will continue as one side tries to quash the other. There is no victor in conflict, there is only conflict and all the insecurity and fear that that brings.

It is too easy to take sides however supposedly rationally one comes to ones decision. In fact taking sides is surely the root of the problem. To decide that one side is right and the other is wrong is almost certainly based on ones own beliefs and conditioning which is rarely based on fact.

Do not all human beings irrespective of nationality, religion, ethnicity, tribe, culture and society have the same rights?

 If we cannot destroy the opposition, and this is not being recommended, how are we to resolves these conflicts wherever they exist? Firstly in the human sense how are they created? Surely they are created by the will of the individual being exerted outwards. The individual who wants power, who wants their way of life to continue, to prevail over others ideas of how they would like to live, and they, in turn, are doing the same.

This comes from our sense of individuality, of having what we want for ourselves and following our own desires. In most societies this is encouraged; to pursue our own interests, or the interests of our group, be it family or nation etc, without much concern for others needs. This activity of reinforcing the self, forcing our will and beliefs on others causes the conflicts that eventually lead to death and destruction.

It is therefore self centred activity that ultimately causes war and that selfish activity is the action that leads each one of us to to take sides and therefore create enemies.

Without enemies there is no war so perhaps the first thing to do is understand that it is each one of us who creates enemies when we choose a side that suits us according to self centred preferences.

In defence of the realm

Words like realm, kingdom, majesty, sovereignty, supreme power and authority seem to conjure up such images of solemnity and seriousness that have tremendous weight and overrule words like humility, integrity, sensitivity, forgiveness and awareness. It is no accident that those in authority use the words that conjure the images of solemnity and seriousness when motivating its members to action.

At times of stress we get angry with the gentle words. Our patience is thin and we want resolutions and external actions that support our rationalised cause irrespective of the facts and the others views. We see a solution, not in the modification of our own behaviour but in the modification of the others.

Our nations and religions behave as we do for they can only be an extension of what we are. They are not a separate entity; they are a reflection of or own contradictions, fragmentation and hypocrisy. We defend ourselves, our egos, with all its self centred desires, against others who have a different point of view and lose contact and communication and this is what nations and religions do in time of disagreement because there can be not other outcome or course of action if we ourselves are in conflict and fragmented. What is inside is outside, it is one. For the concerns of the world to be remedied the internal concerns have to be deeply understood not externalised so we can blame somebody else for our problems.

The fear of losing security, whether it be ones partner, one’s home or job has to be understood not just blindly defended because it is a personal possession, the tradition or ones conditioning.

It is sometimes difficult to find the words with which to express oneself deeply with. Perhaps words are too full of imagery rather than real meaning, loaded with easy illusions that do not explain the truth.

What is trying to be said here is that our individual lives are in conflict and so too therefore must be our national and religious lives with their habits and rituals, dogma and controls. It is not being said that one should be against the individual, state or religion but one cannot be part of something that controls and conditions one into fear for in fear are the actions that lead to conflict, hate and war.

What is surely required is complete responsibility in relationship. In complete relationship there is no enemy; one is in discussion as with a friend.

To Join or not to Join - The World peace cup

How do we decide whether we are going to join or not to join an organisation. Do we weigh up the intellectual arguments using our personal rationalism and desires and then make a decision? Once the decision is made is it then final and so one pins ones metaphorical flag to it? It is then the right decision for you and other decisions and desires must then conform to the decision you previously made.

Can we see the dangers of the above, the joining of one thing precluding interaction with someone who has joined something different.

We may be born in a particular country and brought up in a particular style by parents who introduce you to their religious and cultural beliefs but do we have to fall into their way of life because it seems the most easy thing to do?

Here the danger is putting yourself first, your family, your community, team, country, religion, all of it, pulling you in the direction of self centred desires and beliefs. We seem to want to cling to these desires and beliefs for our identity and security but please ask yourself why pursuing you own desires and beliefs is so important.

Surely this drive to belong to one thing or another is separating us from each other; you in your organisation and me in mine. I must support my nation against your nation if we cannot agree on something. The facts are lost and belief and nationalism takes over.

There is currently a near global event taking place where nation is playing nation at sport. Such energy and resources has gone into the organising of this event that one is left wondering why this sort of enormous effort cannot go into basic resources for the poor, or education, or perhaps world peace. We seem to be very good at organising events for our pleasure and senses but woeful when trying to find inter-national solutions to our human problems.

Our self centred actions seem to know no bounds when it comes to our desires and our apparent need to cling on to what we think is our indentity and security especially when it is seen through nationalistic and organised religious eyes.

To join one thing is divisive however worthy. By being a member there will be an expected behaviour and adherence to the beliefs of the organisation so there is no freedom. Without freedom we cannot love and understand and without love and understanding there can be no peace. 

I heard the news today...

Someone speaking in this part of the world today said that the richest 85 people in the world had more wealth than 50% of the world's poorest people. That is 3.5 billion people.

Can this be justified, can capitalism, which we are all involved in, be considered a sane way for humanity to continue to conduct itself?

It seems we are all capitalist as we want more of everything for ourselves and the people around us. We crave attachments and acquisitions and build them up as trophies. Then we feel the need to protect them and so conflict ensures as everybody does the same.  

Where are the voices, and not just the words, of those who are really fundamentally looking into the factual problems of the human race: the killing, the poverty, the selfishness, the resentment, all of the conflict.

The media fails us because it is in support of the system that supports it. It will not bite the hand that feeds it.

If our leaders espouse national patriotism behind a flag and our religious leaders promote their faith ahead of other faiths then we have to be a light unto ourselves as others have vested interests to support and do not want to look at the facts of poverty, exploitation and all the rest of it.

As J. Krishnamurti has said "The world is sick and there is no one outside you to help you except yourself."

Can we understand our desire for ownership of relationships as well as material goods and perhaps really see that we are only concerned with our own self-centered security because of our fears and not the fact that ownership be not bring real security without conflict?

Only when we have resolved our deepest insecurities and fears can we understand and deal properly with the gross inhumanity of people set against each other whether it is because of our economic, nationalistic, cultural or religious conditioning.

No Violence

If we want 'freedom from violence' as the United Nations recently stated in a link to its web site, I wounder if the enormity of that statement is really understood when it appears such an easy statement to make and an ideal to pursue.

Do we not see that most of us are violent in our ambitions, our relationships, in our workplace, in the corporate companies, the nations and our religions. We may not call it violence but our fear of loosing what we are constantly accumulating makes us aggressive when we have to consider giving something up. Can we have a peaceful life for everybody on this planet if we do not see what we have gained at the expense of others?

Do we think we can carry on as we are, unwilling to ease off on our selfish consumption and magically have peace? That nation states will stop looking after their own interests and we, as self-centred individuals, will stop accumulating material and psychological attachments? Will we stop defending our individual and national possessions that have been acquired often through exploitation in this very unfair and unequal world?

To have no violence requires fundamental change within and without. It cannot be achieved through politics and force of will.

Perhaps we can have peace if we understand what it means to be conditioned by our respective societies and cultures and we can observe our own thoughts and behaviour factually so we can see the competitiveness, aggression and violence we carry out in our daily lives as we strive to achieve and gain what we think is success in our competitive and aggressive societies.

Today we have seen and listened to politicians. There have also been commentaries on world affairs from the media that purports to be global and articles from the UN's publications.

We are told of Polio returning to parts of the world where it had left, due to the conflict in the region, We hear politicians extolling the virtues of Nationhood within or without of the EU. There is a constant bombardment of ones sensibilities, if one allows it, of information about all the horrible things happening in the world yet no one is asking the fundamental question as to why is man, being such a cleaver and so called knowledgeable being, totally incapable of ceasing the conflict, wars, hatred, sorrow and pain that man inflicts upon his fellow being?

Are we no longer interested in asking the question as to why man destroys man anymore because we feel so helpless to stop the suffering? Why do our politicians take sides and destroy lives. Do we ask them to do this in our name, to use nationalism to turn against others to protect our own selfish interests. Are our interests worth killing for if they are threatened? If the answer is yes then we enter into a dark place where we only encourage others to do the same to us and so all the conflict and suffering that we see all around us destroying human beings and the planet continues; man pitched against man forever battling against an hated enemy because they dared to be as self righteous and nationalistic or religiously bigoted as ourselves.

Can we not see this? Are we incapable of of being without hate and anger against another human being because we have too much vested interest in our own self centered desires for success and wealth?

Thought is fragmentary, it is conditioned. If one looks at it do you not see that we think selfishly. Whether it is our religion, our nation, our family, our job, our community or our ethnic group we think in terms of what we may call our protection and security, the 'me' and 'mine'. Do we do this because we are frightened that if we do not protect ourselves we may loose something, even loose our identity as a Christian, as a Muslim, a German or an American, or whatever. In order that we can protect our conditioning, our religious views, our nationality that we have identified with, we enter the aggressive arena that is our everyday living. Look at it and see what is going on, don't take anyone else's words on this, see for yourself what you have built around you to stop the fear, the insecurity that you may feel. To escape the fear of being alone and to feel a sense of belonging many of us have created so many divisions that are destroying our lives and the lives of everybody around us.

Isn't it time to ask the question why we feel so utterly lost as individuals unless we belong to something or continuously gather items that define us which then creates the ugly mess we all see around us.

I would like to share this link with you

http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-video/organisations-have-not-saved-man-full-version.php

Please copy and paste this into your Internet browser

Right, wrong addiction

Difficult as it may be for us who are brought up on 'this is right, that is wrong' scenarios throughout our lives, isn't there perhaps a different way of looking at issues such as the current problems in the Ukraine.
We can argue the rights and wrongs of either side endlessly but where does that get us? Does it take us any nearer the truth or just further into our entrenched views, beliefs, conditioning, nationalism or in support of our own country's vested interests?

To resolve the many problems that face us we surely have to get beyond taking sides as this will just prolong the conflict or lead us into more deadly action.

Just take a look at other unresolved conflicts throughout the world.

The weather

The scientists have told us climate change is almost certainly due in some part due to human activity. The energy we use, the transport we travel on, the homes and offices we live in and use.

Previously we have been profligate in our use and abuse of the planet because we thought it was correct behaviour culturally to use everything we wanted when we wanted it. We allow our numbers to grow and most of our leaders encourage this so our invention of economic growth can be sustained.

We never think about the planet as a finite resource and we allow ourselves to be selfish as if it is expected and normal behaviour in our societies.

Our wanton destruction of the Earth's resources serve our desire for more and bigger goods, and property to show our status to others because deep inside us there is a disquiet, an insecurity,  that we don't know how to deal with so we try to escape with shows superficial material wealth.

Our conscious actions are surely driven by these deeper feelings that make us feel inadequate without external displays of money and power. It is surely the understanding of these deeper desires and drives that is more important than the clamour for external signs of success.

Without awareness of ourselves at all levels will it be possible to stem our rape of the planet to live here as a species in a sustainable and natural harmony and therefore allow our only real home to support us without the prospect of irreversible climate change?

The choice is not how we can fix the weather with huge technological schemes but can we look to ourselves.

I read the news today

We listen to the news and we are outwardly appalled. We shake our heads in disbelief and wring our hands as if to say what can I, the individual, do about it all.

What is the answer we ask ourselves to the horror we are told about going on all around us most of the time. I, the individual am not powerful or strong enough to do anything alone so we join a group, an organisation, an instiutution that will have a leader, a team dedicated to promoting their ideas. They may be saying "end slavery", "eradicate poverty" and other worthy objectives but do they see that they are perpetuating these global problems with their comfortable life styles, cheap imports of food and goods?

Why do we think the solution to our problems lie elsewhere? Surely our selfishness, greed, escapism, nationalism, desire for security need to be understood before real change can take place. Our need for gratification and complements, our pursuit of recognition from authority, our craving to be liked and loved by people in our 'group' lead us into constant conflict and compromise whilst we still have so little understanding of ourselves.

We have made society the way it is by our activities yet we want it to change to our ways so we cointinue to feel safe and comfortable; a place where we can escape from our fears and insecurities.

Are we capable of seeing the whole picture, of all the human misery created by us, the humans, or can we only try and fix our own tiny self-centered corner of existence disregarding the fundamental personal change required?

Before action can be taken, that understands and is truly intelligent, don't we have to be aware of our background and beliefs and the society which we support for our own reasons of security and comfort?

We want change without moving from our comfort zones so we continue to support the status quo even when we think we are doing something different and continue to shake our heads and wring our hands saying what can I do about all the hatred in the world.

Here  are some reflections from J Krishnamurti’s writings and talks. Many of these can be found on the internet if you want to understand more:

“Ignorance is the lack of self awareness; and knowledge is ignorance when there is no understanding of the ways of the self.”

“What is important is to understand desire and not to overcome one desire with another.”

“It is difficult to recognise an illusion for, having created it, the mind cannot be aware of it.”

“Experience is not an approach to truth; there is no ‘your experience’ or ‘my experience’, but only the intelligent understanding of the problem.”

“The problem is the important thing and not the answer”.

“Thought can never penetrate into the unknown; it must cease for the unknown to be. The action of the unknown is beyond the action of thought.”

“Respectability is a cloak for the hypocrite.”

“Whatever choice you make in the state of confusion can only lead to further confusion.”

“Understanding is of far greater importance than arriving at an end.”