Awakening Intelligence - #01
A series of notes and learning from J Krishnamurti's book - Awakening Intelligence
Currently, I’m reading the book “Awakening Intelligence by J Krishnamurti” this is the first part of and conversation between J. Krishnamurti and Professors Jacob Needleman.
In this article, I have explained what I was able to process and synthesized from the first part and first chapter of the book. Honestly to process some information we have to go through some experiences and have a mindset to understand. If I have read this book 1 or 2 years ago, I have just read it and not absorbed it properly, but right now I’m at that stage to read this kind of book and explain it, and still developing that kind of understanding. Please enjoy and absorb it.
When we seek with greed, we are vulnerable to being deceived.
Krishnamurti: We Accept, we are gullible, we are greedy for new experiences. People swallow what is said by anybody with a beard, with promises, saying you will have a marvelous experience if you do certain things. I think one has to say “I know nothing”. Obviously, I can’t rely on others. If there were no books, no gurus what you do?
Needleman: But one is so easily deceived.
Krishnamurti: You are deceived when you want something.
Needleman: Yes, I understand that.
Krishnamurti: So you say, ‘I am going to find out, I am going to inquire step by step. I don’t want to deceive myself.’
Deception arises when I want, when I am greedy, when I say, “All experience is shallow, I want something mysterious”, then I am caught.
Needleman: To me you are speaking about a state, an attitude, an approach, which is itself very far along in understanding for a man. I feel very far from that myself, and I know my students do. And they feel, rightly or wrongly, a need for help. They probably misunderstand what help is, but is there such a thing as help?
Krishnamurti: Would you say: ‘Why do you ask for help?’
Needleman: Let me put it like this. You sort of smell yourself deceiving yourself, you don’t exactly know…
Krishnamurti: It is fairly simple. I don’t want to deceive myself,right? So I find out what is the movement, what is the thing that brings deception. Obviously it is when I am greedy, when I want something, when I am dissatisfied. So instead of attacking greed, want, dissatisfaction, I want something more.
Needleman: Yes
Krishnamurti: So I have to understand my greed. What am I greedy for? Is it because I am fed up with this world, I have had women, I have had cars, I have had money and I want something more?
Here, what I perceive is and my personal experience - When I start something new, out of my domain, I ask hundreds of people a lot of questions, search for here and there on the internet which is eventually written by other people and nobody knows they are expert or not, so filling up with lots of information I somehow deceive myself by believing other people thoughts and opinions, here you missed a most important thing, did I ask myself.
Did I ask myself, why do start learning this new domain, did I ask how should I approach this new domain without any help from outside? When do I know that I am satisfied with the information that I need to stop? The answer is never, we continuously look for answers and help. And because of that we somehow feel underconfident. That’s similar my mentor also said :
“When you are going outside in the real world, you should know things that you are presenting, you should not seek any outside help, you should not deceive yourself by others, this world is filled with fake and paid media, all you have to do is know what you are doing, you should know your things better than anyone”
I feel somehow the first principle in here, in J krishnamurti’s statement start from yourself from zero step by step, and also look for when to stop looking for help. Anyway, that was my experience.
Also, on second-order thinking, people are vulnerable to being deceived when they seeking something when they are looking for something. Stop for a moment and think, right now what is going on who is deceiving who, is it social media, or mass groups or?
“I don’t Know” - What it means?
Krishnamurti: Why has thought in all cultures with most people become of such vital concern?
Needleman: One usually identifies oneself as thought, as one’s thoughts. If I think about myself I think about what I think, what kind of ideas I have, and what I believe. Is this what you mean?
Krishnamurti: Not quite. Apart from identification with the ‘me’ or with the ‘not me’, why is thought always active?
Needleman: Ah, I see.
Krishnamurti: Thought is always operating in knowledge isn’t it? If there was no knowledge, thought would not be. Thought is always operating in the field of the known. Whether mechanical, non-verbal, and so on, it is always working in the past. So my life is the pas because it is based on past knowledge, pas experience, past memories, pleasure, pain, fear, and so on; it is all the pas. And the future I project from the pas, thought projects from the past. So thought is fluctuating between the past and the future. All the time it says “I should do this, I should not do that, I should have behaved.” Why is it doing all this?
Needleman: I don’t know. Habit?
Krishnamurti: Habit. Alright. Go on. Let’s find out. Habit?
Needleman: Habit brings what I call pleasure.
Krishnamurti: Habit, Pleasure, Pain
Needleman: To protect me. Pain, yes pain.
Krishnamurti: It is always working within that field. Why?
Needleman: Because it doesn’t know any better.
Krishnamurti: No, no. Can thought work in any other field?
Needleman: That sort of thought. No
Krishnamurti: No, not any thought. Can thought work in any other field except in the field of the known?
Needleman: No.
Krishnamurti: Obviously not. It can’t work in something I don’t know; it can work in this field. Now, why does it work in this? There it is sir. Why? It is the only thing I know. In that there is security, there is protection, there is safety. That is all I know. And when it gets tired of that as it does, then it seeks something outside. Then what it seeks is still the known. Its gods, its visions, and its spiritual states are all projected out of the known past into the future known. So thought always works in this field.
Needleman: Yes, I see.
Krishnamurti: Therefore thought is always working in a prison. It can call it freedom, it can call it beauty, it can call it what it likes. But it is always within the limitations of the barbed-wire fence. No, I want to find out whether thought has any place except in there. Thought has no place when I say ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know Right?
Needleman: For the moment?
Krishnamurti: I really don’t know. I know only this and I really don’t know whether thought can function in any field at all, except this. I really don’t know. When I say, “I don’t know, which doesn’t mean I am expecting to know when I say I really don’t know, what happens? I climb down the added. I become, the mind becomes completely humble.
Now that state of not-knowing is intelligence. Then it can operate in the field of the known and be free to work somewhere else if it wants to.
Listen to the full conversation :