Awakening Intelligence - #02
Observer and observed - Fragmentation | The thinker and the thoughts | Resistance : Inner Revolution
Ever thought about how thoughts work or how we think? Is thinking different than having thoughts? Let me explain how thoughts work we as humans have separated the thinker and the thought although they are part of the same coin in our brain, but we have put boundaries on thoughts, emotions, and ego. Why do we have inner conflicts when we are just one and have separated our emotions as observations why do we say “I have to control my anger” or “I’m jealous”? You will get these answers at the end of the post.
I have completed chapter 2 - Inner revolution from Book “Awakening Intelligence” By J Krishnamurti and learned about the observer and the observed, the thinker and the thought. Nothing great it's just the self-analysis part, no fancy mental model or philosophy it's just inner revolution - You As An Observer & The Observed.
J Krishnamurti's writing and explaining things is a bit complicated, so I read the chapter "Inner Revolution" thrice to understand the meaning and the analysis he did in his writing.
The inner revolution chapter is not like new things like philosophy or any concept, it just exists and we have seen it. There is already a thinker and thought, there is anger and you. But we have been conditioned - a separation between the observer and the observed. That is, we have looked at everything - at the tree, at the cloud, at the wife and the husband, at the girl and the boy - as the observer and the observed.
You have observed your anger, your greed, or your jealousy, whatever it is, as an observer looking at greed, the observer is greedy, but you have separated the observer because your mind is conditioned to the analytical process. Therefore you are always looking at the tree, at the cloud, at everything in life as an observer and the thing observed.
Just stop and think about this: You look at your friends or any relationship through the image which you have of his/her. That image is the observer, it is the past that image has been put together through time. And the observer is the time, the past, and the accumulated knowledge of the various incidents, accidents, happenings, experiences, and so on. That observer is the past and he looks at the thing observed as though he were not of it, but separate from it.
Now, can you look without the observer? Can you look at the tree without the past as the observer? That is, when there is the observer, then there is space between the observer and the observed - the tree. That space is time because there is a distance. That time is the quality of the observer, who is the past, who is the accumulated knowledge, who says, "That is the tree", or "That is the image of my wife".
If you understand this one radical principle, you will have understood something immense - that where there is an observer separating himself from the thing he observes, there must be conflict. Do what you will, as long as there is a separation between the observer and the observed, there must be conflict. As long as there is a division between the Muslim and Hindus, between Catholics and Protestants, and between black and white, there must be conflict. You may tolerate each other, which is an intellectual covering of intolerance.
As long as there is a division between you and your wife, there must be conflict. This division exists fundamentally, basically, as long as there is an observer separate from the observed.
As long as I say, 'Anger is different from me, I must control anger, I must change, I must control my thoughts, in that there is division; therefore there is conflict. Conflict implies suppression, conformity, imitation; all that is involved in it. If you really see the beauty of this, that the observer is observed, that the two are not separate, then you can observe the totality of consciousness without analysis.
From my perspective, we ourself can cut the separation between ourselves and our observations about ourselves, of anger, thoughts, and habits, but we can't do it with others, we can synchronize with friends, wife, or any person in relation, we can't cut the separation of the observed as "she is my wife/friend/any relation". How is this possible mentally or is there any deep meaning behind it, please comment on it and explain how we can cut the division of observed and the observer with another person, I don't know about this, I should have asked this question when J Krishnamurti was alive.
The observer is the thinker. We have given such tremendous importance to the thinker, haven't we? We live by thought, we do things by thought, we plan our life by thought, and our action is motivated by thought. And thought is worshipped throughout the world as the most extraordinarily important thing, which is part of the intellect.
As thought has separated itself as the thinker. The thinker says, "These thoughts are no good", "These are better", "The idea is better than that idea", "This belief is better than that belief". It is all a product of thought - thought which has made itself separate, fragmented itself as the thinker, as the experiencer. Thought has separated as the higher self and the lower self; in India, it is called Atman, the higher. Here you call it the soul or this or that. But it is still thought in operation. That's clear, isn't it? I mean, this is logical, it is not irrational.
All our books, all our literature, everything is thought. And our relationship is based on thought. Think about it, your friends are images you have created by thinking. That thinking has been put together by nagging, by all the things which go on between friends, the memory, experiences recorded, all the separative instincts that go on. Our thought is the result of our relationship.
Now, what is thought?
Surely, thought is the response of memory, isn't it? - memory as knowledge, memory as an experience that has been accumulated, and stored up in the brain cells. So the brain cells themselves are the cells of memory. But if you did not think at all, you would be in a state of amnesia, you would not be able to get to your house. Thought is the response of the accumulated memory as knowledge, as experience, whether it is yours, or inherited, the communal experience, and so on. So thought is the response of the past, which may project itself into the future, going through the present, modifying it as the future. But it is still past. So thought is never free.
How can it be free? It can imagine freedom, idealize what freedom should be, and create a utopia of freedom. But thought itself, in itself, is of the past, and therefore it is not free, it is always old.
Thought organizes our life, based on the past That thought, is based on past projects that should be tomorrow and so there is conflict.
Pleasure is a guiding principle in our life. We are not saying it is right or wrong, we are examining it. Thought as pleasure plays a tremendous part in our life. Something happened yesterday which was a lovely thing, chews it, and keeps on thinking about it and wants it repeated tomorrow, whether materialistic, emotional or physical pleasure any pleasure. So thought gives vitality to an incident that is over.
The very process of recording is knowledge, which is the past, and thought is the past. So thought, as pleasure, is sustained. If you have noticed, pleasure is always in the past, or the imagined pleasure of tomorrow is still the recollection projected into the future, from the past. There is a pleasure and the pursuit of pleasure, there is also the nourishing of fear.
So thought sustains and gives nourishment to pleasure as well as to fear. Thought is responsible for this. There is fear of the present, of the future, fear of death, fear of the unknown, fear of not fulfilling, fear of not being loved, wanting to be loved - there are so many fears, all created by the machinery of thought. So there is a rationality of thought and irrationality of thought.
So be aware of all the machinery of thought, of the complicated, subtle movement of thought. Conflict exists only when there is a division between "me" and "not me". Then if you see that not verbally or intellectually - because that is not seeing - but when you actually realize that there is no division between the observer and the observed, between the thinker and the thought, then you see, then you observe what is.
When I am jealous, I am jealous; not "I am different from jealousy". I make myself separate from jealousy because I want to do something about it, sustain it or get rid of it, or rationalize it, whatever it is. But the fact is the 'me' is jealous, isn't it?
We have broken up our life into many fragments, haven't we? - the scientist, the businessman, the artist, the housewife, and so on. What is the basis, and what is the root of this fragmentation? The root of this fragmentation is the observer being separated from the observed. He breaks up life: I am Hindu and you are Catholic, I am a communist, you are a bourgeois. So there is this division, what causes this division? - not only in the external, economic, and social, structure but much more deeply. This division is brought about by the 'me' and the 'not me' - the 'me' that wants to be superior, famous, greater - whereas 'you' are different.
So the 'me' is the observer, and the 'me' is the past, which divides the present as the past and the future. So as long as there is the observer, the experiencer, and the thinker, there must be division. Where the observer is the observed, conflict ceases and therefore jealousy ceases. Because jealousy is conflict, isn't it?
Is jealousy a human nature?
Is violence human nature? Is greed human nature?