What is the self? | J. Krishnamurti

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What is the self? | J. Krishnamurti

Extract from the second conversation with Buddhist scholars at Brockwood Park, 1978.

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[domingosmsande]

Part of a dialogue between Krishnamurti and the actor Terence Stamp:

K: You don't have to be Edison to switch on the electric light.

TS: Listen, I am a simple guy, self taught mostly...

K: What you are...what you actually are, is being. Being is not the mind thinking. Thinking is a movement, a motion. Being is the silence that precedes the motion. You cannot see it; you cannot grasp it because you are it. The feeling that you are. The unadorned naked awareness that is always there, rarely heeded, is what you always have been, always will be. Cannot not be. You can't look for it, because it is what is looking. It is like space - you can't see it but everything is in it. Everything is it. So I say to you, be aware when you are unaware; let its presence warm you, fill you. Be present in the Presence.

[domingosmsande]

The ego exists only in time. Time is the movement of one image towards another image, that is, the movement of thought. Thought is limited, so time is limited, so the ego is limited, and so, all the divisions are the product of something limited. Therefore, all the divisions, being the product of thought, of concepts, are false. They are only images on the screen of Truth. The idea about Truth is not Truth.

Silence is Truth. Pure Consciousness, which is Life, is Truth. When the false is seen, Truth becomes evident. It looks like an emptiness, but everything comes from It. Everything is It.

[skpince]

No identification, no self. Then there is the Self which we are.

[sifatibnmorshed]

O my goodness!
what an incredible human being was he!

[fatoufrancescambow]

Thank you so much for sharing such helpful conversations

[sanekabc]

He means the ending of psychological thought and not other forms of thought. He doesn't always mention that but it helps make the point he is making more reasonable for listeners who are not familiar with this line of thought. :)

[srinivasarao]

'The roots of heaven are in deep, abiding silence.'

'The roots of heaven are in great emptiness, for in emptiness there is energy, incalculable, vast and profound.'

'The roots of heaven are in living and dying.'
--- K to Himself.


Therefore logically, as as a sequential order: the roots of hell are in knowledge, memory, identification, continuity, fear, pleasure, sorrow and all the images put together by thought --- of course psychologically.

It isn't that the roots of heaven and hell are related to each other; if so one contains the seeds of another and there a perpetual chain of cause-effect. The vicious circle in which human brain 🧠 has been caught up since time immemorial.

To break through this in an instant, without any volition of desire, predetermination or effort is the essence of a religious brain or mind. To break through the cockle-shell of time-space in one go --- absolute, irrevocable and irreversible. Otherwise, one can have all the paraphernalia and outer decoration called religion; but one is still caught up in delusion and illusion of one's own making. With the complete, absolute destruction of roots of hell --- the open highway to roots of heaven are laid wide open. Caution: not an iota of (or a particle) thought-time is allowed.

[ishapattanashettar]

“ the root of the self is movement of thought “ 🙏🙏❤️

[GR]

0:01
K : what is the self?
K : the name, the form..
I : No.
K : just wait sir

😂😂😂

[JuraGaga]

Self and thinking is the same, mind. Just as body and life. Ask yourself: do you create your thoughts or thoughts create you. Without thinking there is no 'you or I that exists. Anyway it's 21 min past 3 am ❤

[MrJasiek]

The self is a concept created and contained within mind. Murti says that identification is gone when thought comes to the end - true, but it's not the ultimate goal to eradicate thoughts. He should enquiry into the root and causes of identification instead of only emphasizing on silencing the mind, otherwise people will wrongly assume that only people who don't think may be liberated which is an absurd.

[theuofs]

The essence of the self are beliefs - who we believe we (and others) are along with the wants and desires one formulates (from knowledge, prior experience, and, to some extent, imagination and fantasy) that we further struggle to pursue in the attainment of and/or maintaining safety, security, and pleasure as well as pain avoidance.

[domingosmsande]

Life, which is Consciousness, is our everyday basis. It doesn't belong to the body nor to thought. It cannot be measured. For the individual to really ascertain this - not to believe in this - thought has to be quiet. When there is this discovery, thought has its proper place, as an instrument.

Then, thought does not attribute to itself the Life that is vivifying it. So simple, but it needs a great deal of investigation and the humility of really not knowing.

Once the image, the idea, the mental construction is never the being or the thing it represents, who or what am I?

[domingosmsande]

Is life, existence, a matter of the sequence of events? What do we mean by sequence of events? Do I know that I am alive because I remember yesterday? Do I know that I am alive because I know the way to my house? Or do I know that I am alive because I am going to be somebody? How do I know that I am alive? It is only in the present, surely, that I know I am conscious. Is consciousness merely the result of the sequence of events? With most of us, it is.

K, Ojai.

[kandukurisrinivasrao]

Ending of thoughts, shakti, psyche, Dharma-kaya, and revelation of thoughts is in mantras.no ending, not a state, rather being, continuity.Magic mazes, some have, so accommodate Buddha, psychic being, nihil oriental, for occidental mazes are walls, they explore their only ways.

[NicolasRobertsValencia]

Im not myself i dont belong to me the oldest create me i belong to

[domingosmsande]

Everything put together by thought is limited, be it belief, philosophy, mythology, scientific knowledge and all the rest of it.

One can perceive the limits and the nature of knowledge. Without any invention of thought, who am I? Without resorting to any explanations - they are all limited - who or what am I?

[melissaklemm]

It does not exact any measurements for the higher calling❤

[skpince]

He was from another galaxy. It was an accident that he landed here.

[zachbos]

Maybe the common man is looking for the same thing, but he is searching for it in the experiences of the world...In vain, of course. But that is no different than having a lot of knowledge about Buddha, or commenting on a K video ;)