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Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’ with Respondent No. 20
RICHARD: Irregardless of the issue of whether Richard is either egoless or psychotic – or actually free of the human condition as a third alternative – any cruelty, first and foremost, lies in the heart of the ‘giver’ and inevitably turns in on itself as existential sorrow. Thus, in the final analysis, it is the ‘giver’ who suffers the most intimately. As for the ‘receiver’ of any cruelty, it is entirely up to them what they do with it ... apart from physical cruelty, no-one can force their cruelty on another without the other’s acquiescence and compliance. It is a truly and remarkably free world we live in! RESPONDENT No. 25: Thank you for seeing and expressing the above with such lucidity! If only oppressors would see it. RESPONDENT: How do we compare the suffering of the oppressor and the oppressed? We have heard this line before, but usually, as in the case of Socrates or Dostoevski, it is predicated on the existence of a soul. RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: It is the oppressor’s soul, they have said, which is defiled or damaged, ergo greater suffering to the oppressor. RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: Here there is no possibility of such a belief to substantiate the statement. So the term ‘heart’ is substituted. RICHARD: I have never, ever denied the inner reality of the – very, very real at times – soul in all 6.0 billion peoples alive on this planet today. Indeed, the very presence of ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul is the root cause of any cruelty in the first place. The term ‘in the heart’ is merely following a conventional understanding as to the heart being the seat of the soul ... it was ‘soul’ that I meant by the phrase ‘in the heart’ and was in no way some slippery substitution. RESPONDENT: That evil prospers while the good suffer is an age old difficulty for all religions. It does not fit well into neat systems of moral thought, which holds out the promise of justice, meaning punishment for what is bad and rewards for what is good. RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: And what is implied when you say that it is the victim’s acquiescence and compliance that makes that victim’s suffering possible? Are you pointing your finger at the tortured as responsible for the torture? RICHARD: No ... that is a separate subject. I was conveying exactly what the words say: nobody – but nobody – can psychologically or psychically harm me in any way or manner. Both insults and flattery – and indifference – have no effect whatsoever. RESPONDENT: Are you saying that it is up to the victim whether there is the experience of pain and loss? RICHARD: Yes.
RICHARD: Irregardless of the issue of whether Richard is either egoless or psychotic – or actually free of the human condition as a third alternative – any cruelty, first and foremost, lies in the heart of the ‘giver’ and inevitably turns in on itself as existential sorrow. Thus, in the final analysis, it is the ‘giver’ who suffers the most intimately. As for the ‘receiver’ of any cruelty, it is entirely up to them what they do with it ... apart from physical cruelty, no-one can force their cruelty on another without the other’s acquiescence and compliance. It is a truly and remarkably free world we live in! RESPONDENT: How do we compare the suffering of the oppressor and the oppressed? We have heard this line before, but usually, as in the case of Socrates or Dostoevski, it is predicated on the existence of a soul. RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: It is the oppressor’s soul, they have said, which is defiled or damaged, ergo greater suffering to the oppressor. RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: Here there is no possibility of such a belief to substantiate the statement. So the term ‘heart’ is substituted. RICHARD: I have never, ever denied the inner reality of the – very, very real at times – soul in all 6.0 billion peoples alive on this planet today. Indeed, the very presence of ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul is the root cause of any cruelty in the first place. The term ‘in the heart’ is merely following a conventional understanding as to the heart being the seat of the soul ... it was ‘soul’ that I meant by the phrase ‘in the heart’ and was in no way some slippery substitution. RESPONDENT: That evil prospers while the good suffer is an age old difficulty for all religions. It does not fit well into neat systems of moral thought, which holds out the promise of justice, meaning punishment for what is bad and rewards for what is good. RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: And what is implied when you say that it is the victim’s acquiescence and compliance that makes that victim’s suffering possible? Are you pointing your finger at the tortured as responsible for the torture? RICHARD: No ... that is a separate subject. I was conveying exactly what the words say: nobody – but nobody – can psychologically or psychically harm me in any way or manner. Both insults and flattery – and indifference – have no effect whatsoever. RESPONDENT: Are you saying that it is up to the victim whether there is the experience of pain and loss? RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: Thank you for your clear responses. You are being sent a good deal of mail from the participants on the list, and so I will keep this reply brief. If I understand your response and can simplify it, you are saying that the soul does exist (at least usually), and that in your case it is extinguished completely. RICHARD: Yes. RESPONDENT: If this captures what you are saying, then I would appreciate your comments on what you find to be the evidence for the existence of the soul in yourself (looking at your past) or in others. RICHARD: First and foremost, as I am a human being – and being born and raised in what is called the normal way – after allowing for idiosyncrasies any study of one’s own psyche is a study of the human psyche. Therefore, any verifiably common discoveries are valid for all peoples, given due allowance for gender, racial and era variance. Through face-to-face interaction and through reading and watching media it is entirely reasonable to deduce that that the three ways of experiencing the world of people, things and events (1. sensate; 2. cerebral; 3. affective) is common to all human beings. And, essentially, there is no difference between English malice and sorrow and African malice and sorrow and Indian malice and sorrow and so on and so on. I use the generally accepted convention of ‘malice’ and ‘sorrow’ as delineated by most religions and/or philosophies, that fall under the umbrella term ‘The Human Condition’, purely for convenience. In Christianity, for example, the word ‘suffering’ means the same affective feelings as the word ‘sorrow’ does. Similarly, the ‘Golden Rule’ (found in all religions) known in English as ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ points to the feelings covered under the catch-all word ‘malice’. Basically, ‘malice’ is what one does to others (resentment, anger, hatred, rage, sadism and so on) and ‘sorrow’ (sadness, loneliness, melancholy, grief, masochism and so on) is what one does to oneself ... as a broad generalisation. In my investigations I first started by examining thought, thoughts and thinking ... then very soon moved on to examining feelings (first the emotions and then the deeper feelings). When I dug down into these passions (into the core of ‘my’ being then into ‘being’ itself) I stumbled across the instincts ... and found the origin of not only the affective faculty but the psyche itself. Thus when I refer to ‘soul’ I am meaning ‘me’ at the core of ‘being’ ... which is the instinctual rudimentary animal self common to all sentient beings (which ‘original face’ is what gives rise to the feeling of ‘oneness’ with all other sentient beings). This is a very ancient genetic memory; being born of the biologically inherited instincts genetically encoded in the germ cells of the spermatozoa and the ova, ‘I’ am – genetically – umpteen tens of thousands of years old ... ‘my’ origins are lost in the mists of pre-history. ‘I’ am so anciently old that ‘I’ may well have always existed ... carried along on the reproductive cell-line, over countless millennia, from generation to generation. And ‘I’ am thus passed on into an inconceivably open-ended and hereditably transmissible future. The elimination of ‘being’ is the extinction of the ‘soul’.
RESPONDENT No. 39: Yes, two things stand out: pure intent and don’t possess it. I am looking at pure intent to see if I have it and I am on guard to not pursue it or possess it. RICHARD: You say that ‘two things stand out’ ... yet you slip in a third thing as if I had said it (‘to not pursue it’) when it is really ‘ancient wisdom’ that promotes that view. Speaking personally, the ‘I’ that was pursued it like ‘he’ had never pursued anything before ... ‘he’ made it the number one priority in ‘his’ life. ‘He’ was a married man, with four children, running ‘his’ own business, with a house mortgage to pay off and a car on hire purchase ... in other words: normal. And all the while that ‘he’ pursued it, ‘he’ was working twelve-fourteen hour days, six-seven days a week ... yet ‘his’ pursuit of peace-on-earth took absolute precedence over all other matters and dominated ‘his’ every moment (‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’). RESPONDENT No. 3: Eido Rochi of Dai Bosatsu Zendo once said to us (mid 80s) that if we want enlightenment, we must want it as a drowning man wants air; that the closer we come to it, the more compelling it will be, of itself. RESPONDENT: J. Krishnamurti: ‘Why should you accept what anybody says about these matters – including myself? Why should you accept any authority about the inward movement of life? We reject authority outwardly; if you are at all intellectually aware and observant politically you reject these things. But we apparently accept the authority of someone who says, ‘I know, I have achieved, I have realized’. The man who says he knows, he does not know. The moment you say you know, you don’t know. What is it you know? Some experience which you have had, some kind of vision, some kind of enlightenment? I dislike to use that word ‘enlightenment’. Once you have experienced that, you think you have attained some extraordinary state; but that is past, you can only know something which is over and therefore dead’. RICHARD: I take it that you do not find it odd to be quoting the words of someone other than yourself so as to offset another person’s quoting of the words of someone other than themself? Does not this action of yours render the point that you are ostensibly making (do not quote an authority) null and void by your very quoting of another’s words? Especially when the first line of your borrowed wisdom specifically states ‘why should you accept what anybody says about these matters – including myself’ ... which effectively negates any and all of the (what I see to be specious anyway) words that follow in that paragraph quoted? Or is this shaping up to be a battle of the proxies?
RESPONDENT No. 3: Eido Rochi of Dai Bosatsu Zendo once said to us (mid 80s) that if we want enlightenment, we must want it as a drowning man wants air; that the closer we come to it, the more compelling it will be, of itself. RESPONDENT: J. Krishnamurti: ‘Why should you accept what anybody says about these matters – including myself? Why should you accept any authority about the inward movement of life? We reject authority outwardly; if you are at all intellectually aware and observant politically you reject these things. But we apparently accept the authority of someone who says, ‘I know, I have achieved, I have realized’. The man who says he knows, he does not know. The moment you say you know, you don’t know. What is it you know? Some experience which you have had, some kind of vision, some kind of enlightenment? I dislike to use that word ‘enlightenment’. Once you have experienced that, you think you have attained some extraordinary state; but that is past, you can only know something which is over and therefore dead’. RICHARD: I take it that you do not find it odd to be quoting the words of someone other than yourself so as to offset another person’s quoting of the words of someone other than themself? Does not this action of yours render the point that you are ostensibly making (do not quote an authority) null and void by your very quoting of another’s words? RESPONDENT: That was not, however, the point I was making in providing that quote. And I would just add that the quote from K covers a lot more ground than ‘do not quote an authority’. RICHARD: The way it reads to me is that the first four sentences covers the ‘do not quote an authority’ aspect and the remaining six sentences pretends to explain why one should not ‘quote an authority’ (wherein he attempts to disallow what their authority is based upon by dismissing their experience via bogus reasoning). * RICHARD: Especially when the first line of your borrowed wisdom specifically states ‘why should you accept what anybody says about these matters – including myself’ ... which effectively negates any and all of the (what I see to be specious anyway) words that follow in that paragraph quoted? RESPONDENT: Not necessarily. It depends on the intentions of the contributor. In this case, I do not regard providing quotations in the same way that you do. Yes they can be appeals to ‘authority’ but they can also be jumping off points for discussion. That has a long intellectual tradition. And it is a practice that makes sense here, considering the nature of this particular list. I came across the quote shortly after reading this post, and I felt that it was appropriate not only in connection to what No. 3 wrote, but as well what No. 39 and you were talking about. RICHARD: What was being discussed was wanting, desiring (or in any other way pursuing) what one has experienced previously as being what one wishes to live, for as much as is possible, for the remainder of one’s life. There may be dissension about what the optimum experience may be ... but it is the method or way of accessing or obtaining or uncovering or enabling (or whatever) this experience that is being discussed. What I had to say (‘I’ wanted it like ‘I’ had never wanted anything before) prompted the response about Mr. Eido Rochi stating loud and clear that one must ‘want enlightenment as a drowning man wants air’. I would have considered that an ‘appropriate’ response in this context from Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s millions of words could very well have been his oft-repeated ‘it means giving your mind, your heart, your whole being to this enquiry’ or his ‘the house is on fire’ analogy: [quote]: ‘if there is some catastrophe, an accident or whatever it is, it is a challenge and I have the energy to meet it. I do not have to ask: ‘how do I get this energy?’. When the house is on fire I have the energy to move; extraordinary energy. I do not sit back and say: ‘well, I must get this energy’ and then wait; the whole house will be burned by then. So there is this tremendous energy’ [endquote]. Instead you chose a quote that wipes out Mr. Eido Rochi’s contribution to human knowledge, via his sharing of experience, in one fell swoop. RESPONDENT: And what I am referring to is the point K is making concerning knowledge of that extraordinary state. I am considering K’s point. It is not an authority. Perhaps we can look at this together. It is the point that concerns me and not the best interpretation of what K is saying. RICHARD: Okay ... can there be ‘knowledge of that extraordinary state’? As this ‘extraordinary state’ can only actually exist at this moment in being alive, the question means: can what is happening, right here at this place in space right now at this moment in time, be known in such a way as to be rationally (sensibly and reasonably) understood ... as would be evidenced by being able to communicate this with another by the spoken or written word? RESPONDENT: So what is it in the quote that you find to be specious? RICHARD: The blanket dismissal of the validity of anybody’s experience other than Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s for starters (whereas, realistically, spiritual enlightenment has a global occurrence). Then he even paraphrases Mr. Lao Tzu (‘the man who says he knows, he does not know; the moment you say you know, you don’t know’) which, apart from being in direct contradiction to his own ‘Teachings’ (‘do not quote anybody – including the speaker’) implies acknowledgement of the authority of someone revered as having attained that which he is currently condemning (enlightenment). He lays that adage down as an edict (as if it were carved-in-stone-ancient-wisdom) instead of examining it for veracity (and it has no veracity upon examination) and instead sidesteps the issue by blurring the distinction between enlightenment itself (which is an on-going experiencing of egolessness for the remainder of one’s life) and the temporary enlightenment episode, which is of course now in the past. Thus what he presents, to substantiate his injunction (as delineated by ‘reject any authority ... on the inward matters’) to the listener, who must listen with total attention, are not relevant reasons at all. A relevant reason would be a demonstrable incompetence on the part of the author, for example, as in an inability to ‘practice what one preaches’. I find the whole paragraph to be corrupt.
RICHARD: I take it that you do not find it odd to be quoting the words of someone other than yourself so as to offset another person’s quoting of the words of someone other than themself? Does not this action of yours render the point that you are ostensibly making (do not quote an authority) null and void by your very quoting of another’s words? RESPONDENT: That was not, however, the point I was making in providing that quote. And I would just add that the quote from K covers a lot more ground than ‘do not quote an authority’. RICHARD: The way it reads to me is that the first four sentences covers the ‘do not quote an authority’ aspect and the remaining six sentences pretends to explain why one should not ‘quote an authority’ (wherein he attempts to disallow what their authority is based upon by dismissing their experience via bogus reasoning). RESPONDENT: Yes the point concerning knowledge and experience is used to explain the point concerning the following of authorities. But that explanation has far wider impact and range than the acceptance of an authority on inward matters. It has application to any contexts where knowledge or experience is appealed to, whether or not an authority is also involved. It involves as well ‘my’ relationship to my own knowledge and experiences. RICHARD: As you appear to be in agreement with the ‘the man who says he knows, he does not know; the moment you say you know, you don’t know’ part of this paragraph then anything I have said thus far is beside the point for you. This holds true for the entire post and indeed appears to be the reason that you originally posted it. Just so as to not become bogged down in peripheral issues, I would make it clear up-front that I am not in agreement with this ... um ... truism. If its invalidity can be established, the entire paragraph collapses like a house of cards. I also take it that you do not find it odd that a person who publicly declared that people should reject authority (especially on ‘inward matters’) would spend a lifetime travelling the world urging people to ‘listen’ to him ... and that if they were to do so ‘with all of their being’ and ‘drink the water’ they too would be like him? He said: ‘The speaker doesn’t have anything he could teach you ... the speaker is only a mirror where you can see yourself ... then, when you recognise yourself clearly, you can put aside the mirror’. And he even tells people what it is they need to ‘realise’ so as to ‘recognise themselves’ so as to be like him ... and how. Viz.:
I see that he clearly and unambiguously says ‘I say such a thing [God or truth] does exist, I have realised it’ as being a definitive statement of indisputable fact for him that he urges his listeners too to discover for themselves. Now, I do not know about you, but in my understanding, ‘God or truth’ (not the words but the ‘thing’ that the words point to) is the ultimate authority in anybody’s book. And an unquestionable authority. * RICHARD: Especially when the first line of your borrowed wisdom specifically states ‘why should you accept what anybody says about these matters – including myself’ ... which effectively negates any and all of the (what I see to be specious anyway) words that follow in that paragraph quoted? RESPONDENT: Not necessarily. It depends on the intentions of the contributor. In this case, I do not regard providing quotations in the same way that you do. Yes they can be appeals to ‘authority’ but they can also be jumping off points for discussion. That has a long intellectual tradition. And it is a practice that makes sense here, considering the nature of this particular list. I came across the quote shortly after reading this post, and I felt that it was appropriate not only in connection to what No. 3 wrote, but as well what No. 39 and you were talking about. RICHARD: What was being discussed was wanting, desiring (or in any other way pursuing) what one has experienced previously as being what one wishes to live, for as much as is possible, for the remainder of one’s life. There may be dissension about what the optimum experience may be ... but it is the method or way of accessing or obtaining or uncovering or enabling (or whatever) this experience that is being discussed. What I had to say (‘I’ wanted it like ‘I’ had never wanted anything before) prompted the response about Mr. Eido Rochi stating loud and clear that one must ‘want enlightenment as a drowning man wants air’. RESPONDENT: Yes, that ‘method’ of looking at the past, is what the quote is addressing, not simply following another’s authority, but wanting that which we have experienced or that we know. It is quite normal and natural to want what we have enjoyed or valued. But that is a movement from the past that is coming in to direct the present so as to actualise something in the future. And this ‘method’ is what K is challenging in that passage, and in many other passages. That challenge to these normal ways is what I find interesting, and worthy of examination. RICHARD: I do not find it interesting at all ... in 1980 I had a pure consciousness experience (PCE) that lasted for four hours wherein I experienced life as perfection personified. Then I reverted to normal. If I had not then acted on this ‘movement from the past’ that was ‘coming in to direct the present’ so as to ‘actualise something in the future’ I would still be normal today. Anyway (according to Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti just prior to his death) as no one has been able to live his ‘Teachings’, I have yet another reason to not find his method ‘worthy of examination’ at all. Other than its historical value, his method does not even hold an academic interest for me. * RICHARD: I would have considered that an ‘appropriate’ response in this context from Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s millions of words could very well have been his oft-repeated ‘it means giving your mind, your heart, your whole being to this enquiry’ or his ‘the house is on fire’ analogy: [quote]: ‘if there is some catastrophe, an accident or whatever it is, it is a challenge and I have the energy to meet it. I do not have to ask: ‘how do I get this energy?’. When the house is on fire I have the energy to move; extraordinary energy. I do not sit back and say: ‘well, I must get this energy’ and then wait; the whole house will be burned by then. So there is this tremendous energy’ [endquote]. Instead you chose a quote that wipes out Mr. Eido Rochi’s contribution to human knowledge, via his sharing of experience, in one fell swoop. RESPONDENT: I think that we need to clarify the difference between a contribution to human knowledge, and a statement which is regarded as an authority. Contributions are not necessarily regarded as authorities. They can be taken in an open way, so that we look at them, examine them carefully, and learn what is valuable and what is not valid through that examination. That is to regard contributions in a different light, there is an educational function without finality. That is not just in regards to what Mr. Eido Rochi has said, but what K said, and what you or I say to each other. This is where listening comes in, which is radically different from following blindly. RICHARD: You appear to have a different meaning to the word ‘listening’ than what Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti said he meant by the word. * RESPONDENT: And what I am referring to is the point K is making concerning knowledge of that extraordinary state. I am considering K’s point. It is not an authority. Perhaps we can look at this together. It is the point that concerns me and not the best interpretation of what K is saying. RICHARD: Okay ... can there be ‘knowledge of that extraordinary state’? As this ‘extraordinary state’ can only actually exist at this moment of being alive, the question means: can what is happening, right here at this place in space right now at this moment in time, be known in such a way as to be rationally (sensibly and reasonably) understood ... as would be evidenced by being able to communicate this with others by the spoken or written word? RESPONDENT: Yes, that is a very good question. It has significance to the question of education. RICHARD: Good. It therefore becomes relevant to ascertain just what is the optimum ‘extraordinary state’ ... is it the one that thought has to stop for its occurrence (which means that it cannot be known) or is it the one wherein something other than thought has to stop for its occurrence (which means that it can be known)? RESPONDENT: And a related question is, what is worthwhile about past experiences, that they should come to direct present ones, especially when we understand that these past experiences, functioning as memory, can interfere with and block our ability to be fully aware of the here and now. RICHARD: I do not find it to be a ‘related question’ at all. If I had not acted on my ‘past experience, functioning as memory’ my ‘ability to be fully aware’ right here at this place in space right now at this moment in time would still be ‘blocked’ today ... along with my ability to know it in such a way as to be rationally (sensibly and reasonably) understood ... as is evidenced by being able to communicate this with others by the spoken or written word. * RESPONDENT: So what is it in the quote that you find to be specious? RICHARD: The blanket dismissal of the validity of anybody’s experience other than Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti’s for starters (whereas, realistically, spiritual enlightenment has a global occurrence). RESPONDENT: But K also includes himself in his dismissal of authority. RICHARD: What he says and what he does are two different things ... if he had actually meant that then he would have retired from public speaking right after this very paragraph. Instead he travelled the world imploring people to ‘listen’ ... and he means ‘listen’ as in ‘drink the water’ (which ‘water’ he is the living embodiment of – the ‘supreme intelligence’ or ‘that which is sacred, holy’ or the ‘otherness’ – which is what the words point to) rather than the ordinary way of listening to words. Which ‘listening’ is otherwise known (in the world of Gurus and God-Men) as ‘satsang’. I have read that he said, just before his death, that when he died that ‘supreme intelligence’ would not manifest itself again for ‘many hundred years’. And he reportedly followed this ‘supreme intelligence’ statement with words to the effect ‘if people would live the teachings they would live it somewhat’ ... if that does not make him, not only ‘an authority’ but ‘the authority’ (and for many hundreds of years to come), I do not know what does. * RICHARD: Then he even paraphrases Mr. Lao Tzu (‘the man who says he knows, he does not know; the moment you say you know, you don’t know’) which, apart from being in direct contradiction to his own ‘Teachings’ (‘do not quote anybody – including the speaker’) implies acknowledgement of the authority of someone revered as having attained that which he is currently condemning (enlightenment). RESPONDENT: You are reaching now Richard. You may take K’s remark to be borrowed from Lao Tzu, but there is no necessity in this. As you would probably admit, the same or a similar discovery can be made by many different people. RICHARD: Where am I ‘reaching’? Speaking personally, people can quote another to their
heart’s content (it gives me the opportunity to question their borrowed wisdom) ... it was Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti who made a big
thing out of not doing this. Yet here he is doing this very thing. Now what I have found is that it is all too easy to stop one’s
investigation dead in its tracks by finding endorsement of one’s own experience in the words of another who is acknowledged to
be speaking from experience ... but does this corroboration necessarily make the joint discovery valid? As far as I am concerned,
Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti made an excellent contribution to the advancement of human knowledge with his ‘question everything –
even the speaker’ advice ... yet to my recollection he never questioned this ‘the man who says he knows, he does not know;
the moment you say you know, you don’t know’ ... um ... truism Is it not because his experience showed him that when what he called the ‘new’ (or ‘otherness’ or ‘that which is sacred, holy’ and so on) appeared, thought played no part ... and in fact made the ‘new’ old when thought touched it? Viz.:
There are literally hundreds of examples like this among the millions of words – it is a common theme – thus when someone says that ‘they know’ they cannot possibly be knowing the ‘otherness’ because it takes thought to know something ... and when thought is operating that ‘otherness’ is not. * RICHARD: He lays that adage down as an edict (as if it were carved-in-stone-ancient-wisdom) instead of examining it for veracity (and it has no veracity upon examination). RESPONDENT: What I understand from the quote is that there is no reason to accept anything as carved in stone, as edict, we need to examine every comment for its veracity. Which is what I take you to be saying as well. RICHARD: Aye, that is what I am doing ... but Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti does not ‘examine every comment for its veracity’ in this paragraph because he blatantly fudges the point by failing to distinguish between enlightenment itself (‘I say such a thing [God or truth] does exist, I have realised it’) and an enlightenment episode (‘some experience which you have had, some kind of vision, some kind of enlightenment’). Thus what he presents are not relevant reasons to ‘reject authority ... on inward matters’ at all. An example of a relevant reason would be a demonstrable incompetence on the part of the author ... as in an inability to ‘practice what one preaches’. * RICHARD: Instead he sidesteps the issue by blurring the distinction between enlightenment itself (which is an on-going experiencing of egolessness for the remainder of one’s life) and the temporary enlightenment episode, which is of course now in the past. RESPONDENT: Well this is a point. Is the ongoing enlightenment born anew each moment, or is it a carry over from the past? RICHARD: The ongoing enlightenment commences or comes into being at a definitive point in a person’s life (known as ‘ego-death’ or ‘dissolution of the ego’ and so on) and once it dies it is dead forever. To take Buddhism as just one (well-known) example, Mr. Gotama the Sakyan clearly had such a moment under the ‘Bodhi Tree’ that marked the end of the old (the man Gautama) and the beginning of the new (the Lord Buddha). The same-same as under a certain pepper tree.
RICHARD: The way it reads to me is that the first four sentences covers the ‘do not quote an authority’ aspect and the remaining six sentences pretends to explain why one should not ‘quote an authority’ (wherein he attempts to disallow what their authority is based upon by dismissing their experience via bogus reasoning). RESPONDENT: Yes the point concerning knowledge and experience is used to explain the point concerning the following of authorities. But that explanation has far wider impact and range than the acceptance of an authority on inward matters. It has application to any contexts where knowledge or experience is appealed to, whether or not an authority is also involved. It involves as well ‘my’ relationship to my own knowledge and experiences. RICHARD: As you appear to be in agreement with the ‘the man who says he knows, he does not know; the moment you say you know, you don’t know’ part of this paragraph then anything I have said thus far is beside the point for you. This holds true for the entire post and indeed appears to be the reason that you originally posted it. RESPONDENT: But my views on this statement were never made public. My reason for posting it may only be to look at the connection between it and the other statements being made by No. 3, No. 39 and by you. This is a way of asking others to comment, of questioning them through the presentation of these points. Actually, I do not agree with the statement in question, at least not in the unqualified form that it now has. A man that says he knows, may know or may not know. His saying that he knows is not logically connected to what he knows. But there is a particular version of this statement, that I find worthwhile exploring. And this is what I think K was saying. That a man who says he is transformed or enlightened (and in this sense knows) can know something which establishes that as factual. But all the man knows is what he was, not what he is. RICHARD: I am curious as to what makes you ‘think K was saying’ that ‘all the man knows is what he was, not what he is’? Obviously not his own words ... words such as what I have already posted. Viz.:
And again:
And also:
And also:
And also:
And again:
I see from the rest of your post that you have a range of ways of reading quotes that do not jell with what you think Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti was saying (ways like ‘early premature writings, on mistaken expressions, on bad days’ or even ‘he probably was in some distress shortly prior to his death’). Please let me know when the writings stopped being ‘early premature writings’, which ones are not ‘mistaken expressions’, which ones were not written ‘on bad days’ and which ones were not ‘written in distress’ and then we can continue with discussing the remainder of your post. Because, in my understanding, ‘god’ or ‘truth’ or ‘intelligence’ (not the words but the ‘thing’ that the words point to) is the ultimate authority in anybody’s book ... and an unquestionable authority at that. Viz.:
When you read that last, short sentence (‘the only authority then is intelligence’) is he clearly designating ‘intelligence’ (otherwise known as ‘god’ or ‘truth’ or ‘otherness’ or ‘that which is sacred, holy’ and so on) as being ‘the only authority’ or not?
RICHARD: As you appear to be in agreement with the ‘the man who says he knows, he does not know; the moment you say you know, you don’t know’ part of this paragraph then anything I have said thus far is beside the point for you. This holds true for the entire post and indeed appears to be the reason that you originally posted it. RESPONDENT: But my views on this statement were never made public. My reason for posting it may only be to look at the connection between it and the other statements being made by No. 3, No. 39 and by you. This is a way of asking others to comment, of questioning them through the presentation of these points. Actually, I do not agree with the statement in question, at least not in the unqualified form that it now has. A man that says he knows, may know or may not know. His saying that he knows is not logically connected to what he knows. But there is a particular version of this statement, that I find worthwhile exploring. And this is what I think K was saying. That a man who says he is transformed or enlightened (and in this sense knows) can know something which establishes that as factual. But all the man knows is what he was, not what he is. RICHARD: I am curious as to what makes you ‘think K was saying’ that ‘all the man knows is what he was, not what he is’? Obviously not his own words ... words such as what I have already posted. Viz.:
* RESPONDENT: Up to this point the conversation was about the reasons for my posting the quote. I attempted to explain the reasons for posting it, and to show that your view on why I posted it was incorrect. But now the conversation turns from a discussion of these reasons, to a discussion of why I interpret K the way I do. In that I understood that you and I do not agree on the interpretation, I anticipated this development, and explained that I was not really interested in this sort of hermeneutic discussion. But you seem to feel that it is important, and I do agree that this sort of discussion is quite appropriate to this list. Indeed, I find it interesting that there are not more such debates on interpretations. Perhaps part of the reason for this is that K himself discouraged it, for the focus is not on the ‘real’ or ‘authentic’ meaning, but on the open and critical examination by each person of their life, thought, attitudes, emotions. But whether or not K is the inspiration behind the lack of such hermeneutic discussions, I do believe that this point is well taken. For why does it matter what K thought or felt? What I would appreciate is a discussion on the question raised in the last exchange: namely, whether knowledge or thought is a block to the experiencing of the immediate? Because if I understand you correctly, you feel that it is not a block. RICHARD: I can do better than ‘feel that it is not a block’ ... I know for a fact that thought and thinking, knowledge and memory are vital ingredients for success (‘success’ as in being actually free of the human condition so that ‘the experiencing of the immediate’ is an on-going experience for the remainder of one’s life without any recidivism whatsoever). Why do you consider that ‘knowledge or thought is a block to the experiencing of the immediate’? RESPONDENT: The question of the right or correct interpretation of any text, let alone a corpus of work that spans more than sixty years, is itself the subject of much academic discussion. It may very well be that there is no one optimal interpretation, but rather many complimentary interpretations that are inconsistent. And indeed, it is impossible to derive only one valid interpretation from an author who is less than 100% consistent. And there are very few authors that can meet that standard, and K is not one of them. K’s inconsistent use of language, the live settings where he spoke and the various ways in which his words were later edited (there were several editors), the way in which he changed style in response to each audience, his non-analytical education, all lead to major incongruities in interpretations. This leads to the following observation: What each person believes to be the authentic K (and not just K), is that person’s selection from the body of work that K and others produced. It is that selection that creates an impression which conforms to the image of K, that was responsible for the criteria of that selection process. Starting out from this image (which is the outcome of past experiences), we attempt to defend what we ‘know’ as authentic. And part of this process is to disallow the counter quotes. There are in fact standard rules or common methodologies for this. The way we are taught to do this, based on methods of textual criticism that began in the nineteenth century, is to build a developmental model. K’s work is broken up into various epochs. And each is evaluated not only in terms of conceptual shifts in definitions, but style and terms employed. So a given interpretation is then contextualised to that period. When inconsistent quotes arise, the quote must be examined as to context and the state of mind of the author. This is what I meant by your quotes being disregarded as ‘early premature writings, on mistaken expressions, on bad days’ or even ‘he probably was in some distress shortly prior to his death’. I did not imply that that all your quotes were invalid, rather I was suggesting that I have a presumption that I am working with, and making you aware of. A presumption based on my experience of reading K, or image of K, that he was non-authoritarian. Such a presumption becomes the background for evaluating the quotes you bring. And I would suggest to you that you also have a contrary presumption that K was authoritarian, and that this is the basis for your quote selection. Those presumptions are directly derived from the conceptual model we build, from the image we have. A presumption, however, does not entail that counter evidence is discarded or disregarded, only that it has to be carefully examined. Whereas those quotes that support the presumption, are generally accepted without challenge. This is all by way of describing or explaining the mind as interpreter. For example, you offer the following quote in support of saying that K himself claimed to know truth: [quote]: ‘I have never said there is no god, I have said there is only god as it is manifest within you. But I will not use the word ‘god’ ... I prefer to call it ‘life’ ... you ask me: Who are you? I am everything, since I am life’. [endquote]. (‘Krishnamurti: The Years Of Awakening’ Mary Lutyens (p282); Avon Books, New York, 1991). That quote is from 1928, which is very early in K’s development, and from the letters written during that time, his use of ‘life’ is quite distinct from other periods. And in that they are so early, they cannot be used as counter-examples to the mature K of say 1960 onwards. Though I believe that K underwent a change around 1980, which was more intellectual and pragmatic. This is why it is important to look at each quote in the context of the time, use, and state of mind. You ask me: [Richard]: ‘I am curious as to what makes you ‘think K was saying’ that ‘all the man knows is what he was, not what he is’? Obviously not his own words ...’. [endquote]. But it was based on his own words, the last few sentences of the one passage that I brought to your attention reads: ‘What is it you know? Some experience which you have had, some kind of vision, some kind of enlightenment? I dislike to use that word ‘enlightenment’. Once you have experienced that, you think you have attained some extraordinary state; but that is past, you can only know something which is over and therefore dead’. K speaks (1) of an experience you have had. (2) that attainment of that state is past (3) you can only know something which is over and therefore dead. Your post then concludes: [Richard]: ‘I see from the rest of your post that you have a range of ways of reading quotes that do not jell with what you think Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti was saying (ways like ‘early premature writings, on mistaken expressions, on bad days’ or even ‘he probably was in some distress shortly prior to his death’). Please let me know when the writings stopped being ‘early premature writings’, which ones are not ‘mistaken expressions’, which ones were not written ‘on bad days’ and which ones were not ‘written in distress’ and then we can continue with discussing the remainder of your post’. [endquote]. I hope that my comments above have helped shed some light in that direction. RICHARD: Yet all you explained was your lack of regard for the 1928 quote (on the grounds of ‘early premature writing’). You have not addressed any of the other ones at all ... except to say that 1980 (or is it 1960) was when Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti became mature according to you. Of course it is entirely up to you as to what you find pertinent to read – or if you are to read anything at all – but I am sure that you will excuse me if I do not buy your assessment without seeing statements that would go something like: ‘For years and years I foolishly believed that I had discovered god or truth or whatever name you call it and now I realise how deluded I was’ ... or words to that effect. Until then I consider quotes that say unambiguously ‘I say such a thing [God or truth] does exist, I have realised it’ or ‘to me there is God, a living eternal reality’ or ‘you won’t find that supreme intelligence operating in a body for many hundred years’ stand as being statements of truth for the speaker irregardless of what decade they were originally made in. Perhaps the following clarification will set the matter at rest?
It would appear from the exposition you give (above) that what you ‘do believe to be the mature period’ and what you (presumably) also believe to be the ‘early premature’ period are nothing more and nothing less than a scholarly construal you make based upon on an acknowledged ‘considerable change in expression’ and not based on a ‘fundamental change’ after all. * RICHARD: In my understanding, ‘god’ or ‘truth’ or ‘intelligence’ (not the words but the ‘thing’ that the words point to) is the ultimate authority in anybody’s book ... and an unquestionable authority at that. Viz.: • [quote]: ‘Is the observer different at all? Or is he essentially the same as the observed? If he is the same, then there is no conflict, is there? Then intelligence operates and not conflict. ... Only when intelligence operates will there be peace, the intelligence that comes when one understands there is no division between the observer and the observed. The insight into that very fact, that very truth, brings this intelligence. This is a very serious thing ... there is no outside authority, nor inward authority. The only authority then is intelligence’. [endquote]. (‘Total Freedom’ (p-262) from talks in Saanen 1974. © 1996 Krishnamurti Foundation of America and Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd.; Published by HarperSanFrancisco). When you read that last, short sentence (‘the only authority then is intelligence’) is he clearly designating ‘intelligence’ (otherwise known as ‘god’ or ‘truth’ or ‘otherness’ or ‘that which is sacred, holy’ and so on) as being ‘the only authority’ or not? RESPONDENT: This last quote is from what I do believe to be the mature period. RICHARD: Good ... you now have a basis that you believe to be pertinent from which to proceed, then. RESPONDENT: I do not however feel that you have captured what he meant by intelligence. RICHARD: Irregardless of what you feel (feelings are notoriously unreliable for establishing veracity) how can you say that I have not ‘captured what he meant by intelligence’ when I simply re-present his words (‘the only authority then is intelligence’) and ask: is he clearly designating ‘intelligence’ (otherwise known as ‘god’ or ‘truth’ or ‘otherness’ or ‘that which is sacred, holy’ and so on) as being ‘the only authority’ or not? Where have I either ‘captured’ or failed to ‘capture’ anything? I asked the question using only his very words ... I want to see what his words do to you when you listen to them (or what you do with his words). RESPONDENT: The meaning he gives to authority shifts, and is radically redefined. RICHARD: Where? When? How? Why? I see him categorically saying ‘there is no outside authority, nor inward authority’ (which is hardly a ‘meaning he gives to authority’ ... let alone then shifting it and radically redefining it). I see him categorically saying ‘the only authority then is intelligence’ (as in there is no other authority to either define or shift or redefine). It is a blanket statement of truth for him ... as evidenced by ‘the insight into that very fact, that very truth [that the observer is the observed], brings this intelligence’ which, then, is ‘the only authority’. And as it is ‘the only authority’ it is, as I already remarked, an unquestionable and ultimate authority. RESPONDENT: And so what is meant is not to be taken literally ... RICHARD: Where does he say that? RESPONDENT: ... but rather as ‘there is no authority in the conventional sense’ that is valid. RICHARD: Yes ... he clearly says ‘there is no outside authority, nor inward authority’ (which is the ‘conventional sense’ of authority) and then goes on to state unambiguously (with no mention of ‘this is not meant to be taken literally’): ‘The only authority then is intelligence’ (which, he explains, is the ‘intelligence that comes when one understands there is no division between the observer and the observed’). RESPONDENT: For intelligence negates any such authority. RICHARD: No ... the ‘intelligence’ that is ‘the only authority’ does not have anything to ‘negate’ ... there is not ‘any such authority in the conventional sense’ in the first place. The ‘authority in the conventional sense’ (the outer and inward authority) does not exist because there is ‘the insight into that very fact, that very truth’ that there ‘is no division between the observer and the observed’ ... and it is this very understanding is what ‘brings this intelligence’. At the risk of being indicted for interpreting, I will put it this way: as the observer is already the observed (before thought created a thought-division as ‘observer’ and ‘observed’) there is no inner or outer to have any ‘authority in the conventional sense’ of an outside authority or inward authority anyway. He is saying that there never has been an outside authority, nor inward authority all along ... you only thought that there was. The insight into this is the ending of this thought, that is all (there is no division to end ... it is only the thought that there was such a division that ends). RESPONDENT: And in that it negates it, it is a higher authority. RICHARD: No ... ‘the only authority then is intelligence’ (there is neither ‘higher authority’ nor lower authority just the same-same as ‘no inward authority or outside authority’). Again at the risk of being indicted for interpreting, it could be said thus: ‘There is only That’. RESPONDENT: This interpretation probably sounds to you quite arbitrary. RICHARD: No, it does not sound arbitrary to me at all ... it looks to be more like academic postulating than anything else. RESPONDENT: It is the outcome of what I once observed takes place in many K passages of this mature period. But in order to show you that with any cogency, I would need to bring many relevant quotes, and that expenditure of time and energy is beyond what I can offer. RICHARD: Hokey-dokey ... but may I make a suggestion? If you are not prepared to put in the ‘expenditure of time and energy’ then why join in on a conversation I am having with other correspondents about another topic if your intention is to only have a half-hearted discussion – a scholarly exploration – into the human condition? Why put a quote of Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti into the ring – and initially without any words of your own – if you are not prepared to go all the way? You do say (much further above) that you ‘find it interesting that there are not more such debates on interpretations’ although you make it clear that you are ‘not really interested in this sort of hermeneutic discussion’ ... is it that you wanted to set a ‘debate on interpretations’ in motion and then sit back to watch the fun and games? Otherwise ... why did you post an unannotated quote in the first place? RESPONDENT: Perhaps others can provide such examples. RICHARD: Why would they? This entire lack-lustre exercise is your trip through academia-land ... not theirs. RESPONDENT: I would only ask that before you proceed with additional discussion on interpreting K, that you provide your reasons or motivation for such an inquiry. RICHARD: Goodness me ... we have had an extensive correspondence, you and I, in the past twenty months or so. If it is not apparent to you by now as to what I am on about it may never be. But, to put it briefly: I am vitally interested in global peace-on-earth and will leave no stone unturned in opening up access to the already always existing peace-on-earth for any person to view. Or, to put it another way: Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti made an excellent contribution to the advancement of human knowledge with his ‘question everything – even the speaker’ advice. So I did question everything (especially the ‘Tried and True’) in the ’eighties with eminently beneficial results ... such that I am interested to bring this kind of examination to bear on the ‘Tried and True’ in a public forum. It is the ‘Tried and True’ that I am making ‘such an inquiry’ into – not Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti per se – and I can just as easily switch to some other acknowledged person’s writings (or even some authenticated scripture for that matter) if you prefer. RESPONDENT: If K is not for us an authority, then why should we care what the right interpretation is? RICHARD: Because I care about my fellow human being ... I want all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides to cease, to finish, to end. I want to see this ‘Savage Age’ disappear into the trash bin of history like the ‘Dark Ages’ did. If 160,000,000 people being killed in wars this century alone by their fellow human beings does not make you care – with the likelihood of another 160,000,000 or more in this coming century – then nothing will. RESPONDENT: Isn’t it all just an intellectual exercise? RICHARD: No ... I mean business.
CORRESPONDENT No. 20 (Part Five) RETURN TO CORRESPONDENCE LIST ‘B’ INDEX RETURN TO RICHARD’S CORRESPONDENCE INDEX The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.
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