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Richard’s Correspondence on Mailing List ‘B’ with Respondent No. 20
RESPONDENT No. 58: [quoting from a World Health Organisation article]: The truth is that one out of every two long-term smokers will ultimately be killed by tobacco. RICHARD: I too have read similar claims – a quit-smoking pamphlet I have to hand, printed by an official cancer fund, states that ‘one in two lifetime smokers will die from their habit’ – yet when I looked at the official statistics for Australia, so as to find out what is actually happening (aka the fact) as contrasted to what they say will happen (aka the truth), I see that not even one out of one hundred tobacco users are dying of [alleged] smoking-related diseases. The figure is 0.47 out of 100 ... and even that figure is questionable. RESPONDENT: Is there really a discrepancy between Richard’s number and that 50% number being used by the WHO? As far as I understand, Richard’s number of .47% is based on total smokers and not life time smokers. Life time smokers are only a part of the set of all smokers. We will call this quantity LTSM. If LTSM is 1/2 of all smokers, then .47% multiplied by 2 will yield .94%. This number of .94% will then represent the percentage of life time smokers that die per annum due to smoking. In order to then derive the percentage of deaths due to smoking for a life time smoker over the course of a lifetime, we will have to multiply .94% by an average number of years that life time smokers smoke. Given life expectancies of smokers, and discounting childhood non smoking years, we can assume that the number is around 50 years. And when we multiply 50 by that factor of .94% we have a figure that comes close to what the WHO is claiming, that of 50%. And it may very well be that LTSM is far less than 1/2 of all smokers, making the percentage of deaths due to a life time of smoking that much higher. RICHARD: Thank you for explaining this ... as I am a practical person it has always puzzled me how it could be said that one out of two tobacco users will die (aka the truth) of alleged smoking-related diseases when less than one out of one hundred tobacco users were dying (aka the fact) of alleged smoking-related diseases. And you are correct where you say that my figures are based on the total number of tobacco users (the figures are 19,000 alleged smoking-related deaths out of 4,000,000 current tobacco users). I was then interested to apply the formula you devised to statistics from another country: the figures supplied for the USA by the American Cancer Society are an alleged 430,700 smoking-related deaths per year out of 47,000,000 current tobacco users ... which means that the percentage is 0.91% per annum. Using the formula you devised then 0.91% multiplied by 2 will yield 1.82%. Upon multiplying 1.82% by 50 the result – as contrasted to the figure of 47% for Australia you arrived at – is 91% ... which is well above the 50% claimed by the World Health Organisation article and the quit-smoking pamphlet I have to hand. Now I could be facetious and suggest that tobacco users in the USA move to Australia for health reasons – a close to 1 out of 2 possibility of dying of alleged smoking-related causes is significantly less than an almost 1 out of 1 possibility of dying of alleged smoking-related causes – but instead I am left with a demonstration that the method of determining smoking-related causes of death (physicians filling in death certificates) is indeed questionable. Surely mathematical projections based upon questionable statistics are automatically inaccurate? (for more on this subject click this link)
RICHARD: ... the ‘observer’ being referred to is the feeler, not the thinker ... for example (also
from the same e-mail RESPONDENT: Such a beautifully moving text. But so long as the focus is on using it to place K into some theoretical box, then what is expressed, cannot be heard. RICHARD: So long as the focus is on Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti being placed into some theoretical box, then what the quote was actually used to express cannot be heard. As becomes immediately apparent. * RICHARD: Put simply: it is an affective state of ‘being’ ... an oceanic RESPONDENT: What you take to be the simple intent, is nowhere presented in the text. RICHARD: What part of the word ‘truth’ is it that you do not understand? Viz.:
If this does not speak to you of the simple intent to discover that, recognise that, realise that RESPONDENT: What K meant by ‘feeling of beauty’ is left undefined. RICHARD: As the feeling of beauty is a feeling it is something to feel – not define – and as the feeler is the feeling it remains forever indefinable. For as long as its presence remains, that is. RESPONDENT: Its meaning cannot be squeezed for more juice without adulterating it with your own flavouring. RICHARD: As the feeling of beauty is not being squeezed for meaning in the first place any speculation about more meaning is just that ... speculation. RESPONDENT: Such adulterations markedly change its flavour. RICHARD: It might help comprehension of whatever it is you are wanting to convey if you could provide some details about these adulterated flavours you squeezed out of the meaning of the feeling of beauty. RESPONDENT: Your expression of ‘oceanic feelings of oneness’, is not authentic to K. I do not recall that K ever used the expression, not even using the expression of ‘feeling oneness’. These expressions are inherently inconsistent with oneness. RICHARD: Interestingly enough only a few days ago I was told that anybody who truly understood would be able to explain what is pointed to in their own words, and not just parrot quotations out of concern about distorting the original meaning, and now I am being told that the words I used are not authentic to Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti ... yet when I do stay true to his words, not deviating one hair’s breadth away from what they say, I am told that I am being overly literal (whatever that means). Surely it cannot get any better than this ... or can it?
RICHARD: Put simply: it is an affective state of ‘being’ ... an oceanic RESPONDENT: What you take to be the simple intent, is nowhere presented in the text. RICHARD: What part of the word ‘truth’ is it that you do not understand? Viz.: [quote]: ‘... this is the very first requirement for a man who would seek truth’. [endquote]. If this does not speak to you of the simple intent to discover that, recognise that, realise that by feeling that, I would be interested to hear what does. RESPONDENT: The word ‘truth’ is not what I was referring to, but the expression ‘oceanic feeling of oneness with creation’. RICHARD: Sure, but as the expression ‘an oceanic feeling of oneness with all creation’ is in reference to the word ‘being’ (as in no longer ‘becoming’) then to focus solely upon the expression is to miss what is being expressed ... to wit: the affective state of ‘being’ itself. And when ‘being’ is all there is ... truth reveals itself, unsolicited. * RESPONDENT: What K meant by ‘feeling of beauty’ is left undefined. RICHARD: As the feeling of beauty is a feeling it is something to feel – not define – and as the feeler is the feeling it remains forever indefinable. For as long as its presence remains, that is. RESPONDENT: Why then did you describe this feeling as an ‘oceanic feeling of oneness with creation’? RICHARD: Because there is no such presence here in this actual world ... there is no inner and outer in actuality * RESPONDENT: Its meaning cannot be squeezed for more juice without adulterating it with your own flavouring. RICHARD: As the feeling of beauty is not being squeezed for meaning in the first place any speculation about more meaning is just that ... speculation. RESPONDENT: Such adulterations markedly change its flavour. RICHARD: It might help comprehension of whatever it is you are wanting to convey if you could provide some details about these adulterated flavours you squeezed out of the meaning of the feeling of beauty. RESPONDENT: Again, I am referring to the expression ‘oceanic feeling of oneness with creation’. RICHARD: Are you saying that when you feel/felt an oceanic feeling of oneness with all creation it feels/felt like an adulterated flavour which is/was being squeezed out of the meaning of the feeling of beauty? If so, maybe what is/was missing is/was the feeling of love Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti spoke of in the quoted text:
* RESPONDENT: Your expression of ‘oceanic feelings of oneness’, is not authentic to K. I do not recall that K ever used the expression, not even using the expression of ‘feeling oneness’. These expressions are inherently inconsistent with oneness. RICHARD: Interestingly enough only a few days ago I was told that anybody who truly understood would be able to explain what is pointed to in their own words, and not just parrot quotations out of concern about distorting the original meaning, and now I am being told that the words I used are not authentic to Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti ... yet when I do stay true to his words, not deviating one hair’s breadth away from what they say, I am told that I am being overly literal (whatever that means). Surely it cannot get any better than this ... or can it? RESPONDENT: I am not suggesting that you must use K’s words, but rather that the words that you do use to explain his text, appropriately reflects his intent. RICHARD: Okay ... but you sure do have an oblique way of suggesting it:
RESPONDENT: Did I miss where you clarified how your expression of ‘oceanic feeling of oneness with creation’ accurately reflects the intent of K’s language? RICHARD: No ... what you missed, as I remarked at the beginning of the previous e-mail, was what the quote in question was actually used to express. The subject under discussion is the outside being the inside (when thought is not and feeling is). * RICHARD: [tooltip]: ‘... to discover God or truth – and I say such a thing does exist, I have realised it – to recognise that, to realise that, mind must be free of all the hindrances which have been created throughout the ages’. (‘The Book Of Life: Daily Meditations With J. Krishnamurti’, December Chapter. Published by Harper, San Francisco; ©1995 Krishnamurti Foundation of America). RESPONDENT: Is there a connection between what is being discussed and this quote? RICHARD: Yes ... the connection is with the words used in this sentence:
RESPONDENT: What is the point you are making in using it? RICHARD: There was no point being made ... the provision of textual evidence was merely to pre-empt being told, yet again, that the truth cannot be known.
RESPONDENT: The word ‘truth’ is not what I was referring to, but the expression ‘oceanic feeling of oneness with creation’. RICHARD: Sure, but as the expression ‘an oceanic feeling of oneness with all creation’ is in reference to the word ‘being’ (as in no longer ‘becoming’) then to focus solely upon the expression is to miss what is being expressed ... to wit: the affective state of ‘being’ itself. And when ‘being’ is all there is ... truth reveals itself, unsolicited. RESPONDENT: In the text, K speaks about the feeling of beauty, but what does that feeling mean? RICHARD: Its meaning, its signification, lies in the very feeling itself ... if it be not felt it has no meaning, no significance, other than the speculations that thinking about it can give. RESPONDENT: I have a vague sense of what it is to feel beauty, as beauty does have an emotional effect on me and on so many others, perhaps that is what K was getting at, though it might not be. RICHARD: Not an ‘emotional’ effect, no ... he oft-times stressed the importance of passion: it is something to be felt deeply, with the whole of one’s being. RESPONDENT: But I have no idea what you are saying by ‘the affective state of being itself’. It makes sense to say that the ‘feeling of beauty’ is included as an affective state, but why are you lead to say that it is the affective state of being itself? RICHARD: It is the very feeling itself which informs: the feeling of beauty, which is the feeling of love, when felt deeply, as a passion, with the whole of one’s being, is a state of being wherein there is no longer ‘me’ feeling beauty, no longer ‘me’ feeling love, but the being of the very feeling itself (hence ‘being’ as in no longer ‘becoming’). And ‘being’ itself is an impersonalised ‘presence’ (no ego-self). RESPONDENT: Also, I do not see the connection of your last line to the text, but I am curious about what you mean. When is ‘being’ not all there is? RICHARD: When one is ‘becoming’ (being an ego-self) ... as is the situation for maybe 6.0 billion people. RESPONDENT: And for truth to reveal itself, is ‘being’ sufficient? RICHARD: Indeed so ... after all, when ‘being’ is all there is there is nothing else but this ‘presence’. RESPONDENT: Isn’t it necessary that there is the action of what K would call ‘choiceless awareness’? RICHARD: That is inherent in ‘being’ itself ... when ‘being’ is all there is there is no choice. RESPONDENT: In any case, the expression ‘an oceanic feeling of oneness with all of creation’ is your understanding of what ‘being’ refers to in this context. RICHARD: It is a simile, an expression used to express what the affective state of ‘being’ itself
can be likened to: the word ‘oceanic’ RESPONDENT: But where is this supported by the text? RICHARD: Here is the pivotal portion of the text in question:
Spelled-out in full it could be put this way:
As I remarked (further above) it is the very feeling itself which informs ... and being one with all creation is indeed an immense, vast, limitless feeling. RESPONDENT: Indeed, where is it supported by anything K says elsewhere? RICHARD: Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti often used words such as ‘immense’, ‘vast’, ‘limitless’ and so on. Thus replace the word ‘oceanic’ with what it describes and the sentence in question looks like this:
RESPONDENT: K did not consistently give his expressions specific meaning, yet I cannot recall anywhere where ‘an oceanic feeling of oneness with all of creation’ is the meaning implied by the text. RICHARD: It is something to be felt, deeply, with the whole of one’s being ... then the passion which is the affective state of ‘being’ speaks for itself. * RESPONDENT: What K meant by ‘feeling of beauty’ is left undefined. RICHARD: As the feeling of beauty is a feeling it is something to feel – not define – and as the feeler is the feeling it remains forever indefinable. For as long as its presence remains, that is. RESPONDENT: Why then did you describe this feeling as an ‘oceanic feeling of oneness with creation’? RICHARD: Because there is no such presence here in this actual world ... there is no inner and outer in actuality. RESPONDENT: I asked why did you describe it the way that you did. RICHARD: I beg to differ: you asked ‘why then did you ...’ (and not ‘why did you ...’ as you now say) and, as I cannot know your intent when you write, I can only go by the words received and answer accordingly. RESPONDENT: I don’t understand how your answer relates to my question. RICHARD: I had said that as the feeling of beauty is a feeling it is something to feel – not define – and as the feeler is the feeling it remains forever indefinable: when you asked ‘why then did you ...’ I had to presume you had overlooked the caveat (‘for as long as its presence remains that is’) so I explained that there is no such presence here in this actual world. There is no inner and outer in actuality. * RESPONDENT: Its meaning cannot be squeezed for more juice without adulterating it with your own flavouring. RICHARD: As the feeling of beauty is not being squeezed for meaning in the first place any speculation about more meaning is just that ... speculation. RESPONDENT: Such adulterations markedly change its flavour. RICHARD: It might help comprehension of whatever it is you are wanting to convey if you could provide some details about these adulterated flavours you squeezed out of the meaning of the feeling of beauty. RESPONDENT: Again, I am referring to the expression ‘oceanic feeling of oneness with creation’. RICHARD: Are you saying that when you feel/felt an oceanic feeling of oneness with all creation it feels/felt like an adulterated flavour which is/was being squeezed out of the meaning of the feeling of beauty? RESPONDENT: No, that is not what I am saying. I was referring to the semantic suitability of ‘oceanic feeling of oneness ...’ as a substitute for ‘feeling of beauty’. These two expressions have for me very different senses. RICHARD: I see ... you are talking about a semantic flavour, then, and not the affective flavour of the feeling itself? RESPONDENT: Again, I don’t know where K referred to this expression of ‘oceanic feelings’. I think that K would have said that in oneness there is nothing being experienced, there is no sense of feeling it, that there is total absence. RICHARD: Whereas what he did say was that the very first requirement for a person who would seek truth – the very first requirement mind you – is to feel the beauty of the outside and thus be with it ... which feeling is the feeling of love. In other words, if he had meant for there to be ‘no sense of feeling it’ he would have said so (just as he had said ‘do not think’ in another instance in regards to the outside being the inside) ... yet he did not. On the contrary, he stressed the essentiality of feeling it. RESPONDENT: There are sections of the Notebooks where he talks about that, I could type in a section if that would be some help here. What does it mean to feel an oceanic feeling of oneness with creation? RICHARD: The meaning is in the feeling itself ... and the feeling is that the affective state of ‘being’ itself is all there is. RESPONDENT: I can recall a lot of different meanings given to this expression by various authors. Mystics, Scientists, Freudians, Reichians, Artists, there are various ways it is used. What do you mean by this expression? RICHARD: What I mean by this expression is that the affective state of ‘being’ itself is an immense, vast, limitless feeling of being one. * RICHARD: If so, maybe what is/was missing is/was the feeling of love Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti spoke of in the quoted text: [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘... the feeling of beauty is the feeling of love’. RESPONDENT: Yes, but what does this equation mean? RICHARD: Do you want a semantically suitable answer or the deeply felt answer? RESPONDENT: Is the feeling of love what is usually meant by feeling love? RICHARD: The closest feeling, to what is usually meant by feeling love, would be the feeling of having fallen in love – of being in love – which is qualitatively different from feeling love. RESPONDENT: There is a powerful emotional connection between beauty and love, as for example with erotic objects. RICHARD: Again, you will find that Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti places emphasis on passion, not emotion. RESPONDENT: And Neoplatonists placed at the core of the Platonic equation of beauty, truth, and goodness, an all embracing eternal love. That may be the source of your expression of ‘oceanic feelings of oneness’. The equation is quite stirring and carries with it a lot of baggage. But it is questionable whether K meant any of this, though we may be reading this into what he said. RICHARD: As it is you who is saying this which you write here then the word ‘we’ is not applicable. * RESPONDENT: I am not suggesting that you must use K’s words, but rather that the words that you do use to explain his text, appropriately reflects his intent. RICHARD: Okay ... but you sure do have an oblique way of suggesting it: [Respondent]: ‘I do not recall that K ever used the expression, not even using the expression of ‘feeling oneness’. RESPONDENT: Part of my intent here was to find out whether what I recalled is correct. But this issue does not imply that your expression is inappropriate, only that given the stark difference with K’s language, I do not see the reason(s) why you find it appropriately reflects his intent. And I still do not. RICHARD: As I have already remarked, if his words do not speak to you of the intent to discover truth, recognise truth, realise truth, by feeling truth, I would be interested to hear what does. * RESPONDENT: Did I miss where you clarified how your expression of ‘oceanic feeling of oneness with creation’ accurately reflects the intent of K’s language? RICHARD: No ... what you missed, as I remarked at the beginning of the previous e-mail, was what the quote in question was actually used to express. The subject under discussion is the outside being the inside (when thought is not and feeling is). RESPONDENT: I still do not get your drift. Are you saying that for K the outside is the inside when there is this feeling of beauty? RICHARD: Yes ... bearing in mind that the feeling of beauty is the feeling of love and that such a feeling is an all-encompassing passion. * RICHARD: [Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti]: ‘... to discover God or truth – and I say such a thing does exist, I have realised it – to recognise that, to realise that, mind must be free of all the hindrances which have been created throughout the ages’. (‘The Book Of Life: Daily Meditations With J. Krishnamurti’, December Chapter. ©1995 Krishnamurti Foundation of America). RESPONDENT: Is there a connection between what is being discussed and this quote? RICHARD: Yes ... the connection is with the words used in this sentence: [Richard]: ‘If this does not speak to you of the simple intent to discover that, recognise that, realise that by feeling that, I would be interested to hear what does. RESPONDENT: I still don’t see the connection to the concern of my remarks to you. RICHARD: The connection is to my remarks to you in response to your remarks to me ... I was providing the textual evidence to support my use of the words ‘to discover that, recognise that, realise that’. RESPONDENT: Perhaps this quoted sentence is directed at your conversation with Respondent No. 12 and Respondent No. 42? RICHARD: No, it is definitely directed at my words to you. RESPONDENT: But if I could add my two cents, where does ‘by feeling that’ apply to the above K quote? RICHARD: It applies here:
The outside is, of course, all creation. RESPONDENT: Are you saying that the realization that God or truth exists is based in what K called the ‘feeling of beauty’? RICHARD: Yes, when the outside is the inside (as already discussed) and the affective state of ‘being’ itself is thus all there is ... truth reveals itself, unsolicited. * RESPONDENT: What is the point you are making in using it? RICHARD: There was no point being made ... the provision of textual evidence was merely to pre-empt being told, yet again, that the truth cannot be known. RESPONDENT: Whether truth can be known is an interesting question, but this concerns your other conversations. RICHARD: Not specifically, no ... the hoary ‘truth cannot be known/he who says he knows does not know’ psittacism has been presented to me more than a few times over the past four or five years. RESPONDENT: It is not what I have been asking you about. RICHARD: Indeed it has not been ... and the provision of textual evidence might very well ensure it will stay that way.
RESPONDENT No. 42: Perhaps this exchange, too, will collapse in semantics. To my sense the words ‘observer’, ‘thinker’, ‘feeler’ (an ugly sound) describe the self. The presence of self prevents true observation, distorts right thinking, confuses true feeling. I don’t make as much of a distinction between thinking and feeling as you do, and I don’t think k and Bohm did. RICHARD: As far as I have been able to ascertain Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti did not use the term ‘the feeler’ (not that I have all his words in electronic form so as to conduct a thorough search) although he frequently used the terms ‘the thinker’, ‘the observer’, ‘the watcher’, ‘the experiencer’ and ‘the meditator’ ... and even if it turns out that he did I am most definitely not using ‘the feeler’ as being interchangeable with ‘the thinker’ as he does with ‘the observer’, ‘the watcher’, ‘the experiencer’ and ‘the meditator’. To blur the distinction between the thinker and the feeler is to lose the plot altogether as the feeler only comes into full being when the thinker is not ... the advice ‘get out of your head and into your heart’ is well-nigh ubiquitous among spiritualists and their ilk. RESPONDENT: As you find it ‘well-nigh ubiquitous’ amongst spiritualists, and you consider K to be a ‘spiritualist’, you may simply be reading this presumption into K. RICHARD: And what ‘presumption’ would that be? That he blurred the distinction between the thinker and the feeler? That he be a spiritualist or of that ilk? That he advised being the feelings (living from the heart) rather than being the thinking (living in the head)? First of all, that colloquialism (‘get out of your head and into your heart’) is something I have both heard and read time and again – and rarely, if ever, coming from materialists – which is what leads me to say ‘well-nigh ubiquitous among spiritualists and their ilk’ as, of course, I have not done a door-to-door survey of 6.0 billion people. As for blurring the distinction betwixt the thinker and the feeler: if it is so that he did not use the term ‘the feeler’ then that speaks for itself; if he did use it, yet did not differentiate it from ‘the thinker’ (as he did not with those other terms), then that also speaks for itself. As for being a spiritualist or of that ilk: he certainly was not a materialist; he spoke often of the ‘otherness’ (which he described as meaning ‘other than matter’); he spoke often of what it was to be truly religious; he declared that he had realised God or truth; he affirmed that what he was speaking of is enlightenment. As for living from the heart, rather than being in the head, the following quote may throw some light upon the matter:
Here are some more, although less explicit, in a similar vein:
RESPONDENT: Is there any textual support in any of K’s writings for saying that ‘the feeler only comes into full being when the thinker is not’? RICHARD: The words ‘the feeler only comes into full being when the thinker is not’ are my words, not his, about my discovery, not his, as a large part of the discussion, where you obtained the above exchange from, is about where my experiencing differs from his. RESPONDENT: K distinguished feeling and thinking ... RICHARD: Yes ... if by this you mean that he made it clear, for example, that thinking about ‘love’ was not the feeling of love. RESPONDENT: ... yet for K, the ‘thinker’ is not fundamentally different from the ‘feeler’, the ‘experiencer’, the ‘observer’. RICHARD: Yes, this is essentially what I am saying (further above). RESPONDENT: All these are different ways of speaking about the separate self. (I think this is what Respondent No. 42 is getting at). RICHARD: Indeed so, whereas I am making the point that there are two aspects to identity: the thinking self (‘I’ as ego or ego-self) and the feeling self (‘me’ as soul or soul-self) and ‘me’ as soul, which is ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being, is ‘being’ itself ... and to be impersonalised ‘being’ itself (no longer ‘becoming’ or being an ego-self) is to be the enlightenment that is touted as being the peace which ego-bound peoples sorely need. Yet enlightened beings are still subject to anger and anguish, for example, as well as love and compassion. Hence my question a couple of e-mails back: if the thinking self can get such rigorous scrutiny as the mailing list gives it ... why not the feeling self? Is the feeling self sacrosanct?
RICHARD: To blur the distinction between the thinker and the feeler is to lose the plot altogether as the feeler only comes into full being when the thinker is not ... the advice ‘get out of your head and into your heart’ is well-nigh ubiquitous among spiritualists and their ilk. RESPONDENT: As you find it ‘well-nigh ubiquitous’ amongst spiritualists, and you consider K to be a ‘spiritualist’, you may simply be reading this presumption into K. RICHARD: And what ‘presumption’ would that be? That he blurred the distinction between the thinker and the feeler? That he be a spiritualist or of that ilk? That he advised being the feelings (living from the heart) rather than being the thinking (living in the head)? RESPONDENT: Though there are many talks where K spoke about living passionately, about feeling beauty, deeply caring, love, I don’t think he advised living from the heart rather than living from the head. K also expressed in many talks the significance of orderly, sane, rational, functional thought. He admired scientific thought. And on the flip side, K often expressed the problems with being caught up with emotions, with sentiments, as well as the problems with being caught up in thought. Also, K sometimes spoke about the conflict between thought and feeling, the head and the heart. In these talks he would pointy out the fragmentation, and that there is no solution in taking the one over the other, rather it is in the integration of all these parts acting as one. That is a very different direction than advising living in the heart rather than in the head. And then again, K would speak about dying to all of that, dying to all the accumulated emotional memories, not integrating but emptying the mind of thought and these emotionally charged images. These varied aspects may appear to be inconsistent. But I think that they are to be read as complimentary aspects of an inevitably incomplete description. RICHARD: As the heart is typically seen as being the seat of the soul (the spiritual aspect of a human being) and/or the seat of the emotions (the feeling aspect of a human being) and as the head is typically seen as being the seat of the ego (the material aspect of a human being) and/or the seat of cognition (the thinking aspect of a human being) the colloquialism ‘get out of your head and into your heart’ essentially refers to shifting the centre of attention from the physical to the spiritual (from materialism to spiritualism), from thinking to feeling (from being egocentric to being heart-centred) so as to be open to otherness (other than matter) by whatever name ... or, as Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti put it, truth can only come when the mind is empty and the heart is full. * RICHARD: First of all, that colloquialism (‘get out of your head and into your heart’) is something I have both heard and read time and again – and rarely, if ever, coming from materialists – which is what leads me to say ‘well-nigh ubiquitous among spiritualists and their ilk’ as, of course, I have not done a door-to-door survey of 6.0 billion people. RESPONDENT: haha. Has the number of spiritualists and materialists reached six billion? RICHARD: For what it is worth the latest world population estimate is 6,268,056,999 people The Encyclopaedia Britannica puts the world-wide percentage of atheists at 3.8%. RESPONDENT: In general, materialists pride themselves on accurate numbers, but the claims of spiritualists should be taken with more than one pinch of salt. : ). RICHARD: Just as a matter of interest it was a spiritualist, Mr. David Barrett, who sought to count each human being in each religion and religious subcategory in each country, as of 1900, 1970, 1990, 1995 and 2000, with projections to 2025. He doggedly visited most of the lands in person, collecting raw material, including national census figures and United Nations data, and recruiting the 444 specialists who feed him material. The 2001 edition of his ‘World Christian Encyclopaedia’, successor to his 1983 first edition, took a decade to compile and identifies 10,000 distinct religions, of which 150 have 1 million or more followers … within Christianity alone he counts 33,830 denominations. He also calculates religious populations for the Encyclopaedia Britannica ‘Book of the Year’, standard
estimates that are used, in turn, by the World Almanac and innumerable journalists RESPONDENT: In any case, my survey results differ on this question. I have found quite a number of romantic materialists, as well as hard headed spiritualists who believed they were predominantly rational. It is interesting though how the way survey questions are constructed will tend to influence the data. RICHARD: This question is not about being ‘predominantly rational’ ... it is about where ‘the other’ is to be accessed and/or contacted and/or received and/or discovered and/or recognised and/or realised and so on. * RICHARD: As for blurring the distinction betwixt the thinker and the feeler: if it is so that he did not use the term ‘the feeler’ then that speaks for itself; if he did use it, yet did not differentiate it from ‘the thinker’ (as he did not with those other terms), then that also speaks for itself. RESPONDENT: Are you suggesting that anyone who does not use the word ‘feeler’, is blurring the distinction between living in the head and living in the heart? RICHARD: This is what I am saying: to blur the distinction between the thinking-self and the feeling-self is to lose the plot altogether as the feeling being only comes into full flower when the ego is not. Whatever name somebody calls this intuitive presence is entirely up to them ... as the word ‘feeler’, in contrast to the word ‘thinker’, also already exists then to use it simply saves unnecessarily coining a new word. * RICHARD: As for being a spiritualist or of that ilk: he certainly was not a materialist; he spoke often of the ‘otherness’ (which he described as meaning ‘other than matter’); he spoke often of what it was to be truly religious; he declared that he had realised God or truth; he affirmed that what he was speaking of is enlightenment. RESPONDENT: I don’t think K would appreciate you describing him as a spiritualist. That word has quite a lot of baggage, especially in Theosophical circles. RICHARD: When I typed the word it had no ‘baggage’ whatsoever attached to it – and when I clicked ‘send’ it still carried none – so unless it accumulated some in transit, in the one-and-a-half seconds it bounced from earth to satellite to earth, the ‘baggage’ which you see can only have been added at your end. Here is the word I sent (plus some related words):
And:
Also, I did add ‘or of that ilk’ just in case calling a spade a spade is not de rigueur. RESPONDENT: But I agree that the ‘otherness’ is to be regarded as outside of ‘materialism’. If you have only black and white, that would make him the other colour. RICHARD: Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti is quite explicit on the subject:
It does seem that for him it is a case of ‘only black and white’ and, as he clearly defines what the word materialism stands for (‘materialism means ...’), it would indicate that ‘the other colour’ is indeed spiritualism. Incidentally, seeing that for him the life of matter is [quote] ‘mechanical’ [endquote] it appears he never came across the third alternative to materialism and spiritualism:
* RICHARD: As for living from the heart, rather than being in the head, the following quote may throw some light upon the matter: ‘There is no path to truth, it must come to you. (...) and it can come only when the mind is empty, when the mind ceases to create. Then it will come without your invitation. Then it will come as swiftly as the wind and unbeknown. It comes obscurely, not when you are watching, wanting. It is there as sudden as sunlight, as pure as the night; but to receive it, *the heart must be full and the mind empty. Now you have the mind full and your heart empty*. [emphasis added]. (August 1; ‘The Book of Life: Daily Meditations with J. Krishnamurti’; Published by HarperSanFrancisco. ©1999 Krishnamurti Foundation of America). RESPONDENT: Yes, that highlighted sentence is representational of what K says elsewhere. It is one aspect of what he taught. RICHARD: I demur ... it is central to what he was conveying (that only truth can set humankind free). * RICHARD: ... I am making the point that there are two aspects to identity: the thinking self (‘I’ as ego or ego-self) and the feeling self (‘me’ as soul or soul-self) and ‘me’ as soul, which is ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being, is ‘being’ itself ... and to be impersonalised ‘being’ itself (no longer ‘becoming’ or being an ego-self) is to be the enlightenment that is touted as being the peace which ego-bound peoples sorely need. Yet enlightened beings are still subject to anger and anguish, for example, as well as love and compassion. Hence my question a couple of e-mails back: if the thinking self can get such rigorous scrutiny as the mailing list gives it ... why not the feeling self? Is the feeling self sacrosanct? RESPONDENT: Like thought, emotions or feelings (and these terms are not synonymous) are approached here in two basic ways. As an aspect of what we are, and as an aspect of perceptual distortion, or what we call images. For K, images are not to be taken as photographs in the mind, but involve an accumulation of emotional reactions, emotional memory. How we feel about an event becomes part of what conditions the memory, and past memories are part of what determines how we feel about what is currently happening. In this sense of distorting perception, and as a warehouse of these accumulated emotional memories, what you call the feeling self is treated along the same lines as the thinking self. Indeed, as we are speaking about the same sort of reactivity, the same mechanisms of conditioning, there is no reason to treat them distinctly. It all goes into the same pot. So the issue you raise comes down to the approach to emotion or feeling as descriptive of what we are. This approach to the facts of anger, fear, desire, hate, sympathy, kindness, caring, sensitivity, love, comes down to investigating the behaviour, how they function, how they effect us, how they arise, how they connect up with each other. That has the appearance of a theoretical or scientific discussion, yet for K that is not to really inquire into it. Inquiry requires an active state of observing, what he called choiceless awareness. That was not described as an affective state, nor as an aspect of thinking. The end point of this inquiry is perhaps where your question is heading. You seem to be saying that the end point must be freedom from these emotional states. But I think for K the end point was in the energy of that inquiry. That is the awakening of intelligence. Where that heads is not known, and cannot be directed. It simply unfolds as the action of that intelligence. RICHARD: The end point of an enquiry into just what it is to be a human being is most certainly where my question is heading ... and I have always been upfront and out in the open about what that end point is: to be freed of identity in toto – of both the ego-self and the soul-self (an intuitive ‘presence’ or ‘being’ itself which is the affections and out of which ego arises) – so as to be living in the already always existing peace-on-earth, in this lifetime, as this flesh and blood body only. Because then, and only then, can the ‘meaning of life’, or the ‘purpose of existence’, or however one’s quest may be described, become apparent as an on-going experiencing. And this is truly wonderful.
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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