Is Thought Aware of Movement?

Can thought see itself, see what it is doing, both in the outer and the inner?

There is really no outer and inner: the inner creates the outer, and the outer then shapes the inner. This ebb and flow of action and reaction is the movement of thought, and thought is always trying to overcome the outer, and succeeds, bringing about many problems; in solving one problem other problems arise.

Thought has also shaped the inner, molded it according to the outer demands.  This process has been going on for thousands upon thousands of years and thought seems not to realize its own activity.

So one asks: Can thought ever be aware of itself - aware of what it is doing?

There is no thinker apart from thought; thought has made the thinker, the experiencer, the analyser. The thinker, the one who is watching, the one who acts, is the past, with all the inheritance of man, genetically, biologically - the traditions, the habits and all accumulated knowledge. After all, the past is knowledge, and the thinker is not separate from the past. Thought has created the past, thought is the past; then thought divides the thinker and the thought, which the thinker must shape, control. But that is a fallacy; there is only thought. The self is the 'me', the past. Imagination may project the future but it is still the activity of thought.

A human being, throughout life, depends on thought and the things that thought has put together as being most essential....

...someone comes along and says: ‘Now look, all that is the movement of the past.’

Having reasoned with him, logically, the other says: ‘Why not, what is wrong with holding on to thought even though it is of the past?’

He acknowledges it, and says: “I’ll hold to it, what is wrong?’

Yet when the human mind lives in the past and when it holds to the past, then it is incapable of living, or perceiving truth. -(The Transformation of Man: page 161)

"If you observe, you will see that there is an interval between two thoughts, between two emotions. In that interval, which is not the product of memory, there is an extraordinary freedom from the `me' and the `mine' and that interval is timeless." -(The First and Last Freedom: Questions & Answers, Q17: 'On Memory')

“The mind must go through that small hole which it has put together, the self, to come upon this vast nothingness whose stability thought cannot measure." -(Krishnamurti’s Journal: Malibu, 23 April 1975, Copyright KFT)

“Has it ever happened to you - I am sure it has - that you suddenly perceive something, and in that moment of perception you have no problems at all? The very moment you have perceived the problem, the problem has completely ceased. Do you understand, sirs? You have a problem, and you think about it, argue with it, worry over it; you exercise every means within the limits of your thought to understand it. Finally you say, "I can do no more." There is nobody to help you to understand, no guru, no book. You are left with the problem, and there is no way out.

Having inquired into the problem to the full extent of your capacity, you leave it alone. Your mind is no longer worried, no longer tearing at the problem, no longer saying, "I must find an answer"; so it becomes quiet, does it not? And in that quietness you find the answer. Hasn't that sometimes happened to you? It is not an enormous thing. It happens to great mathematicians, scientists, and people experience it occasionally in everyday life. Which means what? The mind has exercised fully its capacity to think, and has come to the edge of all thought without having found an answer; therefore it becomes quiet - not through weariness, not through fatigue, not by saying, "I will be quiet and thereby find the answer." Having already done everything possible to find the answer, the mind becomes spontaneously quiet. There is an awareness without choice, without any demand, an awareness in which there is no anxiety; and in that state of mind there is perception. It is this perception alone that will resolve all our problems.” -(Book of Life Daily Meditations: 'At the edge of all thought' - October 9, 2007)

What is the relation between the thinker and his thought?

Now, is there any such relation, or is there only one thing, which is thought, and not the thinker?

Because, if there are no thoughts, there is no thinker... Now, having thoughts, seeing the impermanency of thoughts, the thinker comes into being. That is, thought creates the thinker; and because thoughts are transient, the thinker becomes the permanent entity ... That is, thoughts are transient, they are always in a state of flux, and thought objects to its own impermanency; therefore, thought creates the thinker ... Then we try to establish a relationship between the thinker, and the thought which has created him. That is, we try to establish a relationship between that which seeks to be permanent, which is the thinker created by thought, and the thought itself, which is transient. But obviously both are transient. -(Collected Works: Bombay, 10th Public Talk, 14th March, 1948; ellipses added)

This is the clearest passage you could get explaining why thought has created this thing called the self. When you look at it carefully, it is all so logical. There is no actual thing as the self at all, there is only thought. But of course, our whole conditioning says there is a self; moreover one must, we believe, have a self (and consequent self-esteem) to carry on through life. So, the fact is, we have never investigated whether it is possible to live life without a self. Moreover, there is fear when thought anticipates the end of the self. Without understanding this fear and ending it, the self will simply continue, will it not?

'How can there be a fusion of the thinker with his thoughts?' ... Not through the action of will ... The use of a means implies an agent who is acting, does it not?... The fusion takes place only when the mind is utterly still without trying to be still. There is this stillness, not when the thinker comes to an end, but only when thought itself has come to an end. There must be freedom from the response of conditioning, which is thought."  -(Book of Life Daily Meditations: 'A wall of impregnable thought' - August 17, 2008; ellipsis added)

Here, again, is the clear statement that the beginning of everything is the still mind, not that the still mind comes about through the ending of the observer. That is, when thought ceases, when all the responses of the mind cease, only then is there perception, only then is there the freedom to look at what is. This raises the paradox: if no action of thought can bring about a still mind, what does bring it about? An insight, a realization, a direct perception? Or are these in fact all one and the same?

The Flowering of Thought

What follows runs directly counter to two thousand years of civilization, human conditioning, and human behaviour. To allow thought and its associated feelings to fully flower goes against the grain of all we have ever been taught. It is, on the face of it, completely counter-intuitive - if you allow all thought to flower you will go out of control, will you not? You will become subservient to your thoughts and so run amok. Consequently, we have been conditioned (brainwashed) into automatically suppressing all bad thoughts.

It is this passage that reveals the truly revolutionary nature of the talks. It is the end of "I must" or "I must not" - the death of the censor.

What is implied here is that the flowering of thought is not the indulging of thought - there is a distinct difference between the two. It is to be fully aware of the thoughts, not identifying with them, so letting them rise and then die. This is awareness without the censor. It is the censor that has identified itself with all these thoughts - so the desire of thought to identify with things becomes the central point. If one does not establish an identity with any of one's thoughts, then what is left? Only thought itself?

The analogy in this passage to the flower is strong. The existence/significance of the flower in nature (and its perfume) is a persistent theme running throughout the entire talks:

"Every thought and feeling must flower for them to live and die; flowering of everything in you, the ambition, the greed, the hate, the joy, the passion; in the flowering is their death and freedom. It is only in freedom that anything can flourish, not in suppression, in control and discipline; these only pervert, corrupt.

... To allow envy to flourish is not easy; it is condemned or cherished but never given freedom. It is only in freedom the fact of envy reveals its colour, its shape, its depth, its peculiarities; if suppressed it will not reveal itself fully and freely. When it has shown itself completely, there is an ending of it only to reveal another fact, emptiness, loneliness, fear, and as each fact is allowed to flower, in freedom, in its entirety, the conflict between the observer and the observed ceases; there is no longer the censor but only observation, only seeing....

The flowering of thought is the ending of thought; for only in death is there the new.... What flowers must come to an end."  -(The Notebook: page 189; ellipses and paragraphs add)

Summation

Thought is part of the senses. It is a neurophysiological response (reaction) from memory (all thought is memory)  - To input (stimulus) from the sensory system.

Thought has created an illusory entity/image supposedly separate from itself - the so-called 'permanent' self, distinct from the transient nature of thought itself - in order to achieve psychological security  -This is known as duality

The self-image is a fiction - an escape used by thought from looking at its actual nature - which is the "what is"

For the ending of thought to occur, thought must actually realize (see) its own limitation, not merely as an abstraction

Without this fundamental realization/insight, thought will simply continue with all its ceaseless reactions

When the mind is quiet, when thought has spontaneously ended, insight may take place. It is only insight that resolves all the problems caused by thought.

The content of consciousness is thought, which limits consciousness itself. The central theme of the talks is that thought is limited. There is another state of mind - call it a super-consciousness if you like - that can only arise when thought ends. Thought is limited as it is circumscribed by the me, the self. It is the thought behind this creation of a self, of a center in the mind, that one must understand, through passive, disinterested, choiceless awareness of all the content of the mind.

Thought is the known, it is structured on the past, which is memory. Truth is only in the present and has no relationship whatsover with thought and the past. This goes against the grain of thousands of years of conditioning. We think we and society can, over time, progress to the Truth through contemplation, through analysis, through intellectual probing and examination, through thinking itself - we cannot.

"Giving the right place to thought brings clarity." -(The Transformation of Man: Part 11, Talk V, page 157)

It is very clear that as thought is a fragmentary process it cannot see the whole. Therefore thought - which is the brain, which is the intellect, which is logic and reason - cannot bring understanding, as this is total. Thought can realize, to be sure, but this realization brings a quietness to the mind, stilling thought spontaneously. It is then, and only then, when the mind is in silence, when thought is absent, that the possibility of insight, of holistic understanding can take place.

"There is no simple path to the silent mind"

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