At a person’s ’normal’ level the Mind is a mere REACTION TO FEAR, even in its striving for pleasure. The mind, at that level, is an ’I want, I don’t want’ mechanism. There is no sustained ’overall picture’, no relevance between one issue and another. At most, a SINGLE issue can be focused on at one time.
VERY LIMITED ACTIVITY/PERSPECTIVE, indeed. The MIND AS A REACTION TO PAIN AND FEAR. Nothing more can be expected without applied KNOWLEDGE.
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showing 413 Observations
taken from:
Related Subjects: Fear
taken from: 'Equal to Life'
Put your picture together as best as you can: where you are, what you’re doing, why you’re doing it! Within that is the hope of developing what’s called ’driver’. If you lack driver in yourself, then you are just subject to all the ’winds’ - mainly other people’s hot air.
Everyone knows what I’m talking about, because occasionally they do that. But they don’t always realize what they’re doing - and as such forget the aim they set themselves. There must be a clear aim, so that when difficulties arise, you can ’remember’, and keep it going!
taken from: End of Days
People become completely confused for the simple reason that they lose all distinction between Aim (purpose) and Means (how to achieve it). To put it simply, they do not know, or forget, why they are doing what they are doing. The mind gets left behind before it has done its essential job. The mind must re-awaken to the fact that it must be 'driver', at the wheel, and remember its hoped-for destination.
taken from: Perverse Criticism
If a person wasn’t ‘running off at the mouth’ and reacting from the poison they picked up in society - all the stupidity, all the ’digs’, all the criticisms - what then would they do? The mind cannot stand being inactive. If you leave it alone, it will do all the old shit. That is one of the things that make the Work Ideas so unique. Even if you cannot practice all that you already ’know’ - at least there are things that you can ponder. You can remember that pondering is thinking and feeling about something at the same time! There is what to do: self-observation, non-identification - just to mention a few!
This is just where the expression comes in: “If you don’t call on the Work - it cannot help you.” And god knows that you need help!
taken from: Love/Pain
Meditation? In certain way, there’s no bigger issue. That is - what really is meditation! The meditations that are ’given’ are institutionalized meditations: Zen meditation, Hindu mantra meditation etc. They’re a taste of something. I think the reason Krishnamurti spoke so much about it is because people get hooked on the ’taste’! He doesn’t say it in so many words, but it turns more into self-hypnosis than what meditation really is, in it’s purity. What he says is: ’Meditation (in it’s purity) - the mind comes to understand itself and, as a result, stops’
Related Subjects: Meditation
taken from: Teenage love & Meditation
But what I’m feeling very much, these days, is that somehow an ’exercise in meditation’ might be most useful. Mainly because of the extreme extent of the current confusion - things are spinning to such a degree! It’s so difficult, sometimes it’s almost impossible to ’get a handle’ on thought, so to speak - to hold a thought, to focus! More difficult than it’s ever been. A meditative exercise will never be a replacement for ’understanding the mind’ - but in this incredibly intense period it could be most useful place to rest.
Related Subjects: Meditation
taken from: Teenage love & Meditation
Full self-remembering would be the equivalent of meditation and more. It’s more important, because in mechanical meditations, you’re ’avoiding’ thought, pushing thought away. In Self-Remembering you develop a separation between your ’Being’ - and whatever your thought, sensation or emotion might be! You don’t ’chop your head off’. Meditation exercises, in a way, is the equivalent of chopping your head off. You may open up a higher level of the mind but you fall back when you finish the exercise - back to the ’normal’ confusion.
Full Self-Remembering is another name for ’meditation’. It’s got meditation in it, and more. If you’re in a meditative place, you would be sensitive, first of all, to your body. This can happen in a mechanical meditation, especially with Zen, sitting in, usually, not such a comfortable position. You go through the pain. Sometimes people’s legs just freeze. But when the mind is not busy burning up all the energy, there’s enough left for simple awareness in the body. With attention in the body, you find that you go through the pain - until it’s forgotten, gone.
Related Subjects: Meditation, Self Remembering
taken from: Talk with Three Sisters
The Work says that the hardest thing to do is to TOLERATE SOMEBODY ELSE’S MECHANICALITY. Why? Because it doesn’t ’suit’ you!
But what doesn’t suit you - exactly THERE you’ve got a lot to see! That requires a special effort to remember yourself - and as such is a great opportunity. A lot of material to see there - what the mind, the emotions do. A lot NOT to be identified with. To see the mechanics in it, what is NOT REAL I. Oh, THAT’S what they call irritation. Oh, THAT’S what they call dislike. Take the ’I’ out of it! That’s Work! We want God, but we cannot stand people. That’s a critical issue.
Related Subjects: Mechanicality
taken from: Wasting God's Time
‘All roads lead to Rome’ – but they pass through very different territory. Very complex and rough territory, corrupted and difficult territory, unique and subjective territory. Thus the challenge for an individual to find a True Path for himself that will lead to Rome, or Home, or Truth, or Peace, or Love, depending upon the individual’s inclination towards ‘labeling’. Religions call it a ‘Return’ (chozer). A return to Truth, to God – to Now!
THIS IS THE UNIQUE CAPACITY OF A HUMAN BEING ON EARTH
Related Subjects: Unique capacity of a human being
taken from: Suicide & After words
Man’s relationship to religion and God is more often than not 99% subjective - his own conceptions, his own feelings, his own imagination. Generally speaking it is not objective. When it becomes objective, someone is likely to end off nailed to a cross. The subjective can not stand the objective! Don’t expect a caterpillar to see a butterfly. First of all it can’t even look up!
Related Subjects: Man/god