The Psychological Revolution

The Psychological Revolution

In memory of Jiddu Krishnamurti and Víctor Manuel Gómez Rodríguez

"What is thought?", asked Krishnamurti in his speech to UN in 1985. The answer was that the thought is memory, and memory is the memory of experience. So our knowledge, which is based on thoughts, is actually past. With these past memories, we are able to protect ourself against the future - but there is a terrible price for that! When our thinking is related on past experiences, we become incapable of thinking in a fresh way. Hence, we must abandon thought in specific way; we must stop gathering experiences and categorizing them in a subjective way. That is the Psychological Revolution!

It is obvious that we need memory in order to be able to speak, use technology and tools; but here we are talking about different kind of memory: With the real experience, we tend to save also our subjective emotions and feelings with it. Was it pleasant? Or was it painful? This is an subjective memory; not necessarily real in any way - it is only reality in your mind, but not to anyone else, therefore it can hardly be described as real. This subjectivity in observation and experience blocks innovative ways of thinking, because it tends to put us asleep. For example, learning of language: Let's say we dislike swedish people, yet we must learn the language in order to communicate. This process is made more complicated because of our rejection towards swedish language, because we don't like Swedish people. Therefore we find it difficult to learn the language which we don't like. But would we be free of subjective feelings towards the language, the learning process would be easier and quicker. The reason is simply the angst towards anything linking to Sweden in our mind, making our mind to reject it or even to invent more unpleasant features to stamp upon the label "Swedish".

Furthermore, if we extend this subjectivity in another phenomenon, like into interaction between human beings, we become unable to understand the other, others become "alien" to us. We cannot understand each other, and only possible outcome is more conflict. Even more, eventually we will become unable to understand reality at all, and become neurotic. Therefore it is utterly important - as both of these teachers emphasized - to observe objectively, as it is. Not trying to give stamps by categorizing reality.

This dualism of our mind is a doubled edged sword, which - quite sadly - is often put in the hands of a child. Our mind constructs it functions upon division: Something is evil, another thing is good; that is black and this is white. But reality cannot be divided, it must to be seen as a whole. "I am the world, and the world is me." Said Krishnamurti in his famous UN speech, meaning the oneness of this whole system. Once we become able to stop the division and start observing objectively, we will awaken our consciousness. Then we created our universal bodies, the vechiles of higher existence. This is psychological as well as physical; we have areas in our brains we seldom use, if not at all. These parts are "calcified" by our conventional ways of using our vechile. We think like this because we have always thought this way, therefore our brains will always work that way, and no innovation can arise!

By innovation, we mean completely new, not something old, merely used in different way. Once we commit the psychological revolution, our brains will become more efficient. If we really break the cycle of accustomed manners, the actual transformation - or mutation - of our brain takes place. This will allow "higher viewpoint", achieved by the efficient use of the brain mass we have. Instead of thought, we will use our heart, body and mind in perfect balance to achieve higher understanding of things - or one could say, more complete view.

Method of achieving this state is said to be simple. One has merely to observe oneself and one's actions in objective manner; through it, the self-awerness will develop. One begins to understand oneself and the insanity of thought. One will learn, that thought is constantly in conflict with other thoughts, ideologies, religions and so on. And as the self-awerness increases, the more aware of environment one can become. In the same process, inevitable changes will take place. One no longer needs self-improvement, as it happens automatically, without effort at all. And as one developes, it will improve the quality of society as a whole.

Finally, below is first part of eight parts of the speech J.Krishnamurti gave in UN 1985. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as we do! Gnothi Seauton!



And we do hope that this will provoke action. All the best!

-v

[edit on 9-9-2009 by v01i0]

Thanks for the thread and video, you've obviously put quite a bit of effort into it and it has made a lot of things i'd been mulling over for a while quite clear.

I'd never heard of Krishnamurti until now, i'll need to go do a bit of reading.

It does have to be a fundamental change in the way mankind reason's and thinks and chooses his actions if there will ever be peace. I think I understand what he means in that clip and I agree. I actually bought one of his books recently but haven't started reading it yet.

So you are saying Self-conciousness, self-awareness will lead a person towards peaceful action? That is true in my personal experience. I was thinking meditation. Meditation (especially forms of it related to the breath) is the easiest thing in the world to try, it doesn't cost anything, you don't have to go anywhere to do it, etc. etc. etc. And people know this and they hear that it can change their life, and yet the majority of people will probably go their whole life without ever willfully trying it. Sure there are things that can focus a mind, empty a mind that will occur, etc. but that willful, concious meditation I think is linked to what you said about objectively viewing oneself.

How we formulate that memory is hinged on a value judgment based on the duplicity of good vs bad thinking. The "freshest" perspective that one can make, in my opinion, is one of objectivity. Once you can take that perspective on any given memory/belief then you can begin to see both the "benefit" of what is good or bad in the experience as they usually travel together. We are always gaining in experience, memory and growth.

We can usually give great advice to someone when we ourselves are not emotionally involved and judging the behavior/event as good or bad, negative for us or positive for us.
Looking for the positive benefit in a "bad" situation is where geniuses live and breath. They aren't judging, they are looking for solutions based on pure reason. They find those solutions because they believe they can. They see more clearly without the fog of judgment and so called facts.
Thinking outside the box requires you to ignore common belief systems, no matter how much others fight us on it. It takes a lot of courage to say no to ideas we have pushed for centuries.
It is a lonely place until others can honestly validate those new ideas, fresh perspectives, new ways of being, and new solutions.

reply to post by cazzy2211


You're welcome. Yes, do reading if you prefer it more, but there are also quite many videos of Krishnamurti in you tube, most are in english. I like the way he speaks, clearly and slowly -- that's easy enough for me to follow

All the best,

-v

reply to post by Novise

Originally posted by Novise
It does have to be a fundamental change in the way mankind reason's and thinks and chooses his actions if there will ever be peace.

Yeah, somekind of critical mass in general public has to be exceeded in order to cause fundamental change in society. But as long as even single people starts perceveing world objectively as it is, we have hope.

Originally posted by Novise
So you are saying Self-conciousness, self-awareness will lead a person towards peaceful action? That is true in my personal experience. I was thinking meditation.

Quite likely. Conscious and aware person comes to understand ones dependency on this whole system; therefore he sees that he is one with with everything and he cannot distinct himself from another.

As long as the meditation is not "measuring", but conscious observing of ones thought, it might lead one to better understanding of everything. Meditation is not controling of own mind -- just to clarify, because some people have said to me, that in meditation you must force your mind to be quiet. It's not like that. In meditation, you objectively observe the thoughts and their reasons, which comes into your mind. Eventually, the thoughts will cease to come, and your mind is tranquil.

So one in all, meditation is quite different than concentration, as you pointed out in your reply. In conscious meditation, you observe your thoughts, not judge or suppress them, just observe. At least, thats what we do in this kind of meditation. I think there are as many types of meditation, as there are meditators.

Be well,

-v

reply to post by seagrass

Originally posted by seagrass
Thinking outside the box requires you to ignore common belief systems, no matter how much others fight us on it. It takes a lot of courage to say no to ideas we have pushed for centuries.

Yes, this is very true. It can also be dangerous, but luckily there's no reason to be afraid of anything

As you pointed out in the first lines of your post, categorizing experiences and observations in good or bad, is the way of subjectivity. We tend to stamp observations like this, thus seperating ourselves of the true observation. And those supporting any belief systems, are making these divisions even on the phenomenons that they have no direct experience.

In the end, I'd like to thank all the posters equally -- your replies were heartwarming reading, giving hope that there are more people out there that are understanding the same!

Respectfully,

-v