Krishnamurti: The Talks on Freedom - Holistic Seeing

                             The Mind and the Brain


                                 “ The world is represented in oneself and oneself is the world. That is a psychological, absolute fact…”
                                                                                                        (The Transformation of Man: page 163)
                                                              ~~~~~~~~~~~

    Do we understand that we cannot see the whole of anything through a part?

Everything is interconnected. Consider a simple example. If you were to enter a room of a strange house and explore that room, no matter how much time you spent wandering around it and how much knowledge of it you gained, you could never know the house itself, as a whole. The room is connected to the whole house. You have to step outside the room to see the whole thing; you need a different and wider perspective in order to see the situation holistically.

So it is with the mind. Thought, as a part of the senses, as a fragmentary process, cannot see the whole of the structure of the mind (consciousness as we know it), no matter what approach it takes or how long it studies it. This is why you cannot observe the mind as a whole with thought because you are attempting to see the whole process of the mind through a part of it. Awareness is different. When it is without the observer, it is not of thought, and this is the whole point of it.

So, when you see the whole of something you can then see and understand the part. It is the same as the analogy above: when you see and comprehend the total house you can see where the individual room fits into the scheme of it.

                              “To see something whole, the fragmentary process of the mind that seeks success must come to an end.”
                                                                                                  (The Impossible Question: page 140)

In the same way, we have to see the total process of the mind, the structure of thought and time, desire and fear; when this whole movement is understood one can then look at the individual parts. This is the meaning of the word holistic, the dictionary definition of which is: ‘emphasizing the organic or functional relation between parts and the whole.'

“Does one consider only one's own personal life, how to live a quiet, serene, undisturbed life in some corner; or is one concerned with the total human existence, with total humanity? If one is only concerned with one's own particular life, however troublesome it is, however limited it is, however much it is sorrowful and painful, then one does not realize that the part is of the whole. One has to look at life, not the American life or the Asiatic life, but life as a whole; holistic observation; an observation that is not a particular observation; it is not one's own observation,
but the observation that comprehends the totality, the holistic view of life.”
                                                                            (The Flame of Attention: Chapter 7, 1st Public Talk at Ojai, May 1, 1982)
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We live such niche lives. We have our limited occupations, our narrow and focused entertainments, our circumscribed and repetitive thought patterns. As a small part of society, we have been so cleverly marginalized we are now a mere pawn in the mass of people, which suits the power structure of society as a whole. Being so marginalized, we feel we cannot, and should not, challenge society and its values. As an individual we are not important; we can be and are sacrificed where necessary (in wars, especially) for the so-called 'good of the whole'. Economic progress at any and all costs is the political mantra; the desire for more materialism, for a stronger economy and hence a stronger defence force, which equates to national power and prestige. The only concern of society and politicians is in acquiring greater power. The health of the individual mind that is completely swept up in this progress and acquisitiveness at all costs is never considered, or even discussed.

We have a very poor regard for ourselves as an individual, as we are so used to comparing ourselves with the rich, the famous and the powerful. Society is built on envy and comparison, and we simply don't match up to the 'successful' figures in it. In any event, we are helpless to change anything in the system called democracy, we are insignificant in the overall scheme of things. This sense of meaninglessness and frustration is a primary cause of all criminal and psychopathic behavior. Yet it is only individual action - not collective action - that has any meaning in life:

                 “All great things start on a small scale, all great movements begin with you and me as individuals; and if we wait for collective action,
                                                      such collective action, if it takes place at all, is destructive and conducive to further misery.”
                                                                      (JKTI: Collected Works: Vol. VI, 'All reform needs further reform' - page 37)

This mass collective view is the social conditioning of the modern age - the zeitgeist. It is subtly imposed on our thinking processes by television and movies, and the whole ‘glamorous’ structure of advertising and the ubiquitous celebrity culture. And we accept all of it, and consequently all of society’s mores, without challenge or complaint: the wars, the terror, the hypocrisy, the corruption, the injustice, the relentless inequality. We never challenge the whole system of society, which is our minds writ large; it is much easier, much more comforting and secure to merely conform to groupthink, which has its ultimate expression in such banal things as sport and nationalism.

This conformity is common to people throughout the world, it is the mass consciousness of the self. From this niche view we cannot see the whole, yet this consciousness has to be seen in its totality; not separated as the conscious and the unconscious, for there is no actual separation, there are only various levels of consciousness:

“How does one perceive the whole of anything? The whole of fear, not the broken up of fear in different forms or the fear of the unconscious and the conscious - in the conscious and in the unconsciousness - but the whole of fear. You understand? How does one perceive the whole of fear? How do I perceive the whole of me - the 'me' constructed by thought, isolated by thought, fragmented by thought which in itself is fragmented? So it creates the 'me' and thinks that 'me' is independent of thought. The 'me' thinks it is independent of thought but it has created the 'me' - the 'me' with all its anxieties, fears, vanities, agonies, pleasures, pain, hopes - all that. That 'me' has been created by thought. And that 'me' becomes independent of thought, it thinks it has its own life - like a microphone which is created by thought, and yet it is independent of thought. The mountain is not created by thought but yet it is independent. The 'me' is created by thought and the 'me' says: "I am independent of thought". Now to see the totality - you understand - is this clear now?

So what is fear totally - not the various forms of fear, not the various leaves of this tree of fear but the total tree of fear? Right?

How does one see the totality of fear? To see something totally or to listen to something completely there must be freedom, mustn't there? Freedom from prejudice, freedom from your conclusion, freedom from your wanting to be free of fear, freedom from the rationalization of fear. Please follow all this. Freedom from the desire to control it - can the mind be free of all that?

Otherwise it can't see the whole. I am afraid. I am afraid because of tomorrow, losing a job, afraid I may not succeed, afraid I might lose my
position, afraid that there I will be challenged and I'll not be able to reply, afraid of losing my capacity - all the fears that one has.
Can you look at it without - please listen - any movement of thought which is time, which causes fear? Have you understood something?”
                                                                                                (Saanen: 4th Public Talk, July 20, 1975)
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     What does this statement actually mean: “You are the world”?

Let us consider that there is only mind. That is, there is not a separate individual mind, but only mind itself, which is common to all humanity. That there is no ‘my mind’ is clear: the self, which is the projection of thought, has no intrinsic reality, therefore there is no separate personal possession of a mind. Each person thus shares this common mind across humanity, a universal field if you will (just as, of course, we share the same brain structure, and DNA for that matter). The content of this mind, which is consciousness, is shaped by one’s particular upbringing, culture, tradition and past experiences, giving it the strong illusion of have a separate, individual existence.

The mind is immaterial. As stated, it is distinct from - but having an integrated relationship with - both the brain and the whole organism (see the Bohm dialogue below). That this is so can be seen in the undeniable incidence (although scientifically unverified) of out-of-body experiences, which have been felt by many people throughout the world, including Krishnamurti himself (as implied in passages in Lutyens, Years of Fulfilment, see pages 217-8). It also would account for the incidences of telepathy and premonition, which are common to many people in everyday life (you think about someone and they immediately call you up on the phone, to give a prosaic example). This implies an instant communication between minds, outside the realm of scientific explanation (See Wikipedia article).

This common mind of consciousness, with all its content, would be affected by individual transformation. That is, if one person fully transformed him or herself this would affect the common mind of mankind; it would have a rippling affect, as the conditioned mind itself is one coherent whole. This effect has been described by Rupert Sheldrake as 'morphic resonance,' where a change in behaviour is silently spread to others without their conscious knowledge (although science has found no evidence of this).

This man and his talks and state of mind did not affect human consciousness; the world is essentially the same as before he lived, psychologically speaking. However, this man was never a part of this present consciousness to begin with, so there can have been no rippling affect (see Rom Landau interview, Core Quotations). It would only be if one of us who shares this common mind stepped out of this stream that there would be an impact on consciousness as a whole (see: Stepping out of the Stream).

It is our responsibility to transform ourselves, it is not that we are responsible for the actions of all the people in the world. This is frequently taken to be so because of a misunderstanding of the “You are the world” phrase. This statement is saying that you are not separate from the rest of humanity, for you share the same conditioned consciousness, the common factor of which is thought and its construction, the self. It does not mean that you are directly responsible for the actions of others, for you are not; only that you share the same consciousness, comprising fear, violence, greed and ambition. It is our responsibility to step out of this stream of consciousness.

Beyond this mind, this consciousness as we know it, it is stated that there is a new state of mind, a new mind itself, which is silent, empty. In this empty state it is one with the world and the universe: it has no separation, no division from anything. It is in another dimension, timeless, in a state of pure energy, beyond the mind as we know it.
                                     ~~~~~~~~~~~

                                          The Problem is in the Brain:

“On waking so early… the quality of the brain was different.… It was aware, aware of itself as a part of a whole movement of the mind”… The brain functions in fragmentation; it functions in part, in division.… The brain is the product of specialization; it cannot go beyond itself.… Capacity, gift, is obviously detrimental for it strengthens self-centredness; it is fragmentary and so breeds conflict.

Capacity has significance only in the total perception of life which is in the field of the mind and not of the brain. Capacity and its function is within the limits of the brain and so becomes ruthless, indifferent to the total process of life.… Mind alone sees the whole and within the field of the mind is the brain; the brain cannot contain the mind, do what it will.”
                                                                                                   (The Notebook, pp. 124-6; ellipses added)
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Extract from the Bohm Dialogues:
    JK:    …“Now let's proceed from there. Shouldn't we first distinguish between the brain and the mind?
     DB:   Yes, well that distinction has been made and it is not clear. Now of course there are several views. One view is say that the mind is just a
                function of the brain - that is the materialists' view. There is another view which says mind and brain are two different things.
     JK:     Yes, I think they are two different things.
     DB:   But there must be...
     JK:     ...a contact between the two.
     DB:   Yes.
     JK:    A relationship between the two.
     DB: We don't necessarily imply any separation of the two.
     JK:    No, first let's see the brain. I am really not an expert on the structure of the brain and all that kind of thing. But one can see within one, one
                can observe one's own activity of the brain, that it is really like a computer that has been programmed and remembers.
     DB:: Well certainly a large part of the activity is that way, but one is not certain that all of it is that way.
     JK:    No. And it is conditioned.
     DB:   Yes.
     JK:    Conditioned by past generations, by the society, by the newspapers, by the magazines, by all the activities and pressures from the outside.
                It is conditioned.
     DB:   Yes, now what do you mean by this conditioning?
     JK: It is programmed, it is made to conform to a certain pattern, lives entirely on the past, modifying itself with the present and going on.”…
         .......
     JK: … “So as long as the brain is conditioned its relationship to the mind is limited.
     DB:   Yes, now we have the relationship of the brain to the mind, and also the other way round.
     JK: Yes, yes. But the mind being free has a relationship to the brain.
     DB:   Yes. Now we say the mind is free in some sense, not subject to the conditioning of the brain.
     JK: Yes.
     DB:   Now one could ask a question: what is the nature of the mind? ... I could ask is the mind located inside the body, or is it in thebrain?
     JK: No, it is nothing to do with the body or the brain.
     DB:   Has it to do with space or time?
     JK:    Space - just a minute - space - now wait a minute. It has to do with space and silence. These are the two factors of the...
     DB:   But not time, right?
     JK:    Not time. Time belongs to the brain. …"
                                                              (The Future of Humanity: Chapter Two: Conversations with David Bohm, 1983; ellipses added)
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More Significant Quotations:

“How do you look at a tree? Do you see the whole of the tree? If you don't see it as a whole, you don't see the tree at all. You may pass it by and say, "There is a tree, how nice it is"! or say, "It is a mango tree," or "I do not know what those trees are; they may be tamarind trees. But when you stand and look - I am talking actually, factually - you never see the totality of it; and if you don't see the totality of the tree, you do not see the tree.

In the same way is awareness. If you don't see the operations of your mind totally in that sense - as you see the tree - you are not aware. The tree is made up of the roots, the trunk, the branches, the big ones and the little ones and the very delicate one that goes up there; and the leaf, the dead leaf, the withered leaf and the green leaf, the leaf that is eaten, the leaf that is ugly, the leaf that is dropping, the fruit, the flower-all that you see as a whole when you see the tree. In the same way, in that state of seeing the operations of your mind, in that state of awareness, there is your sense of condemnation, approval, denial, struggle, futility, the despair, the hope, the frustration; awareness covers all that, not just one part. So, are you aware of your mind in that very simple sense, as seeing a whole picture - not one corner of the picture and saying, "Who painted that picture?"
(Book of Life, Daily Meditations: 'Seeing the Whole' - June 17, 2007)
* * *
“You see we never see the world as a whole because we are so fragmented, we are so terribly limited, so petty. And we never have this feeling of wholeness, you follow, where the things of the sea, things of the earth, the nature and the sky, is the universe, is part of us.”
(Collected Works: Brockwood Park, 4th Public Talk, September 4, 1983)
* * *
“Don't deal with sorrow as your particular precious stuff. It is shared by all humanity. Deal with it not as your particular sorrow, your private quiet sorrow, but as the sorrow of all human beings, whether you are a man or a woman, rich or poor, sophisticated or at the height of your excellence. Please don't deal with all these factors like fear, pleasure, sorrow, love, and so on as something separate from each other. You must approach this whole thing wholly, not fragmentarily. If you approach it fragmentarily, you will never solve it.

So, look at greed, pain, sorrow, as a whole movement of life, not something different from life. This is our daily life. To find whether there is an end to all this - to misery, to conflict, pain, sorrow and fear - one must be able to perceive them, one must be able to be aware of them."
(Talks in Bombay: 3rd Public Talk, January 29, 1983)

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