Theos-Talk Archives (January 2012 Message tt00080)

Yes the idea is worth exploring and I would like your permission to post what you wrote on a site that I currently post on. In fact I would welcome your joining the group. ÂIt was one of Leon's group and could do with your theosophical knowledge being shared now that he has gone.
Cass
MindBrain@yahoogroups.com,Â




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> From: Govert Schuller <schuller@bphRSpE_sVJg71pXEifUGZC9ecZ6OpgFKr43vsG0Y8UGZMMU-o_4rnXkVtuH7jj4ieJiqE2zMzhKv3q_hcc.yahoo.invalid>
>To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com 
>Sent: Saturday, 14 January 2012 6:26 AM
>Subject: RE: theos-talk Jiddu Krishnamurti on Religious Organizations
> 
>
>Â 
>Itâs also possible that we are looking at ego-phenomena from the wrong point of view. Maybe the âegoâ is indeed something of a functional something, but given too much the status of a semi-independent personality. From a Krishnamurtian pov the ego is a product of thought, it is constructed. Sartreâs investigations into the ego made it clear that its origin lies in an act of self-reflection, of consciousness bending backwards upon itself , i.e. becoming self-conscious, an act out of which then the ego arises as a non-permanent sense of an âIâ being the center of consciousness. It only subsists as long as there is the act of self-reflection sustaining it. Otherwise it is not active in the present, but could be re-constituted by another act of reflection. And once reconstituted, the âmeâ will be loosely connected with all other previous âmeâ experiences and thereby giving rise to the idea that there might be something substantial and
 abiding to the âme.â This is the bundle of memories K talks about. The âmeâ is merely a bundle of memories of experiences of self-reflections, but has otherwise nothing abiding nor substantial to it. . 
>
>The next question is about its function. K seems to posit that the ego is an aberration with its origins deep in the past. Iâm thinking now that there is something functional about the âmeâ and our capacity to reflect upon consciousness and create some sort of self-presentations, with which I mean creating an image of oneâs situation with oneself in the middle of the situation. For example, a hunter will be helped by having an image of the hunting situation with all its relevant aspects like positions of the prey, relative speeds, outstanding features of the terrain, etc., and most importantly the re-presentative image will have the hunterâs own position as the center of the image. He merely created some sort of map  for the purpose of making the hunt more effective. Now we think we know that those with superior skills will survive and those with lesser skills not, therefore, if this mapping capacity is an advantage in the struggle of the
 fittest, then this skill of self-representation in thought and imagination will be passed on to its prodigy. One could say here, in Theosophical terms, that our instinctual or habitual gathering of food (kama) receives an extra dimension of efficacy by the action of imaginative self-presentation (ego-genesis), which could be seen as some sort of thinking (manas).  So the ego is a non-permanent product of kama-manas. 
>
>The danger then is that, because we can reflect upon reflection upon reflection, etc., we might (or actually did) misunderstand the nature of the ego. Thought can substantialize it and/or become beguiled by it as in the case of Narcissus. So, the challenge might actually be that indeed we have to overcome the ego, but not toss out thought nor the capacity to engage in mapping and self-reflection, because those have sometimes necessary functions like in ârole-playingâ in everyday life and investigating the structures and dynamics of consciousness. 
>
>From: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com [mailto:theos-talk@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Cass Silva
>Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2012 6:49 PM
>To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: Re: theos-talk Jiddu Krishnamurti on Religious Organizations
>
>Perhaps I am mistaken, but mastering the lower ego is not the same as totally wiping it out, as K seemed to advocate.  Examples from the Masters suggest that lower self is subdued while in higher states of consciousness, but returns for day to day activity.  Even Gautama under the Buddhi Tree returned. I cannot comprehend living in the now, the every day is a new day approach, would work for me.   I think to do so is living a life in denial.  My lower self may at times be a pain in the arse but can't imagine living without it.
>Cass
>
>>________________________________
>> From: Mark Jaqua <hozro@1iNL0TXpAjuEbYTI-ByCumMM6hmfzqR7piJEP-_1CZqUhJ9BgajWbc7lwYjF-6FA-LFeDilrvpZP-w.yahoo.invalid <mailto:hozro%40earthlink.net> >
>>To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com <mailto:theos-talk%40yahoogroups.com> 
>>Sent: Friday, 13 January 2012 3:04 AM
>>Subject: Re: theos-talk Jiddu Krishnamurti on Religious Organizations
>> 
>>
>> 
>>Comments below Govert & Cass quotes:
>>
>>>K's friend and discussion partner David Bohm was indeed dismayed about that
>>when he found out [[about K's long-term romance]].... 
>>>It's an open question whether K was hypocritical in this regard. He did not
>>openly advocate celibacy, but rather questioned the way the ego makes sex
>>into something problematic. Privately he apparently advocated celibacy as a
>>condition to intensify one's energy in order to transform.... [Govert] 
>>
>>>I disagree, I believe their teachings are very much related in terms of lower manas. JK's teachings, i.e. beyond the lower manas can be fraught with psychological dangers for those who are not mentally prepared, i.e. if one totally removes or suppresses lower manas one could be left in a psychological abyss without the comfort and security of the "I". IMO, K's path (Advaita based) i.e. living in the now or living without memory could lead to mental instability. I imagine his dilemma or cross was that in order to remain true to his own path he was in constant conflict with it. His path, is the path of one - not many, yet he wrote for the many.
>>>Cass
>>
>>James Santucci in his "Theosophical History," vol. 3, nos. 7-8 long Review of "Lives in the Shadow" calls Krishnamurti a "Schizophrenic" because of this love-affair in distinction to K's apparent public stance. I think it definitely is a split in the wholeness of the personality, but not so severe as schizophrenia or multiple personality. He was two people, but each was aware and acknowledging of the other. I think such a thing happens endlessly in hidden occult history. An aspirant believes in asceticism, and never changes his belief, but admits (or doesn't admit) he is not strong enough, and a split in psychological integrity results. Why is this? One might say it is the skandhas one is born with - which is what you really are as an individual - and the spiritual path is changing these skandhas from the lower to the higher. If the higher mind is strong, and also the lower skandhas too strong to "kill" off with integrity, then a split results
>as the person aspires for his self-styled chelahood. One can get into a "psychological abyss without the comfort and security of the 'I'", by splitting off this lower part and trying to just live in the higher parts which one intellectually approves of - because by some mysterious means acknowledging this lower part is the key to one's inner self, one's "subconscious," and contact with one's own source, and the only genuine sanity. Blavatsky says somewhere to be "true to oneself," and one's individuality or the "self" to be true to, is 90% this lower self we are un-self-conscious of (or not really "lower" always, but deeper and unknown, perhaps the "buddhi", the antaskarana) which we have accumulated and developed over the last unmpteen-million years.
>>- jake j. 
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