I want to understand myself, learn about myself. In observing myself… do it actually, don't take it home and think about it, do it now. This is not a group therapy or a confessional or all that nonsense, but watch yourself as we are working together.
Usually, when I want to learn about myself, my mind is already conditioned to learn in a particular way.
I call it learning about myself, but often, isn’t my main motivation to better cope and manage my problems? In the outer technical world, this form of learning poses no problem; but in learning about our foggy, unresolved, inner conflict; is our learning going deep enough?
Faced with a problem in my life, I may instinctively look to others or I might look to experts in the field; gurus, teachers, psychologists, YouTube videos, Google and of course AI nowadays.
My mind might automatically search for the cause of a problem: outside, or near the surface of myself. When I have apparently understood the cause, I feel I can now control the effect. But hang on, isn’t the cause buried deep in my psychological make up? Am I the cause itself, yet perhaps unaware of it?
In fact, am I the problem?
As I watch myself carefully, do I face my problems, or am I actually in the habit of moving away from them? Or, do I feel self pity not knowing what to do and resort to blaming others or outside circumstance? Is there a subconscious impulse in me to avoid and move towards a comfortable solution, regardless of its inadequacy. A half solved issue is often a larger one waiting down the road…
In fact a problem might actually be created by the inadequacy of my meeting it. It looks as though I need to solve the problem, when in actuality, does the problem hold a mirror to what is unresolved within me? There may not even be a separation between myself and the problem. Is a problem merely life itself, exposing inner limitation? Do problems that seem to be “out there” give an opportunity “in here” to face my ignorance? Ignorance created, not from lack of knowledge, but from the belief that what I know, should dominate and control “what is”.
Our minds might be perpetually limited by conclusions and assumptions that have shaped an entire approach to life. Are we in a healthy open relationship with life, or do we strive to control and always know better?
Our real problems are perhaps not outward adversity, but our attachment to knowledge, tradition and the past to resolve them. So, understanding all this, how do I now approach a problem? If I realise the limitation of the mind to solve problems and I see that I truly don’t know, isn’t there now a natural interest to find out? To admit the fact that I do not know, opens curiosity, doesn’t it? At that moment does the beginning of attention wake up naturally? One has to apply oneself directly to find this out.
Has this attention been created by me, or is it a phenomenon naturally brought about by seeing the relevance of the issue? Before the problem just needed solving. Now that the mind is no longer managing or assuming the need to dominate the problem – can the problem be allowed to ‘burn’ inwardly in a quiet existential crisis of not knowing? Is an energy now naturally being generated to meet and face this unknown predicament of mind? Is there a waking up to the raw problem as it is, with no solution but its total presence? Can one remain here, in the immediacy of no avoidance?
However, without the relief of conditioned thinking taking over and escaping the crisis, the uneasiness of the problem may grow. What has previously been avoided might now loom inwardly. There may come a sense of panic being alone with the unresolved; or an impatience for solace may increase…
I go deeper in this living inquiry: what wants solace? Or release from fear? Is there a strong sense of “me” to whom all this is happening? Does this appear to me as my problem, my confusion, my apprehension? Watching myself carefuly, I see there are two elements present in the mind: the “me” and the psychological disturbance. Is thinking conjuring a separation between myself and this inner conflict; a felt sensation of unrest?
Without a sense of self needing to be protected, can there only be the presence of a disturbance and no moving away from it? I realise that without this sense of a separate (and separating) inner entity – there is no innate conflict towards whatever is present in the mind. What was once felt as “disturbing” is now a totality of disturbance occurring. A sensation with no boundaries, fully activated, freely revealing of its content?
Learning might be a process of energised revelation that is totally new from moment to moment: an innate movement of self discovery. This is surely very different from the learning that we, all of us, everywhere, have been schooled in. Very different from the spiritual ideas and truths we like to associate ourselves with. Traditional learning overall creates competition, authority, submission and never ending conflict; something might this new learning possibly even dispel?
To see whether any of this is true, I can only find out for myself.
“And this cannot be taught by another, it comes through your observation of yourself, watching all the time. You know, it’s great fun if you don’t condemn or justify but watch ‘what is’…. just watch it, in yourself and outside of yourself. Such a mind that watches it becomes extraordinarily sensitive, alive, because it is not breeding conflict.”
J. Krishnamurti
