असंगत और असंभव प्रश्न
The Invalid and the Impossible Question.
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J.KriShnamurti often puts an impossible question before the listener.
This is a remarkable point on His part. This is, what one should go into; what makes Him to do so?
‘Impossible’ here refers to a question that takes you by surprise. To such a question, there is really no answer in the ‘known’. You are just awestruck and your mind goes blank for a moment. In that moment either you can perhaps see the beauty and the strength / power of silence that comes up to the fore for a while. There is no need to answer the question. Neither He looks forward for your answer, though just as He is aware of all other things in the moment, He is also only aware of your reaction / response. This is an undivided whole thing. If you just listen to Him, may be you could at once understand the silence standing as a rock behind His words. And if you could sense that silence it will engulf you into its fold. What words / language He speaks out becomes secondary to this silence. And it is not that you get the answer to His question either, Rather you share His consciousness. Then your own mind drops and you come-out from your ‘knowledge’, ‘the known’.
This session with Him takes you on a flight to the ‘unknown’.
And even if the listener is only in a dialogue with Him only, and does not sense the ‘silence’ he atleast has left out the ‘known’ and the dialogue keeps him connected to the ‘present’ where past and future interfere not. Past and future are but facets of the known only. Though as memory and imagination they look as two different things, there essence is but ‘thought’ only. So listening is important. The way we listen is really the most important factor of listening. And listening without interpretation, without trying to understand the verbal meaning is no less important either. Listening to the chirp of the birds in the morning or in the evening, of the sound and even noise and shrill caused by an old engine, without focussing yet carefully is quite lightening. Putting resistance means we are trying to escape ‘what is’.
This is why “Impossible Question” helps to go beyond the ‘known’
When we are having a dialogue with some-one, then also listening in this way we can see carefully understand what is unsaid, by just the gestures only. This way there is a trmendous release of the energy that is otherwise wasted and dissipated in resistance or in holding firmly onto our opinion and stand.
Again for the meaningful communication it is equally important that the questions that are raised should not free of contradicton in themselves.
Usually in our dialogues or conversations with people, our teachers or our students, or who-so-ever we are concerned with, we come across questions that are either clear, well-formed, or not so clear, extraneous, superficial, extra-urgents as well ridden with with paradoxes, or basically of no relevance at all. May be to the point, absurd, direct, indirect, invalid, rational or irrational, or just beyond the scope of the discussion itself. A question evokes a right response only when it is well-framed without inherent bias, prejudice.
The question that one asks is usually a reflection of the past of the questioner. Such a question could surely and mostly be dealt within the intellectal framework of logic. The appropriate questioning, doubts and removal of doubts depend upon how clearly we see the problem. In the right context and in due reference there is always a smooth communication that could erase the differences of opinion whatsoever. A right attitude and approach always culminate into a satisfactory conclusion. This is true about the usual questions that we come across almost every moment in our day to day life. Such questions are based upon the knowledge and emanate from the past (either as information or rxperience). The so-called scientific or Mathematical questions are also kind of intellectual exercise only, because ‘Science’ and ‘Mathematics’ which form the back-bone of our ‘knowledge’ are supported by concepts only. These concepts are the general truth supported by sensory experience and intellectual logic / reasoning. And ‘Science’ and ‘Mathematics’ are not the Ultimate Truth, when we try to understand the ‘mind’ and ‘consciousness’ and have to come across such existential quest.
This what is ‘objective’ knowledge.
No doubt, this has practical use. This ‘knowledge’ could be transmitted through the appropriate language. This knowledge depends upon the sensory-perception, which is accepted in terms of (the word) ‘the experience’. Thus the ‘sensory-perception’ which is just pure contact of the senses with the object of perception is stored as experience which is again either acceptable or inacceptable, pleasant or unpleasant.
There is the inbuilt program or a programing that happens on the foundation of such varied experiences, and the sensory-perception which is basically only the contact-point of the sensory-world and the ‘one’ that is a counter-result of the perception is furthur divided in terms of the quality of the various kinds of sensory-perceptions. Broadly speaking they are of the kind of sound, smell, taste, sight and touch. These sensory-perceptions are basically ‘experience’ of the contact between what (the object) is perceived and the conscious entity that perceives them, and is remembered as an experience in the brain. Thus experience takes the form of sound, smell, taste, sight and touch according to the specific bridge between the ‘object’ and the conscious entity that defines this as ‘experience’. This is the sensory-perception at two levels. One is the ‘ouside-world’, the world that is beyond the physical body and is taken as the ‘outer’, the external world. The conscious-entity when devoid of this external world and the sensory exaperience of this external outer world in any form, still exists and perceives something that is basically but the memory of that external world remembered in the form of such variety of kinds of perceptions. This is the ‘dream-state’ of the conscious entity. But again in this state there are blanks, when the conscious entity is devoid of any memory or the memory stirs not. But a state of utter stillness and peace is perceived by the organism that is associated with this conscious entity. The same in contrast to its waking state is called ‘sleep’. By the way, we can understand how an infant keeps sleeping blissfully for quite long hours. Then may be something disrupts the sleep. Either the bodily needs like hunger or the physical pain only. In that state of an infant the conscious entity is not even an internal or external to the world that is perceived by it while in waking or the dreaming.
The Impossible Question is a quest about the nature and the function, working and activity of this conscious entity which; we can name ‘the mind’ for the sake of simplicity.
This conscious entity is though already free of any disctinction within itself, of what-so-ever of the outer / inner or external / internal kind, with reference to the physical body of an organism in a world , manifests itself in those two forms, namely an external world and an internal ‘me’ / ’I’ respectively. This division is again though formal, assumed in memory as a true-one.
A question that is about the world has ‘thought’ as the foundation for its formation. But the thought itself has this conscious entity as foundation. The conscious entity associated with memory, takes the name and form what we have said ‘the mind’.
The Impossible Question takes our attention back to the source wherefrom the attention took a turn towards the division of the external and the internal.
To grasp this point ‘thought’ needs to withdraw from this mind and memory, and attention should be free of ‘thought’, whatever form thought assumes time to time.
The Impossible Question is thus existential inquiry into the ‘self’ and ‘the mind’.
Interestingly no one can deny the existence of this (apparent or real fictitious or true whatever) ‘self’ or ‘the mind’, by what-so-ever logic. No one could deny this by way of ‘experience’, claimimg to have ‘experienced’ that it doesn’t exist. Neither by arriving at a conclusion after elaborate thought over it. The very refusal, refuting is assertion that there is a ‘self’, ‘the mind’.
Interestingly though no one denies the existence of ‘me’ / ‘self’ / ‘the mind’, this conscious entity is mentioned in two ways. We say ‘my mind’. We say ‘mind’. We inadvertantly look at the mind in these two ways and impose upon the mind a quality of being ‘mine’ or ‘not mine’ also. Is this division not a thought only? Is this division not in thought only. Thought is an expression of ‘the mind’, and thus ‘the mind’ through ignorance, appears as ‘mine’ or ‘not mine’. Through that very thought that itself has created this division of ‘the mind’, the conscious entity becomes a captive of ‘thought’. Thinking and thought are intellectual processes, while Understanding / Intelligence / attention is never a process but either an illumination or the lack of this illumination.
वेदान्त vedānta / like साँख्य / sām̐khya / मीमाँसा / mīmām̐sā / न्याय / nyāya / वैशेषिक / vaiśeṣika / and योग / yoga / is not ‘Philosophy’, but an instrument / tool / device that facilitates this ‘self-enquiry’ or the ‘inquiry’ into the nature and truth of this ‘self’.
‘Philosophy’ is about intellectual pondering over by means of ‘thought’ that is the result of memory and the habits of thinking.
Intellect is a good and perhaps an approximate tool while conducting the matters of day-to-day life, even the thinking in the line of so-called exact theories like ‘Science’ and ‘Mathematics’ as well, yet it could not reach its limits so far.
The way we question ‘why’, ‘what’ ‘where’, ‘time’, ‘matter’, ‘space’, ‘energy’ about the things of physical kind, is quite inapplicable in dealing with the understanding the ‘Existential’.
The intellectual kind of inquiry about the existence therefore leads nowhere.
An intellectual question, however perfect, orderly or logical could often fail in understanding the Existential and so may even prove absurd, invalid, unrelated, in the parlance of discovering the Reality. In the Discovery of The Existential.
--
--
The Invalid and the Impossible Question.
--
J.KriShnamurti often puts an impossible question before the listener.
This is a remarkable point on His part. This is, what one should go into; what makes Him to do so?
‘Impossible’ here refers to a question that takes you by surprise. To such a question, there is really no answer in the ‘known’. You are just awestruck and your mind goes blank for a moment. In that moment either you can perhaps see the beauty and the strength / power of silence that comes up to the fore for a while. There is no need to answer the question. Neither He looks forward for your answer, though just as He is aware of all other things in the moment, He is also only aware of your reaction / response. This is an undivided whole thing. If you just listen to Him, may be you could at once understand the silence standing as a rock behind His words. And if you could sense that silence it will engulf you into its fold. What words / language He speaks out becomes secondary to this silence. And it is not that you get the answer to His question either, Rather you share His consciousness. Then your own mind drops and you come-out from your ‘knowledge’, ‘the known’.
This session with Him takes you on a flight to the ‘unknown’.
And even if the listener is only in a dialogue with Him only, and does not sense the ‘silence’ he atleast has left out the ‘known’ and the dialogue keeps him connected to the ‘present’ where past and future interfere not. Past and future are but facets of the known only. Though as memory and imagination they look as two different things, there essence is but ‘thought’ only. So listening is important. The way we listen is really the most important factor of listening. And listening without interpretation, without trying to understand the verbal meaning is no less important either. Listening to the chirp of the birds in the morning or in the evening, of the sound and even noise and shrill caused by an old engine, without focussing yet carefully is quite lightening. Putting resistance means we are trying to escape ‘what is’.
This is why “Impossible Question” helps to go beyond the ‘known’
When we are having a dialogue with some-one, then also listening in this way we can see carefully understand what is unsaid, by just the gestures only. This way there is a trmendous release of the energy that is otherwise wasted and dissipated in resistance or in holding firmly onto our opinion and stand.
Again for the meaningful communication it is equally important that the questions that are raised should not free of contradicton in themselves.
Usually in our dialogues or conversations with people, our teachers or our students, or who-so-ever we are concerned with, we come across questions that are either clear, well-formed, or not so clear, extraneous, superficial, extra-urgents as well ridden with with paradoxes, or basically of no relevance at all. May be to the point, absurd, direct, indirect, invalid, rational or irrational, or just beyond the scope of the discussion itself. A question evokes a right response only when it is well-framed without inherent bias, prejudice.
The question that one asks is usually a reflection of the past of the questioner. Such a question could surely and mostly be dealt within the intellectal framework of logic. The appropriate questioning, doubts and removal of doubts depend upon how clearly we see the problem. In the right context and in due reference there is always a smooth communication that could erase the differences of opinion whatsoever. A right attitude and approach always culminate into a satisfactory conclusion. This is true about the usual questions that we come across almost every moment in our day to day life. Such questions are based upon the knowledge and emanate from the past (either as information or rxperience). The so-called scientific or Mathematical questions are also kind of intellectual exercise only, because ‘Science’ and ‘Mathematics’ which form the back-bone of our ‘knowledge’ are supported by concepts only. These concepts are the general truth supported by sensory experience and intellectual logic / reasoning. And ‘Science’ and ‘Mathematics’ are not the Ultimate Truth, when we try to understand the ‘mind’ and ‘consciousness’ and have to come across such existential quest.
This what is ‘objective’ knowledge.
No doubt, this has practical use. This ‘knowledge’ could be transmitted through the appropriate language. This knowledge depends upon the sensory-perception, which is accepted in terms of (the word) ‘the experience’. Thus the ‘sensory-perception’ which is just pure contact of the senses with the object of perception is stored as experience which is again either acceptable or inacceptable, pleasant or unpleasant.
There is the inbuilt program or a programing that happens on the foundation of such varied experiences, and the sensory-perception which is basically only the contact-point of the sensory-world and the ‘one’ that is a counter-result of the perception is furthur divided in terms of the quality of the various kinds of sensory-perceptions. Broadly speaking they are of the kind of sound, smell, taste, sight and touch. These sensory-perceptions are basically ‘experience’ of the contact between what (the object) is perceived and the conscious entity that perceives them, and is remembered as an experience in the brain. Thus experience takes the form of sound, smell, taste, sight and touch according to the specific bridge between the ‘object’ and the conscious entity that defines this as ‘experience’. This is the sensory-perception at two levels. One is the ‘ouside-world’, the world that is beyond the physical body and is taken as the ‘outer’, the external world. The conscious-entity when devoid of this external world and the sensory exaperience of this external outer world in any form, still exists and perceives something that is basically but the memory of that external world remembered in the form of such variety of kinds of perceptions. This is the ‘dream-state’ of the conscious entity. But again in this state there are blanks, when the conscious entity is devoid of any memory or the memory stirs not. But a state of utter stillness and peace is perceived by the organism that is associated with this conscious entity. The same in contrast to its waking state is called ‘sleep’. By the way, we can understand how an infant keeps sleeping blissfully for quite long hours. Then may be something disrupts the sleep. Either the bodily needs like hunger or the physical pain only. In that state of an infant the conscious entity is not even an internal or external to the world that is perceived by it while in waking or the dreaming.
The Impossible Question is a quest about the nature and the function, working and activity of this conscious entity which; we can name ‘the mind’ for the sake of simplicity.
This conscious entity is though already free of any disctinction within itself, of what-so-ever of the outer / inner or external / internal kind, with reference to the physical body of an organism in a world , manifests itself in those two forms, namely an external world and an internal ‘me’ / ’I’ respectively. This division is again though formal, assumed in memory as a true-one.
A question that is about the world has ‘thought’ as the foundation for its formation. But the thought itself has this conscious entity as foundation. The conscious entity associated with memory, takes the name and form what we have said ‘the mind’.
The Impossible Question takes our attention back to the source wherefrom the attention took a turn towards the division of the external and the internal.
To grasp this point ‘thought’ needs to withdraw from this mind and memory, and attention should be free of ‘thought’, whatever form thought assumes time to time.
The Impossible Question is thus existential inquiry into the ‘self’ and ‘the mind’.
Interestingly no one can deny the existence of this (apparent or real fictitious or true whatever) ‘self’ or ‘the mind’, by what-so-ever logic. No one could deny this by way of ‘experience’, claimimg to have ‘experienced’ that it doesn’t exist. Neither by arriving at a conclusion after elaborate thought over it. The very refusal, refuting is assertion that there is a ‘self’, ‘the mind’.
Interestingly though no one denies the existence of ‘me’ / ‘self’ / ‘the mind’, this conscious entity is mentioned in two ways. We say ‘my mind’. We say ‘mind’. We inadvertantly look at the mind in these two ways and impose upon the mind a quality of being ‘mine’ or ‘not mine’ also. Is this division not a thought only? Is this division not in thought only. Thought is an expression of ‘the mind’, and thus ‘the mind’ through ignorance, appears as ‘mine’ or ‘not mine’. Through that very thought that itself has created this division of ‘the mind’, the conscious entity becomes a captive of ‘thought’. Thinking and thought are intellectual processes, while Understanding / Intelligence / attention is never a process but either an illumination or the lack of this illumination.
वेदान्त vedānta / like साँख्य / sām̐khya / मीमाँसा / mīmām̐sā / न्याय / nyāya / वैशेषिक / vaiśeṣika / and योग / yoga / is not ‘Philosophy’, but an instrument / tool / device that facilitates this ‘self-enquiry’ or the ‘inquiry’ into the nature and truth of this ‘self’.
‘Philosophy’ is about intellectual pondering over by means of ‘thought’ that is the result of memory and the habits of thinking.
Intellect is a good and perhaps an approximate tool while conducting the matters of day-to-day life, even the thinking in the line of so-called exact theories like ‘Science’ and ‘Mathematics’ as well, yet it could not reach its limits so far.
The way we question ‘why’, ‘what’ ‘where’, ‘time’, ‘matter’, ‘space’, ‘energy’ about the things of physical kind, is quite inapplicable in dealing with the understanding the ‘Existential’.
The intellectual kind of inquiry about the existence therefore leads nowhere.
An intellectual question, however perfect, orderly or logical could often fail in understanding the Existential and so may even prove absurd, invalid, unrelated, in the parlance of discovering the Reality. In the Discovery of The Existential.
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