Thought must always be limited by the thinker who is conditioned. The thinker is always conditioned and is never free; if thought occurs, immediately idea follows. Idea in order to act is bound to create more confusion. Knowing all this, is it possible to act without idea? Yes, it is the way of love.
– Krishnamurti
Incredible beauty and complexity on a wall I pass every day.
The idea is the result of the thought process, the thought process is the response of memory, and memory is always conditioned.
-Krishnamurti
Is there anything like a new idea, or only modification of old ones? Something entirely new is creation not ideation.
Here’s the next walk video I made during a very enjoyable hike yesterday. A sunny day with snow. From West Meon along the Meon Trail, up to Old Winchester Hill when the snow came, then into Combe valley and to East Meon.
Just after lunch up on Old Winchester Hill, this happened.
A stunning series of images. War is real, it’s happening, folks.
A sense of inclusion. The stresses, the thoughts about the week gone and what might be to come. The urge is to push them away, to think later, to feel later. Later. And yet there they are, thoughts, feelings, tensions, wanting to express. After all, they don’t come from nowhere. Are they even a ‘they’? Are they not me too? So: a sense of inclusion. Include it all.
The world is always close to catastrophe. But it seems to be closer now. Seeing this approaching catastrophe, most of us take shelter in idea. We think that this catastrophe, this crisis, can be solved by an ideology. Ideology is always an impediment to direct relationship, which prevents action. We want peace only as an idea, but not as an actuality. We want peace on the verbal level which is only on the thinking level, though we proudly call it the intellectual level. But the word peace is not peace. Peace can only be when the confusion which you and another make ceases. We are attached to the world of ideas and not to peace.
– Krishnamurti
Can ideas ever produce action, or do ideas merely mold thought and therefore limit action?
– Krishnamurti
Twas a gorgeous sunny day today
Feeling a little sheepish, I am returning to starting work later. The shifts are about discovering an optimum way of living, the way I want to live, fitting time for all the things I love during the day. With the very early work starts, yes I got the office hours out of the way but then I was drifting through the afternoons, not inspired to do anything much. And way too much time making silly faces on Chatroulette.com. So, today, still waking early – at 0600. Five-anything just seems like a step to far, at least at this time of the year. Six allows for a shower, an hour or more of stretching, time to write a little blog, then to morning meeting or work for 0800. This leaves only two hours in the office in the afternoons. Sorted. So, that’s probably enough writing about bedtimes, morning times and this kind of obsessive thing. But it’s an inquiry, an investigation into what works for me.
What do we mean by idea? Surely idea is the process of thought. Idea is a process of mentation, of thinking; and thinking is always a reaction either of the conscious or of the unconscious. Thinking is a process of verbalisation which is the result of memory; thinking is a process of time. So, when action is based on the process of thinking, such action must inevitably be conditioned, isolated. Idea must oppose idea, idea must be dominated by idea. There is a gap then between action and idea.
– Krishnamurti
Before waking, the feeling it must be time to get up soon. And it was. 0530. Dark. Hot in bed. We’d left the heater on. That’s a year of switching lights off blown right there. Sun salutations, half dressed, to a sun still hidden by the earth. Rain outside. Wash face, dress fully. Washing on. Sitting at my desk wondering why. Why am I up? Why have a job looking at a screen? Work for an hour then make fruit salad breakfast.
Later in the morning enjoying a job looking at a screen. The morning flew by. Talking about creativity. What is it? Something absolutely new. Also why I object to ‘creative people’? As if they have found some kind of answer. For as long as I can recall I’ve hated any kind of show off. Realising it is up to them.
Thinking next week of 0730 work starts, not 0600, and doing yoga before work. I’m missing that kind of in-touch start to the day.
Only when one can go beyond the bundle of ideas – which is the “me”, which is the mind, which has a partial or complete continuity – only when one can go beyond that, when thought is completely silent, is there a state of experiencing. Then one shall know what truth is.
This thing vibrates you. Like The Reeves and Mortimer Sheep Vibrating Unit, only for humans.
Further experimentation meant arising at 0540 for 3 round of sun salutations, (left/right x3) before work at 6. I don’t know if it’s crazy to start at that time – probably – especially as I woke at 0130 and listened to a) yogapeeps.com podcast b) Yoga Nidra by Maureen Lewison c) a whole bunch of music. We’ll see how it goes. But I like it there in the early morning, no one else around, hardly anyone awake at Brockwood, doing the verification work for the first three hours in the office. I take a break each hour, else it’s 7 hours straight at the computer and that’s no good. At 8 it’s the morning meeting at the school which I can now go to again. Where is everyone for that? The hall is only one third full. Sitting quietly for 10 minutes is just too much for many people. So now I am ready for a deeeeep sleep. Alarm for 0530 tomorrow…
Why do ideas take root in our minds? Why do not facts become all-important – not ideas? Why do theories, ideas, become so significant rather than the fact? Is it that we cannot understand the fact, or have not the capacity, or are afraid of facing the fact?
-Krishnamurti
He came to the garden shortly after we got the chickens – for the food and the female company. Frequently he displays his feathers to the hens and sometimes tries to mate with them.
After the morning meeting.
A new experiment: getting up at 0545 to start work at six. That means I’m finished by lunchtime. (Yes, Sunday is the start of my working week, laughing at blasphemy) After a long post-lunch kip, I didn’t even know what day it was, and thought I had to work again. The rest of the day spent lounging around on the bed, which is in the living room right now, further causing disorientation. So, just a short sleep in the day. I liked the first hours at work, just me as the sun rose. By the time the work day had properly started, I was already three hours in. Standing in the bathroom at 0550 it was soooo tempting to go back to bed. The warm bed…
Started Om Yoga proper today – the start of my week. Today: Sun Salutations, the best known of all the vinyasa flows. Sun salutations in the afternoon? Yes, it was a disorientating day all right.
To escape from that fear- that fear of emptiness, that fear of loneliness, that fear of stagnation, of not arriving, not succeeding, not achieving, not being something, not becoming something – is surely one of the reasons, is it not, why we accept beliefs so eagerly and greedily? And, through acceptance of belief, do we understand ourselves? On the contrary. A belief, religious or political, obviously hinders the understanding of ourselves. It acts as a screen through which we look at ourselves. And can we look at ourselves without beliefs? If we remove these beliefs, the many beliefs that one has, is there anything left to look at? If we have no beliefs with which the mind has identified itself, then the mind, without identification, is capable of looking at itself as it is – and then, surely there is the beginning of the understanding of oneself.
– Krishnamurti
On Saturday I again walked some of the South Downs Way. I left the car at West Meon then took the bus to Cheriton for the starting point. It’s a couple of km from there back to the path, to the west. After crossing the A272, the path slowly rises back onto the downs at Millbarrow. I saw one of the burial mounds up there, near the Milbuty pub. Then it’s great views as I headed east, seeing Hinton Ampner House to the north and the Isle of Wight to the south. From Beacon Hill, there are great views to the north, east and south into the valley. The path then descends into the lush Meon valley to Exton. I then followed the Meon Valley Trail back to West Meon. All in all it took five hours, with 16 miles of the South Downs Way completed now. Here’s a video I made.
At Holden Farm, near Cheriton, Hampshire. I love the bucket, and that it’s the same angle as the wonky exhaust.
Falling Awake 