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Post by Deleted on Sept 17, 2013 1:09:23 GMT -6
This teacher is one of the most respected of the wise men of India. I read two of his books with great interest.
I would say it's 95% compatible with Gurdjieff's teachings, which is more than enough to deserve attention. I will expose you some of his words this week, does anyone know him ?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiddu_Krishnamurti
And remember : NOW is the moment of Awakening
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Post by shawnhartnell on Sept 17, 2013 19:08:49 GMT -6
Ive never heard of him. Thanks for the heads up. Ill see if i can find any of his books this weekend.
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Post by shawnhartnell on Sept 22, 2013 17:36:51 GMT -6
Wow, this guy wrote a lot. Is there a specific book that you've read / are reading?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2013 1:59:51 GMT -6
This one is short and covers the main points :
www.amazon.com/The-First-Last-Freedom-Krishnamurti/dp/0060648317
Self-observation is a basis of his teaching ;
But here is an interesting disagreement with Gurdjieff : according to Krishnamurti, once you are honest with yourself, give up any idea of greed and ambition, and are of good will, then making efforts to change yourself is counterproductive...
and I would like your comments !
Awake.
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Post by Kai'zen on Sept 24, 2013 3:43:03 GMT -6
But here is an interesting disagreement with Gurdjieff : according to Krishnamurti, once you are honest with yourself, give up any idea of greed and ambition, and are of good will, then making efforts to change yourself is counterproductive... [teal]Hmm. I would say that greed and ambition are very effective motivating forces. Likewise, a lack of good will towards others is often needed to make a change occur. It seems to me like achieving such a state is very counter-productive.[/teal]
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Post by shawnhartnell on Sept 24, 2013 10:06:02 GMT -6
I have the book and I've started reading it. It does seem that he approaches many of the same ideas as the Fourth Way, but in a different way. At this point, my impression of him is closer to Eckhart Tolle than Nicole. (Side note: was anyone else surprised that the introduction was written by Aldous Huxley?)
Self-observation is a basis of his teaching ;
But here is an interesting disagreement with Gurdjieff : according to Krishnamurti, once you are honest with yourself, give up any idea of greed and ambition, and are of good will, then making efforts to change yourself is counterproductive...
and I would like your comments !
Awake.I don't know enough to be able to know if this is a disagreement or not. Is there a specific quote where he says this?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 25, 2013 3:48:11 GMT -6
[teal]Hmm. I would say that greed and ambition are very effective motivating forces. Likewise, a lack of good will towards others is often needed to make a change occur. [/teal] Yes sir ! I expected this answer, and yes, it is true that giving up ambition is definitively not our way. And our teaching is to make efforts, and super-efforts as recommended by Gurdjieff.
So why did I post this topic ? Two reasons :
Because I'm interested by what a eminent teacher of an other way has to say about self-observation ; self-observation is of huge importance and outside the fourth way it's not so frequent to read about it.
And because we should not forget that honesty and humility are essential for us as well, for making any progress is impossible if you do not fully realize first how little you are.
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Post by shawnhartnell on Sept 25, 2013 23:19:39 GMT -6
I suppose it would depend on how greed and ambition are defined. As I imagine they are being used they both require something outside the self. There's a difference in the motivations of wanting to be the #1 pop star and wanting to the best song you can. (and then writing a better song, and then..)
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Post by shawnhartnell on Oct 3, 2013 8:39:02 GMT -6
So why did I post this topic ? Two reasons :
Because I'm interested by what a eminent teacher of an other way has to say about self-observation ; self-observation is of huge importance and outside the fourth way it's not so frequent to read about it.
I agree that it's important and I'm interested when I spot a Fourth Way concept for a different reason. I'll try to explain:
My understanding is like an incomplete picture-puzzle. I have enough pieces of the puzzle put together to be able to see what the picture is. Even so, within the picture I've assembled there's large sections of missing pieces in patches like large polka-dots.
In less metaphoric language, I know that my understanding is an organic whole with large sections missing. Sometimes I know what's missing, but more often I don't know that anything is missing at all.
To increase my understanding, I've found it's useful to always be looking for overlap to find and fill the holes.
When I notice a Fourth Way concept, or any other concept about anything else which is already included in my model, I know there's a good chance that there's going to be something else connected to it that I don't know. Once I know where another person's understanding connects with mine, I can then explore it to find the overlap that fills in the gaps in my understanding.
It's like having my own transparent map which is incomplete and discovering another incomplete map which has some similarities to my own and things that are missing from mine. The process is like taking my transparent map, lining up the points where they match, and copying over what I'm missing from the other map.
I have this personal saying that relates to this. It's "Everyone has a piece of the puzzle."Yeah, that's a part of it. And relevant to my point so maybe what I just posted was redundant.
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Post by shawnhartnell on Oct 5, 2013 21:06:54 GMT -6
@yrreiht: There's something to be said about living off your wits and not having to carry a ton of baggage around with you. That's something I forgot.
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Post by lokidreaming on Oct 17, 2013 5:32:28 GMT -6
I personally have tried to remove ambition and greed from my life and have been at times really hard with myself with failing.
I then slowly realized maybe I was misinterpreting eliminating material stuff out of my life.
Maybe the originally meaning behind eliminating greed and ambition is to try and minimize the bad flow on effects associated with it and in turn you are more conscious of how your actions affects others then somewhere along the way someone/some group of people took it and implemented it to orthodox standards and then it became socially acceptable to be like this and then this interpretation and implementation of this became the actual.
I am confident everyone suffers from greed and ambition. I know it is impossible to eliminate these two completely.
In relation to the Great Work, a lot less would have been accomplished if it ambition was not involved.
Greed can help as a positive action for change eg, Wanting what respect the other member has got over them, this lead to that member to outshine other members eg, in forums, people tend to try and outpost each other. All this out posting actually creates for more dialogue and in turn affects and influence other people, sometimes in a positive way, as the post that was done to outpost others as a way of greed can cause a eureka moment.
I always prefer to change a negative into a positive and/or channel negative forces so it does positive.
Somebody's idea of something negative maybe someones positive. eg, After a lot of frustration at not succeeding to eliminate ambition from my life, I realize that ambition is part of who I am and is something I will never be able to cut out.
With statements like that one must take into account the time period and cultural influences of that time into consideration as values to certain ideas changes over time.
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Post by lokidreaming on Oct 17, 2013 5:35:50 GMT -6
@shwan,
thank you for your last post as it is one of the puzzle pieces I have been looking for and or found but couldn't work it out.
I do agree totally in looking at other belief systems interpretation of the same bit of information as they are all the related and can be one aspect/perspective of the same core truth.
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Post by shawnhartnell on Oct 17, 2013 10:37:43 GMT -6
loki, nice to see you around.
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Post by shawnhartnell on Oct 17, 2013 11:42:22 GMT -6
loki: Let me ask you a question. Where does your need for greed come from? In other words, how do you know you want it? Consider the borders of countries. They only exist because people agree that they exist. I don't. So, er... ok then. Who is this person who deems the meaning of eliminating greed and ambition of which you speak? Otherwise, I can't argue that getting one's head out of one's ass is a good thing. I agree that sometimes it's like that game where you have a line of people and tell the first person in line "I like donuts" and each person tells it to the next person in line and at the end the last person tells you that you said "Grandma farted twice today." I think there would have been a lot more accomplished if it wasn't so pretentious, like christians capitalizing "Him." I wholeheartedly disagree. Greed and ambition on forums leads to flame wars and trolls and the general practice of the douche side of the force. I've only experienced the effect you are talking about in a forum where the people are primarily interested in the subject of the forum. You once quoted Nicoll (I think) discussing schools, saying that everyone in a school is there to learn, and if they forget that they're not really in a school. I agree with that very much. In an old school I was in, we called the eureka moment a "flux capacitor" moment, and valued these more than anything because we valued ingenuity above anything else. We challenged each other but it wasn't out of competitive greed, it was more like "geeking out." The Flux Capacitor Badge Awarded for : "An idea, realization, or programming design that could have only occurred to the person by hitting his head on the toilet."
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Post by shawnhartnell on Oct 17, 2013 11:51:41 GMT -6
loki: Here's my unedited view on greed and ambition. I think that greed and ambition are extremely counter-productive hang-ups of western culture. People think that everyone is motivated by greed and ambition because it's something "everyone knows" but never questions. People who are actually motivated by greed and ambition are suffering from a sense of lacking something. Show me a rich miser and I'll show you someone who's still poor in their own head. I think that people get a thrill from whatever it is they have a passion for, like painting or writing, or folding paper into little animals or whatever. That's not quite motivation, it's something more fundamental. And I think that most people are missing out on their thrill because they think about the hang ups of their culture rather than focusing on what they really want.
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