When the Observer Is the Observed

August 18th ~ Space is necessary.  Without space there is no freedom.  We are talking psychologically. . . . It is only when one is in contact, when there is no space between the observer and the observed that one is in total relationship–with a tree for instance.  One is not identified with the tree, the flower, a woman, a man, or whatever it is, but when there is this complete absence of space as the observer and the observed, then there is vast space.  In that space there is no conflict; in that space there is freedom.

Freedom is not a reaction.  you cannot say, “Well, I am free.”  The moment you say you are free you are not free, because you are conscious of yourself as being free from something, and therefore you have the same situation as an observer observing a tree.  He has created a space, and in that space he breeds conflict.  To understand this requires not intellectual agreement or disagreement, or saying, “I don’t understand,” but rather it requires coming directly into contact with what is.  It means seeing that all your actions, every moment of action is of the observer and the observed, and within that space there is pleasure, pain and suffering, the desire to fulfill, to become famous.  Within that space there is no contact with anything.  Contact, relationship has a quite different meaning when the observer is no longer apart from the observed.  There is this extraordinary space, and there is freedom.

November 20th, 2019 ~ When reading this, one can imagine the extraordinary space Krishnamurti is talking about.  It seems quite obvious when you think about it.  There is space all around us. In another example, K talks about how we don’t see the beauty in front of us: a tree, an animal, a partner.  Our minds are too busy.  These other, real things don’t hold our attention.  We are separate from them and hence feel very separate.  The Dalai Lama says those people who commit horrible acts feel extremely separate from society.  Technology causes us to feel separate.  Our minds are too overloaded and ironically don’t see the vast space around us.  We feel separate when we aren’t.  We just think we are.

Reference

As in most posts on Zentrepreneurial.com, italicization of words refers to the words of either Jiddu Krishnamurti or Albert Low.  The website writer’s words are in regular text.

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