The limited nature of thought

Central to what Krishnamurti is pointing out is the limited nature of thought and therefore the limitation it imposes on the mind that functions only from within the field of thought and knowledge. At first sight it might seem an indictment of all thought, which would indeed be irrational and untenable.

Krishnamurti does not deny the functional value of thought. It is when thought divides itself and establishes a centre, the ' me', the experiencer, that the movement of thought is no longer a response to reality but a reaction coming from the sense of being a separate entity removed from reality and acting upon it. The experiencer is under compulsion to seek experiences because its very existence depends on continued experiences based on previous experiences.

Experiencing is then selective and therefore exclusive instead of being a sensitive response to the whole of life. It is this selectiveness or ' choice' that is the foundation of the alienation that underlies our lives. We seek to relate while keeping the separation. This essential contradiction is what we experience as sorrow, violence, fear loneliness and the seeking of pleasure and its control.

Can the mind be awakened to be aware of this movement and is therefore not trapped by it? This is indeed a central issue of education. This awareness is not an accumulation of knowledge and the practicing of a skill but a moment to moment response to what is actually happening.

Kabir

From Krishnamurti's Notebook, pg 116-117:

The sun arose amidst a glory of clouds, fantastically alive and deep in colour. The roar of the town had not begun yet and the pigeons and sparrows were out. How curiously shallow the brain is; however subtle and deep thought is, it's nevertheless born of shallowness. Thought is bound by time and time is petty; it;s this pettiness that perverts "seeing". Seeing is always instantaneous, as understanding, and the brain which is put together by time, prevents and also perverts seeing. Time and thought are inseparable; put an end to one, you put an end to the other. Thought cannot be destroyed by will for will is thought in action. Thought is one thing and the centre from which thought arises is another. Thought is the word and the word is the accumulation os memory, of experience. Without the word is there thought? There's a movement which is not word and it is not of thought. This movement can be described by thought but it is not of thought. This movement can be described by thought but it is not of thought. This movement comes into being when the brain is still but active, and thought can never search out this movement.

Thought is memory and memory is accumulated responses and so thought is always conditioned however much it may imagine it is free. Thought is mechanical, tied to the centre of its own knowledge. The distance thought covers depends on knowledge and knowledge is always the remains of yesterday, of the movement that's gone. Thought can project itself into the future but it is tied to yesterday. Thought builds its own prison and lives in it, whether it's in the future or in the past, gilded or plain. Thought can never be still, by its very nature it is restless, ever pushing and withdrawing. The machinery of thought is ever in motion, noisily or quietly, on the surface or hidden. It cannot wear itself out. Thought can refine itself, control its wanderings; can choose its own direction and conform to environment.

Thought cannot go beyond itself; it may function in narrow or wide fields but it will always be within the limitations of memory and memory is always limited. Memory must die psychologically, inwardly, but function only outwardly. Inwardly, there must be death and outwardly sensitivity to every challenge and response. The inward concern of thought perverts actions.