Cosmos Café [1/15] “The Roots of Psychological Conflict” from The Ending of Time, a series of dialogues between David Bohm and Jiddu Krishnamurti

Commons Cosmos Café
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I listened to Krishnamurti & David Bohm’s dialogue last night, as well as reviewed (sleepily) the text. Very interesting how much the aural feeling tone of the exchange makes a difference! If I was only reading the text, I would hear mostly the mental arguments back and forth. But there was something more going between the two speakers.

I agree with @johnnydavis54 that there was much to be desired in this exchange from the perspective of “dialogue.” Nonetheless, I was fascinated by dynamics of the attempted communication. I don’t think Krishnamurti was very interested in dialogue (which I believe would require more listening and reciprocity), but rather “conveying” or “waking up the brain” (of the mostly mental Bohm) to his experience of pure conscious energy / time-freedom—which he believes is THE answer to man’s every ill.

Krishnamurti is embarrassed at times by how little regard he has for the external world! He wants to obliterate time. He feels silly and like a child. He struggles for the language, the strategy, the path in his pathless land to wake David Bohm the fuck up! Bohm, however, can only offer logical objections, clarifications, and nuances. He is an intuitive scientist, not a full-blow mystic. Bohm is in time and Krishnamurti is not—and Krishnamurti is like, What’s wrong with all you people? What made you go wrong and fuck everything up so bad?

Meanwhile, Bohm’s like, well, evolutionarily speaking, the brain… blah blah blah. But evolution requires time, division, perpetual conflict, say K. (There is apparently nothing beautiful in becoming for K.) I think he is very frustrated that he cannot get his point across. He keeps getting the same mental responses.

Perhaps in the Café we can talk about this communication problem more broadly, or in relation to contemporary concerns? Along with the focus on Cosmic time and time-freedom, isn’t there a ‘waking up the brain’ needed on behalf of Gaia? This is what I hear John saying.

Unfortunately, I will not be able to stay for the entire Café, due to work that’s come up that I need to get done. (Money still = Time for me, sadly.) Needless to say, Cosmic Time is a long-term project, so I trust the conversation will continue and look forward to hearing what you’ll have to say.

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A thoughtful response, Marco, and thanks. I, too, have to sing for my supper today but hopefully will have a chance to participate more fully at another time. As I live in the fast lane, ( it is the only lane available to me) I have learned that others do not respond to the urgency i feel.

My mother, who has an elegant, southern drawl, once told a busy New Yorker," I might talk slow, but I dont think slow." The busy New Yorker was startled by my Mama’s sly move.

So, we learn to think slow and talk fast, talk fast and think slow. The affective zones are very, very fast, and out of our awareness, most of the time, and for very good reasons. But this would be a topic for a Time that is not our time. Feedback and feed-forward at the same time. Are we there yet?

Krishnamurti was not, nor was Bohm. Bon Voyage, good people, catch you next time.

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Hi fellas~ I enjoyed the rest of the talk. Thanks for the in-depth exploration. This was a lot richer in ideas and perspectives than Krishnamurti and Bohm’s rather single-minded talk. Rather than focus merely on the cessation experience, you brought up multiple scales and contexts of time’s manifestation. I think you also got closer to the “root conflict” in your discussion of death, even including a functional phenomenology (Erg is there; Erg is not there).

The remarks toward the end on the relation between time, movement, and stillness—and on different ways of dealing with boredom—especially resonated (thoughts of David Wallace’s last/unfinished novel probably co-arose w/ Mark). I believe there is time on the other side of timelessness; movement in the heart of stillness (through the waveform of breath); and a way to stay grounded with your feet in the air. I also noted Doug’s reflection on meditation as a form of deeper thinking, which I think is true. In my definition, “contemplation” serves this semantic role. I also agree that capitalism produces certain forms of time experience which are…let’s just say, bad for us.

But here we are, where we are, when we are—and what are we going to do about it? After the ending of time, then what? Cosmic minds want to know…

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And is there a relationship between Cosmic Time and the Coral Reef, a fifth of which has died in the last three years? I wonder how much the Oceans cost?

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Gellasenheit, “letting beings be,” I believe could be a functional principle of Cosmic Time. We would be gardeners of being, more so than dominators of it, or merchants of its stolen beauty.

Life in Cosmic time would be neither detached, nor time-bound, nor even necessarily integrated, as conceptual parts to a conceptual whole, but alive with the dance of conscious force and sensitive to the varying temporal orders of things. So we are in a time of chaotic dissolution. How do we stop the death spiral? Is it possible? Is there an alternative spiral, a life spiral we need to catch, before it’s too late?

I think Heraclitus was probably a Cosmic time thinker. I wonder what he would think we should do about the coral reefs—if he were alive today, that is.

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Well…if you so desire @madrush, subject yourself to another ten plus rounds of Bohm/Krishnamurti dialogues, in which they perform more slow burns, moving beyond the ending of time into the realm of becoming, into thoughts of then what, into the cultural realm (for example, their dialogue “Can Insight Be Awakened in Another?” …a question I continually ask myself, a question exploring the how of the Achronic (sp?) “thinking” for myself and others…I’d like to put that “achronic” in my time-freedom pipe and pass the diaphaneity on the left hand side…). I do not recommend watching any more of the linked videos, though I personally appreciate thier explorations, even if the paving they are doing is not at the speed of our intentions/attention spans.

Great, @Mark_Jabbour! I am loving the line “it could be that natural selection in all its “wisdom”, or good intention, created (evolved) with the consciousness of modern man the bane to mankind’s existence, i.e. the road to hell.” This idea (as also quoted above in Aurobindo/Banerji) is a deep reflection, one that goes down to the roots. I think the beginning of the year, though an arbitrary form of time in relation to Cosmic time-thought, is a great time to begin again at the roots. We have explored the roots of communication (and communication break-down), the roots of psychological conflict and will go into the roots of our contemporary anger and rage this week with our exploration into your book’s themes.

I am finding this “work,” this process of thought, the ending of time, deep contemplation, “hibernative” thought (which does not pollute with emissions, only produces and introduces missions into this world, from the ecologically friendly consumption of mind-thought energy; a slow and steady Constant garderner of being), to be a great form of play. It brings me a sense of satisfaction, a completion of sorts.

These “good intentions” are paving the way towards what, though? Alternative spirals? My paving company does not utilize the resources of the earth, only natural human energy. If I am to exist in the world, I am to carry a proactive mind even in the thought that I am but a speck of dust blowing in the wind. I am to carry on as the wayward son, the wanderer with his shadow, finding peace in this swarm of others, forming around similar simple/complex e-missions (yes, this techno-realm holds its own as a promising medium for world change…)

We are on a mission. Our vocation is the education of the Earth.
– Novalis

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