Toppsy Kretts wrote: ↑Wed Feb 01, 2023 4:32 pm
I'm reading it now, it was really good to finally read something that contrasted to my state of mine
Even if unintentional,
"state of mine" is an interesting concept.
Freedom From The Known
I’ve heard that
Freedom From The Known by J. Krishnamuri was spontaneous public speaking, which is a style of transmission akin to spontaneous public writing such as this.
*
Stepping out of the known constraints of time to think about the here and now …
Free will advocates say that free will must exist because the future is unknown. Because the future is unknown one chooses actions that will produce an intended future, and these actions are based on what is known of causation. The particular future one intends to produce is either close or far. “Close” is to buy lunch that will produce an immediate future of no hunger. “Far” is scratching in the dirt, dropping a seed, and cultivating the seed so that the immediate energy from lunch is used to act in ways that produce a lot of no hunger. Obviously, bringing about an intended future is not within everyone’s capacity, whether that future be the next meal or a bumper crop. Even when the map has been drawn, lots of restaurants fail early on, even big chain restaurant franchises that promise success. Even political franchises of The Party that promise utopia and reparations can fail in their intent.
Because the future is unknown, then free will advocates say that anything other than free will is delusional, and this is because such notions of no free will are based on assumed knowledge that a predictable future can be achieved. However, in regards to no-choice, this is a misunderstanding of what no choice means.
To have no choice means to literally be free of any assumed rules concerning known causation because in many things involving folks, those rules don't apply. The explanation is evident and all around. For example, who would choose to live on the street in filth and drug addiction unless they had to do that, especially after seeing the mouth of a long-term meth head?
Obviously, if one purports to know the future then one is actually making choices to make that future happen based on what is known of causation, and because one must do that, one is in fact enslaved by a delusion of what the future should be based on what is known of causation.
To be free of the known means to be free of choice. It does not mean that one possesses knowledge of the future.
That kind of knowledge, that purported knowledge of the future, is reserved for those who believe in the free will to choose actions that will bring about that future. Free will believers are moving under the assumption that if they do everything required to bring about a particular future, then the imagined future can be known, all the while assuming that they know and can do what they imagine is required. For example,
Climatechangeologists assume that sacrificing the benefits of technology now, will mean that the future will always be sunny in Philadelphia.
To have no choice can be described as riding the winds of Wu Wei, and how that happens can be observed through an example of one who didn’t call it that. He called it a type of Samadhi.
There’s an anecdote about Sri Ramana Maharshi that illustrates actionless action. He took a walk one day and a bunch of people followed him, each for their own reasons, which were likely to hear his words, and to be in his silence when he wasn’t speaking. During the walk he picked up a straight stick and began peeling off the bark while they walked. After he peeled off the bark he picked up a rough leaf and smoothed the wood as best as the leaf could smooth. When he finished the seemingly random activity to his satisfaction, they encountered a boy who was herding sheep, and he had lost his staff. Apparently a staff is necessary for a little sheep herder. Upon hearing this, Sri Ramana Maharshi simply handed over the staff that he had prepared without apparent purpose.
It’s possible that the boy who received the gift of a new staff was a little hustler who spotted the new staff and was doing a bit of indirect panhandling, counting on the generosity of the obvious leader of that pack, which would make sense because they were obviously hanging on Sri Ramana’s every word and gesture. But since he was a country boy herding sheep, he may not have yet been exposed to the secondary conditions that would activate any intrinsic human greed and cynicism. In other words, we assume his innocent sincerity, and that he wasn’t a transplanted beggar from the slums of Bombay, which was quite distant from their location.
Recently I bought a buffing wheel and some jeweler’s rouge for the low speed bench grinder. After I polished up the modest collection of Native American jewelry and some gold jewelry, I went into the kitchen by the gas stove and picked up the the workhorse crystal and silver salt and pepper shakers that rightfully should be used for special occasions. The silver caps and threads had not been polished in fifty years. The salt cap had some deep pits and the rest of the precious metal was mottled shades of gray. The effort took about a minute and all I did was properly guide the piece over the buffing wheel. The result, unintended, was to free the cook from the known, oxidized dullness and reveal what had always been hidden and thus unknown (although known in the abstract) … which was the shiny bright solid element of silver. We’ll see what that does for the cooking.
This came about because like Sri Ramana Maharshi, I was just having fun with beauty, i.e., effortless, choiceless, actionless action resulting in unknown implications, and unlike the
Climatechangeologists, with just a bit of grit, a new wheel, and bit of electricity, none of which required changing the economy for the sake of the weather, although the endeavors of our betters might succeed in rationing electricity so that bench grinding becomes a licensed activity requiring fees and badges.
Ain’t this a beautiful and fun little explanation of no-choice that we just had? Any response that goes beyond yes or no would be interesting and if one so intends, perhaps good.
You may ask why all this, why all these words, and because of that I’ll ask for you. Why all this?
As an explanation, which is just always after the fact, let's call it an exercise in Dada, that is, actionless action that is consistent with any unknown, although entirely possible, supramundane consequence resulting in identification of principles.
Given this rich cornucopia of contemplative launching pads, what do you think?