The theme of this Nonduality Satsang:

Nonduality: Seeing things as they are.

What we are doing:

We are facilitating a way of seeing that sees things as they are

What's the decisive point?

Solving problems in your life is the upshot or decisive point.

Jean Klein said, "the solution is always in the situation." That is akin to what J. Krishnamurti 
said: "…if instead of seeking an answer to the problem I begin to understand, to unravel the 
problem itself, then in that very process the answer is there. I don't have to seek an answer 
outside the problem." 

Further, Krishnamurti ties the upshot in with theme: "All human problems 
arise from this extraordinarily complex, living center which is the 'me', and a man who would 
uncover its subtle ways has to be negatively aware, choicelessly observant." 

Again, Jean Klein: "It is only through silent awareness that our physical and mental nature can change."

Further Explication and Reading

The points above are elaborated in the readings that follow. Billy Doyle, J. Krishnamurti, and Dr. Jean Klein are featured.

From 'The Mirage of Separation', by Bill Doyle (Doyle studied with Jean Klein). 

Introduction 

These writings come from a non-dualistic perspective. Our focus is on the nature of 
our real identity. Until we come to know it, we are lost in a world of ignorance. 

Our basic mistake, and from which all other mistakes arise, is to identify ourselves with an 
object: the body-mind. In doing so we lose sight of our true nature, consciousness, pure awareness, 
taking ourselves to be an expression of life, rather than life itself. Thereby we become engrossed 
in the world of a personalised I; it is this pseudo-I that usurps our real identity. 

This I-image, the ego, is no more than a collection of shifting ideas and experiences, with no 
independent reality. In taking ourselves to be a separate entity we have come adrift from our 
homeground, and inevitably fear and desire arise. In compensation we pursue happiness and security 
and try to escape pain and sorrow. 

It is only when we understand the illusionary nature of this projection that we become open to our 
real nature, that which is beyond the mind. 

The Self is not something new to be attained, for it ever is; it has only to be recognized. 

However we can never know the Self as we would an object, for it is the ultimate knower, neither 
perceivable, nor conceivable; we can only be it. Its nature is self-luminous. 

Billy Doyle January 2008 

J. Krishnamurti 

LONDON 6TH PUBLIC TALK, 17TH JUNE 1962 

To ask the right question is not easy; but in the very asking of the right question, if you know 
how to face it, you have already the answer. The difficulty with most of us is, I think, that we 
are not very clear what we want to ask. We are very confused, and in our confusion we fumble, we 
try to put a question or two, hoping for clarity. But I don't think a confused mind can find 
clarity. Being confused, it cannot find light, it cannot find understanding; but what it can do is 
to find out why it is confused, what is the source of its confusion, and grapple with that. We must 
start with confusion, not with the desire to find understanding or clarity. How can a confused mind 
find clarity? Whatever it finds will still be confused. 

So it seems to me that merely to try to find an answer to a problem is an avoidance of the 
understanding of the problem itself. If I have a problem my instinctive response is to find an 
answer, to stumble my way somehow or other out of that problem; and generally I do find some kind 
of answer that momentarily satisfies me. But the problem comes back again in a different way. Now, 
if instead of seeking an answer to the problem I begin to understand, to unravel the problem 
itself, then in that very process the answer is there. I don't have to seek an answer outside the 
problem. 

With that in mind, let us proceed. 

Questioner: Sir, am I right in understanding you to say that attention is in time, and awareness is 
in eternity? And that by laying the foundation of attention in time, we are led to glimpses of an 
awareness which is timeless? 

Krishnamurti: First of all, may I point out that you are not here merely to understand what I am 
talking about. You are trying to understand yourself, not what I am saying to you. We are trying to 
see ourselves as we are, to know ourselves, if possible, totally. We are trying to understand the 
extraordinarily complex entity that each one of us is, with all its subtle changes, conflicts, 
urges, compulsions. 

I have said that to understand ourselves completely a certain kind of awareness is necessary, an 
awareness of ourselves as we are; and we cannot be so aware if we condemn or justify what we see in 
ourselves. Surely, that is fairly simple. If I condemn myself, there is no understanding. I am not 
aware of the implications of what I see, I just condemn it. If I condemn another or compare him 
with someone else, I don't understand that person. 

So, to understand ourselves - however noble or ignoble we may be, however sensitive or unfeeling - 
requires awareness. That awareness implies no justification, no condemnation, no comparison. 
Justification, condemnation and comparison are within the field of time; they are dictated by our 
conditioning. We look at things as an Englishman, as an Indian, as a Christian, as a Communist. Our 
observation and our thinking are conditioned by our particular cultural, educational, environmental 
influences, and if we are not aware of this conditioning we cannot see what is, we cannot see the 
fact. That is fairly simple in itself, isn't it? It is not something you are trying to learn from 
me. To see and to understand the extraordinarily complex entity that you are, you must look at 
yourself without this background of condemnation, justification and comparison. And when you do 
look at yourself without this background, you will see yourself totally. 

I think it is very important to understand this question of awareness and not make of it something 
very mysterious. There is no mystery at all about awareness. It is infinitely practical and 
applicable to everyday existence. If one is aware that one is comparing, judging, evaluating, aware 
of one's likes and dislikes, aware of one's contradictions without condemning or trying to get out 
of those contradictions - if one is aware of all this, just aware of the fact, what happens? What 
happens if I am aware of the fact that I am a liar - aware of the fact without condemning it, 
without saying how terrible it is, how evil, how unrighteous and all the rest of that nonsense? If 
you are simply aware of the fact that you lie, then what is talking place? 

Please, you are not learning anything from me. I refuse to be your teacher, I refuse to be 
followed. That is detrimental, that is a hindrance, it destroys all capacity to find out for 
yourself. But if you observe you will see that when you are simply aware of the fact, you come to 
it without opinion. You look at it afresh, not with all the memories and associations connected 
with the fact. 

I hope I am making this clear. 

The difficulty is that you never look directly at the fact, you look only at the values and 
opinions associated with the fact; and this prevents you from seeing the fact. 

Now, what takes place when I see the fact that I lie, or that I am ambitious, or that I am envious, 
or that I am greedy? When I look at the fact without opinion, without past remembrances about the 
fact, then there is no longer any hindrance in my perception of that fact. I can look at it without 
any deviation or distortion; and then that fact itself creates energy so that I can deal with it. I 
can find out why I lie and what I can do about it. Do you understand? If I have no opinion, 
judgment or evaluation concerning the fact, then the fact itself creates the energy with which it 
can be faced. 

All this is part of awareness, it is part of time. Don't please speculate about the timeless. To 
discover what is beyond time you can't just spin a lot or words, nor can you find out from me. You 
have to work hard at this to find out. 

Awareness implies being fully conscious of your reactions when you are confronted with a fact. It 
implies watching all your responses to challenge - not to some supreme challenge, but to the 
challenges of every day, the little challenges which occur when you are riding in a bus, when you 
are talking to the boss, and so on. You have to be aware not only of your conscious, educated, 
modern responses, but also of the unconscious motives, compulsions, urges; because both the 
conscious and the unconscious are within the field of conditioning and therefore of time. The 
unconscious is the past, it is the accumulated racial inheritance, and one has to be aware of all 
that. 

Now, to be choicelessly aware of this total process of the unconscious as well as the conscious, 
there must be a negative state of mind; and I think it is fairly clear by now what I mean by a 
negative state of mind. The positive state is that of condemning, judging, evaluating, approving, 
denying, agreeing or disagreeing, and it is the result of your particular conditioning. But the 
negative approach is not the opposite of the positive. 

If you wish to understand what the speaker is saying, you have to listen negatively, have you not? 
To listen negatively is not to accept or reject what he is saying, or compare it with what is said 
in the Bible, or with what your analyst says. You just listen. In that state of negative listening 
you are aware of your own reactions without judging them; therefore you begin to understand 
yourself, not just what the speaker is saying. What the speaker is saying is only a mirror in which 
you are looking at yourself. 

Now, this awareness implies attention, does it not? And in the state of attention there is no 
effort to concentrate. The moment you say, "I must concentrate", you have engendered conflict, 
because such concentration implies contradiction. You want to concentrate on something but your 
thought wanders away, so you try to pull it back and you keep this battle going. And when this 
battle is going on, you are not listening. If you go into it a little I think you will find that 
what is being said is an actual fact. It is not a thing to be applied to yourself because you have 
heard somebody say something about it. 

So, awareness is a state of choiceless attention. And without this awareness, this choiceless 
attention, to talk about what is beyond, what is the timeless, and so on, has no meaning 
whatsoever. That is mere speculation. It is like sitting at the foot of a hill and asking somebody 
what is beyond it. To find out, you have to climb the hill. But nobody wants to climb the hill, at 
least very few want to. Most of us are satisfied with explanations, with concepts, with ideas, with 
symbols. We try to understand merely verbally what is attention, what is awareness. But this 
understanding of oneself is quite an arduous task. I am using that word `arduous', not in the sense 
of a conflict or an effort to achieve something. One has to be really interested in all this. If 
you are not interested, it is all right, you can just leave it alone. But if you are interested, 
you will find it arduous to pursue the understanding of yourself to the very end. All human 
problems arise from this extraordinarily complex, living centre which is the `me', and a man who 
would uncover its subtle ways has to be negatively aware, choicelessly observant. Any effort to 
see, any form of compulsion, distorts what is seen, and therefore there is no seeing at all. 

Dialogue with Dr. Jean Klein

Jean Klein: In accepting a situation we are completely free.  Accepting 
unfolds in beingness.  In accepting a situation we accept the situation in
our completeness.  Accepting is not in the mind; I would say it is beyond
the mind, because the mind can never accept.  In accepting it is not the
situation we emphasize, we emphasize the accepting itself.  This brings us
complete freedom, openness.  It is only in accepting a situation that we see
what the situation is, what the facts are.  Then action comes out of the
situation, out of the facts.  The decision to act doesn't go through the
mind.  It is spontaneous. In the accepting position, there is no volition,
because when there is accepting there is no place for an ego, for an "I".


Q: When we are caught up in a situation, how do we make the shift from being
caught up to being in attention?  It seems that we need volition to make an
effort to get out of the situation in which we are caught up, and if we make
a effort we get caught up in effort and volition.


Klein: But you must not try to get out of the situation, because your trying
will just replace the situation.  You are then bound as before.  Accepting
the situation is the nearest you can do.  That is the beginning!


Q:  But at that moment I don't know what accepting looks like.


Klein: It's not psychological accepting, it is functional accepting.  It is
accepting in the way a scientist accepts the facts of the problem to be
resolved.  When you accept the facts in this way, you will find yourself out
of the situation.  You will be in the accepting feeling, not in what you
accept, the object, the situation.  Accepting means accepting every fact,
every perception that comes to you.  It means accepting your reactions as
part of the facts.  Then see how the accepting acts on you.  How do you feel
this accepting? Is there a freedom you experience?


An openness...


Klein: Yes, openness...


Q:  And that's what you're looking for, this openness?  So do you find that
you were not looking for a solution as such, the solution is almost a side
effect of the welcoming?  You discover that it was the accepting, the
welcoming, you were looking for?


Klein:  Absolutely.

From: Transmission of the Flame, Jean Klein