The Limiting Condition
by Robert Wolfe on September 27th, 2013
Question: Krishnamurti says in one place that if the mind gets UNCONDITIONED then one can see the Reality. Am I misinterpreting it?
Robert: When "conditioning" is spoken of, it basically means the inculcation of the training we've received since our birth and into our lifetime. When a lab rat imprints the route of a maze on its consciousness, we say the creature is conditioned.
Our primal conditioning is the I-thought: it occurs to us, early on, that "I am someone," I am a "me," an "individual"; and this conclusion is immediately assented to and reinforced by our guardians and society.
With the internalized establishing of the I-thought, all else, externally, is not-I, not-"me." "You," for example are "not me." So, our perception of a pluralistic--"dualistic"--world is based on a conclusion of "self" identification which conditions (and is conditioned by) our daily experience and activity. Our conditioned mind, Krishnamurti says, is at the root of our divisive and selfish behavior.
And the Reality he is speaking of is the nondual Reality (or ultimate truth). So, when he says that the conditioning of the mind must end if one is to realize the truth, it's essentially a way of saying that it is your ingrained dualistic perspective which is to be deconstructed if you are to be capable of perceiving nondual Reality.
Robert: When "conditioning" is spoken of, it basically means the inculcation of the training we've received since our birth and into our lifetime. When a lab rat imprints the route of a maze on its consciousness, we say the creature is conditioned.
Our primal conditioning is the I-thought: it occurs to us, early on, that "I am someone," I am a "me," an "individual"; and this conclusion is immediately assented to and reinforced by our guardians and society.
With the internalized establishing of the I-thought, all else, externally, is not-I, not-"me." "You," for example are "not me." So, our perception of a pluralistic--"dualistic"--world is based on a conclusion of "self" identification which conditions (and is conditioned by) our daily experience and activity. Our conditioned mind, Krishnamurti says, is at the root of our divisive and selfish behavior.
And the Reality he is speaking of is the nondual Reality (or ultimate truth). So, when he says that the conditioning of the mind must end if one is to realize the truth, it's essentially a way of saying that it is your ingrained dualistic perspective which is to be deconstructed if you are to be capable of perceiving nondual Reality.
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