Daily Quote, Monday September 7, 2009.

Good bright and sunny morning again,

Here is today's quote:

Ignorance only creates further ignorance.

Until we begin to break down this vicious circle of ignorance which only creates further ignorance, self-reliance cannot bring about release from sorrow. Yet to understand this continuity of ignorance and sorrow, each one must become utterly self-reliant to be able to probe into craving, fear, tendencies, memories, and so on.

Mere self-expression is not creativeness, and to be truly creative, one must understand the process of the self and so be free from it. Through earnest awareness as to what it is that is expressing itself, we begin to understand the limited causes of the past which control the present, and in this strenuous understanding there comes a freedom from the cause of ignorance.

True self-reliance, not the self-reliance for the purpose of mere aggressive expression of the self, can come about only through understanding the process of craving, with its limiting values, fears, and hopes; then self-reliance has great significance, for through one´s own strenuous awareness there is a wholeness, a completeness.

On Relationship

Here is my reflection.

Once again, Krishnamurti delivers a withering critique of the self-empowerment books that crowd the bookshelves: 100 days to self-reliance; 10 steps to financial freedom; the 8 principles of weight loss, etc. This is self-reliance for the expression of the self. What is the craving that drives the purchase of these books, the conformity to these theories, the need to follow a leader, author, expert, master?

Is it not that so many of us are hopelessly confused, confused between what we see in ourselves and what we are told we need to be? Isn't this fragmentation the basis of our confusion? In truth, what we rely upon is the self-empowerment books, as these are our distractions. They absorb our interest, like a toy absorbs the interest of a child. Take away the toy and, like the child, we become restless, anxious, confused. So we seek another distraction. The search for God is just like this. So is the practice of yoga. The yoga postures absorb our interest; we buy books of how to improve our practice, take workshops and classes.

The self-empowerment books keep us fixed in a place where we don't trouble society. We become normalised and regulated in our habits, expectations, and desires. The danger isn't that we want to transcend society, because society can always expand its self-definition. The danger is that we become unhabituated, erratic, unpredictable. That is when we cost society time and money. The whole idea is functional sedation. This is what self-reliance for the purpose of the self is about. So long as we stay focused on the self, all our actions can be predicted and given regular patterns to follow.

This is why Krishnamurti's deconstructive approach, his inquiry into the self, is so important. In this way only, free from habit and regularisation, are we truly self-reliant. The inquiry process is the gift of self-reliance. It means that we are not reliant on the 'self', which is the basis of all dependency and all conformity.

Best wishes

Robert