Beyond Me

This item originally appeared at TZF's "The Gazebo" feature.

If I can think of a thing, then clearly, whatever it is, it will fit into my mind. And if it will fit into my mind, then it is too small to be real. That's why, to see truth truly, I have got to get beyond my mind, beyond myself, beyond "me".

Here's a question: Is the body born without a mind? -- without any thought, any memories, any feelings (by which I mean emotions -- clearly, even a new-born body has sensory perceptions).

If so, then it seems the mind is created after birth, through experience -- the experience of living, the input of others. At first, I suppose others are perceived by a child as simply extensions of his or her self; but eventually they are perceived as others, as instructions like "I am the daddy, you are the baby" manufacture a sense of separative self. Wide-eyed speechless awe at the enormity of it all is, bit by bit, replaced by "I am me, not you, not that".

The residence of that separative perception is the mind. In fact, that sense of separative identity may be the whole of the mind. Everything else we think, remember, anticipate, may be just variations on that theme. But if we exist before the body is born (whatever exactly that means), then we exist before the mind is produced. In which case, the mind is not even close to who or what we truly are. It is simply a tool. An operating system. It works in this environment (crashing from time to time, like other operating systems which shall remain nameless!), but it is limited to this environment.

Now, the question becomes, what would this environment look like if I could see it without the operating system, without all the prejudices, limitations, lenses, self-justifications, guilt, desire, fears, regrets, and so on that compose the mind. What if I could see this reality right now just as I did through the eyes of this body the first moments after its birth!

The mind can prove as true anything it wants to believe,
as false anything it doesn't like.
Thus, of what use to a seeker is the mind's proof?

Q

I do not know if you have experimented with yourself. Take a piece of stick, put it on the mantelpiece, and every day put a flower in front of it -- give it a flower -- put in front of it a flower, and repeat some words -- "Coca-Cola", "Amen", "Om", it doesn't matter what word -- any word you like -- listen, don't laugh it off -- do it, and you will find out. If you do it, after a month you will see how holy it has become. You have identified yourself with that stick, with that piece of stone or with that piece of idea, and you have made it into something sacred, holy. But it is not. You have given it a sense of holiness out of your fear, out of the constant habit of this tradition, giving yourself over, surrendering yourself to something, which you consider holy. The image in the temple is no more holy than a piece of rock by the roadside. So it is very important to find out what is really sacred, what is really holy, if there is such a thing at all.

J. Krishnamurti
Q

"Old North Church, Boston"
by E. E. Anthony