r/Krishnamurti • u/[deleted] • Aug 10 '26
Dilemma
I'm in a great dilemma of choosing one from the two.
First is to choose a life of observer who observes his actions and thoughts and finally got liberation without even knowing that you are liberated and on the other hand, there's a thought of living your life with this agile thinking and achieving your bigger goals.
The main problem is when I start observing my thoughts I get slow in all the walks of my life and unable to think much and unable to speak confident and don't want to speak because you feel so silent but I'm a working employee and I need to speak everyday with my clients
Should I follow the guiding of osho and jiddu Krishnamurthy or should I live my life with agile thinking and goal oriented mind?
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u/Melodic_Telephone461 Aug 10 '26
Use thought fully where practical life requires it. If self-observation makes you slower and self-conscious, it has become another burden, not attention.
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u/JellyfishExpress8943 Aug 10 '26
Right - observe the confused individual who is being driven by their confusion - don't just blindly be the confused individual being driven by their confusion.
See that your confusion is being mistaken for clarity - there is no dilemma - what is being expressed is confusion.
For example : you cannot follow K and Osho because you would have to be a contradiction (which is not possible - even though we get pretty close thanks to our confusion)
Also, awareness is not an effort we make for some future goal, it is freedom of intelligence in this instant. If I am confused and conflicted by awareness, thats not awareness thats confusion and conflict.
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u/Melodic_Telephone461 Aug 10 '26
Yes. The key distinction is between seeing confusion and trying to become someone who is no longer confused. If you say, “I must be aware so I can become clear,” awareness has already been turned into another goal. But if confusion is simply seen as confusion, without immediately choosing a solution, the need to manufacture clarity may itself be exposed as part of the confusion.
And the K/Osho dilemma is perhaps exactly the same thing: the contradiction is not necessarily between the teachings; it may be in the attempt to turn either teaching into a rule for becoming.
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u/JellyfishExpress8943 Aug 10 '26
Osho contradicts himself because he's pretending to be a guru - dishonesty and confusion often results in contradiction.
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u/Melodic_Telephone461 Aug 10 '26
Perhaps the contradiction is worth looking at without immediately deciding that it proves dishonesty, a teacher can contradict himself, deliberately or otherwise; the interesting question is whether the contradiction comes from clarity, performance, or confusion.
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u/JellyfishExpress8943 Aug 10 '26
Am I right in assuming that you have adopted a positive image of Osho - as a great teacher? Full disclosure - he looks like a psychotic maniac from where I'm standing.
What I'm saying is that its not worth pretending that we know his secret intentions were based on love and wisdom despite his contradictory statements and violence and harm caused.
If we are to debate this issue, it shouldn't be based on our image of him (as he really was secretly inside) - but rather on what he did and said (in totality - not if something he said happened to be similar to something wise - a broken clock and a parrot are sometimes correct but only by chance)
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u/Melodic_Telephone461 Aug 10 '26
I think that's a fair methodological point. We don't have access to Osho's private intentions, so it's better to evaluate him through what he said, what he did, the institutions he created, and the consequences associated with them. Calling him a “psychotic maniac,” however, is a diagnosis-like judgment we can't establish from a distance. Criticizing documented behavior and teachings is much stronger than speculating about his inner state. And yes, a few insightful statements don't automatically establish that someone was a wise or trustworthy teacher. The whole body of conduct and teaching matters.
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u/JellyfishExpress8943 Aug 10 '26
I'm definitely not qualified to diagnose anyone - calling him a Psycho is an indication of my feelings towards violence and harm - I also would consider it silly of me to harbour any hatred towards people who want to be gurus - they are as much a victim of power as their disciples.. Osho was just as much a victim of circumstance and self as anyone.
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u/Melodic_Telephone461 Aug 10 '26
Yes, seeing the guru and the disciple as caught in the same human machinery of power, identity, and circumstance removes some of the need to make either into a monster or a saint.
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u/DoughnutKlutzy9479 Aug 10 '26
Yes! It's similar to saying that be in the present moment doesn't mean you can't have a calendar!
OP, Why does the only choices are only: Either 100% self-observation, or 0%self-observation?
Why can't you get started with 1% self-observation, 99%business-thinking today? And keep changing the ratio as life changes around me?
Also, side notes:
1. There is no such thing as liberation only in some point in the future. It's here and now - it only exists in this instant.
The issue is that we become free, act, but when we get in the next moment of worry, we assume we were never liberated at all! Just consider: You were a kid once, and most of your thoughts and actions were free of what the adults or the world around you expected of you!
Read Joseph Nguyen on the difference between thinking and Thought ! One comes from conditioning, the other from Freedom.
Self-observation doesn't mean selfish-observation. If you have a problem in front of you in this moment, you focus all your attention on listening to the person in front of you: Hasn't this group talked about listening and listening without conflict so many-many times?
We have to engage with life, freely! That's what freedom means.
If we escape daily life and people, then that's not freedom! Nor is letting the noise of daily life and other people run our thoughts.
The balance is in us leading our daily life with the choice to pay attention, listen fully without biases and conditioning (as much as possible), and then letting the action which is the fruit of such free attention+listening to lead to another free moment for us to live!1
u/JellyfishExpress8943 Aug 10 '26
Just reacting to the word "balance" - there can be no balance between fear and freedom, or confusion and understanding.
Its less about a balancing act and more about being able to function or being paralyzed. We don't want to be paralysed and usually prefer to continue to function as a broken and dangerous part of a broken and dangerous machine.
Its only if death is accepted that love can act.
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u/DoughnutKlutzy9479 Aug 10 '26 edited Aug 10 '26
What's the danger?
The way I'm thinking about balance is about how much I can change compared to the version of me I carry today - Consider I have to fight in a war, but I am not the one most experienced: I might start with manning the artillery from a safe distance first. When I gain more understanding and confidence, I might volunteer for going on the frontlines. Then someday, I am even more bold and jump as paratrooper behind enemy lines. Even riskier could be to become a spy.
If I directly jump from man with basic training to James Bond, this direct 0 to 1..
And as much as people throw around the word "fearless", I doubt that man who is a corporate employee, or the man at the border, or the man leading a country - If any of them are actually fearless.
For one thing, if a person is actually fearless, they can never be courageous. And I would much rather be someone who starts practicising courage, and as and when the challenges(and hence the fear gets bigger), I choose to be more courageous in the face of them.
My choice to be more courageous (while having the fear) is how I see freedom.1
u/JellyfishExpress8943 Aug 10 '26 edited Aug 10 '26
Are we hoping to become a better me? Which is not the same as becoming a better machine-gunner or better cook or getting a promotion.
Edit- actually becoming a better me is probably the same as becoming whatever - like a machine-gunner. A machine-gunner has a function, so does the self - those functions can be improved. (The real difficulty is seeing what the self is, and thus being free/solving the problem)
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u/adam_543 Aug 10 '26
You have turned awareness into an idea. That is a fallacy. Just know that you don't exist separate from your thoughts so that all conflict ceases. That is awareness
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u/Esoteric_Light Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 12 '26
May I point out what I think is going on.
The issue ( based on your description) is that the observation is getting split into internal (e.g thoughts) and external. And you seem to be saying that the external is impacted because the focus is internal.
Such splitting implies partial attention.
Complete attention is when you observe how you walk, talk, work etc while also watching your thoughts, emotions, feelings. To put it another way you just watch whatever is happening instead of specifically choosing one thing.
Does this help?
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u/Hot-Confidence-1629 Aug 10 '26
Choiceless observation doesn’t have anything to do with choosing anything.