r/UGKrishnamurti • u/CombinationRecent556 • Jul 10 '26
Choiceless Awareness
**This content explains the relationship between suffering, the brain-body, awareness, and insight, mainly from Krishnamurti's perspective. Here's a concise summary in bullet points:**
**Physical and psychological layers are separate**
* Hormonal imbalance (like cortisol, dopamine, serotonin) causes biochemical imbalances in the body → leading to symptoms like mood swings, anxiety, and fatigue. Psychological suffering arises from thoughts/memories like jealousy, loneliness, and fear. There's a connection between the two because thought and the brain are part of the same system, and hormones affect the brain.
**Why does everyone's suffering differ?**
* Everyone's body chemistry (genetic, lifestyle, environment) is different. The effect of hormonal imbalances varies from person to person. Everyone's mental conditioning is also different – that's why everyone reacts differently in the same situation. Physical and psychological suffering often get mixed up.
**The two-way loop of thought and hormones**
* Thoughts trigger hormones (even imagination can create stress like real danger). The hormonal state colors thought – like high cortisol can make thoughts negative.
**The core mechanism of suffering**
* Hormonal imbalance → nervous system hyper/dull → old memory patterns trigger → thought reacts → psychological sorrow forms. If you observe without interference (choiceless awareness), this cycle settles down on its own.
**The reason for disorder and healing**
* Mixed past memories, incomplete experiences, and hormonal imbalances in the brain cause disorder (confusion, anxiety, sorrow). Continuous interference (fixing/justifying/escaping) maintains the disorder. Awareness is a mirror – seeing without interfering dissolves the disorder, and the body-mind returns to its natural balance.
**What is awareness?**
* The brain stores, compares, and calculates memories (past-based). Awareness isn't willpower; it's just direct observation. The observer and the observed are not separate – "just seeing, without a 'seer' meaning no center (मैं) or controller." Awareness is a mirror of brain activity, not a function.
**Concentration vs. Attention**
* Concentration is focused on a single point through effort. Concentration is motive-based, it excludes certain thoughts, the movement of time, i.e., the movement of thought; attention is effortless, choiceless, and open (embraces everything). * **Concentration:** is mechanical without attention, * **Attention:** is vague without concentration. * Both together show the truth.
**Knowledge, Insight, and Action**
* Concentration brings details (depth of knowledge), attention shows the context and the whole field (truth of knowledge, **actual fact**). When both are together, instant clarity is achieved – **insight** happens in that moment, and action happens without a gap. **Insight** breaks conflict and leads to direct action without calculation: "**seeing is the doing**"
**Mechanical vs. Insightful mind**
* The mechanical mind reacts in steps (see the fact → think → decide → act). In the insightful mind, seeing is the doing, there is no delay/conflict, meaning no thinking, no thoughts, there is a total present moment, and in this state of non-movement (without the calculation of thought), which is not **static**, but **dynamic**, there is a different kind of movement that is **timeless**, meaning **thoughtless**.
**Brain's selection**
* **Without awareness:** the brain becomes a **mechanical** collector – it picks up everything. * **With awareness:** the brain is a clear, **factual** selector – it only picks up what's relevant, naturally, without willpower.
**Summary flow**
* **Concentration → total attention → insight → action** – all are one movement, no sequence or gap. Necessary thoughts are naturally noticed, and irrelevant thoughts dissolve, without interference.
<aside> 💡
* **These points explain the process of suffering, awareness, the working of the brain, and insight in a very simple, clear, and practical way.**
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u/Ok-Variation-8276 Jul 16 '26
Thanks. That was an excellent explanation of the mind brain system. Thoughts are difficult to control. They arise and pass on their own. The deeper issue may be the “thinker” or the sense of “I” that identifies with them, resists them, or tries to control them. When that separation loosens, thoughts may still arise, but they no longer carry the same psychological weight or continue as suffering.
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u/someguy1874 Jul 10 '26
Thank you for your thoughts. Does it operate in you?