‘For centuries we have been conditioned by nationality, caste, class, tradition, religion, language, education, literature, art, custom, convention, propaganda of all kinds, economic pressure, the food we eat, the climate we live in, our family, our friends, our experiences – every influence you can think of – and therefore our responses to every problem are conditioned.’
So this is how we are made. We have become this through our conditioning. You only have to look at the way we dress in different parts of the world: we all have a kind of uniform to represent ourselves. How does this come about: it comes about by being made to be so. Your mind has become because of conditioning. Out of that rigid structure created by you, you remain there making art. That morphogenetic field that Rupert Sheldrake talks about is firmly in control. Living dogmatically. Freedom from the known, is to get out of this conditioning. ‘And when you look with freedom it is always new.’ The new in Art is the driving force that will advance the front-line of art in ways that you cannot expect. At the turn of the last century (1890 to 1920), when Artist finally dropped realism for abstraction, there was a coming together of people, literature, conversations, spirituality: India, Europe, China…: and this brought on abstraction which we today accept as valid and continue to live with it. It is fully integrated into our psyche. What was it in the minds of those that brought this about. What does it take to invoke the New.
The mind has to sit in a certain way not to be a victim to conditioning and to recognize dogmatic behavior. One thing that is important with Krishnamurti is that the process of seeing (and ending) that you are conditioned must be natural. If there is a method to the process then it becomes dogmatic. And this also applies to making art I think. If there is a method to doing your work, then you are following a conditioned path and you will produce work that will not venture out of its mould. This is also a danger with getting caught up with technique. Technique can be important but it must be secondary to looking for the new. You can see the danger of this too: when I make a judgment like I just did I am in danger of conditioning myself of that fact.
‘To understand anything you must live with it, you must observe it, you must know all its content, its nature, its structure, its movement. Have you ever tried living with yourself? If so, you will begin to see that yourself is not a static state, it is a fresh living thing. And to live with a living thing your mind must also be alive. And it cannot be alive if it is caught in opinions, judgements and values.’
‘In order to observe the movement of your own mind and heart, of your whole being, you must have a free mind, not a mind that agrees and disagrees, taking sides in an argument, disputing over mere words, but rather following with an intention to understand – a very difficult thing to do because most of us don’t know how to look at, or listen to, our own being any more than we know how to look at the beauty of a river or listen to the breeze among the trees.’
Remember you are loaded with a rigid past in your mind. You have to first accept that you are shackled to your past and you are living off that information from your experience and your past. Some might think that this is cool. I am me. And I am going to be more me tomorrow. So whats wrong with that: it becomes an obstacle to you seeing your real self. It makes you look through your conditioning.
‘When we condemn or justify we cannot see clearly, nor can we when our minds are endlessly chattering; then we do not observe what is we look only at the projections we have made of ourselves. Each of us has an image of what we think we are or what we should be, and that image, that picture, entirely prevents us from seeing ourselves as we actually are.’
‘……the simplicity that can look directly at things without fear – that can look at ourselves as we actually are without any distortion – to say when we lie we lie, not cover it up or run away from it.’
To rid yourself of your conditioning you have to follow it. To be aware of it when it comes up. To recognise it and follow it to see what it does to you without judgement. Without judgement is important, as judgement means making it an experience. The magic of being aware of your conditioning is that when you see it and understands what it does to you: it then comes to an end. You have naturally brought it to an end. It was not a method that brought it to an end. If it was a method, like meditation, that was used to end it, then the trait has not ended. It was only suppressed and will show itself again in time. But if it naturally comes to an end through observation, it has ended. It is still there with you; it will always be part of the process that is you: ‘the observer is the observed’; you are not outside of what you observe, it is you what you see, but it won’t show itself again as you have followed it to its end and understood how it works.
I think the perfect state ( I recognize that I am making a conclusion here and the truth of it to be recognised through observation only) is one of awareness and action. The new is discovered by keeping the mind free only to observe without conditioning, and to manifest the discovery through action. Action is a busy time for the psyche. It involves thinking, making, lots of noise and chatter in the mind. But the mind has to return to pure awareness and observation as its restful state. And continue through observation to bring all its conditioning to an end. To finally live in stillness. The still mind lives with no judgement to push itself into a corner, as it always returns to the center. A still mind is fully attuned with the universe and all its happenings. You live in harmony with the greater ‘intelligence’. And when you are there I cannot tell you what it will be like.
Is art just a prerequisite or is there the urge to create when one is still?
(all comments from, ‘Freedom from the Known’ by Jiddu Krishnamurti.)