#15 PART.II.thought — 'Ending time’ in practice

The Goal in Architecture PART.II.2.0 Psychological time.

Psychological time is the term that Krishnamurthi uses to express thought we expect will use mental process that takes time. Time is perceived in the natural world in many ways that are obvious. Guiding myself as I walk or drive, or writing a substack, designing or building an environment — our activity requires guidance that forms in our awareness and that forms our awareness. But we can differentiate two components. Constructing what is designed and writing what has been ideated, and reading what is written do require time. The pen must travel as we carefully arrange the letters and numbers in sequence; I cannot type all the letters at once, nor can all the words on a page be read at once. But knowing what to build or what to write, for example, does not necessarily require time. The mind's activity gets con–fused with the time taken to realize the needs that come to mind. This leads to issues that are concealed. Krishnamurti points out that we may not realize that we may end the time our mind takes and how it is limiting our capacity. This challenges some concepts that may seem inevitable to most of us.

Psychological time is then an artifact of ego based thought’s creation. In order to stop psychological time, ideas of how to do it come up. As soon as there is a process or steps of any kind, structures of time and increment are again brought “inward” into the self. “Every method implies time”, Krishnamurti asserts,¹ so that the only way to stop time within our being is to stop thinking (with) it, just like we let certain thoughts go by ignoring them. Mentated time can vanish, as it has no grounds other than the thought of it, reflecting ideas about time. I am developing this as a contribution to architectural practice. This is also part of spiritual practice.

The two discussants consider psychological time as a general condition of Being where the brain is not just each brain strictly in terms of each person. Although we are quite different in our individual identities within the oneness of our one brain, with the one mind, they consider the human brain is one that we all use that is developing or evolving according to its implementation. This is core to human unity in its natural form within conscious life.

The sense of separateness that comes through individuality itself is a form of interiorized interval includes time.

Krishnamurthi: Is time the factor? Time — as ‘I need knowledge in order to do this or that’? The same principle applied inwardly? Is time the factor?

Dr. David Bohm: I can’t see that time by itself can be the only factor.

K: ... Time. Becoming — which implies time.

DB: ... time applied outwardly doesn’t cause any trouble.

K: ... — but we are discussing the idea of time, inwardly.

DB: So we have to see why time is so destructive inwardly.

K: Because I am trying to become something.

DB: Yes but most people would say this is only natural. ... what is wrong with becoming?

K: ... when I am trying to become something, it is a constant battle.

DB: ... It is not a battle if I try to improve my position outwardly.

K: Outwardly, no. ... applied inwardly it brings about a contradiction. ... between ‘what is’ and becoming ‘what should be’.

DB: Why is it a contradiction inwardly and not outwardly?

K: Inwardly it builds up a centre, doesn’t it? An egoistic centre.

DB: ... we are trying to force ourselves. When we are a certain thing that we want to be, we also want to be something else, ... and therefore we want two different things at the same time.

K: ... the origin of all this misery, confusion, conflict, struggle — what is the beginning of it? ... I’ ...?²

When identity forms an ‘I’, the greater realm of life and the universe are sliced up. According to Krishnamurthi, the strife, bigotry, hate and imbalances of every kind among humankind, are based on interiorized or psychological time. Also technology. This is an ongoing matrix of internal conflict in each of us as we maintain a number of separate images divided by time internally, supporting divisions and barriers as ideas about things. Knowing beauty and happiness is filtered through our inward measure.

All of us have to deal with it. ‘I’ tends to define our individual awareness; a certain realm of the accepted, the known and the ‘right’ and its wrong. ‘I’ and is formed in each of us originally, helping us to develop knowledge bringing each of us along to move the ignorance–knowledge relationship. Applied inwardly in the psyche ‘what is’ and ‘what is not’ and what ‘I’ am and what ‘I’ am not. It is a way to proceed positively in ways that we all know. It also forms barriers, limits and veils that arise as if they are original. These divisions are commonly pushed around by learning, teaching, in training a sense of learning, improvement or overcoming. This is one way of describing what is called ‘duality’. Krishnamurthi is pointing to what we do in our own minds every day in a normative process of living. Overcoming such divisions can never happen as what ‘I’ no longer wishes to be, according to Krishnamurthi.