My name is Alex : Ask Me Anything

What is your fav tea and how do you take it ?
Are you a Jiddu fan and if so what 2 of his ideas or wrytomgs can u recommend - for me... not your favriot !

Hallo Alex, thank you for your time

How do I release the feeling of dissapointment?
And
What is your favorite abstract topic?

Carlos.Martinez3 wrote: What is your fav tea and how do you take it ?
Are you a Jiddu fan and if so what 2 of his ideas or wrytomgs can u recommend - for me... not your favriot !

Thank you, Carlos --

There are many very good teas ... my favourite one would happen to be whatever is in my cup : usually a very ordinary English breakfast with a little milk - not too much, just enough to turn it a nice hazelnut colour - and either a spoonful of sugar or honey. But, I like black tea, green tea and also several sorts of herbal infusions.

As far as Jiddu Krishnamurti goes, I am not a "fan". There are many things which he would talk about that I have a great respect for the thinking it elicits, but I am not a devout disciple of the man himself. Such a following was not what he was working for. Moreover, many of the things which he would say in his writings were not ever to be "followed" at all. It was exaggeration (as much of Eastern Philosophy is) just 'over-the-top' enough to get us to recognise that we indeed do take the opposite for "common sense". It is all about scrutinising the "sense" we feel to be so "common" as to be undeniable that we find gaping holes in it. Thus we reveal to ourselves just how conditioned we actually are to some value judgements and other ways of thinking.

We get this idea of Jiddu as some very calm, kindly old man because that is how his public presentations were. He was not always like that : he was also a man of deep feeling who would quite often exhibit emotion. Even and including flying into some pretty impressive rages.

As far as books go, there are several to choose from, most are transcriptions of talks he gave in various places. "Freedom from the Known" is a very good one, but, as said above (and as he said at times throughout it), 'it is not a method or a technique to be followed to the letter.'

jhannuzs wrote: Hallo Alex, thank you for your time

How do I release the feeling of dissapointment?
And
What is your favorite abstract topic?

Hello, jhannuzs --

Thank you for the questions.

As I was just telling Carlos, much of the popular ideology about Eastern thought or Greco-Roman Stoicism (which is mostly where we get this whole "letting go" notion from) is exaggeration. It is merely to get us to not think that those unpleasant feelings are somehow or another "wrong". In the penumbra of the past 60 years (at least) of amateurish interpretations of philosophy and individualist, positivist pop-psychology (including all that motivational rubbish) what we probably ought to be letting go of is the insistance on "letting go".When the Buddha said "Life is suffering" it was to get us to stop thinking that it ought to be pleasant all the time. As it were, the Buddha had backaches -- and bitched about them !

Try this experiment : instead of trying to 'release' your disappointment, try making another feeling come upon you -- either a positive or a negative one -- without reflecting on something that you feel that way about. Chances are this is even more challenging than "letting go" of the disappointment ... So, instead of trying to release the disappointment, just let the feeling be what it is until it runs its course. Of course, don't go dwelling on the disappointing issue, but then don't try to make it go away either ; either of those strategies just lend it all the power of the "trying".

Instead of "letting go", practice "letting it be" ... then the natural course of Change will carry the disappointment away in its own time. Feel whatever there is to feel, but realise that feelings have no voice -- the thoughts we have about our feelings are what get us into trouble.


By and large, my favourite "abstract topic" is pretty mundane : it is how we go about making and re-making meaning ; how we are constantly editing, reconciling, revising ... &c that narrative which is all the inside-outside-inside dialogue going on through the changing circumstances of our ordinary, everyday lives. There is more than one "abstract topic" there : it is heavily reliant on a concert of avenues of thought -- existential, transcendent, analytical phenomenology, ethics and moral philosophy, political philosophy ... &c. I do not feel that there are any "pure disciplines," so many things are able to arouse my interest.

I suppose the 'short answer' to your question about my favourite "abstract topic" would be : just how "abstract" our commonplace notion of Life actually is...

It would still be nice to answer some questions ...

Is there anything you feel we should be teaching to our Apprentices (or Seminarians) that we are failing to do?

Emotional Intelligence and the foundation of critical thought and reasoning in the non-rational;

Is there anything particular that you like that's Belgian or British, but you find hard to get hold of, and that survives in a rucksack for over 2 weeks?

No, thank you, Hélène .... We have everything we need

OMG this is such crap. These are not the sort of questions that Alex was referring to and why can't anyone admit to that!