When we begin to understand anxiety as a movement, an escape towards pleasure, our understanding of time starts to change.

Anxiety, sorrow, fear, traditionally have an implication of the past. “Something happened in the past, I feel a negative feeling, and I must move away from it.”

Traditionally we feel some event is the root of our discomfort and so there is the validation of our natural want to move away from this disorder.

Pleasure, as an escape from our disorder, always implying a connection to a future, is inseparable from anxiety in this way.

A pattern is created, that is traditionally seen as logical and natural, as we move from our anxiety and escape it by moving towards pleasure.

Ending the Cycle

This pattern is taught by Jiddu Krishnamurti, to BE the problem. It is a conditioning we don't know we have.

The pattern itself, the WHOLE cycle of it, is the REAL cause of disorder, not simply the anxiety. We look to the anxiety and try to find ways to alliterate it. But instead what we are really doing is escaping it, to a future pleasure that won't actually address the TRUE source of the anxiety.

K teaches that we can end this cycle, by simply observing it, without trying to fix it. By observing our disorder, without doing anything at all about it, we break the pattern of participating in it.

By breaking the pattern we become free from our conditioning.

Psychological Time

Before breaking this pattern one cannot understand psychological time. What we traditionally understand as time becomes understood to be only psychological time. Psychological time is a product of the disorderly cycle of recalling the past and trying to attend to our present state by doing something in the future.

Through this disorderly process we give validation to the psychological constructs of the past and future.

But when we move beyond this cycle, when we are free from it, we begin to understand the limitations of these constructs.

Then we understand time completely differently and we are able to see that the traditionally held understanding of time is really only a construct of thought.

The Limitations of Thought

Anxiety, fear, sorrow, joy, pleasure, these constructs of thought are really the major markers of the true source of our disorder. Truly, it is ALL thought in which the disorder arises. Thought, which is the source of psychological time, takes on a whole new meaning when we free ourselves from our conditioning.

When we no longer validate the traditional implications of past, present, future we can understand the limitations of thought. Thought creates the construct of psychological time, and it can never move beyond this construct.

Thought can only point to the psychological-it can never capture the REAL.

Giving Thought a Different Role

When we move beyond the traditional conditioning thought takes on a new meaning. We no longer “use” thought in order to resolve our disorder-rather thought ITSELF is seen as the root of the disorder.

Thought loses its power to hold us in this disorderly state. It still arises, but we no longer hold the belief that thought can end our psychological discomfort. There is no belief that we must use the future to resolve our past.

Ending Problems Immediately

Life, or the human condition, can be seen as a series of problems. Our conditioning is such that these problems arise and we seek to solve them. It is traditionally seen as natural that we seek to solve our problems.

But isn't this a problem itself?

Can we ever solve our problems, and will solving our problems ever lead us to joy? Can their ever be a resolution in this direction?

Thought arises, with a problem, which could be rooted in a past event or a future event, and we mull this problem over and try to use thought to solve it.

But the unconditioned mind sees problems from a different perspective.

The unconditioned mind sees the absurdity of solving psychological problems psychologically.

Thus, in the unconditioned mind, problems arises and are not given validity. Problems come with anxiety, fear, and the promise and hope of pleasure.

The unconditioned mind doesn't move in the face of fear or the promise of pleasure.

Psychological problems are symptoms of disorder, and when we see this, when we observe this process without participating, we end the disorder.

A Different Kind of Time

What lies beyond psychological time?

It is not something that can be so easily described to the conditioned individual. It goes against their core beliefs, and this makes it impossible for them to inquire into. The traditional mind wants to abstract the concept of a different way of understanding time. But this abstraction, always born of thought, is limited by thought.

It is the individual that must begin to turn inward, to investigate this process, but without giving it energy, without participating, and then the mind might be able to begin to function free of the pattern.

Inquiry Into Disorder

Krishnamurti had a curious way of speaking/teaching, that was formalized by his most devout student Dr. David Bohm. Bohmian dialogue is a way of inquiring into the limitations of psychological time.

It is a careful way of posing questions to the mind so that the individual does not seek to escape the truth of the matter. By gentleness, rather than directly challenging our beliefs, Krishnamurti is able to paint the possibility that the disorder he points to is real and significant.

It is a difficult inquiry, because the conditioned mind, being stuck in the trap/pattern, sees this disorder and immediately tries to escape it.

Krishnamurti, through his talks, his writing, and his sincere questioning, continually brings us back to the disorder in order that the conditioned mind might observe the disorder and free itself from the conditioning.

A new paradigm for the mind; a new paradigm for mankind.

What Does it Mean to Move Beyond Psychological Time?

This is what I will inquire into in future articles, and encourage others to explore for themselves.