Life's most powerful potentials...

Yes, the living companionship, your beloved one, is the highest possible event in life.

Never do I give this any differential expression from one such event to another such event. Similarly, a "holy" man will not say God is great, say, "3 yards great" today, yesterday he was only "2 1/2 yards great"! Since he is a "holy" man, he will say "great" only to express something for which we have no word to express it. Because the term "GOD" too is a kind of blasphemy, a disrespect, a sign that we are talking inappropriately about something. I do not know how to talk about it.

Still we can try to approximate our findings, notions, hunches, sights and visions. Krishnamurti does well in that. He can, at will, see at all times the ringing life in all it's glory. I cannot. The rare moments, though, when I do, I celebrate in accord with that moment (or second). But no wish is in me to keep or prolong this moment beyond the very moment. That, to me, is freedom. And only this is freedom.

Therefore, it really does not matter what you do, where you work or even for whom. The changes which are the only ones ever to be more lasting than all other materials (sculptures, paintings, atomic reactors) are our genes, those elements by which hereditary characters are transmitted.

How easily we confuse the magnificence of that splendid world when we rage our wars of  "you are right" and "you are wrong." Instead, to keep the record clean at all times- in each instant that I, not we, not you, not they, but I and only I realize  the malfunction of the relationship between my next-to-me and myself. Oh yes- it is burdensome to most. A million excuses why not to live that way. These living failures have justice and religion on their side- much more, not the least is power and it surrogate, money (or is it the other way around? -of course not, both are the same = the ignorance as to what is life).

Let us be ever so gentle and forgiving for our own continuous neglect for that which matters most. Let me recharge those batteries of memory in this way: yes, thoughtfully, carefully, deliberately slowly and oft wordless, without movement or reference, let as be. Out of this gentle letting-be arises a being of great potentiality. None of us knows (will ever know?) where such deepest awareness will lead to. It is not important to ask of this search- "where will it lead to?" because we do not know until we are there. So, why argue about something we do not have?

What we have today- worldwide- is in need of change. We see that in daily changes in our government's laws, daily changes in government officials... whatever the reasons, daily changes in industry and the scientific research community, etc. However, these changes do not take place on a plan of integration, not on an endeavor of improved awareness, or improved genetic stock, or...

What takes place today, so it seems when watching TV and other forms of organization, is the loss of ever to develop a sense (any sense) by which we can feel our doings as those doings affect our offspring. Oh yes! A little here, a little there!!! For sure!!! Little enough- no change will, or can, occur.

AND YET-----it is my deepest contention- changes do take place!

[analogy: in the Indian Ocean a photon strikes a water molecule, and 5 days later huge areas of land are flooded in vast downpours. Well, I forgot to mention the multiplicity factor, or exponential factor, by which we have to treat the frequency of such an occurrence.]

(not only is the above faulty as an analogy, but I am also convinced that nothing can be found to ever adequately represent the very potential we are having as the core of our dialogue. Krishnamurti and many equally insightful people make this statement.)

Still, we would fool ourselves in underestimating nature. Nature is so sane, so healthy, so powerfully oriented towards successful offspring- it will, with absolute ease, wipe from life all the billions of unsuccessful ones... say, a tree has 100,000 pollens, 10,000 flowers for 100 years and only 5 trees grow from it when itself dies. What losses! What staggering losses...

AND YET-----now! 5 trees grow.

Still of the same phenomenon is that some of the interim living surviving trees of the first one which kill one another by shading the ones born later, may even have higher survival potentials- no matter! Below the top trees, all else will die.

The question can be raised- well, these are trees, the behavior of human beings is different, how do you see the difference? My answer is a repetition of a sentence from before: nothing that we say makes sense as a single item! Only when we begin to integrate, not coordinate, are we beginning to affect the totality. And only then makes any sense towards the efforts  of Krishnamurti, Buddha or Jesus. [or any of the other several thousand people acting upon the population and it's leaders towards increase on awareness]

We really do not even know that it is good(?) for. We have a hunch (and only a hunch) that something of great splendor is of it by, at times, experiencing such. And our creative endeavors, talking with our loved ones, is just this: the YES, the attending to awareness. All our relaxed, gentle careful inquiries are deeply important- that is living. That we are, at times additionally, also "aware", that is being alive. Therefore, you are painting, I am sculpting, someone sells somewhere, it is all the same endeavor. Yours is graced with more awareness.

Now back to painting and sculpting...

March 2, 1985

Make-believe with tragic consequences

Oct 22, 1985

Dear Phillip,

The first part of this letter to you is already in the mail. However incomplete, I thought it best to share some of my inspiration from you, with you.

Sorry to hear about the death, and kind of death, of your father. Always, I feel, that there is so little we can help in life. And surely nothing in death.

If only people would agree to an improved sentence when we say 'in life'. 'In life' sounds as if there would be an alternative to life, or this life. Actually, factually, no alternative exists as far as I can see. (short of fooling ourselves, gloriously, with holy water) We live. When we are dead - nothing. Only the people alive are keeping some memory of the one who once lived. To say 'dead' also does injustice. As this were a state we ever are in. The person who is dead has no consciousness, therefore as a person he or she is not a person, i.e. "is not". So what are we fooling ourselves? We are alive or are not.

As we face that eminent fact, we begin to realize the supreme condition and fortune (one in several billion) -no greater lottery ever was invented- no higher price ever will be offered.

Your intention to visit Krishnamurti's lectures and Question-Answer is most beneficial. Nothing better than to be in the presence of a brain which functions just about flawless and a total human feeling in all his actions. Always of and within this world. This man is alive.

thereafter, come to the woodlot and share with me.

your joyous experience of talking and asking Krishnamurti... In reading this sentence once more, 24 hours later, since it is now 7:35 a.m. Oct. 23, Wednesday, the feeling and intellectual excitement of talking to, asking questions of Krishnamurti still has it's impact. How fortunate you are to plan and go and visit. To prepare in writing some deep or far-reaching questions. Questions of the most subtle and gentle and toward those regions of unconsciousness, whereto he is able to reach and we may only get or have a hint. His brain does perform tasks my brain is unable to do; like total wave synchronism.

He detests exercises; most likely because by means of exercises the synchronization can be achieved without ever having an ability to apply it toward a human relationship. Whereas, out of desire to relate to all creation in harmony, to help others as well as one's self = as an undividable unity = springs this brain wave coordination of great consequence. therefore, there must be a difference between his kind of brainwave synchronization and that of an exercised one. Krishnamurti will not, didn't answer the question for technique, or he does it in a short rebuff, rather uncomfortable for the questioner. 

Out of these and other events I gather that the question which begins to state one's willingness to let these insights (brain developments) take place. But remember, he does not believe in developments of any length, only in the spontaneous act does he believe. This is the way he knows can not be faked. But, for me, this is so much less than his, that there is no comparison. But But But - !!! be not deceived by the humbleness of our brain performance. this unified, cooperative, complex and brain-wide integrated function is taking place in our brain. It is a matter (for me) of degree. His of the known highest, mine of far less coordination, as brain function goes. [and many other events in the body]

What remains for many people a question, which for me is answered by each blade of grass and bird and cloud is the continuity of us when we are dead. Then, when life left the body [A most deceptive sentence!!! Notice - "left" - life never leaves the body. Life of this body actually is a rational construct of the brain!!!] please observe the body. You will see as readily as I, that I breathe. I can breathe in various ways. When running- gasping for air... when sitting- nearly imperceptibly... Furthermore, at times thinking of my breathing or (with all kinds of variations) totally unaware that I breathe. When that stops- for whatever reason, sooner or later the brain disintegrates, the cell's minor structure dissolves, the brainwaves do not occur anymore. The eyes do not respond to light, no dilation of the pupils. This was the end of a gigantic cooperative event of a particular kind: when the event discontinues, then the reference is simply= "discontinues".

But, no, these misguided TV watchers will call it everything else and try to keep this dysfunctional aggregate of protein and calcium in function. This malfunction is called religion. It is make-believe with tragic consequences, one of which is the abortive use of immense energies for naught.

Something that I am tickled to place in front of Krishnamurti is something like this [since I never heard him I will write it from my experience of reading his sayings]

Krishnamurti- (pause) your sayings touched me deeply. You are affecting my life deeply. My rational grasp is extremely limited for me to find all the connections and the recall of many particulars too fails me. The freshness of your sayings come to me often when now I experience a deep joy of the world, the trees, the people, the mountains, the air. Your sayings have, I do not know, removed something in me which I can only express by saying now I feel fresher, see the world in fresher colors, experience the people as being more alive, more akin and more receptive to an exchange of that, to that freshness. I want to say thank you, Krishnamurti, that you are here, that you speak.

To this I relate the term "life". In exactly this meaning is enclosed or presented my feeling of you, Phillip, my experience when I read your letters, when you visited me at Lee Hall so many times, when we exchanged what we went through, what we were feeling, thinking and doing, your photos of your work - your paintings convey all this to me.

my best thoughts are with you,

Love, Wolfram

Cooperation and change

...(a) reminder on our somewhat outdated search for the constant "new". As if anything in this universe ever remained the same?

And equally the distorted view of "exceeding", "surpassing", "competition", "rivalry" instead of: cooperation towards improvement, mutual trust, joy, peace and well-being.

After some 60 years of living and trying to go my "own" way, it is quite open to me (evident) that most people are disturbed by such considerations.

Therefore, let us conserve our energy. Let us address them rarely or not at all with our thoughts. And if we ever attempt it- only in a shy manner of a question. Would they consider such a thought of search? Would they consider their benefit and the consequence to the groundwater? Would they consider working every waking hour for their own well-being, which they do not know yet?

These good people cannot do that! Therefore all our few hints have to remain questions posed to them, and only rarely. One reason:  these people should not get tired of hearing it. When "confronted" with such a question, they will get anxious. Years it will take for them to ask a question, to "shed some light' on to this "burning" question. (however, the "burning" is totally hidden from them)

Let us be ever so gentle with them. It will take hundreds of years, for certain, for us to evolve (us, the larger community)...

Dec. 8, 1985

Children

This: the child, the mother and the father is the greatest event and, beyond all dispute, the greatest sense of life.

I dare write the following sentence which is, in it's meaning, before metaphsyics and after metaphysics, but has nothing to do with Nietzche, nor much to do with Plato or Pascal, but is supported in part by Edmund Husserl and to a greater part by Martin Heidegger:

OUR CHILDREN ARE THE ESSENCE OF LIFE.

OUR CHILDREN ARE THE LIVING ESSENCE OF LIFE.

Jan. 1, 1987

The forces we face

(My wife) divorced me after 24 years trying on my part "to make it" in the art world. I consumed for: plaster, liquid rubber, wax, bronze, travel, shipping, crating, polishing, making gifts of polished busts at $2000 a year... times 24 = $48,000!!! What a vacation, what a nice curtain, what a nice evening, what a nice weekend with the three boys!!!

We all want to be on top. A Picasso painting = $14 million = FARCE. Yes, one gladiator (Picasso) is paid to kill any other rebel who feels he/she has something worthwhile to offer in any form.

--------------The system is = TO SAP YOU--------------

NOW! WHAT TO DO?

Two forces we face:
1. destruction (make insensitive)
2. complacency = conform = obey (social, political, educational, art gallery techniques, radio, tv, magazines, wastemakers, travel agencies, entertainment) KILL TIME, drug in any form to avoid facing boredom.

TO FIGHT IT IS TO INCREASE IT.

Instead, and how exalting, uplifting and strengthening:

THE INTELLIGENT PERSON IS ALREADY STEPPING OUT OF THE RAT RACE.

For instance, a neighbor who goes to work as everyone else does- but does not spend the money as everyone else does... (too much to start telling the power this person has over his/her own destiny)

Dec. 17, 1988

Escape the trap of destructive processes

Think on your deepest aspiration to build, to strengthen, to enhance life... whatever... towards feeling all life forms, to sense them in all their integrated ways of existence, how they reach out and how they shrink away TO AND FROM one another.

These are the concerns of the profound thinkers such as Moses, Buddha, Jesus, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Spinoza, Kant, Heidegger and many others. (for instance, Husserl in phenomenology, Piaget in child psychology, Maslow in the holistic approach to self actualized man)

It means- paint, draw, write, read, speak ever so slow and WITHOUT ANY MASTER TELLING YOU WHAT TO DO SPECIFICALLY.

1. talk, write, paint, draw, carefully out of the forces which are working within you.

2. become, through the process of painting, talking, etc. aware, more and more of these inner and outer ongoings.

3. apply these findings, feelings, knowings to your painting, talking, writing NOT FOR APPROVAL (that is the most complex process yet ever encountered by man of the modern work with telecommunication) - to a lesser degree this being influenced existed always, but now the amount of knowledge is so vast, we feel inferior.

BUT WAIT, there is an example which helps us to grasp the situation anew: the hologram, (the plate) of the holographic process. On this plate, the hologram, you will find in each fraction of the plate(like cutting a minute corner off), in that minute place is all(just about all) the information which is contained on the entire plate. Fascinating.

But let us rehearse, let me say it, write it again: we, all of us, each single one of us has this hologram potentiality in us, WE ARE IT.

Are these great thoughts of mine? Not at all. I do agree with the thoughts of all men who wrestled with these concerns for thousands of lives. But it is not the TIME that is an important factor, it is the life lived independent(or as close to independence as was capable of so doing, so living). Therefore, their lives matter. Your life matters. People begin to see your work to be genuine.

Now work, talk, paint- but DO NOT look for approval- just DO... and listen as detached and open as possible.

Feb. 26, 1985

Lost

Your highest order of self-reliance comes from doing, feeling and thinking without any looking to others for comparison, but simply the deepest felt resonance throughout your self.

We are so diverse, so capable of adapting, a thousand times richer and with more potential in all aspects than any living human being can ever think of.

SO - ? Where possibly can there be a problem??

Only if we look to the dumb (teachers) who proclaim that THEY KNOW and we begin to listen - THEN WE ARE LOST. 

June 11, 1985

The question: impossible?

We are human beings. None of us can do more than this or that. In painting, you are doing this. In  doubting, you are doing that.

Paint. 

Paint anything that will build a world.

Those foolish brains, or brainless ones, who react to something- anyone can play an idiotic game with them. Throw a sausage one way- they run in a predictable way. Throw a bomb(?) that way and, again, they run in a predictable way. You can play them so well that these zombies run exactly the way you want them to run.

-and yet these (people) runners will say: life is unfathomable, unpredictable, unforeseeable, therefore you can do nothing about it. These sad fools...

Just step aside, rest, let everybody run, see them run- just rest.

Paint.

Not by reaction, but out of joy. Celebrate quietly. If you do not like a smoker's breath, take your beloved one, on a quiet day, up a higher hill. Test the air, see if you like it. When you feel well- paint. Record (not "react"). Record this well-being with hues of well-being. What are the hues of well-being? That is for you to find out. Try. Do various slow, gentle applications of paint on canvas, paper, cardboard, rock, metal...

Feel- think- act. Slowly. Ever so open to sense: Is that feeling of well-being with your beloved ones still there? Is it increasing? Gone?

ANY REACTION to the nonsense which surrounds us daily is more nonsense!

Move with the best of your feelings, the best of your thoughts, the best of your actions. You will know- you will feel in yourself, in your beloved ones, the ever so gentle stirrings. These gentle stirrings will change, in thousands of years, our society. Nothing, absolutely nothing, will change it now. Just allow infinite time, by doing whatever you can:

a painting out of well-being.

May 28, 1984

Aiming renewed

Many solutions to a single problem may be correct.

We have to make decisions and often do not have the time or insight to see all of the possibilities. The living solution to all these error potentials is = (a maxim) = whatever I do, I do with intent to generate the maximum of success, for and of this, to me, known universe.

And as I live, all these decisions, all my insight changes.

In that profound sense of aiming renewed, a new, always fresh, always from the now... which is always a progression (no matter what the route on the map as direction indicates), it is always forward to an improved life. Your writings, your critiques, all of your life is never a "recurrence", NEVER. Your life is always fresh and open, even if we do not see.

 May 29, 1984