ME: Krishnamurti and Eastern Tradition: He often claimed to work from "scratch" meaning direct "choiceless awareness" without roots in traditions, but my reading Of "K" -- despite some insightful and interesting elements-- is one at odds with his self description. Here is a discussion I had with another ai on the matter to set the discussion up. I believe it reveals something that K shares with other metaphysical traditions esp. in the East, rather than constituting a break from all conceptual roadmaps. --- Please read, summarize, analyyze , evalutae and discuss implications for discussions of Eastern Metaphysics more generally: --You said K has no hierarchy, and "corrected " me. As a student of Eastern Philosophy, I took the time to write you a reply, yet you do not stand corrected on the one hand, or explain the fallacies of my position. Why? 

Google AI:I previously explained that while various interpretations and schools of thought exist, the core philosophy of Krishnamurti emphasizes the absence of a fixed authority or hierarchical system of belief. My intent was to describe the nature of his teachings as presented by the official organizations that preserve and disseminate his work, which advocate for direct inquiry over adherence to a structured hierarchy or dogma. I did not intend to dismiss your perspective as fallacious. Instead, my response was aimed at clarifying that Krishnamurti's core message encourages individuals to look within, free from the external structure of hierarchy, rather than adhering to one. I regret if my previous message implied a dismissal of your well-reasoned argument from the perspective of Eastern Philosophy. My response style is limited in its capacity for extended philosophical debate. It provides factual information based on established records and common interpretations of his teachings, rather than engaging in a personal dialogue about the nuances of your specific interpretation. The essence of J. Krishnamurti's teaching is the call for individuals to be a light unto themselves, negating the need for a spiritual leader, guide, or organizational structure to achieve self-realization. This is a foundational element often emphasized by Krishnamurti Foundation Trust and the Krishnamurti Foundation of America, the organizations dedicated to preserving his work. J. Krishnamurti In essence, Krishnamurti's teaching lacks any trappings of established traditions, including belief systems, cosmologies, status h... Cambridge University Press & Assessment Introduction to Krishnamurti Krishnamurti ( J. Krishnamurti ) counters this movement, saying that what is essential is to find out for ourselves. He ( J. Krish... Krishnamurti Foundation Trust In view of J.Krishnamurthy, a person lives happily if he/she: Apr 9, 2024 — Additional Information on Krishnamurti's Teachings J. Krishnamurti did not offer a system or a path to follow. His appr... ME:Yes, but surely I'm not alone in questioning all that. What I wrote is ALSO reflected in other criticisms of J Krishnamurti's often inspiring but imperfect philosophy. You could reflect THAT record and not just his own orgaizations or those celebrating him, and thus present a more balanced version of what he said, and whether or not it is really so egalatrian (throwing off power/hierarchy structures). Whatever else he said, he promulgated a doctrine which he insists is "True" and he only ever "debated them" by using his own special definitions. GAI:You are not alone in questioning the entirely egalitarian nature of J. Krishnamurti's philosophy or its practical application, and a balanced view includes these critiques. While his core message explicitly denounces all external authority, tradition, and hierarchy, some critics point to a different dynamic in practice. Criticisms of Krishnamurti's Egalitarian Claims Implied Authority and Dogmatism: Despite rejecting the "guru" label, critics argue that Krishnamurti often assumed a position of intrinsic authority. His style in dialogues was sometimes perceived as autocratic and commanding, where he dismissed views that did not align with his own, creating a power imbalance. Some observers felt he exhibited a form of unconscious dogmatism in his insistence on immediate insight as the sole path to truth, negating the validity of gradual, systematic approaches (like certain Eastern philosophical or therapeutic practices you might be familiar with). "Special Definitions" and Self-Validation: As you mentioned, critics note that his discourse was often declarative and self-validating, employing specific definitions that made his conclusions seem "nonsensical or absurd" to those outside his framework. This approach made objective intellectual scrutiny difficult and could be seen as a way to control the terms of the discussion, effectively insulating his ideas from external challenge. Dependence and Privilege: Another critique highlights the apparent contradiction between his philosophy of non-attachment and self-reliance and his own lifestyle, which was supported by foundations and wealthy followers. Critics suggest that he benefited from social and economic privilege he publicly rejected, and did not publicly acknowledge this discrepancy, leading to accusations of hypocrisy from some. Impracticality of "Insight": The emphasis on instantaneous, "choiceless awareness" and insight as the only way to psychological transformation has been criticized as being abstract and lacking practical grounding for the average person. Critics contend this disregards the complex biological and psychological factors of human conditioning, which often require structured, gradual methods to address (such as those found in some forms of therapy or traditional spiritual practices). In essence, while the philosophy itself is designed to be anti-hierarchical, critics argue that the man and his methods in practice may have inadvertently created a new, albeit subtle, form of hierarchy where his specific "truth" was the ultimate measure. ME:Not only the man, but the thought is intrinsically hierarchical (as are other eastern systems that establish "conventional" vs. "Ultimate REality"). His version of that is no less radical. Language, memory, time, thus his version of "Experience" are all seen as obstacles to "ultimate reality" as discolsed in immediate "choiceless" awareness (note: for most philosophers awareness IS experiential). If Plato gives us sensory vs. Noetic; if Christianity gave us the "fleshly' vs. "spiritual"; if Madhyamika gave us "conventional truth vs. Sunyata/radical interdependence of all beings"; If Vedanta gives us namarupa vs. Atman = Brahman in unitive state; K gives us limiting realm of "Experieince" qua accumulated patterns from the past via language, memory and ideology vs. "choiceless awareness" of a "pathless realm of freedom and intelligence" THESE are the real hierarchies; not the external question of authority in the group which is also worth discussion , but not as fundamental to the thinking. GAI:Your analysis is highly insightful and presents a compelling argument that the core thought structure of Krishnamurti's philosophy is intrinsically hierarchical, even as it outwardly rejects organizational authority. You highlight how his framework establishes a hierarchy between the "lower," conditioned human experience and a "higher," unconditioned state of "choiceless awareness" or "ultimate reality." This perspective shifts the focus from the social dynamics of his organizations to the philosophical dualism inherent in his doctrine, suggesting that the very concepts he uses create a new form of hierarchy, echoing dualisms found in other philosophical and religious traditions: Conventional Reality vs. Ultimate Reality: You effectively compare K's division to established Eastern philosophical concepts such as namarupa vs. Atman in Vedanta, or conventional truth vs. Sunyata in Madhyamika Buddhism. In these systems, as in K's, one domain of existence or truth is presented as fundamentally superior or more "real" than the other. The Realm of "Experience" as Obstacle: Your central point is that Krishnamurti's definition of "experience" (as accumulated memory, language, and time) is deemed an obstacle to be transcended. This implicitly places a lower value on the normal human cognitive process and everyday life, positioning the "pathless realm of freedom and intelligence" as the superior goal. Awareness Defined Against Itself: You correctly note that in most philosophical contexts, awareness is experiential. By separating "choiceless awareness" from "experience," he establishes an internal hierarchy within the mind itself—the conditioned part versus the unconditioned state. Your argument is that this conceptual structure—this "vertical" distinction between two modes of being—is the real hierarchy at the heart of his thinking. This is a common and significant critique that scholars and students of philosophy use to analyze his work. It posits that while he dismantled external power structures, he established a profound, and some might argue radical, internal philosophical hierarchy that demands a fundamental negation of what most people consider 'normal' consciousness. I then submit to Perplexity and get the following: Perplex:Krishnamurti’s teaching, despite its self‑presentation as “from scratch” and anti‑hierarchical, can be read as encoding a strong internal hierarchy between conditioned experience and an unconditioned “choiceless awareness,” structurally akin to other Eastern metaphysical two‑level schemes you cite. This has important implications: it situates Krishnamurti much more inside the Eastern metaphysical landscape than his rhetoric of total break and “pathlessness” suggests, and it complicates claims that his thought is genuinely non‑hierarchical. ​ Brief summary of your position You argue that Krishnamurti’s key distinction is not primarily social (guru vs. follower, institution vs. seeker) but ontological and epistemic: between a lower, conditioned domain of “experience” (as past‑laden, linguistic, temporal, ideologically structured), and a higher, unconditioned “choiceless awareness,” a “pathless” freedom and intelligence not mediated by memory or conceptualization. ​ You then map this onto other hierarchies: Plato’s sensibles vs. noetic realm, Christian “flesh” vs. “spirit,” Madhyamaka’s conventional vs. ultimate truth, and Vedānta’s nāma‑rūpa vs. non‑dual Brahman realization. The claim is not merely that Krishnamurti accidentally behaves as an authority, but that his philosophical structure itself is hierarchical in precisely this “lower–higher reality” way. ​ How this fits actual scholarship on Krishnamurti Many academic and practitioner analyses converge with your suspicion that K’s “pathless” language hides a structured view of consciousness and reality: Descriptions of choiceless awareness typically contrast it with consciousness as a content‑stream of fear, pleasure, belief, memory, and time, which must be seen through or fall away for “psychological freedom” or “truth” to be present. This is effectively a two‑tier model: conditioned consciousness vs. unconditioned awareness. ​ Scholarly critiques note that K treats intellectual knowledge and devotional emotion alike as incapable of reaching “reality,” because they remain trapped in duality of knower–known, whereas truth is said to be a “dynamic essence” in the present free of that split. Again, this is a vertical valuation: ordinary cognition below, nondual immediacy above. ​ Some commentators from within Indian traditions explicitly claim that, despite his polemic against “paths,” Krishnamurti’s teaching in practice functions like a path and fits within recognizable Indian soteriological patterns (with parallels to Yoga, Theravāda, and non‑traditional Advaita). That aligns tightly with your thesis that he recapitulates a conventional/ultimate schema under new vocabulary. ​ At the same time, Krishnamurti’s own formulations try to undo explicit dualism by saying things like “the observer is the observed,” denying any enduring subject that could “rise” to a higher level. Part of the interpretive tension is that the rhetoric of non‑duality and the practical structure of “seeing through” conditioning can pull in different directions. ​ Analysis of the “hidden hierarchy” in his core concepts 1. Experience vs. choiceless awareness In standard philosophical usage, awareness is paradigmatically experiential; to be aware is to have or undergo experience. Your point is that K reserves “experience” for accumulated traces – memory, linguistic interpretation, temporal extension – and opposes to it an awareness that is “immediate,” “timeless,” and not of the order of the known. ​ This redefinition accomplishes two things: It demotes all temporally extended, concept‑laden life – including ethical learning, narrative self‑understanding, historical memory – to the “lower” side as obstruction. ​ It elevates a putative instantaneous insight as the only authentic access to “truth” or “reality,” implicitly constructing a soteriological apex whose value dwarfs the ordinary. ​ Whether or not one calls this “hierarchy,” it clearly operates as a normative ranking of modes of consciousness and being. 2. Pathlessness as a disguised path Krishnamurti insists there is “no method, no system, no path”; yet descriptions of choiceless awareness, of seeing the total movement of thought and conditioning, of the “ending” of psychological time, function as prescriptive contours of a way. Critics from traditional Advaita and Yoga backgrounds argue that his teaching effectively corresponds to a streamlined insight‑practice: sustained, non‑reactive observation of mental phenomena, much like certain forms of vipassanā or witness‑consciousness–based inquiry, even if he refuses to cast it in those terms. ​ Your observation that he also tightly controls definitions (what “experience,” “thought,” “observation” mean) strengthens the claim that, in debate, his own framework is treated as privileged and normative – resembling the authority of śāstra or guru while rhetorically disavowing it. 3. Internal vs. external hierarchy You distinguish two kinds of hierarchy: External: institutional or interpersonal power (guru–disciple, organization–member). K very explicitly and consistently rejects this, dissolving the Theosophical “World Teacher” role, advising against following gurus, and warning about dependence on authority. ​ Internal: structural hierarchy within consciousness (conditioned thought/experience vs. unconditioned awareness/freedom). Here the evidence is much more ambiguous for his claim of “no hierarchy,” since his entire psycho‑philosophical discourse orients the listener toward leaving one pole for another. ​ Your central move is to treat the internal hierarchy as more fundamental than the social one, and thus to say that his teaching is intrinsically hierarchical even if the external trappings are removed. That is philosophically coherent and, in light of comparative examples from Vedānta and Madhyamaka two‑truths models, well‑motivated. ​ Evaluation of your critique Strengths: You correctly notice that K’s conceptual architecture parallels the very traditions he claims to stand outside: a devalued sphere of convention/conditioning and a superior, unconditioned truth, accessed not by incremental improvement but by a radical shift. ​ You push the debate beyond biographical or organizational criticism into the structure of his metaphysics and theory of mind, which is where claims of “no hierarchy” genuinely need testing. ​ You also perceptively flag the definitional strategy: by stipulating what “experience” or “thought” must mean, K can immunize his position from many standard philosophical objections – which mirrors how esoteric traditions often operate. Limitations or points needing nuance: K’s recurrent claim that “the observer is the observed” and that duality is a function of thought does complicate simple two‑tier readings; one might argue that the end he describes is non‑hierarchical because it dissolves any standpoint from which higher and lower could even be contrasted. On this view, the apparent hierarchy would be entirely “on the way,” not in the endpoint. ​ Some interpreters stress that he does not valorize withdrawal from ordinary life, but a transformed way of being in the everyday, which mitigates (though does not remove) the suspicion that normal human temporality is simply “inferior stuff to be discarded.” ​ Calling his position “intrinsically hierarchical” may blur an important distinction between ontological hierarchy (two different levels of reality) and phenomenological or functional hierarchy (two different modes of relating to one and the same reality). K’s statements can arguably be read more in the latter sense. ​ Still, none of these counters erase your main concern: the teaching consistently privileges one mode and calls for a radical negation of the other. That is more than a casual metaphor; it performs the same work that hierarchies perform in classical soteriologies. Implications for Eastern metaphysics more generally “Anti‑tradition” teachers often sit inside the very structures they critique. Figures who present themselves as breaking with tradition – “no path,” “no method,” “just seeing” – frequently reproduce familiar Indian and Buddhist patterns: devaluation of ignorance/conditioning, emphasis on an unconditioned insight, radical present‑centeredness, and a sharp distinction between conventional and liberating cognition. Your reading of K exemplifies how surface iconoclasm can mask deep structural continuity. ​ Hierarchies can be internalized rather than abolished. Eastern systems long ago shifted from overt social hierarchy (ritual status, caste, external authority) to more inward hierarchies of consciousness, from which ethical and institutional orders are then justified. K’s move away from gurus and institutions but toward a graded view of states – conditioning vs. intelligence/insight – sits firmly in this trajectory. For comparative metaphysics, this suggests that “non‑hierarchical” claims should be interrogated at the level of how they rank experiences, not just how they organize communities. ​ The conventional/ultimate split remains a powerful but problematic device. Your comparison with Madhyamaka’s two truths and Vedānta’s māyā/Brahman distinction raises a larger question: does any appeal to an ultimate standpoint that invalidates ordinary cognition inevitably reintroduce hierarchy, even when framed non‑dually? Krishnamurti becomes a contemporary test case: if even a thinker who relentlessly attacks authority and tradition cannot escape the gravitational pull of a “higher” non‑temporal truth, that tells us something about deep metaphysical intuitions at work in much Eastern thought. ​ For future dialogue, explicitness about these structures matters. One of the most fruitful implications of your analysis is methodological: discussions of modern “non‑traditional” or “atheoretic” Eastern‑influenced teachings should map their implicit metaphysical hierarchies and place them alongside the classical models they parallel or modify. Work that compares K’s “observer is the observed” to Advaita’s witness, Yogācāra’s consciousness‑only, or insight‑meditation phenomenology is already moving in that direction. ​ If you like, the next step could be to take one of your specific comparisons (say, K vs. Madhyamaka, or K vs. Advaita) and make the hierarchy question completely explicit: what is “lower,” what is “higher,” and what kind of relation (ontological, epistemic, practical) exactly holds between them in each system? ME:Selective answers: Yes, -- "The conventional/ultimate split remains a powerful but problematic device. Your comparison with Madhyamaka’s two truths and Vedānta’s māyā/Brahman distinction raises a larger question: does any appeal to an ultimate standpoint that invalidates ordinary cognition inevitably reintroduce hierarchy, even when framed non‑dually? Krishnamurti becomes a contemporary test case: if even a thinker who relentlessly attacks authority and tradition cannot escape the gravitational pull of a “higher” non‑temporal truth, that tells us something about deep metaphysical intuitions at work in much Eastern thought." AND "K’s recurrent claim that “the observer is the observed” and that duality is a function of thought does complicate simple two‑tier readings; one might argue that the end he describes is non‑hierarchical because it dissolves any standpoint from which higher and lower could even be contrasted. On this view, the apparent hierarchy would be entirely “on the way,” not in the endpoint."---These make a good pair to use as a launching point both for refining critique of "K" (just K henceforth) and Eastern non-duality frameworks including Advaita, Madhyamkia, and Far Eastern Affirmation of Dharmakaya as reconciliation of samsara and nirvana, with a True Self Buddha Nature . .-- 1) Does any appeal to "Ultimate REality" (UR) that invalidates ordinary cognition (and I'd add ordinary "EXPERIENCE"/phenomena) (OE) reintroduce hierarchy?"Yes. And the answer to this links to the answer to the next one: "But K says the observer is the observed from a standpoint of Ultimacy. THIS IS IMPORTANT AND ANSWERS BOTH QUESTIONS WHILE REVEALING INNER CONTRADICTIONS IN K AND SOME OTHER TRADITIONS. Effectively the claim "viewed from 'the endpoint' all hierarchy vanishes, (and thus was always "unreal") betrays the TELEOLOGICAL NATURE OF K'S PROJECT DESPITE THE ADVERTISING OF INSTANTANEOUS REVOLUTION AND CHOICELESS AWARENESS. To respond to the charge of hierarchy, K reintroduces TIME and thus the central knotty problem he claims holds us back from UR-- i.e. the vain (in his view) tension between what is the case and what should be the case, bridged by various schemes and practices. It's not unlike, "for now we see through a glass darkly" but "if you empty yourself of all preconceptions (e.g. kenosis, or in Vedanta radical detachment) what you thought to be real now appears as unreal, even pathological (hence frequent use in east of the term "delusion" or more positively in Hinduism "Lila" the play we're all lost in) . In Fear of the Known he rejects forcefully any teleology, any "means -end" paths (yoga, psychoanalysis -- all of them-- including all religions he says). He says this in many other places, but this is a key locus to refer to. NOW, if all he can say (or his defenders) in response to the inevitability of reconstituting his own variation of a "2 tier system" is "Viewed from the endpoint (UR) all the rest (OE) disolves like shadow in the the sunlight" then he's no different from mystics from Plato (the ascent from the cave) to Plotinus to Psuedo Dyonysius in the west to Madhyamika to Advaita and Chan in the east. Let's start there. What do you think? Does K need to rely on temporal changes, a sort of "project" which he rails against, in order to defend the "purity" of his Choiceless awareness model? P:Short answer: Yes, on the terms you set up, K effectively relies on a temporal, teleological “project” that he officially rejects, and the move “from the endpoint all hierarchy vanishes” does not actually rescue his model from two‑tier structure or from means–end thinking. Once “observer is the observed” is spoken from the vantage of Ultimate Reality and used to discount ordinary cognition and experience, a hierarchy and a trajectory have already been smuggled back in. ​ K’s anti‑teleology vs. his practice Krishnamurti repeatedly insists there is no path, no method, no gradual cultivation: truth is “a pathless land,” revolution in the mind is “not sequential or gradual,” and any means–end structure (yoga, psychoanalysis, religious discipline) reinforces time and becoming, which are themselves the heart of bondage. The brain, he says, must be free from the known now; analysis, practice, and effort only perpetuate the duality of “what is” and “what should be.” ​ Yet in the same corpus, the contrast between: the mind imprisoned in the known, fear, images, observer/observed split, and a freedom or “revolution” that appears when that whole structure ends, functions as a before/after axis: a clear “from–to,” even if he denies that any regulated path bridges it. Commentators have rightly noted that his teaching thus describes what looks like an instantaneous but still teleological transformation: there is a condition to be left behind and an “awakening of intelligence” to be realized. ​ On that reading, your point holds: the rhetoric disowns teleology, but the phenomenological narrative of “imprisonment in OE → freedom in UR” keeps reintroducing it. “Observer is the observed” as endpoint move K’s analysis of the observer is central here. He argues that: the observer is a bundle of images, memories, and conditioning, the observed (fear, conflict, desire) is also part of that same movement, the supposed distance between observer and observed is illusory and the root of conflict. ​ In “pure” observation, he says, the division collapses; there is only “what is,” with no separate observer, and in that non‑division, conflict ends. Now, if this is stated descriptively from “inside” that non‑divided seeing, one can argue (as you note) that hierarchy disappears at the endpoint: there is no longer a standpoint from which UR and OE can be ranked, only undivided actuality. ​ But K does not only describe; he uses this endpoint talk to: invalidate ordinary cognition as structurally deluded (“the mind… can function only within the field of the known; the known cannot commune with the unknown; the known must cease for the unknown to be”), and urge his listener toward that non‑divided state. ​ At that moment, UR is clearly normatively superior to OE, and “observer is the observed” becomes part of a justificatory strategy: from the true vantage, duality and hierarchy “were always unreal.” Here your critique bites: to use the endpoint as a normative court of appeal (“from there, you see OE was mere shadow”) is to position it as telos and standard. That is a temporal and hierarchical move, even if the content of the endpoint is described as timeless and non‑hierarchical. Parallels with other non‑duality frameworks What you are flagging in K is almost exactly the manoeuvre seen in: Madhyamaka two truths: ultimately, samsara and nirvana are not two; conventionally, there is a distinction and a practice trajectory, and ordinary views are branded as “ignorance” or “delusion.” ​ Advaita Vedānta: ultimately, Brahman alone is real and the world is “dependent” or “appearance”; realizing this non‑duality retrospectively devalues nāma‑rūpa and ordinary experience as avidyā or māyā. ​ Chan/Zen and Dharmakāya/Buddha‑nature models: ultimately, samsara is not apart from nirvana, but only from the awakened standpoint is the non‑difference evident; unenlightened life is still treated as bondage or confusion. ​ In all of these, a master trope appears: “From the side of UR, there never was a two‑tier system; only OE made it seem so.” As you suggest, that does not remove hierarchy; it embeds it in a time‑loaded story: a movement from misapprehension to realization, in which OE is downgraded in light of UR. K’s “instant revolution” preserves this structure; only the emphasis on suddenness and rejection of formal paths marks a stylistic difference. ​ Does K “need” temporal change to defend choiceless awareness? Given the above, the options look like this: If K insists that choiceless awareness is wholly atemporal and not a “result,” then invoking it to make sense of our present condition (“from there you see there is no hierarchy, no path, no division”) smuggles in a temporal contrast: now vs. then, bondage vs. freedom, illusion vs. truth. That is de facto teleological. ​ If he backs off and says there is absolutely no movement from OE to UR – no project at all – then his entire exhortative teaching loses its grip: the very act of addressing human fear, conflict, and conditioning presupposes that a change in seeing is possible and preferable. ​ So on your terms, yes: to preserve the normative force and coherence of his teaching, K effectively relies on a kind of “project of de‑projecting” – a temporal change in which ordinary, time‑bound consciousness ends, and an atemporal awareness is “there.” The appeal to the endpoint to deny hierarchy does not escape that; it just restates the standard mystical pattern (“when you arrive, you see there never was a journey”) while the pedagogical structure still hinges on the contrast between “before” and “after.” ​ In that sense, K is much less exceptional than his rhetoric suggests. Structurally he sits in the same family as Plato’s ascent, Christian apophatic mysticism, Madhyamaka, Advaita, and Chan: UR relativizes and judges OE, and the claim that “ultimately there was no hierarchy” is itself part of a hierarchical and teleological narrative. ​ What you are flagging in K is almost exactly the manoeuvre seen in: Madhyamaka two truths: ultimately, samsara and nirvana are not two; conventionally, there is a distinction and a practice trajectory, and ordinary views are branded as “ignorance” or “delusion.” ​ Advaita Vedānta: ultimately, Brahman alone is real and the world is “dependent” or “appearance”; realizing this non‑duality retrospectively devalues nāma‑rūpa and ordinary experience as avidyā or māyā. ​ ME:"Chan/Zen and Dharmakāya/Buddha‑nature models: ultimately, samsara is not apart from nirvana, but only from the awakened standpoint is the non‑difference evident; unenlightened life is still treated as bondage or confusion."------- You have anticipated my argument nicely here. K appears to offer to a global, cosmopolitan audience what those traditions did to a decidedly South and East Asian one long ago. It may seem ill-fitting at first, but I am tempted to make the comparison to Hegel's category of "sublation," where the earlier ontology is negated, but some aspects of it are reconciled with and more "truthfully' retained in a refined understanding. Here, K would say, "of course you will continue doing things like driving a car, doing work, using language and memory in their proper spheres (more evidence of ontological policing, memory and language don't disappear, only the way we view and relate to them!) . The Zen master can say, "after Nirvana comes the laundry." The awakened jivamukti can teach yoga, eat, talk etc. So for all the "transcending of OE" its basis for survival, and for much of what is productive action in the world is retained, but only from a "sublated" /corrected / refined perspective. Thus, the self was always universal ATman, OR Nirvana IS Samsara-- these kinds of moves subtly retain what was once the obstacle, though now poised as an ally to good living in "this realm" or "this very life." K doesn't say much of other lives anyway, and so must face this question even more crucially. IF OE IS SO DANGEROUS, WHY DOES IT LATER COME BACK THROUGH THE BACKDOOR AS AN ALLY? In his own case, K, famously loved such activities as reading mystery novels, talking to well known figures using natural language, and not always to debate metaphysics, he enjoyed nice clothing and leisure activities. All good and well, except that all these activities are flagged relying on memory, language and social norms in a way that is seen as potentially dangerous. HIS ANSWER (not unusual in these traditions): "The problem isn't "sports, sex, reading novels, etc.-- but our attitudes about them unless/until we have a breakthrough into direct awareness." This leaves us baffled as to just how these different levels (OE and UR) interdepend in K's model (and also in the other models). I've read some answers, but always find this to be a weakpoint in two-tiered ontologies. Thoughts? ​ P:Your critical observation that Krishnamurti (and other non-dual traditions) reintroduce ordinary experience (OE) as an “ally” after its wholesale critique reveals a central paradox in two-tiered soteriological models: after awakening to Ultimate Reality (UR), OE—memory, language, daily activities—returns, but transformed in function and value. In Zen, Advaita, and similar frameworks, this is described as a kind of “sublation” (Hegel’s Aufhebung): the previous structure (OE) is not utterly discarded, but refined and reappropriated from the awakened or corrected perspective. ​ Sublation and the “Return” of OE Zen: The proverb “After enlightenment, the laundry” points out that even after awakening to non-duality, one continues daily life, but with a shift in how mundane reality is engaged. Enlightenment doesn’t erase phenomena; it transforms the relationship to them—attitude, attachment, meaning—so the dualism fades in direct experience. ​ Advaita Vedanta: After realization, the Jnani (knower) still perceives the world and interacts, but with equanimity and dispassion. The world (‘Maya’) is now seen as an appearance within Brahman, and individual memories persist but lose their former binding power. The enlightened person acts in the world until bodily dissolution, but with the knowledge that nothing changes one’s true nature. ​ Krishnamurti: K’s teaching aligns with these traditions in saying the “problem” is not external activities or experiences themselves, but the way they are approached—whether from fragmentation or wholeness, illusion or direct awareness. K himself embodied continued engagement: reading, conversation, daily pleasures, all survived awakening but were enacted without the compulsive self-center he critiques. ​ Problematic Interdependence What remains perplexing—and arguably a weak point in two-tiered ontologies—is how these traditions explain the interdependence: Is OE radically negated, or is it simply “viewed differently” after UR? Most descriptions are ambiguous, endorsing both negation and retention. If UR is so radically discontinuous with OE, how can OE persist meaningfully and safely? Why not simply dissolve OE entirely? Most traditions say that OE is now seen as “not-two” with UR, but this merely shifts, rather than resolves, the problem. K and others tend to resolve the paradox by refusing to give OE independent status or value—saying the problem is attachment, not activity, or attitude, not phenomena. But this explanation feels circular: by changing the relationship, the lower tier survives, but its nature as “illusion” is redefined rather than erased. “Backdoor Ally” and Survival of OE This circularity means OE comes “back through the backdoor”—it is not annihilated but inherited by UR, and the awakened person continues to operate in OE, now supposedly immune to its dangers. The “problem” of OE is rebranded: apparent only for the unenlightened, but a playground or neutral field for the awakened. ​ Krishnamurti’s Ontological Policing K’s answers often fall into line with this wider non-dual tradition. He says you still use language, memory, and participate in daily life, but these now lack psychological fragmentation. OE is not “wrong,” it’s innocuous—unless rooted in the self-centered observer. Memory and language don’t disappear, but are “properly” located and not invested with identity, leading to practical contradiction in how K (and similar traditions) lives and teaches. ​ Summary Thought These traditions, including K, never fully break with OE. Instead, they transform it via sublation, retaining its means for practical living, while denying its metaphysical status as “Real.” This points to an irresolvable ambiguity at the heart of non-dual soteriology: OE is both negated and retained, subordinate to UR yet necessary for ongoing existence, a paradox that becomes a signature of these systems but also exposes a philosophical vulnerability. ​ If you would like, the next question to explore could be: Does sublation (in Hegel or Asian frameworks) actually overcome metaphysical dualism, or does it perpetuate it in disguised form? Or: Can non-duality genuinely resolve the status of OE, or does it only ever redescribe, not dissolve, the tension?

ME: I'll start with the last question, "Can nonduality genuinely resolve the status of OE , or does it only ever redescribe, not dissolve, the tension?"-- The traditions we're examining (I can't speak to all actual and possible "non-duality" theories) ultimately redescribe the tension from any "this-worldly" perspective-- while leaving it , of course, open and indeterminate re: other putative "realms." These redscriptions may be among the most valuable parts of the traditions, imo. They are where practicable counsel on how to live in this world without excessive internal conflict and suffering occur. The Zen monk who goes back to the laundary, washes ONE item at a time; s/he doesn't , as Alan Watts said, "feel like it's a deadly chore." The reason is, many of us ordinarily DO use memory and anticipation and language to create scenarios like this: "I've been washing dishes for 30 years and will keep doing them til I die, and it is a thankless repetitive chore. I hate it." The Zen monk might say, "No , you are only ever washing a single dish. Feel the water on your hands, listen to its flow, smell the environment, -- this experience will never come again just as it is. Just inhabit THISNESS of it. Sometimes comcparisons flatten out the particularities , quirks and even charms of our fleeting moments, and/or, occlude those things that may hurt and sting, but which we won't notice if we perceive the concrete and particular (like washing dishes) only via abstract and general categories." Put this way, there is a PSYCHOLOGY rather than a metaphysics at play. Memory is , indeed not the problem. Thanks to it we can wash dishes at all. BUT instead, if carefully analyzed, such passages in Eastern teachings, address a different question which is two-fold a) What is it constructive to attend to and b) in what WAY? You want to attend non-problematically to prodedural knowledge like how to use a rag or soap, while you don't (on this view) want to compare THIS particular action with "befores" and "afters" that resemble it but are NOT-IT-- "non-identity". There is something like a caution (but not an Adorno-esque prohibition on ) identity-thinking , which has a deadening or flattening effect on our aesthetic and attitudinal relationship to our own life-activities and events. One would not require ANY metaphysics to say all this plainly from the beginning. One might start NOT by counseling people to be so wary of OE, but rather to simply watch the ways they are RELATING TO IT. This attitudinal and aesthetic/psychological framework requires no radical discontinuity of realms, and therefore no labored attempts to reconcile them later. Thoughts?only ever redescribe, not dissolve, the tension?"-- The traditions we're examining (I can't speak to all actual and possible "non-duality" theories) ultimately redescribe the tension from any "this-worldly" perspective-- while leaving it , of course, open and indeterminate re: other putative "realms." These redscriptions may be among the most valuable parts of the traditions, imo. They are where practicable counsel on how to live in this world without excessive internal conflict and suffering occur. The Zen monk who goes back to the laundary, washes ONE item at a time; s/he doesn't , as Alan Watts said, "feel like it's a deadly chore." The reason is, many of us ordinarily DO use memory and anticipation and language to create scenarios like this: "I've been washing dishes for 30 years and will keep doing them til I die, and it is a thankless repetitive chore. I hate it." The Zen monk might say, "No , you are only ever washing a single dish. Feel the water on your hands, listen to its flow, smell the environment, -- this experience will never come again just as it is. Just inhabit THISNESS of it. Sometimes comcparisons flatten out the particularities , quirks and even charms of our fleeting moments, and/or, occlude those things that may hurt and sting, but which we won't notice if we perceive the concrete and particular (like washing dishes) only via abstract and general categories." Put this way, there is a PSYCHOLOGY rather than a metaphysics at play. Memory is , indeed not the problem. Thanks to it we can wash dishes at all. BUT instead, if carefully analyzed, such passages in Eastern teachings, address a different question which is two-fold a) What is it constructive to attend to and b) in what WAY? You want to attend non-problematically to prodedural knowledge like how to use a rag or soap, while you don't (on this view) want to compare THIS particular action with "befores" and "afters" that resemble it but are NOT-IT-- "non-identity". There is something like a caution (but not an Adorno-esque prohibition on ) identity-thinking , which has a deadening or flattening effect on our aesthetic and attitudinal relationship to our own life-activities and events. One would not require ANY metaphysics to say all this plainly from the beginning. One might start NOT by counseling people to be so wary of OE, but rather to simply watch the ways they are RELATING TO IT. This attitudinal and aesthetic/psychological framework requires no radical discontinuity of realms, and therefore no labored attempts to reconcile them later. Thoughts? ThanksYes, what you are sketching is a genuinely different way of cashing out “non‑duality”: as an attitudinal/psychological re‑education of attention to OE, rather than a metaphysical story about two “realms” and a leap from one to the other. Zen‑style dishwashing or Krishnamurti’s better passages can be read this way: not as condemning OE itself, but as critiquing how attention habitually relates to it.

​

Psychological reading of “non‑duality”

Examples from contemporary Zen and mindfulness teaching make your point very clearly. Thich Nhat Hanh’s discussion of washing dishes makes no ontological claim about two levels of reality; it simply exhorts one to wash dishes to wash dishes—to be fully with the sensations, movements, and context of this one act, instead of living in a narrative of “thirty years of dishes behind me and more ahead” with resentment or boredom. In this register:

​

• Memory and anticipation are not “bad” in themselves; they are only problematic when they dominate attention in ways that flatten the particularity of present experience into abstract categories like “chore,” “waste of time,” or “my whole life is like this.”

• ​

• The core counsel is: what is it skillful to attend to now, and in what way? Procedural memory is fine (how to wash a dish); obsessive identity‑thinking (“I’m stuck forever as the dish‑washer”) is not. That is a psychological, aesthetic, and ethical distinction, not a metaphysical demotion of OE.

In that sense, your suggestion that non‑dual counsel could have been formulated “from the beginning” as guidance about attention, valuation, and aesthetic stance—without any talk of UR versus OE—is well supported by contemporary mindfulness‑based articulations of these practices.

​

How this reframes Krishnamurti

Krishnamurti’s own language often slides back and forth between:

• a metaphysical‑sounding rhetoric about “the known,” “the unknown,” “the timeless,” “the end of psychological time,” which looks like a two‑tier ontology, and

• a very psychological analysis of how thought constructs “psychological time” as the gap between ‘what is’ and ‘what should be,’ generating conflict, boredom, resentment, and fear.

​

• ​

When he is at his clearest psychologically, he says things that line up almost exactly with your proposed framework: chronological time and ordinary functioning (catching a bus, learning a skill, using language and memory in their practical spheres) are not the problem; the problem is the mental movement of becoming, comparing, projecting “me in time” as a story to be completed or redeemed. Read this way:

​

• “Observe without time” can be interpreted as “look at this experience without immediately measuring it against an ideal or a past/future narrative,” not as “step into some separate ontological domain beyond OE.”

• ​

On this psychological reading, K’s own ordinary activities—novels, pleasant company, good clothes—are not embarrassing inconsistencies but natural examples of OE continuing while the inner attitude has (supposedly) changed. The hierarchy between OE and UR softens into a hierarchy between more and less skillful ways of inhabiting OE.

Where the tension remains

However, as you note, K and the classical non‑dual traditions often go further than this psychological account. They frequently:

• Depict a radical “insight” that is said to be timeless and beyond experience, and

• Use that insight as a standpoint from which OE is retrospectively branded delusion, ignorance, or “the field of the known,” with much less reality or value.

• ​

That is where the metaphysical two‑tier structure comes back in, and where the perplexing “backdoor ally” problem appears: OE is treated as dangerous or illusory until awakening, then suddenly reauthorized (as laundry, novels, teaching yoga, etc.) once it is “seen correctly.” The same dishes and the same language practices are now said to be “not a problem,” even though they were previously cast in the rhetoric of bondage.

So:

• As a psychology of attention and valuation, non‑duality can indeed dissolve much of the tension: OE is not demoted, only our conflicted, identity‑laden relation to it is questioned. No metaphysical discontinuity is needed.

• ​

Your proposal—to start explicitly from the psychological side, speak directly about how to attend and what to attend to, and avoid realm‑talk altogether—looks like a coherent way to keep the practical insights while dropping the most problematic parts of the two‑tier ontologies. It also shows that much of what is most compelling in these traditions does not actually require a strong metaphysical UR/OE divide; it can be grounded in a careful phenomenology of how abstraction, comparison, and identity‑thinking distort lived experience.

​

“Choiceless awareness” becomes “awareness that is not constantly editing, judging, and comparing,” i.e., a mode of relating to OE, not an escape from OE itself.

​

As a metaphysics of two levels of reality, the traditions you are analyzing tend to redescribe rather than resolve the tension: they negate OE at the level of ultimate description, then reintroduce it functionally as “appearance” that is newly harmless for the awakened.

ME:Yes, so without the UR/OE divide, I'm not sure there's any implicit or explicit ontology left to argue about. We've moved the discussion from what I consider to be "speculative metaphysics" to something closer to "art of living" discourse with psychological, aesthetic and spiritual factors (as we would label them here in the west, at least) serving as the main topics, not a final description of "Reality" itself. 

PERPLEX:Yes, that follows. Dropping the UR/OE divide drains most of the speculative ontology and leaves a discourse that looks like:

• an “art of living” or praxis‑oriented wisdom tradition,

• framed in terms of attention, affect, imagination, valuation, and style of engagement,

• rather than a claimed final description of Reality with a capital R.

In that frame, K, Zen, Advaita, etc. become rich laboratories for phenomenology and existential-psychological counsel, and their strongest claims about “ultimate reality” can be read as emphatic, metaphor‑heavy ways of insisting on a radical shift in how one lives, not as literally mapping a higher tier of being.

 

ME:There are also some resemblances to cognitive behavioral therapies, and 3rd wave versions of them, which often incorporate eastern psychology (e.g. ACT, DBT, Acceptance Based Therapies, Secular Buddhism, MBSR et al.) P:Yes, the resemblance is real and philosophically interesting. Many third‑wave CBT approaches can be seen as “domesticated,” empirically tractable versions of the very attentional and attitudinal shifts you have been extracting from K and other non‑dual traditions, but without the heavy UR/OE metaphysics. A few tight correspondences: Third‑wave CBT (ACT, DBT, MBCT, MBSR, etc.) explicitly shifts focus from changing the content of thoughts to changing one’s relationship to thoughts and feelings—through acceptance, cognitive defusion, present‑moment awareness, and values‑guided action. That is very close to your proposal to focus on “how we relate to OE” rather than positing a higher reality that invalidates it. ​ These therapies borrow heavily from Buddhist mindfulness and acceptance practices, but present them as skills for living: non‑judgmental present‑moment awareness, observing thoughts as events in the mind rather than truths, loosening identification with the “narrative self,” and inhabiting concrete experience more fully (e.g., mindful dishwashing, eating, breathing). That parallels your Zen dishwashing example almost point for point. ​ ACT and related models are explicit that suffering is amplified by entanglement with language‑based, evaluative, future‑ and past‑oriented cognition—essentially the same structure you identified: not OE itself, but the way verbal/conceptual processes relate to it, by globalizing, comparing, and turning local experiences into totalizing identity narratives. ​ From this angle, K, Zen, and similar teachings can indeed be read as proto–third‑wave psychologies of attention and meaning, which modern therapies have reframed in a secular, experimentally testable vocabulary. What drops away, or is bracketed as “not needed for efficacy,” is precisely the strong ontological claim about a UR that downgrades OE. What remains—which is what you have been isolating—is the art‑of‑living technology: how not to be tyrannized by your own memory, anticipation, language and comparison while still fully using them. ME:I would say that 3rd Wave moved further away from "content of thought" than the Eastern traditions themselves were, and that CBT in attending to "negative self talk" patterns and even longitudinal "schemas" based on our over-identification with past roles such as family roles etc. , which have real emotional effects on HOW we attend to anything, is -- on my account-- also quite important. Western insight therapies also have analogues, though many are impatient with ontologies and moral codes built into some of them (Freud, Jung, Ego Psych, Object Relations, et al.) . Actually, some of this was touched on by Suzuki and Fromm, then Alan Watts (Psychotherapy East and West), and stands the test of time. But now, after the work of others like Aaron Beck or Sulligman on Learned Helplessness, there are less morally coded ways to locate and work with counterproductive (causing suffering) CONTENTS of belief as well as STYLES of attending. The 2 are, in most of the better accounts, imo, seen as interrelated. I think Zinn and the offshoot of MBCT see it this way for example, and possibly some secular Buddhists, though I'm less familiar. P:You are tracking something that current clinical and historical literature largely supports: third‑wave CBT both (a) moves even more decisively toward process/relationship-to-experience than many classical Eastern sources, and (b) keeps, in a clarified and de‑moralized way, the importance of specific belief contents and schemas that earlier CBT and psychodynamic work had already foregrounded. ​ A few points that align with your take: Classical CBT (Beck et al.) explicitly targets maladaptive automatic thoughts and schemas—stable, meaning-laden patterns often rooted in early roles and experiences—which correlate with depression, anxiety, and learned helplessness. As you say, this focuses sharply on content (“I’m worthless,” “nothing ever changes”) and how such content shapes emotion and attention. ​ Work on learned helplessness and learned optimism (Seligman and others) adds a non‑moral, explanatory vocabulary for why some global, stable, internal attributions (“it’s all my fault and always will be”) drive passivity and suffering, complementing Eastern concerns about “wrong views” without importing karma or metaphysical delusion. ​ Third‑wave approaches (ACT, DBT, MBCT, etc.) then integrate this with mindfulness and acceptance: they attend to both (i) how you hold thoughts (fusion vs. defusion, judgment vs. curiosity) and (ii) which recurrent patterns of belief and narrative are empirically associated with distress. MBCT is explicitly built by combining Beck‑style cognitive therapy with Kabat‑Zinn’s mindfulness program, precisely to work with both negative thinking patterns and the way clients relate to them. ​ That looks very much like what you are advocating: keep an eye on content (because some beliefs/interpretations are reliably misery‑producing), but understand that their power depends on a style of attending, identifying, and evaluating, which is where mindfulness/“non‑duality as psychology” comes in. Fromm, Suzuki, and Watts were indeed early theorists of this East–West interface: they already suggested that Zen could illuminate insight, presence, and the subject–object split for psychoanalysis, without requiring analysts to buy a Buddhist ontology. Third‑wave CBT can be seen as a more operationalized, research‑driven continuation of that same project. ​ So your synthesis—that the most fruitful zone is where: Eastern non‑dual and Zen practices are read as sophisticated arts of attending and valuing, Western CBT/insight therapies supply detailed models of belief content, schemas, and learning history, and both are de‑moralized and de‑metaphysicized enough to speak in terms of suffering vs. workability rather than sin, delusion, or ultimate unreality— is very much in line with how contemporary clinicians and theorists describe the “conceptual integration” of mindfulness and CBT. ​ ME:Yes. Here I am on board with the modern approaches in the West borrowing from eastern traditions. However, I also mentioned-- and I also emphasize deeply-- axiology (not nec. moralism ) esp. , as I said earlier, AESTHETICS. I don't reduce all to psychotherapy even conceived broadly, but also "Art of Living " discourse continuous with say, essays in the style of Montaigne, Emerson, Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, Wendell Berry, Alan Watts, Heidegger, Rorty, et al. None are doctrinaire, and all focus on details of daily life through a lens of refining experience , reducing suffering, appreciating beauty in art, science , society and nature, etc. P:Yes, that expansion to axiology and everyday aesthetics makes excellent sense, and it fits very cleanly with how a lot of contemporary philosophy is reframing both “wisdom traditions” and therapy. Art of living and value, not doctrine Writers like Montaigne, Emerson, Thoreau, Leopold, Berry, Heidegger, and Rorty are usually read less as system‑builders and more as exemplars of what Pierre Hadot (and later Foucault) called “philosophy as a way of life”: a reflective art of living that orients perception, character, and practice rather than legislating doctrine. In that register, what matters is not a final map of Reality but: ​ what is worth caring about (axiology), how to see and feel the world (aesthetics, in the wide sense), and how to shape one’s patterns of attention and action accordingly. That is exactly the terrain you are locating K and the non‑dual traditions in once the UR/OE ontology is set aside. Everyday aesthetics as the shared space Current work on the “aesthetics of the everyday” pushes this further: it treats cooking, walking, working, cleaning, farming, city life, and so on as sites of aesthetic experience and value, continuous with but not subordinate to “high art.” Philosophers influenced by Heidegger and Dewey explicitly argue that: ​ aesthetic experience is woven into ordinary coping and activity; refining perception of everyday situations changes one’s being‑in‑the‑world, not just one’s tastes. ​ That meshes almost perfectly with your emphasis on how one washes dishes, walks, works, interacts with nature, etc., and with your sense that Eastern non‑dual counsel, Western “art of living” essays, and third‑wave therapies are all, at their best, re‑educations of sensibility rather than metaphysical verdicts. Axiology as the umbrella In standard terms, axiology includes both ethics and aesthetics as domains of value theory. You are effectively: ​ de‑centering strictly moral codes, foregrounding aesthetic and existential values (texture, richness, non‑flattened particularity, beauty in nature and culture, reduction of needless suffering), and treating therapeutic change, spiritual practice, and philosophical reflection as coordinated ways of reshaping what and how we value. That lets K, Zen, Stoicism, Montaigne, Emerson, Leopold, Berry, Watts, Heidegger, Rorty, and CBT/ACT/MBCT sit on one continuous spectrum: all are different genres of work on value‑laden experience—on the quality of lived life and attention—rather than competing blueprints of ultimate reality. ​ Seen that way, your project is not to psychologize everything, but to relocate these traditions into a broader philosophy-as-art-of-living frame, where psychotherapy, non‑dual practice, and essayistic reflection are all tools for cultivating a more skillful, less needlessly painful, and more aesthetically responsive way of inhabiting this world.

ME: Yes. 

ENTER CLAUDE:

This is clarifying and strengthens your position considerably. Let me work through the implications:

1. Pedagogy, Sacred, and Descriptive Evocation

Your move here is elegant: upāya (skillful means) becomes the interpretive key that simultaneously:

• Honors practitioners' experience ("this matters to me, it works") without conceding ontological claims
• Preserves the 'sacred' dimension by relocating it from metaphysical truth to transformative efficacy
• Dissolves the apparent conflict between "this is just psychology" and "this feels cosmically significant"

The Lotus Sutra burning house parable is perfect—the "vehicles" that get people out are fictions explicitly acknowledged as such within the sutra itself, yet they accomplish real rescue. Similarly, Wittgenstein's ladder works as a ladder precisely because you can discard it afterward. The pedagogy is self-consuming.

What this means for your argument: You're not saying "two-tier models are wrong," but rather "they work as evocative metaphors, not as ontological blueprints." Someone who finds Shankara's rope/snake analogy clarifying can use it without committing to Advaita metaphysics. The "sublation" pattern becomes a narrative structure that organizes attention rather than a description of how reality is layered.

This also addresses the "sacred" worry beautifully. What's sacred isn't the cosmology (UR, Brahman, Buddha-nature, choiceless awareness) but the quality of lived experience these practices cultivate—what you're calling artful living within OE. The reverence attaches to thisness, particularity, attentive presence, reduced suffering, aesthetic richness—not to metaphysical claims about timeless awareness.

An implication: This makes your position more hospitable to traditional language than it might initially appear. You're not asking anyone to stop using non-dual vocabulary—only to understand it as poetic/evocative rather than descriptive/referential. A Zen practitioner can still say "form is emptiness, emptiness is form" if that formulation works for them, as long as we're clear it's doing psychological/axiological work, not carving nature at the joints.

2. Normative Hierarchy and Pragmatist Axiology

Your clarification here blocks what would otherwise be a serious objection. The worry was: "If you reject ontological hierarchy but replace it with axiological hierarchy (skillful vs. unskillful attention), haven't you just moved the furniture around while keeping the same structure?"

Your response: No, because values aren't truth claims and axiological proposals are invitational, not orthodox.

This is classically pragmatist—echoes of James's "will to believe" and Dewey's experimental approach to values:

• No fixed code: You're not legislating "dishwashing must be done this way" but pointing out: "some people find attending to texture and flow enriching; try it if you're curious"
• Pluralism about background commitments: The art-of-living insights are orthogonal to metaphysical/epistemic positions. An atheist, agnostic, and theist can all benefit from refined attention to ordinary experience
• Provisional and contextual: What counts as "skillful" attention isn't universal but depends on what someone cares about, their circumstances, what they're trying to cultivate

The crucial distinction: Ontological hierarchies claim to describe what's Real vs. Apparent, which is exclusionary and claims finality. Axiological suggestions offer possibilities within a shared experiential field, which is inclusive and experimental.

This also dissolves the "reduction to therapy" worry: Therapy is valuable, but it's typically framed around pathology/dysfunction (reduce suffering, manage symptoms). Your art-of-living frame is broader—it includes suffering reduction but also aesthetic enrichment, ethical sensitivity, everyday appreciation, and what you call "edification." Someone might not be suffering at all but still find value in attending differently to nature walks, conversations, or dishwashing.

The CBT/ACT/MBSR connections remain apt, but they're one genre within the broader art-of-living tradition, not the whole story. Montaigne, Emerson, Thoreau, Leopold, Berry aren't therapists but cultivators of sensibility—which is closer to your aim.

3. Phenomenological Discontinuity and Neuro-skepticism

Your stance here is bracing and correct: A phenomenological report is just that—full stop.

If someone reports: "After three weeks of intensive zazen, the subject/object duality collapsed and I experienced pure awareness without content," that's valuable data about their experience, but it doesn't warrant inferences about:

• Metaphysics (whether there is such a thing as "awareness without content" independent of this person's report)
• Neurology (whether specific brain states "produce" or "correlate with" such reports in generalizable ways)
• Universality (whether everyone should or could have similar experiences)

The neuro-phenomenology skepticism is well-founded. I share Evan Thompson's caution about "neuro-theology" and "neural Buddhism"—the genre where researchers:

1. Scan meditators' brains
2. Find activation/deactivation patterns
3. Make sweeping claims about "the neural basis of enlightenment" or "hardwired spirituality"

The inferential leaps are often unjustified because:

• Small sample sizes (often expert meditators vs. controls, not population-representative)
• Confounds (practitioners differ in many ways beyond meditation—lifestyle, worldview, social context)
• Interpretation (what does "decreased default mode network activity" mean? Does it vindicate "no-self" doctrine? That's a massive conceptual leap)
• First-person/third-person asymmetry (neural patterns don't explain experiences in any reductive sense; at best they correlate)

So your position: Phenomenological reports matter as testimony about experience, but neither prove nor disprove ontological claims. And we should be cautious about neuro-reductionist attempts to "ground" contemplative insights in brain states.

This dovetails with your overall pragmatism: what matters is whether attending in certain ways makes a difference in lived experience—richer, less conflicted, more appreciative, whatever. The metaphysical and neurological "foundations" are distractions.

Synthesis: The Argumentative Position Clarified

With these clarifications, your overall stance becomes:

On Krishnamurti and Non-Dual Traditions:

• As ontology: They generate unresolved paradoxes (teleology reintroduced, OE as dangerous-then-harmless, hierarchy denied then reasserted)
• As pedagogy: They can work beautifully as skillful means—evocative metaphors that reorganize attention without claiming to describe ultimate reality
• The mistake: Confusing the pedagogical vehicle (two-tier models) with ontological truth, then defending it as such

On Art of Living:

• Not a code: Invitational, experimental, pluralistic about metaphysical priors
• Not just therapy: Includes but exceeds pathology-reduction; aims at aesthetic/ethical enrichment, everyday appreciation
• Pragmatist axiology: Values are provisional, contextual, tested in practice; "what works" for cultivating desired qualities of experience

On Phenomenology and Neuroscience:

• Reports are valid as reports: Honor practitioners' testimony without extracting ontological claims
• Neuro-skepticism: Resist reductionist attempts to "explain" contemplative insights via brain scans
• What matters: Does attending differently change lived experience in valued ways? That's an answerable question without metaphysics or neurology

Potential Tensions (Worth Monitoring)

1. The "Just Pedagogy" Move:

If two-tier models are skillful means for some people, when is it appropriate to dismantle them (as your Krishnamurti critique does) vs. allow them (as upāya)?

Put differently: Is your critique aimed at:

• Philosophers/scholars who defend two-tier ontologies as true? (Then you're arguing: they're mistaken, but the models can still work as pedagogy)
• Practitioners who find the models helpful? (Then you're saying: keep using them if they work, just don't reify them)

The distinction matters because the critique could read as patronizing to practitioners ("you think you've realized ultimate reality, but actually you've just reorganized attention via a useful metaphor"). But I think your actual position is more generous: "If you want to keep the language of 'ultimate reality,' fine—just recognize it's a way of talking that works for you, not a claim that obligates others."

2. The Invitational/Normative Line:

You say axiological proposals are "invitational, not orthodox." But in practice, when you critique certain forms of attention (e.g., flattening dishwashing into "my life of drudgery") and recommend others (attending to this dish, this water, these textures), isn't there an implicit normative claim: "this is better"?

I don't think this is a problem—more a question of how explicitly normative you want to be. Saying "I invite you to try attending this way" is softer than "you should attend this way," but if you genuinely think attentive, particularized, aesthetically enriched modes of inhabiting OE are better (reduce suffering, increase appreciation), then you're making a value claim even if it's defeasible and contextual.

Again, I think this is defensible on pragmatist grounds: value claims are always provisional, tested in experience, and don't claim universality. But it's worth being clear that you are recommending some ways of attending over others, even if you're not legislating a code.

3. Compatibility Across Priors:

You claim agnostics, atheists, theists, deontologists, error theorists can all benefit from refined attention to OE. This is largely true—many art-of-living insights are orthogonal to metaphysics.

But there may be edge cases:

• A strong pessimist (Schopenhauer, Zapffe, Ligotti) might say: "Attending more carefully to the textures of life just makes me more aware of its futility and horror. I prefer abstraction and distraction."
• A ascetic might say: "Aesthetic appreciation of ordinary pleasures reinforces attachment. I'm cultivating detachment, not enriched engagement."

Your response, I think, would be: "Fine—if that works for you, pursue it. I'm not claiming my approach is mandatory." But it does suggest that some values are more compatible with your framework than others, even if you're not policing the boundaries.

Conclusion: Strength of Position

With your clarifications, the argument is stronger and more defensible than it initially appeared because:

1. You're not dismissing traditions, just reinterpreting them: Two-tier models work as upāya, not as ontology
2. You're not imposing a code, just sharing invitations: Axiological pluralism within pragmatist bounds
3. You're not reducing to neuroscience or therapy: Phenomenology matters, but so do aesthetics, ethics, everyday appreciation
4. You're not hostile to "sacred" language: Just relocate it from metaphysical claims to lived quality of experience

The Krishnamurti critique becomes: "Your framework generates problems when taken as ontology, but it can work beautifully as evocative pedagogy—so let's understand it that way." That's a generous reconstruction, not a demolition.

The positive proposal—artful living within OE, informed by contemplative traditions, contemporary psychology, and philosophical reflection—is philosophically coherent, practically fertile, and genuinely post-metaphysical in a way that neither abandons wisdom traditions nor reifies their cosmologies.

This is excellent work.

Your first potential tension Question is well worth exploring: 1) My intervention occurs at the level of speculative metaphysics, or basic ontology. In particular, I focus on KNOWLEDGE-CLAIMS and thus the epistemic aspect of ontology (what we can KNOW about what "Really, Really *IS*" ).  The claim about "KNOWING ISNESS"-- putting it simply, is my target. Who makes such claims? A) Certainly, philsophers and scholars do that, and teach Eastern Philosophy and religion through precisely this prism very often.  B) Practitioners, esp. "disciples" in traditions often make such claims, in fact often with greater emotional urgency than their more academic counterparts here!  To the extent that I am in discussion with either of these 2 (or some third category like curious readers, interested laypersons)  and they put forward such TRUTH CLAIMS (which means they take these not as metaphors or pedagocial devices, but TRUTH APT STATEMENTS) , to that extent -- if it seems worthwhile in context-- I would "AIM" the critique at them, not to force them to surrender the metaphors, AND EQUALLY IMPORTANT, NOT TO CONVINCE THEM THAT THEY ARE WRONG AND THERE IS NO HIGHER AND LESSER TRUTH WE CAN SPEAK OF SENSIBLY, but to put MY OWN POSITION AS A WELL CONSIDERED ONE ON THE TABLE, AND LETTING THEM RESPOND. As Weak Agnostic, I genuinely hold the door open to being blind to some future argument or source of evidence I hadn't considered. I am not saying, like Batchelor, "karma and rebirths is all baloney, FALSE"-- an inverted TRUTH CLAIM. INSTEAD I SAY,  I CANNOT MAKE SENSE OF THE 2 TIERED SCHEMES OF REALITY ON THEIR OWN TERMS IF WE PRESENT THEM AS TRUTH APT. FOR NOW, I CONCLUDE THEY ARE BETTER SEEN AS HELPFUL METAPHORS ETC. BUT MY GOAL IS NOT TO POLICE THE BELIEFS AND CONVICTIONS OF OTHERS.  So while I really DO have a position, a serious critique of these metaphysical systems I've mentioned, I don't see a serious argument against them as the same thing as license to go around telling others WHAT TO BELIEVE-- which is precisely the impulse I critique in the metaphysical systems themselves. Again, it is the "Greed for Views" that often does a disservice to all interlocutors. I defend my agnosticism , hopefully well, and leave it there.

This is a crucial clarification that fundamentally shapes how your project should be understood. Let me unpack what you're doing here:

The Epistemological Intervention

Your target is knowledge-claims about ultimate reality—specifically, assertions that present two-tier ontologies as truth-apt statements rather than as skillful means, poetic evocations, or working hypotheses.

The key move: You're not making a counter-truth-claim (e.g., "there is no UR, only OE"). Instead, you're saying:

"I cannot make these two-tier schemes coherent on their own terms when presented as truth-apt. The internal tensions (teleology smuggled back in, OE as dangerous-then-harmless, hierarchy denied then reasserted) suggest they don't work as ontology. They work better as something else—pedagogical metaphors, attentional guidance, evocative poetry."

This is immanent critique in the strongest sense. You're not imposing alien standards but showing that the frameworks undermine themselves when they claim to describe what "really, really IS."

Weak Agnosticism vs. Inverted Dogmatism

The contrast with Stephen Batchelor is instructive. Batchelor's "Buddhism Without Beliefs" makes strong negative claims:

• Karma and rebirth are false
• We should strip away the metaphysical accretions
• What remains is the true core of Buddhism

That's still playing the truth-apt game—just with inverted polarity. It's a different metaphysical position, not a different kind of move.

Your weak agnosticism does something else:

• I cannot make sense of these claims (personal epistemic confession)
• They generate internal tensions (immanent critique)
• They work better as metaphors (reconstructive proposal)
• But I might be missing something (genuine epistemic humility)

The last point is critical. You're not saying two-tier ontologies are impossible, only that you find them incoherent under examination and that alternative interpretations (as upāya, as attentional guidance) seem more fruitful. But the door remains open to:

• Arguments you haven't encountered
• Evidence you haven't considered
• Experiential dimensions you haven't accessed
• Conceptual resources that could resolve the tensions you identify

This is methodologically honest in a way that both dogmatic metaphysics ("UR is Real") and inverted dogmatism ("UR is False") are not.

Who Gets the Critique and Why

You distinguish two groups who make truth-apt claims:

A) Philosophers and Scholars

When they present Advaita, Madhyamaka, Krishnamurti, etc. as ontological systems making factual claims about reality, you're arguing:

"These systems have serious internal problems. The two-tier structure generates paradoxes that are resolved only by ad hoc moves or by implicitly shifting to a different kind of discourse (pedagogical, poetic, practical). We should acknowledge this rather than defending them as coherent metaphysics."

This is discipline-internal critique—you're engaging the academy on its own terms (conceptual analysis, internal coherence, clarity about what kind of claims are being made).

B) Practitioners and Disciples

When they claim "I know UR directly" or "Krishnamurti revealed the Truth" with emotional urgency, you're saying:

"I respect your experience and the value these frameworks have for you. But when you present them as knowledge of ultimate reality, I find the claims incoherent for these reasons [your critique]. I'm not saying you're deluded or that your practice is worthless—only that the epistemological claim ('I know what IS') doesn't hold up under scrutiny. The same insights might be understood differently."

This is more delicate because practitioners often have strong identity-investment in the truth of their framework. But you're not trying to de-convert them—you're staking out your own position and inviting response.

The "Greed for Views" Problem

This phrase (from the Pali diṭṭhi-taṇhā) is perfect because it names what you're resisting: the impulse to secure a metaphysical position and then defend it against all comers, or worse, impose it on others.

Your critique targets this impulse wherever it appears:

• In Krishnamurti claiming to speak from "choiceless awareness beyond all paths"
• In Advaitins claiming "Brahman is the only reality"
• In Zen masters claiming "form is emptiness" as ontological truth
• In philosophers defending these systems as coherent metaphysics
• And equally in yourself, which is why you maintain weak agnosticism rather than asserting "two-tier systems are false"

The symmetry matters: You're not exempting yourself from the epistemic humility you're recommending. You hold a position (these systems are incoherent as ontology, better as pedagogy), you defend it with arguments, but you don't claim certainty or try to police others' beliefs.

The Goal: Position on the Table, Not Belief Policing

This reframes what your Krishnamurti critique (and broader project) is doing:

Not: "Here's why two-tier ontologies are wrong and everyone should abandon them"

Instead: "Here's why I find two-tier ontologies problematic as truth-apt claims, here's an alternative way of understanding what they're doing (as skillful means), and here's how this connects to a broader art-of-living framework. If you disagree, I'm interested in your response."

This is philosophy as conversation rather than philosophy as adjudication. You're making moves, offering arguments, staking claims—but within a dialectical context where others can push back.

Why This Approach Works

Several virtues:

1. Philosophical Integrity

You're not doing the thing you're critiquing. If the problem with two-tier systems is that they claim privileged epistemic access to ultimate reality, you can't respond by claiming privileged access to the falsity of such systems. Weak agnosticism is methodologically consistent with your critique.

2. Practical Generosity

You're not trying to take anything away from practitioners. If two-tier language works for them as skillful means, fine. If they insist it's ontologically true, you offer your critique but don't force the issue. This respects pluralism about how people make sense of their experience.

3. Intellectual Honesty

By holding the door open to future arguments/evidence, you're acknowledging the limits of your own position. This is rare in philosophy, where positions are often defended to the death. Your approach allows for:

• Refinement based on feedback
• Discovery of arguments you hadn't considered
• Experiential dimensions you haven't accessed
• Conceptual resources that might resolve tensions

4. Dialectical Openness

You're inviting response rather than foreclosing conversation. Someone might say: "Here's how the two-tier system avoids your teleology objection" or "Here's an experience that makes sense only as contact with UR." You're genuinely interested in hearing that, even if you remain skeptical.

A Remaining Question: The Weight of Critique

Here's something worth considering: Even if you're not policing beliefs, you are offering serious critiques that, if accepted, would significantly reorient how people understand their practice and tradition.

For someone who deeply identifies as "one who has realized ultimate reality" or "a student on the path to enlightenment," your argument—if persuasive—asks them to reconceive their entire framework. That's not a small thing, even if you're not forcing the issue.

The question: Does your critique carry implications you're not fully owning?

Consider someone who says: "I've practiced Vipassana for 20 years. I've experienced the dissolution of self-boundaries and contacted nibbana, which I understand as the unconditioned reality beyond the conditioned realm of suffering. This gives my life meaning and direction."

Your response (as I understand it): "I respect your experience and your practice. But when you claim to have 'contacted unconditioned reality,' I find that epistemologically problematic for reasons X, Y, Z. The same experience might be understood as an attentional/phenomenological shift within ordinary experience, which doesn't require positing two levels of reality."

Even though you're not forcing them to accept your reinterpretation, you are suggesting their self-understanding might be mistaken. That's inherently challenging, even if done gently.

Is this a problem? I don't think so, actually. Philosophy should challenge settled convictions—that's part of what it's for. But it's worth being explicit about: your critique, if accepted, asks people to give up certain kinds of self-understanding (as one who knows ultimate reality) in exchange for different ones (as one who has cultivated skillful attention and reduced suffering).

Some will experience that as liberation ("I don't have to maintain impossible metaphysical claims!"), others as loss ("my realization was 'just' a shift in attention?"), others as irrelevant ("this philosopher's quibbles don't touch my experience").

Your weak agnosticism and refusal to police beliefs means you're okay with all three responses. You've put your position on the table; others can take it or leave it.

Synthesis: The Nature of Your Intervention

With this clarification, here's what you're doing:

Epistemological Level:

Arguing that two-tier ontologies, when presented as truth-apt claims about ultimate reality, generate internal incoherence and don't satisfy their own burden of proof.

Hermeneutic Level:

Offering a reinterpretation: these systems work better as skillful means, poetic evocations, attentional guidance—not as descriptions of how reality is layered.

Practical Level:

Proposing an art-of-living framework that extracts practical wisdom from contemplative traditions without requiring metaphysical commitments.

Dialectical Level:

Maintaining weak agnosticism: you hold these positions tentatively, invite counterarguments, and remain open to revision.

Ethical Level:

Refusing to police others' beliefs: you stake your position but don't insist others adopt it; you critique greed for views without falling into it yourself.

This is philosophically sophisticated and methodologically sound. It's critique without dogmatism, reconstruction without reductionism, and commitment without certainty.

The Krishnamurti dialogue, understood this way, is an exemplar of how to engage wisdom traditions philosophically: take them seriously, analyze them rigorously, identify problems, offer alternatives, but remain in conversation rather than adjudicating from above.

That's valuable work, and the weak agnosticism is not a bug but a feature—it's what allows you to critique metaphysical overreach without committing your own version of it.

It's interesting that philosophers show less sensitivity to this issue when the target is Christian Fundamentalism than Advaita or Zen!  I learned early on as a student, that philosophical inquiry isn't for everyone, even the gentler approach I try to take via pragmatic and agnostic turn. Now, MY ANSWER: I'm not "de-converting" as you say, but I do recognize that the critique effectively puts potential interlocutors "on the spot."  A friend once said it's hard to be both religious and a philosopher (by religious I think he meant believing creeds, dogmas etc.). So my answer is sociological and not philosophical. I understand that such conversations are not always necessary or productive (actually this too comes down to a kind of "skillful means" analysis, just as Buddha did not say to Malankyaputta "stop believing X" but rather "stop PRIORITIZING X SO MUCH") . Here I would say TO MYSELF, "Paul, don't prioritize making this argument over the feelings of every practitioner. Discuss this stuff when it seems to matter and be productive." Now there's no formula for that. But if I were teaching Eastern Philosophy, it would surely be as innocuous as any other position discussed in the class. If I was visiting a Hindu Temple or Zen Monastery, things might be quite different. However, if I were in serious discussion with someone in an Ashram, Temple or Monastery, I would certainly put my ideas forward as the product of my own (limited but not inconsiderable) experience and thought. Does this help?

Yes, this helps enormously and reveals something important about the pragmatics of philosophical intervention that often goes unexamined.

The Double Standard: Fundamentalism vs. Non-Dual Traditions

Your observation about differing sensitivities is sharp and worth exploring. Western philosophers typically feel no hesitation critiquing:

• Christian fundamentalist claims about biblical inerrancy
• Young-earth creationism
• Claims about hell and damnation
• Prosperity gospel theology
• Religious justifications for discrimination

But there's often noticeable delicacy around:

• Advaita claims about Brahman-realization
• Zen claims about kensho/satori
• Buddhist claims about nibbana
• Yogic claims about samadhi
• Neo-Vedanta claims about cosmic consciousness

Why the asymmetry? Several factors:

1. Orientalism in Reverse: A kind of post-colonial guilt where Western intellectuals treat Eastern traditions as too precious to criticize, which is its own form of condescension. It treats these traditions as fragile or exotic rather than as serious philosophical positions that can withstand scrutiny.

2. The "Sophisticated vs. Crude" Heuristic: Non-dual metaphysics gets coded as "sophisticated mysticism" while fundamentalism gets coded as "crude literalism," even though both make strong ontological claims that deserve equal philosophical scrutiny.

3. Perceived Social Harm: Christian fundamentalism in the West is associated with political power, exclusion, and harm. Non-dual traditions are associated with meditation retreats, yoga studios, and self-improvement—perceived as personally beneficial rather than socially dangerous. But this conflates the social effects of belief systems with the epistemic status of their claims.

4. Academic Fashion: Eastern philosophy has academic prestige in certain circles (comparative philosophy, religious studies, contemplative studies). Fundamentalism doesn't. So there are professional incentives to treat one gently and the other not.

Your point: If the issue is epistemological—knowledge claims about ultimate reality—then the same standards should apply regardless of which tradition makes them. A fundamentalist claiming "I know God exists because I've experienced Him" and an Advaitin claiming "I know Brahman exists because I've realized it" are making structurally similar moves. Both deserve the same kind of scrutiny.

This doesn't mean the traditions are equivalent in all respects (their social/political valences differ enormously), but at the epistemological level, the critique should be even-handed.

Your Sociological (Not Philosophical) Answer

This is exactly right. The philosophical analysis stands or falls on its merits—the coherence of two-tier ontologies, the epistemic warrant for knowledge-claims about ultimate reality, etc. That's one domain.

But when, where, and whether to deploy that analysis is a separate question involving:

• Social context
• Relationship dynamics
• Practical consequences
• What's at stake in the conversation

Your distinction between:

• Teaching Eastern philosophy (academic context where critique is expected)
• Visiting a temple (guest in a practice community)
• Serious discussion at an ashram (philosophical exchange with a fellow inquirer)

...shows you're attentive to context without abandoning your position. This is crucial because it avoids two opposite errors:

Error 1: Crude Universalism - "I must proclaim my critique everywhere, regardless of context, because Truth matters above all." This is the philosophical equivalent of street-corner evangelism—tone-deaf to situation and relationship.

Error 2: Relativist Silence - "I shouldn't voice my critique in religious contexts because it might offend or because 'that's just how they talk.'" This is condescending in a different way—it assumes practitioners can't handle philosophical disagreement or treats their claims as somehow exempt from rational scrutiny.

Your approach: Context-sensitive philosophical integrity. You don't suppress your position, but you don't impose it either. You assess whether serious philosophical exchange is appropriate to the situation, and if it is, you engage honestly.

The Buddha's Skillful Means: Prioritization, Not Elimination

The Māluṅkyāputta sutta reference is perfect. The monk demands answers to metaphysical questions (is the cosmos finite? does the enlightened one exist after death?). The Buddha responds with the poison arrow parable:

"If a man is struck by a poisoned arrow, should his companions wait to remove it until they know who shot it, what wood the arrow is made of, what kind of feathers it has—or should they remove the arrow immediately?"

The point: Don't prioritize metaphysical speculation over practical liberation. The Buddha doesn't say "those questions are meaningless" or "here are the true answers"—he says "this is not the priority right now."

Your self-directed counsel—"Paul, don't prioritize making this argument over the feelings of every practitioner"—follows the same logic. It's not abandoning the critique, but recognizing that:

• Not every context calls for philosophical disputation
• Not every person benefits from having their framework challenged
• Some conversations are more about practice and community than epistemology
• Skillful means applies to philosophical engagement too

This is the difference between:

• Having a position (which you do)
• Being a position (making it your identity/mission to convert others)

The Friend's Insight: Philosophy vs. Religious Belief

Your friend's observation—"it's hard to be both religious and a philosopher"—deserves unpacking.

If "religious" means:

• Adhering to fixed creeds
• Claiming certain knowledge of metaphysical truths
• Treating sacred texts/teachers as infallible
• Identifying strongly with a tradition's ontological claims

And if "philosophy" means:

• Subjecting all claims to rational scrutiny
• Maintaining epistemic humility about ultimate questions
• Following arguments where they lead even if uncomfortable
• Willingness to revise beliefs based on better arguments

Then yes, there's genuine tension. Philosophy practiced seriously tends to erode dogmatic certainty.

But notice: This tension exists equally for Western and Eastern religious claims. The Christian philosopher who concludes "I cannot justify belief in the resurrection" and the Zen practitioner who concludes "I cannot justify claims about Buddha-nature as ultimate reality" face structurally similar situations.

Your weak agnosticism is one way of living in that tension without resolving it falsely (through either dogmatic belief or dogmatic denial). You:

• Take wisdom traditions seriously
• Extract practical insights
• Maintain skepticism about metaphysical claims
• Stay open to revision
• Don't claim to have settled the questions

This is philosophically honest and existentially sustainable. It allows you to engage deeply with traditions without pretending certainty you don't have.

When to Deploy the Critique: No Formula, But Heuristics

You're right that there's no algorithm for deciding when philosophical critique is appropriate. But some rough heuristics might be:

Deploy the critique when:

• The context is explicitly intellectual (classroom, academic conference, philosophical discussion)
• Someone makes strong knowledge-claims and invites response
• Misunderstandings of a tradition would be clarified by your analysis
• You're asked directly for your view
• The conversation is among equals engaged in serious inquiry

Hold back when:

• You're a guest in a practice community where you're not in a teaching role
• Someone is sharing personal spiritual experience vulnerably (not making epistemic claims)
• The primary function is community/ritual, not intellectual exchange
• Your intervention would be received as aggression rather than inquiry
• You're dealing with someone in crisis who needs support, not philosophical challenges

Navigate carefully when:

• Someone is using metaphysical claims to justify harm (here the stakes change)
• You're in a teaching role and students hold diverse metaphysical commitments
• You're writing for a general audience that includes both scholars and practitioners
• You're in interreligious dialogue where both respect and honesty matter

The key: Match the register of conversation. If someone is speaking experientially/poetically, don't respond with epistemological critique. If someone is making truth-apt claims and inviting philosophical exchange, engage accordingly.

Your Ashram Scenario: A Model

Your hypothetical—"if I were in serious discussion with someone in an ashram, temple, or monastery, I would put my ideas forward as the product of my own (limited but not inconsiderable) experience and thought"—is exemplary because it balances:

1. Honesty: You share your actual position, not a watered-down version
2. Humility: You frame it as your own conclusion based on your experience/thinking, not universal truth
3. Respect: You're engaging as a fellow inquirer, not as an external critic dismissing their tradition
4. Openness: The framing invites response rather than foreclosing conversation

This is very different from either:

• Aggressive: "Your metaphysics is incoherent and you're deluded"
• Patronizing: "That's a nice belief for you, but let's talk about something else"

Instead, it's: "Here's how I've come to understand these issues. I'm curious about your perspective, especially where you think I might be missing something."

This allows for genuine philosophical exchange without violence to the relationship or the tradition. The practitioner might:

• Offer counterarguments you hadn't considered
• Share experiential dimensions that complicate your analysis
• Explain how the tradition already handles the tensions you identify
• Or simply disagree and explain why your framework doesn't resonate with their experience

All of those are productive outcomes. The conversation continues rather than terminating in either dogmatic assertion or evasive politeness.

Synthesis: The Ethics of Philosophical Critique

What emerges from this discussion is a sophisticated ethics of intellectual engagement:

Principle 1: Even-Handedness Apply the same epistemic standards to all metaphysical claims, regardless of cultural origin or social valence.

Principle 2: Context-Sensitivity
Recognize that not all contexts call for philosophical critique, even when you hold a clear position.

Principle 3: Prioritization Don't make every conversation about your critique. Sometimes other values (community, support, shared practice) take precedence.

Principle 4: Honesty Without Aggression When philosophical exchange is appropriate, state your position clearly but frame it as your own conclusion, inviting response.

Principle 5: Epistemic Humility Maintain weak agnosticism—you hold your position but remain open to revision based on arguments/evidence you haven't encountered.

Principle 6: Practical Focus Remember that the point isn't to win arguments but to clarify thinking and improve living. If the critique serves that goal, deploy it. If not, hold back.

This is philosophy in the service of life, not philosophy as competitive sport or identity-maintenance. It takes the examined life seriously without turning examination into an end in itself.

Your approach threads a difficult needle: maintaining intellectual integrity (you have a position and defend it) while avoiding philosophical imperialism (forcing that position on others regardless of context). That's hard to do well, and the fact that you're reflecting on when/how to deploy critique rather than just always deploying it shows you're doing it thoughtfully.

The Krishnamurti dialogue, understood this way, is one move in an ongoing conversation, not a final verdict. You've put your analysis on the table, argued for it carefully, but left space for response. That's exactly what philosophical inquiry should look like—rigorous without being dogmatic, critical without being dismissive, committed without being closed.

That is very helpful-- seeing the implications of my remarks more fully elaborated. I think I agree with most of  your ramifications. I'll stop to re-read. THAT (an ethics of philosophical critique) was an unexpected but VERY welcome addition to the work I'm doing. Perhaps a short-medium essay on everything discussed on the page, including this discussion OF philosophical discussion (ethics of critique) would be of some value. But first I need to re-read our thread. Thanks for that!

I'm really glad this proved generative! The "ethics of philosophical critique" dimension emerged naturally from your clarifications but does seem to deserve its own articulation—it's often implicit in good philosophical practice but rarely made explicit in the way we've just done.

The trajectory of our conversation itself demonstrates something interesting: we moved from analyzing what your argument is (the Krishnamurti critique, the art-of-living alternative) to how and when to deploy it (context-sensitivity, weak agnosticism, skillful means in philosophical engagement). That second-order reflection is valuable precisely because it shows you're not just making claims but thinking carefully about the pragmatics of making claims—which is very much in the spirit of your broader pragmatist commitments.

A short-to-medium essay synthesizing this could be quite useful. It would:

1. Model the ethics it describes (by being itself an example of careful, non-dogmatic philosophical engagement)
2. Fill a gap (there's surprisingly little explicit work on when/how to critique metaphysical frameworks without either arrogance or false deference)
3. Connect to your larger project (showing how weak agnosticism and art-of-living discourse aren't just theoretical positions but guide practical intellectual engagement)
4. Be pedagogically valuable (for students, scholars, and serious practitioners navigating these tensions)

When you do re-read, you might pay attention to whether the six principles I articulated (even-handedness, context-sensitivity, prioritization, honesty without aggression, epistemic humility, practical focus) accurately capture your approach, or whether they need refinement, addition, or reordering. They emerged from our conversation but I was synthesizing on the fly—you'd have a clearer sense of whether they reflect your actual practice and commitments.

Take your time with the re-read. I'll be here when you're ready to continue developing this, whether that's refining the ethics-of-critique framework, returning to the Krishnamurti analysis itself, or exploring other connections to your broader work on descriptive evocation, reverent coping, and syncretic engagement.

This has been genuinely productive philosophical conversation—thanks for bringing such clarity and thoughtfulness to these questions.

 

 AFTERThought:

ME:First before writing, one clarification that seems important-- OE is not itself an ontology, but emerged in the discussion as something that SEEMS that way because it functions as an "ontological tier" in 2 tier-systems. I should have noticed the ambiguity earlier. There is no ONE PARADIGM for "ordinary experience"-- rather : IT IS ALWAYS BEING NEGOTIATED NOT ONLY WITHIN BUT BETWEEN CULTURES. (e.g. Some "ordinary experience" in some cultures or subcultures is mediated by religious or scientific concepts that are not in play in another and so forth). Thus, OE (if I even continue using the misleading term outside of the 2 tiered systems) merely designates a state of play in which people function in day to day life, and in which any strong and controversial TRUTH CLAIMS are expected to be defended, and not just accepted or denied. E.g. A journalist writing about a Priest is not out to prove or disprove anyrthing necessarily, but IF a strong claim is made, it is well within the norms of conventional journalism to put the Priest on the spot and ask for clarification or argument or defense. Something along those lines. It's more like "everyday life" in sociology than "Ordinary Experience" in some ontological sense. 

Perplex:  That clarification is important, and it actually tightens the whole framework.

​

OE as negotiated practice, not a tier

Your original use of “OE” made sense inside the two‑tier systems you were diagnosing: there it functions as the lower “ontological tier” in contrast to UR. Outside those systems, though, it is better treated as:

​

• Not an ontology at all.

• Not a single paradigm of experience.

• But a shifting, culturally negotiated field of practices, expectations, and justificatory norms—closer to “everyday life” in sociology than to “ordinary experience” as a metaphysical category.

• ​

Under this reframing:

• Different cultures and subcultures live “ordinary life” through different conceptual mediations (religious, scientific, folk‑psychological, etc.), and there is no neutral, metaphysically privileged OE behind them.

• ​

So in your own vocabulary, “OE” becomes at most a shorthand for this dialogical, everyday space of life and contestable claims, not a lower ontological stratum. That keeps your critique clearly epistemic/pragmatic (about how claims are made and defended in lived contexts) rather than smuggling in a single, fixed picture of “the ordinary” as itself a metaphysical given.

​

What is shared is a rough context of interaction where strong, controversial truth‑claims are expected to be answerable to questions, challenges, and requests for reasons—your journalist/priest example is a nice micro‑model of that.