A New Mind and Heart: Beyond Violence with Cynthia Overweg, August 21, 2021

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A New Mind and Heart: Beyond Violence
With Cynthia Overweg
August 21, 2021, Zoom Online

Cynthia will be presenting a new series of explorations into the
teachings of J. Krishnamurti, continuing her “New Heart and Mind”
offerings on the third Saturday of each month for the rest of the year.
This presentation was entitled “Beyond Violence” and was attended by a
total of seventeen people, all included. Cynthia began by emphasizing
the significance given by Krishnamurti to the challenge of dealing
skillfully with human violence in our daily lives on both the individual and
the social levels. She reminded us that Krishnamurti said “the mind and
heart are one” and there is a need to understand and live this truth as we
seek to understand ourselves and our relationships.
Krishnamurti spoke of both physical and psychological violence. He
pointed out that we must find the source of violence and how it operates
in ourselves. This involves looking at our fears and observing the
interconnection of violence, fear, and authority. At the core, as long as
the “me” exists there will be violence, even if very subtle. Various
aspects of violence were discussed and a crucial question was posed.
What is a person to do when he or she sees the situation? How do we
change a violent world? It was suggested that we must change within
ourselves so that we resolve our fears and can live free of conditioning.
One of the many K quotes shared by Cynthia was “the art of seeing is
the only truth.” Learning to see is the core of freeing ourselves from
conditioning. This requires and in turn produces a quiet mind. Learning
happens instantly and, at the same time, demands a lifetime of work.
Cynthia’s talk was interspersed with short periods of silence with
appropriate musical accompaniment in order to bring the attention to
present-moment observing. After about an hour the meeting was opened
up to questions and discussion. There seemed not to be a big need for
analysis and thought, so there was an atmosphere of quietude in the
group, with a few more relevant K quotes added. Cynthia ended with her
favourite quote (which is her own): “When I understand myself, I
understand you and out of that understanding comes love.” It was
another lovely “meditation” with Cynthia.