Self-inquiry, August 2, 2023

Self-inquiry

With Mukesh Gupta

Wednesday, August 2, 2023

Esquimalt Gorge Park Pavilion

 

Nine people attended this Wednesday afternoon meeting at the Gorge Park Pavilion on Tillicum Road. We began with a short silent meditation followed by a proposal on Mukesh’s part that participants then put forward questions we might probe more deeply as the session progressed. A variety of questions were presented.

– Why is what we do called self-inquiry?

– What is the self?

– Who is doing the inquiry?

– How does the mind condition itself?

– How does love un-condition us?

– Is there a burning question?

– Are these questions really a part of our lives? What is truly alive in us?

 

We then looked into the issue of being with an uncomfortable feeling or issue vs. escaping from it. What does it mean to “surrender” to the situation or to totally let go? We wondered about the value of others’ suggestions when seeking solutions and it appeared that love can support the process of “blossoming” that Krishnamurti spoke about. Wanting things to be other than they are was given as a major cause of our suffering and the ending of resistance was proposed as more significant than acceptance of the way they are.

It was offered that suffering can be an awakening if we stay with it, but it may lose its power when we forget to question. The “me” is in the habit of continuity of its own survival. Asking the question “Who am I?” is crucial in dismantling the reality given to the “I” or egoic self. It is not a question of stopping anything but more of seeing the action of the thought process operating as the “self”.

The meeting was full of significant questions and insights, which made it refreshingly interesting and valuable as an engagement with the truth of self-inquiry as Krishnamurti expressed it and as we attempt to practise it in our dialogue meetings.

DB