Self-inquiry, September 3, 2023

Self-inquiry

September 3, 2023

With James Waite

At KECC Metchosin, BC

Only four people were present for this meeting sponsored by the Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada and held at the Swanwick Rd. location in Metchosin, BC, on a Sunday afternoon. Rainy weather prevented us from sitting outside. James Waite was the facilitator. He had a certain amount of experience in such a role and seemed quite comfortable in it. He began by pointing out that in our self-inquiry exercise we would be working with two fundamental aspects of our physical and psychological make-up. Firstly there would be the existence of “experience” – our feelings and sensations – and secondly there would be the awareness with which we would “know” and appreciate our experience. The latter would be more our true identity. These statements led to a fairly detailed discussion of awareness and identity. One of the participants was relatively new to this kind of perceiving and questioning our nature and had a number of questions and comments about our conversation, which made it more interesting and provoked various ideas and interactions between those seeking to deepen their understanding. In fact, the meaning of “understanding” was explored to some degree, with its different possible nuances. The “dialogue” moved on with contributions from all involved, James probably taking the lead most of the time. The sharing was engaging for everyone and seemed to flow easily into a number of questions and observations. We touched upon the power of insight and “seeing” when it comes to self knowing and the freedom generated in the individual when seeing takes place as a significant happening in the person. We also spoke of the non-personal aspect of exploring oneself and of the transcendence of the separate identity that can take place. It was all quite interesting and promised to be fertile ground for future inquiry. The meeting came to a close in a natural way and we took our leave with affectionate good-byes.

DB