Exploring Ourselves, September 21, 2024

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Exploring Ourselves 

With Jackie McInley 

September 21, 2024 

Online Meeting 

 

Eight people were present for this online meeting sponsored by the Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada with Jackie McInley facilitating. She shared some introductory ideas about the purpose and structure of a “dialogue” meeting. There are at least two levels to the structure of the dialogue. The first level is what is happening on the surface and the second is that which is going on behind or beneath the surface, including the motives of the participants in sharing what they do. Group members can be aware of these hidden motives, Jackie has noticed, to varying degrees. As the group process unfolds, the motive or motives start to reveal themselves and some participants are willing to stay with the exploration. David Bohm emphasised this willingness to stick with the process. 

Jackie led us in a quiet sit for about five minutes then asked if anything had come up to be looked at. Did we get pulled into thought or did we remain free of thought? One person brought up the topic of taking things personally that are not meant to be taken so. “Do we take ourselves seriously when we need not do so, and can that issue be looked into?” Another introduced an observation that the mind creates images of the self, which might be explored as well. Does the mind have any choice about the matter? Is one caught up in the self-image or can there be freedom? Does the image I have about myself create conflict? Can this be seen and some freedom be experienced? Can we go into such questions together, as Krishnamurti said, and can we discover something new about ourselves? 

The question of hurt was raised. Is it possible to go beyond any need for others to treat us in a certain way? This involved “shoulds” and introduced the issue of dropping our expectations of how others should behave towards us. Or are our reactions to others automatic defences? And what are we defending? Is it “the me” that is responsible? What is “the me” or the “self”? Can there be a death of “the me”? Can something other than”the me” come into the situation, and how might this come about? Can this happen when there is real listening and observing? This was what K kept saying. One participant asked why this cannot happen. Can we not see the patterns of the self operating in our day-to-day lives? Are we genuinely interested? Somehow we keep getting pulled away from the place of attention. We may think we are listening, but we may not be and may, rather, be thinking. Can we be together in a state of attention? “Something to find out” was a closing comment from one friend. 

 

DB