An Uncommon Collaboration: David Bohm and J. Krishnamurti

An Uncommon Collaboration: David Bohm and J. Krishnamurti
September 21 – 23, 2018
Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada

David Edmund Moody, Ph.D., is the author of An Uncommon Collaboration: David Bohm and J. Krishnamurti. He is the former director of Oak Grove School, founded by Krishnamurti in Ojai, California, where he worked closely for more than a decade with both Bohm and Krishnamurti. His experiences there are described in his previous book, The Unconditioned Mind: J. Krishnamurti and the Oak Grove School. Moody took his doctoral degree in education from UCLA (1991), where his research focused upon the role of insight in overcoming student misconceptions in the sciences. He is a co-author of Mapping Biology Knowledge (Kluwer, 2000), and he is the author of numerous articles in popular and professional journals on topics in science and education. He is currently working on a new book containing transcripts and analysis of several conversations he conducted with Bohm. The tentative title is Philosophy, Science, and Religion: Dialogues with David Bohm.
This was David Moody’s first retreat at KECC. It opened with a presentation on Friday evening introducing himself, the topic of the weekend, and a video to be watched. The video featured Krishnamurti, Bohm, and Narayan in dialogue at Brockwood Park in 1980 considering the subject of “Senility and the Brain Cells.” K asks if it is possible to see clearly that the mind is caught in a pattern of time and the danger of such habit. Otherwise senility is inevitable. What is needed is direct perception, which is immediate action.
On Saturday morning the fifteen participants all introduced themselves. Dr. Moody commented on the quality of presence in the group members and the extent of their first-hand experience of Krishnamurti and David Bohm. Dr. Moody then gave a power-point presentation on the material in his new book, outlining key aspects of the relationship between K and Bohm. Group dialogue filled the time until we viewed a second dialogue at Brockwood on the topic of “Cosmic Order.” It was explored whether there may be an order that is not man-made, a cosmic order which man cannot conceive. K pointed to the necessity of facing the fact of “emptiness” without moving away from it, which means no movement of thought. Can the mind untangle itself from time and “be the universe”? This is order and meditation.
Sunday was largely spent on looking at aspects of Krishnamurti’s teachings which seem to be contradictory or especially challenging for people to understand. Perhaps more inquiry is needed into these issues in order to clarify them further and increase the possibility of the teachings having the hoped-for effect of a radical transformation of human consciousness. Issues explored were “no effort” vs. the “arduousness” of self exploration, “choiceless awareness” vs. apparent judgements made by K about others, what is meant by “meditation”, the ideas that “thought can be aware of itself”, “the observer is the observed”, and that “psychological time” can be ended.
It was a stimulating and interesting weekend. Dr. Moody’s humble approach to the questions posed was much appreciated and there was a sense as the weekend drew to a close that we would be holding the unresolved issues as subjects for ongoing inquiry. Perhaps this holding of the important questions is a most meaningful response.