A New Heart and Mind, October 16, 2021

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A New Heart and Mind: Compassion and Indifference

With Cynthia Overweg online

Saturday, October 16, 2021

 

Cynthia joined us from Ojai for another session in the New Heart and Mind series. Nine people were present for the event. The title is taken from the Krishnamurti quote which says that in order to meet the present crisis in the world we must have a new heart and mind. Cynthia will be presenting one more session each month until the end of the year. This presentation was entitled “Compassion and Indifference.” The format was to begin with a talk, including slides with quotes from Krishnamurti’s works along with pictures of beautiful nature scenes. As usual, there were meditative pauses with music in order to notice our breathing patterns and to bring attention to our bodies and minds and their functioning in the moment. After a little more than an hour’s talk, with some audience involvement, there was time for further questions from the participants, with responses from Cynthia and group members. Thus the issues raised in the talk were explored further as a group.

Cynthia jumped in from the start with some crucial questions and concepts to guide the flow of events. She asked how we will remake the world as we move into the future given the changes that are upon us currently. Will we reshape it with compassion or with indifference? And what are these two things? The dictionary meaning of compassion is “to suffer with”. Being totally with sorrow, Krishnamurti has said, awakens compassion for all life forms. This may mean realizing that the other is me and I am the other, with all its implications. Also, do we have compassion for ourselves and our own journeys through loss and grief, or do we harden ourselves against the suffering of life and, thereby, become indifferent?

She asked us what we have noticed in ourselves in relation to compassion and indifference. Do we feel love and gratitude for the privilege of living and learning? On the other hand, are we ill-prepared for the privilege of living? Self-understanding is the foundation of compassion and love and therefore we must look carefully at ourselves and be totally with what arises in us as we move through life. “A mutation must take place in the very seed of thought itself,” Krishnamurti maintained. There must be a flowering of compassion, without which the sacred can never be found. Elie Wiesel was quoted by Cynthia to say that “the opposite to life is not death, it is indifference.” Then she asked why we ignore the consequences of indifference. Are we aware of our relationship with the earth? Do we feel compassion for the earth?

K said that “It is only love that brings our redemption.” The most important thing is that we see ourselves and our lives with clarity, which happens in a quiet mind. Our “seeing’ must bring understanding and the dissolving of the egoic self that creates conflict and blocks love. What is necessary is an inward revolution which is the awakening of love and compassion. This is also freedom.

This was another excellent installment in The New Heart and Mind series of presentations. Many significant questions were raised for us to explore further in our own time and clues from K’s teachings were liberally offered.