We began by asking about sorrow and its relationship to love and suffering. Some wondered if life was intrinsically flavoured with suffering or if these were perhaps not intrinsically linked. A differentiation was made between suffering (as unnecessary) and pain (which is inevitable). K’s notion of psychological suffering versus other types was explored. It was […]
We began by discussing the various aspects that reinforce the illusion of our apparent continuation of self in relation to “choiceless awareness”. A question arose about human will and “determination” in regard to the freedom to do or not do something. We explored through personal experience how this creates a resistance or a tension, which […]
Today’s dialogue was well-attended (with 13 participants) and included both regular and new participants. After introductions around the circle, the dialogue began with the Nov 9 quote from Krishnamurti’s Book of Life. The quotation surrounded the question of what might one do if one learned one had but an hour of life left to live. […]
The discussion began with how we encounter dissolution in various forms. An example was given about the feeling of losing one’s mind or memory and how this triggers fear and resistance. This led to exploring how this can also occur with the inability to sleep, which can be seen as avoiding facing the reality of […]
One of the participants, recalling what had been said at the last dialogue meeting at the Swanwick Centre, brought up the question as to what it might mean to embody the emptiness or nothingness that K considers of such central importance in human transformation and wholeness. This topic was instantly embraced by the group, and […]
We began by reading the entry in The Book of Life for July 26, entitled “Follow the Movement of Suffering”. This text had been excerpted from Chapter 7: On Suffering, in the Questions and Answers section of The First and Last Freedom, pp. 168-171. The longer excerpt referred to the case of someone suffering because […]
The facilitator was asked to make an introduction about K and the teachings, as there were two new people, a young couple, in attendance. This brief introduction was much appreciated. The facilitator then explained that normally such meetings would begin with a reading of one of the daily K quotes from The Book of Life, […]
We began by wondering whether there is a fundamental question that serves as a core issue in our lives. One participant offered that the most fundamental question concerned the meaning of life; another wondered why there is so much cruelty and sorrow in life; a third said that for her it was asking what she […]
We meandered about for a while until we somehow came up with the subject of nostalgia which, according to its etymology, from Greek nostos ‘return home’ + algos ‘pain’, which was used to translate the German Heimweh, means acute homesickness. (I am afraid I may have confused this meaning by translating nostos as ‘old’, meaning […]
The conversation began with a consideration of K’s notion of consciousness as the repository of the universal history of humanity. This modulated into a general consideration of the attempt by humanity to cultivate a set of values as a way to transform itself. One of the participants, who seemed to be something of a religious […]