Meditative Self-Inquiry with Mukesh Gupta

Saturday and Sunday, March 13 and 14, 2021

Zoom online

 

This was the second in a series of four presentations by Mukesh on meditative self-inquiry. The weekend events feature a talk on the Saturday followed by a dialogue on Sunday further exploring the material covered in the Saturday session. This weekend the focus was on “the awakening of intelligence”. Each of the Saturday and Sunday events were attended by 16 people, all included.

Mukesh began the meeting with a short meditation inviting participants to be fully attentive to all that is arising in their awareness. He then asked the question “Do we live in an intelligent manner?” Our human history is one of almost constant war and our way of thinking creates division and therefore conflict. Human thought does not operate with intelligence. According to Krishnamurti, the mind must be silent for intelligence to function. There must be a listening, a watchfulness, which brings in an energy that can discover what is false and what is true, that is an energy of love and not of the self. It is an openness which sees the nature of the observer, which is available to all, and which is already present. We only have to listen to it and observe without interference from the past. This energy of seeing and listening is not conditioned; it is a learning about ourselves. If we are not watching and listening, the very noticing of that fact is awakening intelligence. Thought has a place, but we must see the danger of unexamined images and beliefs. This seeing is available to us without cultivation. Lack of awareness (ignorance) is the cause of suffering but the studying of ignorance brings freedom, love, and compassion.

After a forty-five minute presentation the meeting was opened to questions from the participants to which Mukesh responded in his usual skillful way. Some suggested reading material, mostly on the subject of the awakening of intelligence, was distributed for contemplation prior to the Sunday meeting,

The Sunday gathering began with quiet meditation experimenting with awareness. The group was then split into four smaller units, which allowed for some intimate discussion of the nature of intelligence. Finally, we shared again in the full group format. Appreciation was expressed for the opportunity to inquire into Krishnamurti’s teachings within a group context, which provides a useful mirror for seeing ourselves.

Living the Non-dual Understanding

Online Retreat with Burt Harding

February 26 – 28, 2021

 

Burt Harding from Vancouver has become an annual presenter at the Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada in recent years. On this occasion, his three-day retreat was entitled “Living the Non-Dual Understanding” and was attended by 16 people, including Burt, his assistant Suzy and two KECC staff. Each session was ninety minutes in length and included a talk by Burt as well as time for questions from the participants and responses from Burt. Suzy was very helpful in encouraging Burt to expand upon his ideas and in asking relevant and useful questions about the material.

Burt began on Friday by sharing an “out-of-body” experience he had in 2007, when he felt a total of fear and a powerful presence of love. He added a couple of additional profound happenings that provided deep insights. He then spoke in more detail of the reality of who or what we really are – awareness – and of the need to examine and face the illusions of thought that tell us we are separate beings who are destined to die. Suffering is the result of believing we are separate entities and the resulting fear of our emptiness and impermanence. Fear is not wrong, he said, but is, on the contrary, a teacher pointing to love, our essential nature.

On the second day, Burt spoke of “the four unknown facts of reality” about which he wrote a book some time ago.

1/ Our true nature is an unbounded, perfect energy that contains all the wisdom of the ages. It came to Burt to call it “Emptiness”, but it is the opposite of a void.

2/ For humans our greatest fear is of emptiness, but when we go into it the fear dissolves and the apparent emptiness turns into love.

3/ All problems are healed by forgiveness. Forgiving ourselves and others brings us ever closer to our true nature as love.

4/ A key is to trust the “I Am” or Beingness and not to believe our thoughts which tell us there is something wrong or lacking. Discomfort arises when we identify with the personality. We can see it’s causes, say “Thank you” to it, and it will release.

 

Burt went into further aspects of the four facts on Saturday and then delved further into the subject of forgiveness on Sunday, when he spoke of the practicalities of forgiving ourselves and others and the need to do so with all the little judgements that arise in our daily lives. He related his points to some quotes by Krishnamurti about love and the quiet mind. Participants were able to ask questions and make comments when a desire arose to grasp Burt’s sometimes challenging ideas fully. It seemed that most were very satisfied with the retreat experience and grateful for the opportunity to engage in such a learning process.

Truth is a Pathless Land: Exploring the Core of J. Krishnamurti’s Teachings

With Mukesh Gupta online

January 21 – 24, 2021

 

This series of four online events was designed to examine carefully the essential elements of Krishnamurti’s teachings as he described them himself in a short written document requested by his biographer Mary Lutyens and entitled “The Core of the Teaching”. It was first published in 1983. The text is included in a small booklet which includes “Truth is a Pathless Land”, the speech given by Krishnamurti on the occasion of his dissolving of the Order of the Star on August 3, 1929. Twenty-two people were present for the first presentation with Mukesh Gupta, a number that remained almost exactly constant throughout the four sessions. Mukesh joined us online from Varanasi, India, presented the text to the group, and went through it with accompanying commentary based on his own deep study of K’s teachings. The format for the four meetings was very similar, beginning with about a fifty-minute talk with screen sharing of the text and spontaneous exposition of the material. The talk was then followed by a question and answer period of about forty minutes. Some of the questions addressed in the first talk and Q & A were the following:

– What is Truth? Why is there no path to it? K denies the tradition of a path. Truth is neither a thing nor an object.

– The human being must understand himself, the contents of his mind, which he can discover in the mirror of relationship.

– Observing the contents of the mind is different than thinking about them, labelling, judging, evaluating, and making an effort to change the contents. Observing is simply watching from a silent mind without an observer.

– The causes of our problems are the images created by thought which divide man from man. Images are an attempt to find a security which does not exist.

– The search for security only causes insecurity. Attachment to images creates division and conflict. This fact must be observed and the danger of it clearly seen, then a letting go can happen. Direct seeing is the key.

A variety of issues and questions related to the opening points shared by Mukesh – and to further ideas presented in each session – were presented and explored over the course of the four sessions. The talks were clear and insightful and the participants’ questions were penetrating and significant in eliciting many important and central aspects of the teachings. There was a sense of practicality in the questions and responses, with an intention to grapple with K’s teachings in a meaningful way. The sessions came to a focus on the last day when Mukesh presented a quote that he felt contains the whole of the teachings: “Total negation is the essence of the positive”. He explored the statement with the participants in some depth and emphasized that “passion” is necessary in the inquiry into the nature of ourselves. His closing words were to the effect that it is important to be simple in our exploration and not to get caught in words and concepts or in measuring ourselves and our progress.

We are grateful for Mukesh’s dedication and skill in creating this retreat and in making Krishnamurti’s teachings more available and understandable. We look forward to further presentations he will be giving in the year ahead.

“A New Beginning”

Sunday, January 10, 2021

Online with Mukesh Gupta

 

This free presentation by Mukesh Gupta from Varanasi, India, was a one-hour introduction to an online retreat that will be offered January 21 to 24. The retreat will be entitled “Truth is a Pathless Land: Exploring the Core of J. Krishnamurti’s Teachings” and will focus on the study of a short document Krishnamurti wrote in his final years outlining the essence of his message. In his opening address Mukesh spoke of the meaning of self-inquiry, beginning with Socrates’ famous saying: “an unexamined life is not worth living.” Self-inquiry involves the asking of deep questions about life and being open to insights that may arise in a quiet mind that is interested in looking and listening to oneself and others. This inquiry is not a self-centred activity but, when carried out in the context of relationship, requires a deep sense of togetherness and affection along with a curiosity and wonder about ourselves and our lives. It is an investigation of significant questions such as “Who am I?”, “What is this I?”, “Is there something truly sacred?”, “What is the authentic, non-mechanical way of living?”, and “Can there be an awareness that is non-reactive and a source of love and peace?” We are invited to stay with the questions rather than rushing toward an answer. This involves noticing and “letting go” of what is non-essential moment to moment, including “the observer.” It is a kind of psychological dying, a being “nothing”.

The second half of the session was an opportunity for questions and further elaboration of what was presented in the opening talk. It was pointed out that being fully with “what Is” can open one to the intelligence of the heart and a way of living that is of meaning and value. The presentation was clearly and beautifully expressed by Mukesh, and we anticipate that the coming retreat will delve even more profoundly into these issues.

Self Study Meeting

Sunday, December 20, 2020

Zoom online

 

Fifteen people were in attendance for this online meeting on a Sunday morning. As has been the case for the past year, we focused on J. Krishnamurti’s teachings as found in The Book of Life: Daily Meditations with Krishnamurti. In this case the readings for study and discussion were the December 8 – 21 selections, which dealt mainly with the meaning of true religion and the approach to God. Krishnamurti asks some fundamental questions about the nature of belief and conceptual understanding versus the more authentic state of not knowing what God and love are. When we can honestly admit that we do not know the answers to fundamental questions about life, he says, we are in a state of humility in which real learning and discovery can take place. True religion is going beyond the “known”.

The participants entered into a keen exploration of the ideas presented by K, raising quite a number of deep questions and offering insights found through their own inquiry and meditation. As is often the case with this group, it seemed we could have continued the dialogue almost indefinitely. It was a satisfying session for the last one of the year.