The Urgency of Change Dialogue Group
Sunday, May 10, 2020
Online Meeting

Although we were potentially in competition with Mother’s Day activities, the majority of group members showed up for our afternoon online meeting. Nine of us were present for the two and a half hour session which focused on material in the first chapter of the Krishnamurti book The Urgency of Change. The first half of the chapter had been explored during the previous meeting, stimulating extensive discussion and therefore slow movement through the text. Resuming the reading of the chapter quickly provoked numerous observations that had arisen for participants in their own reading and self-inquiry process concerning the nature of perception, awareness, naming, the psychological “me”, insight, and thought. Also worthy of noticing was the process of the dialogue itself and how each one of us was interacting with the movement of thought and attention as we shared our ideas and understandings. There was appreciation on the part of some that we could come together in this way and talk about issues that are seldom looked into or investigated in any depth. At the same time there was the experience for others of impatience and frustration with the sense that the discussion was overly conceptual or caught in revolving thought patterns. It seems sometimes to be challenging for most of us to suspend our sharings in the centre of the group and look at them together without moving to conclusions or fixed viewpoints. Our communication can therefore be accompanied by a thought-generated energy which prevents resting as awareness or Being. The difficulty in staying in touch with the capacity to “simply be” at the same time that we communicate with each other can then create a sense of incompleteness or lack of wholeness. This in turn can feel frustrating. It’s worth noting that David Bohm mentioned this phenomenon in his writings on dialogue. Frustration and conflict are, he says, a natural part of the process and should not be avoided. The group should continue to move through the obstacles, looking at how we might be contributing to the limitations being experienced, and exploring how a greater presence and attentiveness might be possible. There can be great learning in staying with “what is”.

Krishnamurti Study Session
Sunday, April 26, 2020

This was the second online meeting of the K Study Group. Nine people participated in the two-hour session, logging in from as far away as Dubai and across Canada. This group has been using The Book of Life: Daily Meditations with Krishnamurti as a stimulus for inquiry into the nature of our own consciousness and the possibility of freedom from the limitations of the egoic self. The text for study this week was the February 12 selection entitled “The Screen of Belief”, wherein K discusses belief as a way of escaping from the fact of what we are.
We began with a guided meditation on being aware of our thoughts, images, feelings, and sensations. We read through the selection, had a short period of silence, then participants were invited to share what had impressed them about the reading. There were many deep and penetrating observations about the passage along with questions about more personal issues causing confusion and lack of clarity for participants. The conversation spontaneously flowed into investigating some of the points in the chapter before tackling the personal issues shared. There was a focus on the central significance of noticing, or being choicelessly aware of, whatever arises in consciousness and the power of such awareness. It was acknowledged by most at the end of the session that, although not by any means all of the personal issues had been addressed, there was a sense that, through the inquiry, an energetic shift had taken place which produced a greater ease, peacefulness, lightness, and joy as well as a quality of attention which was more sensitive and aware of the wholeness of Being.

The Urgency of Change Dialogue Group
Sunday, April 12, 2020

This was the second meeting of this group and the first one conducted online. The expected number of participants did not materialize but nine of us logged in for the two and a half hour session. The group is focusing on the study of J. Krishnamurti’s book The Urgency of Change as a platform for studying ourselves and the activity of self-inquiry. This meeting we explored the first chapter of the book entitled “Awareness”, wherein, in discussion with Alain Naude, K lays out some of the fundamentals of his teaching.
As there were a number of new members, the meeting began with brief introductions. After the sharings, it was pointed out that the act of listening itself, almost regardless of the content, was a kind of meditation which could invoke a different quality of awareness. David then led a guided meditation inviting full attention and presence and asking us to notice if thought was creating a division between an observer and what is being observed. The question was asked, “What happens when the division is noticed? Again, is there a different quality of attention or awareness?”
We then began to read the chapter a paragraph at a time, pausing to allow for comments, questions, observations, and insights to be shared in the group. The participants were fully engaged in the dialogue and generated a sense of shared meaning as we explored the questions and responses that arose. The interest in the inquiry was such that we covered less than half the chapter’s contents and will continue with the remainder of the first chapter next meeting. Participants expressed appreciation for the opportunity to come together in this way and to share the exploration of Krishnamurti’s pointers and our own discoveries.

Krishnamurti Study Session
Sunday, March 29, 2020
At KECC

Although all events at the Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada have been cancelled until further notice due to the corona virus pandemic, there has been some thought about offering events online via Zoom. With the intention of learning how to use the Zoom application, five of the regular attendees of the K Study sessions decided to hold a trial meeting. If we could get logged in to the online site successfully then we might conduct a meeting as much as possible as if we were gathered physically at the Centre. This was in fact what happened. We were all able to get logged in to the meeting and then to read and discuss the February 10 entry in The Book of Life: Daily Meditations with Krishnamurti, entitled “Agitated by Belief”. In this selection, K talks about the falseness of religion based on belief and the necessity for us to understand our relationship with our neighbour, our society, and our wife and children. This is not to be done through withdrawal but requires “the understanding of love”.
We discussed ways in which we might tend to withdraw and what we felt was meant by the understanding of love. It became a rich and interesting dialogue, with everyone actively participating and contributing questions, perspectives, and insights. We all felt that it was a worthwhile introduction to a new way of meeting and sharing and made some plans to schedule another meeting for the first Sunday of April, which would be the normal meeting time for the group.