Exploring Awareness
Sunday, March 8, 2020
At KECC

This Sunday morning session was attended by five people. It opened with a guided meditation led by David and inviting a full presence and awareness of whatever is present in the moment. Awareness without naming or creating a division between the observer and the observed was explored, bringing about a deeper silence in the mind. There was some interesting discussion of the experience afterward.
The first meditation had a flavour of Krishnamurti’s way of approaching awareness and self observation. We then listened to a second guided meditation by Adyashanti exploring the nature of the self. He pointed in several ways to the fact that when we look for a self we cannot find it and that what we are is not a thing and is indescribable. Participants found the guidance very much to the point and useful.

Krishnamurti Study Session
Sunday, March 1, 2020
At KECC

For the March 1 study session there were four in attendance. The text for study was The Book of Life: Daily Meditations with Krishnamurti. In David’s absence Laurie facilitated the group and sent in the following report.
“We read and discussed the February 7 entry, “When there is Love, Self is Not” and February 8, “Understanding What Is”.
We discussed what K meant by love, reality, truth, what is, and the many ways that the self is built through beliefs, knowledge, experiences, memory, etc. We questioned what it would be to have no belief and nowhere to escape or land, psychologically. Discussion also arose around why there is a self and its uses and function. Would this self be different in another time period or culture?
“There was a rich conversation around the freedom and relaxing that happens when we stay with what is, the fact of any moment without description or moving away from what’s here now. We dug into the meaning of acceptance. We also compared mankind to the ant colony metaphorically and relatively. And we had a discussion around the ways that we try to defend and protect ourselves and the result. We had a meditation before and after and discussed meditation.
“It was a rich study session.”

The January 24th UVic Stillness Within “Waking Up” meet up was well attended by nine people.

The topic – waking up – was very provocative we looked at what it means (e.g. spiritual awakening, enlightenment, self-realization, liberation and many other definitions).   There was a fulsome discussion of how that happens for people, different spiritual teachers’ experiences, research that’s been done about what peoples’ common subjective experiences appear to be, and we also enjoyed some practical meditative exercises.

The content we looked at included written and recorded work from Salvador Poe, Daryl Bailey, Ella May and Krishnamurti.   There was some discussion about the challenge of looking at awakening as something that happens, an event or an experience, when many who have had some kind of enduring revelation seem to indicate that it isn’t an actual change in one’s state, but rather a change in perception or awareness.

For example, Daryl Bailey has asked the question:

“Is an awakening something that happens as a result of having done lots of hard work on ourselves? No, it’s a recognition that we are an expression of something bigger… something we don’t understand with our mind.”

Ella May describes her own seeing as follows:

” In truth nothing has changed, ever. Although it appears that the inner environment has changed, there is no longer an illusion of a thinker or a doer or a have-er. There is just a mind, with thoughts, a body with sensations, awareness and feelings…. These words are words and are pointing to something so free and beautiful it cannot be known, I do not know it…. There is nothing more free than what is, which is simply this.“

We looked at our own paths of seeking, of insight and the falling away of what we thought it meant to be fulfilled. It’s hard to describe what was bubbling quietly within all the words and concepts that were exchanged at the gathering, but it was beautiful – to me, it felt like the face of a more innocent and precious ‘seeing’ was also peering out amidst the diverse thoughts and ideas in the room.

It occurred to me after the event to look in Krishnamurti’s Notebook, as it captures many glimpses into the small moments that speak of a quiet yet profound beauty beyond the sense of self. Krishnamurti was somehow able break through the barrier of words to beautifully express his own sense of awe and love of existence:

Walking in the rain he noted:

“Everything was being washed clean, the past and the present, there was no time, no future. Every step was timeless, and thought, a thing of time, stopped; it could not go further or go back, it had no existence. And every drop of that furious rain was the river, the sea and the un-melting snow. There was total, complete emptiness and in it were creation, love and death, not separate. You had to watch your step, the busses passed almost touching you.”

We’ll be looking more closely at Krishnamurti’s Notebook at the February meetup so come out and join us on February 26^th (see the KECC calendar for details).

Thanks to KECC for hosting this meetup and for all those who came and shared their experiences.

Krishnamurti Study Session
Sunday, January 19, 2020
At KECC

There were three of us in attendance for this Sunday morning meeting to study The Book of Life: Daily Meditations with Krishnamurti. Our selection was the February 3 entry entitled “Can the Crude Mind Become Sensitive?” It was suggested by David at the beginning that this entry expressed a very significant aspect of Krishnamurti’s approach to self-observation and transformation. He clearly points out in this passage that observing oneself without any attempt to become something different actually transforms what is. Any trying to become the ideal is only a creation of a different egoic self and not a transformation. Being fully present with, and aware of, what we are is what brings about real change. The small group explored these pointers in some depth, including questioning what he really means when he speaks of “crudity” and “stupidity” in this context. The words took on a meaning other than the conventional understanding one might have of those terms. The inquiry was well enjoyed and went on long past the official end time for the session.

Exploring Awareness
Sunday, January 5, 2020
At KECC

Nine of us were present for this Sunday afternoon session at the Gatehouse. The meeting began with a short description of some aspects of Krishnamurti’s teachings which then led into a meditation guided by David inviting an experience of what K calls “choiceless awareness.” The guidance alternated with spaces of silence in which the participants could integrate the experience provoked by the words. After the half-hour meditation there was time for sharing of the experience, and this turned out to be a rich interaction and group discussion.
At what seemed like an appropriate time Ralph played a recording of a guided meditation by Ram Dass. The twenty minute meditation was similar in many ways to the previous meditation with some variations. Again there was sharing afterwards, which became quite spirited and energetic. It seemed that the visitors thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon.