Krishnamurti Study Session, April 7, 2018

Krishnamurti Study Session
Saturday, April 7, 2018

The chapter for study in this meeting was Q & A # 27, “On Naming.” Before looking into the chapter in the Krishnamurti book The First and Last Freedom, the three participants had a spontaneous conversation about the self, the idea of doership, and awareness. K’s frequent saying that “the observer is the observed” was looked at and investigated from a few different perspectives. It was an engaging exploration and it took us some time to turn to the text. In the chapter, K speaks of the limitation involved in naming and categorizing our experiences. When we name, we do not look carefully or directly at our emotions or whatever is arising. He points out that there is usually a centre from which we observe and challenges us to find out what that “core” actually is. The material stimulated further group inquiry and we felt it had been a fruitful session. We will start our next meeting half way through the chapter.

Victoria Krishnamurti Event, Friday April 6, 2018

Krishnamurti Victoria Event
Church of Truth
Friday, April 6, 2018

The subject of this month’s meeting was “Awareness”. Three people were present at the Church of Truth to watch a video from the “Beyond Myth and Tradition” series by Evelyn Blau featuring selections from J. Krishnamurti’s talks and interviews. The episode was entitled “Choiceless Awareness.” In various contexts K spoke of the importance of being aware of our thoughts, feelings, sensations, and motivations without evaluation or judgment, simply observing ‘what is’ rather than attempting to change it. He went into the nature of awareness and what it means to be completely attentive.

After the half-hour video we entered into a verbal and energetic sharing of insights and questions about awareness and what it actually is in our own experience. What is K pointing to, and how is it real and true for us? What are the challenges to being aware in the way described? What is the difference between the word and the thing, or no-thing? We had a delightful and satisfying dialogue, experiencing a sense of something beyond any thought and analysis. Participants read and took home a handout from the Krishnamurti book, Freedom from the Known.

Inquiry Sunday at the Centre, April 1, 2018

Inquiry Sunday
KECC
April 1, 2018

Our morning session featured a video of Shakti Catarina Maggi speaking at the most recent Science and Nonduality Conference in San Francisco on the topic of embodiment. A student of Rupert Spira, Catarina integrates awareness as our true nature with being intimately present with our every experience. Her suggestions for dealing with problems and issues are usually to bring awareness to our experience and to feel it fully without analysis or dissociation. What happens if we are with and in our experience in this way? The experience itself is not a problem and can be enjoyed as the living movement of aliveness itself. The six participants engaged in some exploration of the emphasis given by the talk, sharing perceptions and appreciations of the insights offered.

In the afternoon we enjoyed a presentation by Paul Hedderman, a “spiritual teacher” from northern California who has come through the process of recovery from several addictions, been involved with the AA and NA organizations, and also studied and integrated the spiritual teachings of Ramana Maharshi and others. His main emphasis is to shed light on the mistaken assumptions we make about who we are and, by seeing clearly who or what we are not, to come to the knowing of what we truly are. We see what we are not from what we are, and the seeing itself is the truth of ourselves. Paul has a unique delivery which is both wise and humorous, profound and entertaining. There was a large turnout of thirty five people for the appearance of a man obviously well respected and appreciated. Some of us noted a basic similarity to the teachings of J. Krishnamurti, who’s booklets were available for the guests to take with them. It was a lively and meaningful meeting and a very enjoyable day. It looks like Paul will return to give a weekend retreat in the future.

Paul Hedderman – Travelling Lighter (April 1st 2018 Inquiry Sunday event)

Paul’s first visit to Victoria was warmly received by a very full room at the K centre. Of course his message was clear and direct, asking us to entertain the possibility that we are not our bodies or the sense of self that has been with many of us since early childhood, and that we also aren’t the ideas we have about ourselves – the projections into the future, or the recollections of the past.

What I loved, besides Paul’s absolute earnest and unabashed gritty sharing, is that he was able to break it down a bit further into a framework that seems obvious and immediate… within the field of experience right now. One of the key concepts he covered is the notion of ‘selfing’, what he describes as a verb – mimicking something defined/solid and absolute… Those in recovery circles know that the disease of addiction is closely related to chronic self-centredness…. Everything is perceived as to how it pertains to me. ‘Selfing’ is a misdirection of attention, intended to preserve the ego, the stories, and emphasising a sense of separateness.

Paul suggested that when people first notice selfing activity, they can make the common assumption that ‘I’ am selfing… I’m doing it. Later, with continued discovering, people can find their view opens to a larger field of possibility (much like an aperture on a camera can open wider). A growing conscious contact with ‘wholeness’ may reveal that “I’m not that”. I’m not this body, the mental activity, or that set of identities I’m wearing – the mother, the hard worker, the spiritual ‘attainer’… and if I’m not those ideas, what’s there? What’s prior to the sensations and coalescing concepts that seems like a self?  The part that is central and continuous to all of the passing perceptions and beliefs is the seeing, the pure seeing – without identification as the ‘see-er’.  At its core, Paul noted that our inner being is prior to all experience and beyond any description.  There were times during the talk that from my own experience, this wholeness/vastness shone through the crowded room, the words and the wind outside.  The exquisite stillness felt amplified in our gathering.

Paul did challenge us to consider that continued searching – for self-improvement, mystical experiences, spiritual attainment, even enlightenment – that these may actually reinforce the sense of a self… because our search is primarily based on the premise of ‘self’ getting something or somewhere. Of course there are many who will tell you otherwise, who offer ‘intensives’, retreats and satsangs. And Paul’s suggestion is that while many of these may be well-intentioned – even relaxing and nourishing to the body (who doesn’t love taking time out to recharge), if the assumption is that ‘you’ will get something, or that you will find a higher state, the effort will be futile and can often serve to strengthen the sense of identification as a self.

Krishnamurti also has commented on the notion of effort-based practices: “Is there a meditation that is not the ego trying to become? Is meditation conscious if every effort implies time?

So what then?

A few years ago, while I was pondering with some anxiety, attendance of a thirty year high school reunion, some of this became clearer. Exploring this resistance, it became obvious that my resistance to going was very closely linked to a core fear of not being good enough, or not being seen as successful. When I looked a bit closer, I noted that all of the judgements that fellow alumni might have had about me had to be based solely on their ideas about who I was: fictions and projections at best. And anything that I would defend – my career status, my marital status, my weight, my looks – every single one of those were also purely concepts and ideas – mere representations of what identities I’ve adopted. I found myself laughing as I drove to work that morning – at the irony of thinking there was anything in my sense of self that wasn’t just an idea or thought. It was an initial opening of the aperture – so clear that there was nothing here to defend, uphold or promote! True being – is boundless and fearless.

Paul described with some modesty a simple sense he is travelling lighter with his seeing through the identification as a self. In part, that’s because there is less suffering if one is no longer identified with the stories and drama linked to being a ‘me’. There was a wonderful space imbued in this talk, and many great conversations in the corridors and coffee shop after the meeting with Paul… even hints of a future visit which I hope comes to fruition.

Weekend Retreat at the Centre

The Silent Mind
A weekend retreat with Burt Harding
March 23 – 25, 2018 at KECC

Burt Harding joined us from Vancouver for the fifth consecutive year to present a weekend retreat, this time called “The Silent Mind,” on the subject of self-realization and learning to live as our true nature. He began on the Friday evening with an introduction to the topic and its central importance for happiness and well-being. He then shared some deeply meaningful experiences from his childhood which shaped his understanding for the rest of his life and ended all fear of death. He emphasized the profound transformative significance of near-death experiences and what they often mean for those who are blessed to have them. Burt guided the 14 attendees in an exploration of full breathing and a meditation on Being and the silent mind. He distributed a handout which quoted Krishnamurti speaking of silence in his own way. “Have you not noticed that your love is silence? … Love has no past or future, and so it is with this extraordinary state of silence.” The evening wound up with a discussion of the importance of trusting in a “higher power” or the “power of Being.”

There were sixteen participants for the Saturday session. After guiding us in some bodily movement with affirmations, Burt invited the group to participate in a number of different meditative exercises, like gazing into a partner’s eyes, following Burt’s guidance into a state of relaxation and total awareness, using awareness for healing and for travel out of the body, and working with fear. There was an extensive discussion of subtle questions regarding how we look at ourselves, who or what we really are, and what is meant by non-duality. The afternoon also included a video introduction to the life and teachings of J. Krishnamurti.
In the evening we began looking into a booklet that Burt had been inspired to write entitled “The Four Unknown Facts of Reality.” The writing explores some of the meaning and significance of Emptiness, which Burt puts at the centre of what is true in life and in ourselves. In group discussion he went into details and fielded questions and perceptions from the participants, always encouraging us to express and value our own understanding and experience. The simplicity and purity of Emptiness rightly understood is the place we can actually rest in Being and happiness.
For the remainder of the weekend there were more guided meditations, further exploration of Emptiness, Silence, Love, and Stillness, and how we let go into these beautiful qualities of Being. The weekend seemed to be a rich experience for all and each took something with them to sustain the art of being in the course of daily life. A big “Thank you” to Burt and all the participants for such a nurturing weekend.

Krishnamurti Study Session March 17, 2018, at the Centre

Krishnamurti Study Session
Saturday, March 17, 2108

The chapter for study this session was Q & A # 26, “On the Old and the New” in The First and Last Freedom by J. Krishnamurti. Three people were present for the meeting. The question posed to K was, “When I listen to you, all seems clear and new. At home, the old, dull restlessness asserts itself. What is wrong with me?” K responds by pointing out that the new is always being absorbed by the old, by the thinker. The challenge is how to free the mind from itself as the thinker, as the reservoir of memory which is the self. “Love is eternally new… it is a state of being.” K further suggests that “when each thought and feeling is thought out, concluded, there is an ending and there is space between that ending and the next thought. In that space there is renewal, the new creativeness takes place.” To be creative in this sense is to be happy.
The participants explored the material in the text in terms of their own understanding and insight, applying K’s pointers to their own life experience and clear seeing.

Returning to Balance – Eckhart Tolle Discussion

The March Stillness Within Meetup got together to enjoy a recently released Eckhart Tolle talk on returning to balance.  The group was comprised of some who were quite familiar with Eckhart Tolle’s material and some who were newer to the teachings.  The talk’s main theme spoke to the challenges and opportunities for finding balance in our modern fast paced lives.  Eckhart (as he often does) pointed to the depths of the present moment as our true home and also as the ultimate source of wisdom and balance.

There were some beautiful moments in this talk – and a gentleness that still seems to reverberate for me while writing.  A wonderful lightness of being shone through Eckhart’s description of the small moments of his day and the profound sense of love he feels in the nuances of being human..

Many of us often find ourselves busily move through our days, trying to make sure we ‘ve accomplished our to do lists at work or home – and at times, thinking about the next task before having finished the current one.  Eckhart reminded us that we can be fully with each activity in our day, seeing it as a quiet discovery of deeper beauty (rather than a means to the next end).  Appreciating the wind moving through the trees outside our window, feeling our feet meet the earth as we walk towards a meeting with our boss…. there are tiny expressions of aliveness at each turn in our day.  And each encounter might just be an opportunity to meet others with a deep appreciation and tenderness.  I felt some of this quiet joy listening to Eckhart describing how the most mundane object such as a coffee mug or a sunbeam can feel like an intimate loving encounter with an almost profound sacredness.

J. Krishnamurti has a very similar message, pointing to a simple way of being with life and the world around us:

K:  …your problem is not only to break away from society, but to come totally to life again, to love and to be simple. Without love, do what you may, you will not know the total action which alone can save man.

Student:  “That is true, sir: we don’t love, we aren’t really simple.”

K:  Why? Because you are concerned with reforms, with duties, with respectability, with becoming something, with breaking through to the other side. In the name of another, you are concerned with yourself; you are caught in your own cockleshell. You think you are the center of this beautiful earth. You never pause to look at a tree, at a flower, at the flowing river; and if by chance you do look, your eyes are filled with the things of the mind, and not with beauty and love.

Student:  “Again, that is true; but what is one to do?”

K:  Look and be simple. 

J. Krishnamurti Commentaries on Living Series III

Being with each moment, each contact, each relationship not in a utilitarian, ‘get to the other side of the road’ mindset, but with openness and simplicity, we may begin to notice that there is an aliveness and an intelligence all around us – and that it is only our ‘self assertion’ or need to become or obtain that has prevented us from the exquisite gifts of this moment – here and now.

 

 

 

The Two Paths Of Discrimination And Love

Today’s theme was Embodied Enlightenment described by RS as the luminous space of Awareness in which our essential nature is not just understood and felt as the witnessing presence of Awareness in the background of all experience, but is known and felt as the light of pure knowing that pervades all experience, that is all experience.

 

In common everyday life, RS said this corresponded to everyone’s experience of love and beauty. When you love someone, the barriers and dualities between you collapse. When you look at something beautiful, the separateness of the subject—object dichotomy evaporates and you are left in the middle of luminous Awareness—peaceful, blissful, calm, collected and joyous.

 

It was a long tape of 43:09 but it gave us all the opportunity to be with our own experience as we listened—no matter what came up. Some felt a bit of irritation, some felt sleepy, some mentally aroused—but we all noticed our own reactions and that noticing gave us power, awareness—power. It was noted that awareness has a pull once you get used to going there and that pull moves us into a space of peace and well-being—both inside and out.  As K would say, this gave us the real opportunity to experience the reality that, the observer is the observed.

 

Some group members shared moments of beauty where their whole inner universe vibrated with energy and time-warped speed, either hiking in nature or deep into meditation practice. Those earth—shattering vibrations were a glimpse into the eternality of Reality.

 

It was mentioned that RS talks a lot about beauty and says that the task of any real artist is to reveal the true nature of reality to any perceiver such that they are moved, touched and inspired.

 

We started the meeting on time with a short session of silence, had a break at the mid—point to taste some lovely refreshments, and ended our session at approximately 4 pm.

Krishnamurti Study Session March 3, 2108 at KECC

Krishnamurti Study Session at KECC
Saturday, March 3, 2018

This meeting focused on Q & A section 25 in The First and Last Freedom by J. Krishnamurti. The chapter is entitled “On Action without Idea” and it opens with a question from the audience at one of K’s talks. “For Truth to come, you advocate action without idea. Is it possible to act at all times without idea, that is, without a purpose in view?” K invites us, instead of attempting to act in accordance with an ideal, to be with what we actually are. “When I recognize I am uncharitable, stupid, what happens when I am aware it is so? Is there not charity, is there not intelligence? …In that very seeing of what is is there not love?”
Krishnamurti acknowledges that this question is not so easily solved and requires going into the problem profoundly, This is what the five participants engaged in as they explored the ideas in the text through group inquiry and sharing of insight. It was a very interesting session.

Exploring Stillness Within Retreat Feb 23-25th

Eckhart Tolle has provided the world with hundreds of talks, pages and pages of writing and lots of animated antics leaving us laughing out loud.  We’ve grown to love his unique expression but also many of his talks have supported us to go deeper and experience less of everything, and more of just this, being in this moment.  The weekend gathering was comprised of a number of informative recorded Eckhart Tolle talks, but with a focus on  guided meditative sessions, Kim Eng’s breath and movement practices for releasing blockages or stilling the physical body, and a few new ways to explore awareness as a group. 

The agenda included some structured sessions balanced against open spaces in the schedule.   People took that time and used it well – for deeper quieting, presence and even some inner ‘un-doing’!  Funny though, I have to say that the thing I will remember most from the event was a magical  moment where we all found ourselves gathering on a break – in one of the guest rooms, sitting everywhere – asking that question:  can there really be ‘no self’?  Just a fullness of everything?  A great mysterious happening?  How is it that Eckhart can describe these propositions without sounding the least bit shocking?

There were many gleanings that attendees highlighted as ‘takeaways’ to extend the sense of still freedom beyond the weekend.

1.       We looked at ways to access stillness more deeply such as noticing the breath, sensing inner aliveness, noting the details of awareness and how it changes, and exploring and deepening the spaces between thoughts.

2.       Finding ways to embrace natural pauses in our day, the car stops, the coffee lineup, arriving home, finishing a meal – taking these pauses a bit further by settling into stillness – and not moving to the next action until truly guided by an inner impulse (rather than compulsive thinking/efforting to get the next thing done).  And seeing what happens if a decision is not consciously made about the next direction… does a direction seem to appear without ‘us’ managing it?

3.       Being with nature and softening our sense of constrained focus to take in the whole system of alive energy… letting ourselves really be with it, loving it and sensing the symphony of existence around us…. Feeling somehow an underlying intelligent current within that system…

4.       Loving what is, not fighting with the circumstances that arise but seeing them as a perfect coalescence of learning opportunities custom made for each of us (rather than poor rotten luck).

5.       The Krishnamurti book: First and Last Freedom was explored during an inquiry session on suffering – and how any resistance, desire to shift or remove it can only serve to strengthen or maintain our anguish.  Rather, K points to using open awareness (or looking) to see what suffering really is, noticing the whole system of thought and belief and through spacious being with it – fully – allowing it to express and possibly change or sometimes, to just dissipate gently out of existence. 

6.       Finally, we heard a bit about Eckhart’s sense of humankind’s unfoldment and evolution, with present moment stillness as the gateway and propulsion system for a new kind of human – a deeper expression of that which we already are. 

 

An exceptional weekend with an exceptional group of people!  Thanks to KECC for hosting this event!