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.

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.

Creating More Space in a Fast Paced World

UVic Spiritual Awakening Meetup – February 22, 2018

Three of us made our way through the snow to enjoy a bit of meditation and discussion.  The topic was a great starting point leading to a rich sharing of different journeys that also seemed to converge.  While the group studied practices like Zen Buddhism, Course in Miracles, Vipassana and Transcendental Meditation, we all found ways to live from spaciousness ‘beyond the cushion’ in our day to day life. 

A recently discovered Krishnamurti quote points to the immense value of our inner openness:  “It is only when the totality of the mind is still, that the creative, the nameless, comes into being.”    

Some of ways this spaciousness seems to have propelled us along the way were shared, such as:

• Cultivating openness and ‘allowing’ (being guided rather that directing life’s flow) and creating from this flow. 
• Holding a stance of ‘hospitality’ or openness in the face of whatever is arising – for example, welcoming and even creating a sanctuary for agitated mental activity (or ‘the brain’) – allowing discomfort, and noticing how it naturally expresses and unfurls. 
•  We also talked about wonder – seeing through unfiltered eyes when looking at the world around us.  This looking without labeling can allow us to notice the small exquisite details in the expression of life all around us.  And at times, we may even see our own character antics from that same place – viewing  immature ‘acting out’ as poignant and even cherishing it – like a small child.

 Thanks to KECC for supporting this gathering!

The Stillness Within February Meetup explored shared experiences with loss – and possible links to personal and spiritual deepening. There were four of us who enjoyed a recently released Eckhart Tolle recorded talk on sudden change – of a job, a relationship, personal status or other forms (often leading to a sense of self diminishment).  Eckhart showed that for many of us, the egoic sense of self can be resistant to any change which challenges its sense of identity. When we experience a major loss however, it can offer an opportunity to question the concepts we have about ourselves and also our attachments to them.

The group discussed experiences with sudden job changes, shaken sense of security and even lost dreams or expectations. Some of the strategies that people found helped them were – being with others or seeing with new perspective of a friend, surrender/prayer, allowing time for healing/recalibration and finding ways to be of service to others… And if not yet able to love the new conditions, it may be possible to begin to accept the perceived loss (i.e. to be ‘ok with what is’, including feelings of not being OK with what is!)

Eckhart emphasised the inherent impermanence of our life circumstances, the people and situations that pass through – he suggested that deeply attuning to that impermanence can support a sense of ease with change, and a growing awareness of that which is unchanging, the source of inner beingness – emphasizing that this underlying spaciousness cannot be diminished by external change.

Krishnamurti also has explored impermanence, using somewhat different language but nudging us towards a similar discovery:

“So there is nothing whatsoever permanent…. To realise that may be very depressing, melancholic, but it’s not. When you see the fact that there is nothing enduring, that very seeing is intelligence. And in that intelligence there is complete security. There is not your intelligence or my intelligence, it is intelligence…. that intelligence, not being yours or another’s, it is the intelligence of something infinite.” J. Krishnamurti, Third Public Talk in Colombo, Sri Lanka, November 1980

Thanks to the group for wonderful contributions to this inquiry… And thanks to KECC for hosting us this month.

Inquiry Sunday at KECC
February 4, 2018

For the morning session the gathering of five people viewed a recent talk by Paul Hedderman. Paul is a bit of a rough diamond, but he puts across his points in an very original and effective way, often with humour as well as wisdom. One of the main insights he shares pertains to what he calls “selfing”. The human mind tends to create a fictional person or entity, which is actually not there, and then proceeds to act and relate as that fictional entity without questioning its nature. Such a way of living produces much conflict and suffering. The basic issue is the claiming of personal ownership and doership in regards to actions that are just happening as a movement of life itself. There is, Paul says, no self but only the activity he calls selfing, which gives the impression of a self acting. It is very much what many of the teachers say, expressed with its own unique flavour. Everyone found the presentation enjoyable and valuable and were planning to attend his upcoming presentations in Victoria some time in early April. The video was followed by some group discussion and further exploration of the perspectives offered by Hedderman.
The afternoon session included some shorter video clips featuring three different teachers. First we looked at J. Krishnamurti responding to a questions from his audience at a talk in Ojai, California. He discussed the nature of insight and intuition, pointing to a vital and alive clear seeing of the movement of life and thought. Intuition should be questioned as it may be a subtle or hidden desire for things to be a certain way. Interest then led us to look at a sample of Byron Katie’s way of working with an individual who felt that her partner should understand her better. Katie’s inquiry can be very effective in exposing assumptions and beliefs that are causing conflict instead of harmony. We then watched two clips of Scott Kiloby introducing his Living Inquiry method for working with addictions and compulsions and giving a short talk about the power of being fully present with our emotional experiences without moving away or escaping. Scott has a clear and compassionate manner of presenting very helpful pointers. This writer was struck by the great similarity between what Scott was promoting and what Krishnamurti often recommended in relation to the same issue. We discussed whatever was most significant and relevant to us in each video.