Being In Awareness – June 24th Stillness Within Gathering

A lovely Saturday afternoon welcomed 8 of us to Swanwick Centre for a series of group exercises or experiments in sensing and falling into awareness in deeper ways.  The group who came together had walked many paths but all shared a passion for discovery, sharing and deepening into stillness or presence (we all gravitate to different language it seems).

Lincoln Stoller provided a guided meditation on subtle awareness of internal ‘movements’ or senses and external perceptions.  For me this led to a sense of settling in to an ‘sense-continuum’ where that which was sensing could not be distinguished from the objects being noted.

The group watched a snip of an interview with Mooji, where he covered a number of themes…   One key point was that the wholeness of Being does not seem to have the job of teaching anything – it simply is.  This truth is the only thing that is here, pointing to uncreated space, prior to any movement at all.  There was lots of laughing in the video as the Jetz-TV interviewer himself (Reinhold) seemed to take delight in Mooji’s sparkling way of expressing (the dancing blue light surrounding him may have added a sense of magic as well).

Other activities of the afternoon included a Pure Conscious Experience talk and solo practice on the grounds surrounded by nature (the focus was on open-hearted pure sensual seeing without judgement or thought).

Perhaps Krishnamurti was also pointing to something similar when he said:  “When the mind is creatively empty – not when it is positively directing – there is reality. ” Ojai, California | 2nd Public Talk 21st May, 1944

We closed off the afternoon with a Lester Levinson inspired collective awareness circle.  Another non-mind based experiment, it brought us together in a lovely space of supportive openness.

It was a joy filled afternoon with wonderful people!

Thanks to Krishnamurti Centre for hosting us once again.

 

Skype with Darryl Bailey

DEFINITIONS SIMPLY DO NOT APPLY!

Review of the Skype session with Darryl Bailey – Sunday June 25, 2017

On behalf of Robert Keegan, this post is an attempt to define the happening that we call a Skype session with a so-called nondual teacher/speaker labelled Darryl Bailey.

The session started with Darryl guiding the participants through an exploration of the “happening of this moment”. We were invited to explore ‘all’ of the apparent movements as they are presented including all the normal, apparent, body/mind functions of seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and touch as well as thoughts and sensations. It was suggested that we suspend our normal tendency to “label” these sensations because none of these labels apply to ‘what is’ apparently happening.

He then went on at length about his experiences with Robert Adams and other apparent “awakened ones”, like Ramana Maharshi, Huang Po, UG Krishnamurti and finally Jiddu Krishnamurti.

Here are some comments and feedback from some of the participants…

Brigitte: It was a dream come true to finally “meet” him. Darryl’s session last Sunday has affected me profoundly. Since then I’ve been camping with my daughter and her two small boys at Rathtrevor Beach. The key words that Darryl’s message contained…expression, happening, eventing and movement…really helped to inform my awareness and appreciation of my grandsons as they moved spontaneously in every direction.

Instead of wanting to monitor or control their movement I spent more time observing and enjoying them. I kept thinking of the “tomato plant” and relating it to their behaviour. Consequently a lot of my anxiety has been alleviated….not only regarding my grandsons but for life in general. For this I am truly grateful!

Erik: Refreshing “story line”

Shannon: Darryl offered the group an honest view into his calm beingness. But of course, it wasn’t HIS beingness and even the word beingness doesn’t come close to capturing what we truly are.

For me, it had been a week of mind noise in the throes of a stranger than strange work world. What cut right through the din was the field of non-formed words that Darryl didn’t say but guided us toward, in his unique way. There was an alive sense of falling within whatever spark created all this… bubbling up in the space I sometimes call me. The group were truly touched by this unique opportunity – thanks so much for the K. Centre support which enabled this to come together.

Laurie: Darryl talked at length about how we do not direct anything that is occurring in our life. The only thing existing is an indefinable happening in nature. We don’t create our physical and mental abilities, needs, interests, urges, actions. This raises the question of freedom and free will. I asked Darryl how it applies to K’s teachings about choiceless awareness and the first and last freedom. Darryl studied K and had recurring contact with K for a number of years.

He said K was stating that “choiceless awareness” is just the seeing of the moving, shifting liveliness that is this moment. It is the first and last freedom. There is the only freedom.

I had always interpreted K’s teaching as something complicated I needed to understand in order to see, but the dialogue with Darryl and the group shifted that. Darryl pointed out that the mind always wants to understand but all that is required is “to simply acknowledge the life experience you already have in this moment”. This acknowledgment is not about coming to another idea or description. It’s not about a focus on new and complicated thoughts. It’s a simple acknowledgment of something we already know. Life expresses itself clearly; it simply happens on its own. There’s nothing else to get.

And finally, a few retrospective words from Darryl…

I enjoyed yesterday’s session as well. I’m happy it was of some practical use to you.

I’m including some of my favourite Krishnamurti quotes that relate to what I was expressing.

“The ebb and flow of the tide is like human action and reaction. … we are the ebb and flow of life … the outward and the inward. We try to establish a relationship with the outward, thinking that the inward is something separate … But the movement of the outer is the flow of the inner. They are both the same, like the waters of the sea, this constant restless movement of the outer and the inner.
Outer and inner are one movement, not separate, but whole. One may perhaps accept this as a concept, but when one focuses on concepts one never learns … To feel this movement … this ebb and flow … is to learn.”
[from Krishnamurti To Himself Ojai California Wednesday 28th March 1984]

“… you begin quietly and gently to feel a movement that is not of time … what is meant is a movement that has no beginning or end. A movement in the sense of a wave: wave upon wave, starting from nowhere and with no beach to crash upon. It is an endless wave.”
[Krishnamurti To Himself Ojai California Friday 11th March, 1983]

“When we look at this life of action the growing tree, the bird on the wing, the flowing river, the movement of the clouds, of lightning, of machines, the action of the waves upon the shore then you see that life itself is action, endless action that has no beginning and no end. It is something that is everlastingly in movement, and it is the universe, God, bliss, reality. But we [conceptually] reduce the vast action of life to our own petty little action in life, and ask what we should do …”
[Krishnamurti, Bombay 1958]

“Life is always in a state of arising. In this arising, there is no continuity, nothing that can be identified as permanent. Life is constant movement … action. Each moment of this action has never been before and will never be again.”
[from The Mirror of Relationship, Ojai, 7th Talk in the Oak Grove 17th May,1936]

“Perfection is not an end, an absolute, fixed point … there is a continual movement, a continual flow of reality. Perfection is the action, the continual flow … not an absolute objective to which you are progressing …”
[Rio de Janeiro 4th Public Talk 10th May, 1935]

Take care,
Darryl

Krishnamurti Study Group

 

Krishnamurti Study Group

Saturday, June 17, 2017

 

This session we looked into Chapter # 10 in the Q & A section of The First and Last Freedom. The chapter was entitled “On War”. We first explored why such a topic might be relevant to our daily lives even though we are not actually engaged in activities of war, in the external sense at least. We began to look at the conflicts in our lives, in our relationships, and at the “inner wars that we might be fighting. Our reading of the section was interspersed with very engaged dialogue which, as it often does, went into the issue of believing ourselves to be separate individuals who then have to protect and defend ourselves psychologically. There was plenty to inquire into and the reading of the chapter was only concluded at the very end of the meeting. It was a creative and interesting exploration. Four people were in attendance.

 

 

 

The Awakening of Consciousness – Eckhart Tolle talk

The June Stillness Within Meetup….

Brought 12 people together to enjoy a recorded talk by Eckhart Tolle which drew out many themes that resonated with the group. The Denver talk explored the many ways that stillness invites us in – both in the small day to day joys but also in the more challenging expressions of life. Some of us have experienced the gradual reduction in thought that he described and more importantly, a shrinking identification as our thoughts.

Krishnamurti points out one of the gifts that freedom from thought can bring: 
“To understand the immeasurable, the mind must be extraordinarily quiet, still.”
Eckhart points out that as we become more attuned to ourselves not as individual waves but as the entire ocean, we may begin to feel a flow from the wholeness of all that exists. When we are more identified as wholeness, we also may begin to recognize an essential beingness and beauty in others. Connection with others can be discovered or experienced as an expression of wholeness… And as Eckhart describes, we may begin to sense the universe discovering itself through our own awakening consciousness. Such a fun viewpoint – that one is being breathed by life, and lived by the universe!

 

April Eckhart Tolle Event

Stillness Within meetup in April featured a recorded talk “The Awakening Experience – Before and After”.  The talk described Tolle’s understanding of the nature of experience.  The talk focused on the unfolding of deeper consciousness and in his words “the liberation that comes when we transcend the limitations of a solely conceptual identity”.  We had some interesting discussion afterward and a group awareness exercise.  With a few new members joining in, it made for a wonderful Saturday afternoon in the gatehouse.

In Freedom from the Known, Krishnamurti points to the dropping away of identity and concepts in a very beautiful way:

“When you look at the stars there is you who are looking at the stars in the sky; the sky is flooded with brilliant stars, there is cool air, and there is you, the observer, the experiencer, the thinker, you with your aching heart, you, the centre, creating space. You will never understand about the space between yourself and the stars, yourself and your wife or husband, or friend, because you have never looked without the image, and that is why you do not know what beauty is or what love is. You talk about it, you write about it, but you have never known it except perhaps at rare intervals of total self-abandonment. So long as there is a centre creating space around itself there is neither love nor beauty. When there is no centre and no circumference then there is love. And when you love you are beauty.”

I love this expression – or love loves itself!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Krishnamurti Study Group at the Centre

Krishnamurti Study Group

Saturday, June 3, 2017

 

Five people were in attendance for the study session. We looked into the second half of Q & A chapter 9,  ‘On Relationship”. According to K, the real value of relationship is in revealing ourselves to ourselves. If we are seeking comfort and gratification in our relationships we will not wish to look at the disturbing things that arise but which are a source of real learning. He speaks of the significance of a truly loving relationship, which actually goes beyond duality and into “communion with the highest”. As a group we explored our experience in relationship in the light of K’s pointings and entered a creative sharing and investigation of related issues. It felt like a very worthwhile dialogue.

Inquiry Sunday at the Centre

Inquiry Sunday

June 4, 2017

Our morning session began with a video featuring Fred Davis and entitled “Truth, Dream, and the Teaching”. He began by relating that most seekers tell him that they understand the idea “Oneness” intellectually but are not actually experiencing it. He said that in this realm everything is backwards from the way we think it is. The truth is that we are experiencing oneness but are just not understanding it intellectually. He went on from there to discuss some of the implications of his statement. The seven people attending our session then explored what was said, some finding it challenging to accept or comprehend what was being pointed to. It turned out to be a very alive and insightful dialogue for many of the group and certainly brought awareness to the process of questioning and remaining open to new ways of seeing.

The afternoon session involved choosing questions asked of Krishnamurti at various talks and listening to his responses, then exploring them in group dialogue. Three people stayed for the afternoon. We first looked at K’s response to a question about fear and the urge to escape from it rather than staying with the fear. K emphasized the importance of being fully with “what is” without trying to change it. A second question was about the correct approach to right livelihood in the world today. As he often does, K gave a wide view of what is necessary in our lives in addressing the psychological conflicts so prevalent in the world and in ourselves. There was plenty to look into further and the small group actively engaged in such inquiry.

 

Saturday Dialogue with Harshad

Saturday Dialogue with Harshad

May 27, 2017

 

Four people participated in a Saturday afternoon dialogue with Harshad, our visitor from India. In guiding us into an exploration of Krishnamurti’s teachings, Harshad used material from Commentaries on Living, Series 1. The chapter was entitled “Awareness” and featured a man’s sharing with K his conflict in the area of sexual desire. K’s response covered the topic of desire in a wide and inclusive manner and asked the man to examine himself deeply. Our discussion of the material led us into questioning the nature of the “I” and its activities in our lives. The dialogue, as had the previous one with the same four participants, moved naturally into a looking and listening to ourselves and each other which generated a sense of effortless but deep investigation.

Sunday Event at the Centre

Dialogue Session at the Centre

Sunday, May 28, 2017

 

Harshad hosted another group dialogue on a warm and sunny day in Metchosin. We were able to sit on the grass in front of the main house as we had on Saturday. Four people attended, two of whom had not been participants in the previous dialogues with Harshad this year. The text studied was from The Flight of the Eagle by J. Krishnamurti, Chapter 8: “The Transcendental”. K describes the nature of the (ego) self in accurate detail and how the attitude of seeking the “beyond” can strengthen the self rather than dissolving it. He questions the traditional concepts of self discipline and effort to achieve a higher state and asks us to be aware of our motivations.  The material stimulated some exploration and discussion into a number of issues, including the place of the head and the heart in the quest for wholeness. The need to see for ourselves how the mind and heart are functioning in us was emphasized.

We have very much enjoyed Harshad’s presence at the Centre over the past five weeks and, as always, have appreciated his straightforward and clear approach to the subject of self-knowledge.

 

 

Victoria Day Dialogue at the Centre

Three of us joined Harshad, a long-time associate and student of Krishnamurti, as well as a teacher in his schools, who is visiting the Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada for some weeks, for a dialogue on a beautiful warm day. We sat under the apple trees behind the Guest Cottage and enjoyed an engaging interaction which was focused around Harshad’s reading of a chapter from Commentaries on Living by J. Krishnamurti. The chapter was entitled “Suffering” and it went deeply into a questioner’s experience of losing his wife and the intense suffering he was enduring as a result. Krishnamurti explored with him the nature of love and attachment. The reading was a launching pad for a group investigation of how we tend to move away from uncomfortable and painful feelings and towards more pleasurable ones. We looked at this issue and related questions in some depth. We all appreciated having Harshad present as a guest and his sharing of his vision of what is essential and central in K’s teachings and our self exploration.

 

Krishnamurti Study Group

 

Krishnamurti Study Group

Saturday, May 20, 2017

 

Four participants gathered on the lawn at the Centre in Metchosin on a lovely sunny day to study Chapter 9 in the Q & A section of J. Krishnamurti’s book The First and Last Freedom. This selection was entitled “On Relationship”. The potential for true communion between people in relationship was spelled out by K along with the fact that such communion is often not the case. One of the main factors in the lack of communion is the seeking of gratification through relationship. If we are seeking our own pleasure and gratification, we will be fearful about our desires not being fulfilled and will in effect be using each other rather than relating in a loving way. The group discussion included looking at being aware of thoughts and feelings which create a sense of separateness and the challenges of being so aware. Is it “difficult” to be aware of the movements of thought and feeling, or can it be an effortless quality of attention which becomes quite natural? The inquiry was interesting and perhaps insightful for the participants.