February 6th Krishamurti Book Study

The focus of our early February book study was on the self’s struggle with ‘what is’.  As K. points, the self is always in tension – always trying to escape – looking to become more ‘this’ or ‘that’ – generally moving away from ‘what is’.  We came to the conclusion that in our continued self-inquiry, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that the self is non-existent.  When one looks, and sees that there is nothing there, Hints of this emptiness can be glimpsed and sometimes the initial response can be fear or desire for escape or avoidance – the cause of all addiction and suffering.  Awareness is here in each moment – a void, emptiness. Self emerges from that – trying to establish solidness, something to grasp onto…. It needs this to feel secure and safe.  Our schools and other institutions reinforce this… proposing that ‘knowledge is power’.  Yet K.’s work, and his specific pointing is to the freedom that underlies all that we think we know… ‘freedom from the known’.  Our reading resulted in discussion about the habitual effort we go to, almost instinctually – always trying to become, and always moving away from ‘what is’.  We can try to create joy – looking to heal, advance or overcome – when in fact, true happiness is what emerges from instants when all efforting has fallen away.  This is the place of creativity, peace and fulfillment.  K. points out… If we can face the void, looking it right in the eye, rather than moving away or covering it up…. this acceptance of ‘what is’ is also the end of suffering. ​Posted on behalf of Bill Brown  

January Eckhart Tolle video – Belfast Talk

January’s Eckhart Tolle video get-together showed a talk given by Eckhart in Belfast, Ireland. The talk explored the process of awakening of consciousness, from early egoic formation through to life after the realisation of our essential nature.  The seven of us who attended found it to be an interesting and contemplative talk which emphasised (like Krishnamurti) the value of self inquiry as a path to discovering our underlying true nature.   Eckhart pointed towards the cultivation of inner awareness which one can begin to experience as boundless and self-less.  Over time, through the awakening process, many may begin to notice the falling away or unravelling of many fictional egoic identities of self… leaving behind a simple sense of limitless being and freedom. Thanks to KECC for hosting us!  

Weekend Retreat

  Awareness In Daily Life January 22 – 24, 2016    This weekend retreat was designed to invite as much as possible a concrete experience of living as non-dual awareness. It was facilitated by Lynne Walker and David Bruneau, both of whom have been working at the Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada for some years and exploring the challenges of living with awareness and self-knowledge. A good deal of silent looking and listening was the foundation of the retreat, whether sitting quietly, walking in the beautiful environment, eating meals, and even talking. There were five guided meditations leading us into the contemplation of the qualities (or lack of them) of pure awareness and Beingness and six silent meditation periods as well as longer silent periods over the weekend. There were a good number of handouts for contemplation taken from The Book of Life by Krishnamurti and pertinent to the focus of the weekend. The eight participants watched three videos of Toni Packer speaking about looking, listening and meditative inquiry, a video of J. Krishnamurti speaking in Ojai entitled “Watching the Activity of Thought”, and selections from a Mooji satsang which deal very directly with the issue of “keeping” the sense of our true nature that we have experienced during a focused retreat.  Mooji challenges us to “leave everything” for a moment and realize that which is beyond thought. This complimented a quote from Krishnamurti that “meditation is not only constant self awareness but also the abandonment of self”.     Participants reported a wealth of insights and meaningful experiences over the weekend and an appreciation of the opportunity to spend time in a  meditative space where real looking and being was possible. It is intended that more of this type of direct looking and inquiry be included in the programs at the Centre.

Krishnamurti Study Group

Krishnamurti Study Group Saturday, January 16, 2016   A small group of three were present for this session. We were reading from chapter 10 in The First and Last Freedom by J. Krishnamurti entitled “Fear”. The participants were regular inquirers who immediately jumped into the topic at some depth. We looked closely at how thought tends to move away from what is happening in the moment and to objectify ourselves and our experience by creating images. Underneath the movement of thought in the psychological sense is a fear of emptiness or ego dissolution. We explored various aspects of this in our current experience and entered into a sense of discovery, insight, and awareness of the dimension of “being”. A very interesting and fruitful meeting.

Victoria Event

Victoria Event Sunday, January 10, 2016 The monthly meeting at the Church of Truth was attended by nine people. We began with a short video of Krishnamurti speaking on love from the Evelyn Blau series Beyond Myth and Tradition. He asked a number of questions about love, inquiring if love is pleasure or desire, and what the difference is between pleasure and enjoyment. The group read a handout from Freedom from the Known and had a discussion about the contents of what had been heard and read. We spent some time exploring the power of attentive listening and being fully present as a doorway into a state of non-duality and love.     After a tea break we watched ten minute video clips of Eckhart Tolle and Scott Kiloby speaking on relationship and the fallacy of expecting another to make us happy. Eckhart was humorous as well as profound and Scott brought up some very interesting points about loving all of our experience rather than just the positive feelings. Again, the participants engaged in some lively communication and the feeling generated in the room was one of peace and unity.

Krishnamurti Study Group

  Krishnamurti Study Group Saturday, January 2, 2016 Four of us, all very regular participants in these K study sessions, met to continue exploring chapter ten in The First and Last Freedom. The reading of the text quickly stimulated some dialogue about the subject of fear in relation to Krishnamurti’s words equating fear with the desire to live in a particular pattern. Some interesting questions arose about the issue and in looking into them we entered a shared state of consciousness where there was freedom from the projections of thought and a falling away of all problems and conflict. It was agreed that the quality of presence and attention in the group inquiry  had enabled a shift into a stillness and silence of mind in which pure being beyond thought was the predominant experience.  

Inquiry Sunday

  Inquiry Sunday January 3, 2016 The morning session was a showing of an interview with Peter Dziuban, author of Consciousness is All, conducted by Chris Hebard of Stillness Speaks. Chris does an excellent job of drawing out his interview subjects in ways that highlight their teachings in a clear manner.  The talk with Peter, as previous ones with Rupert Spira and Scott Kiloby, had the quality of an experiential exploration or meditation which was alive in the moment and more than an merely intellectual conversation. Peter went into the nature of awareness from the perspective of awareness itself, which he says is the only true perspective. Thought’s perspective creates a world of relativity which is not actually true. The pointing out of the limitations of the relative point of view and the truth of the “absolute” perspective beyond duality has the potential to shift the attention into a clearer seeing of things as they are.  There were only three of us at the meeting but we engaged in dialogue in the time remaining after the video. In the afternoon the same three participants watched a couple of short videos on Krishnamurti speaking on the subject of Love. We then read through a handout of selections from the book Freedom from the Known, again on the topic of love. He speaks of love as being both personal and impersonal, and explores such issues as attachment, the difference between pleasure joy, passion without a motive, and the transcending of the self. We continued with an interesting discussion following the video, encompassing a number of issues and questions. Altogether, it was an interesting day of inquiry enjoyed by all.

New Beginnings Non-Duality Weekend

The New Beginnings Non-Duality Weekend was timely for many who attended.  After the festive season gatherings, hosting, visiting, eating and shopping, the event was a welcome chance to unplug and restore.   There were 28 people in total who attended over the two days, from three different Meetup groups (New Beginnings Non-Duality group; the Stillness Within group and the Victoria Spiritual Inquiry and UVic group).  A number of teachers were profiled as part of the program, including Francis Lucille, Eckhart Tolle, Jim Newman, Lisa Cairns, Rupert Spira and Mooji.   Also, J. Krishnamuriti’s work was highlighted during the weekend, through the sharing of K. Quotes, as well as a K. reading/inquiry discussion.  This informative session, facilitated by David Bruneau, lead to some very engaging exploration of the nature of effort, fully being with ‘what is’, and the role for ‘self-inquiry’ and group based inquiry.  The weekend drew out common threads in many non-dual teachings.  These include the following key concepts: –   That we are all interconnected expressions of ‘oneness’ (Advaita means ‘not two’) –   That the mind or egoic sense of individuality is essentially an appearance or illusion – as opposed to our true nature –   That life is ‘living’ us rather than the other way around (e.g. We may think we have consciousness but actually everything is occurring within consciousness) –    We are not “thinking” thoughts – rather, they arise and then we witness or ‘claim’ them as our own –    The ego is built of many concepts.  Once we see through these concepts – the power of the egoic self is loosened. This is the basis of “Self-enquiry.” Of course, in the spirit of K.’s message, we are encouraged to examine and reach our own discoveries in relation to these notions. Those attending the weekend also enjoyed a sampling of iRest Yoga practices (an inner body type of awareness yoga); Headless Way awareness experiments; and a live skype session with Jim Newman which left the group with much to ponder (Do we choose? Are we already perfect and complete?  Can the end of suffering be as simple as seeing ‘we are this’, a grand infinite happening?). A panel based discussion of the non-dual experience resulted in the exploration of attendees’ perspectives on volition/influence, the soul, choice and the possibility of a non-local experience of self/existence. Rupert Spira and Eckhart Tolle recorded talks punctuated the weekend with informative sharing on presence, allowing, and the source of our beingness. Thanks to co-facilitators, Robert Keegan and Passia Pandora and also to volunteer presenters Jim Newman and Rosalind Taylor.  Thanks also to Ralph Tiller for coordination of overnight guests, and to the Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada for the generous use of the facility and for making available Krishnamurti’s written and recorded material.    

Krishnamurti Study Group

  Krishnamurti Study Group Saturday, December 19, 2015 We continued with the study of Krishnamurti’s The First and Last Freedom at the centre in Metchosin. We began in the middle of chapter ten, on the topic of fear, and immediately entered a deep sharing of what it has meant to us to go beyond self or have the self dissolve. The fear that can be involved in relation to such a happening was looked at and explored. The discussion was quite direct and relevant to each one’s interest. Four participants were in attendance for the session. We will continue with chapter ten in the next meeting.

Rupert Spira Weekend Retreat

This was a weekend based on a retreat in Amsterdam last spring. We showed five videos which included guided meditations and talks by Rupert as well as his responses to questions posed by the Amsterdam retreat participants.  We had our own group discussions and time for quiet contemplation and walks in nature. The wild, windy weather made the outdoors more dramatic than usual. Between seven and eleven people were in attendance for the various sessions over the weekend. Rupert explores the nature of awareness as our fundamental identity and points to the direct non-objective experiencing of that awareness. He suggests the most helpful question we can ask ourselves in this connection is “Am I aware?” Being aware that we are aware is the “highest meditation”. He explores this in detail and goes into the implications of such an awareness in a way that always invites us to come back to our present moment actual experiencing. On Sunday we showed an interview between Krishnamurti and Bernard Levin for the BBC. It is a lively and challenging interaction between the two.      Those attending found the presentations very clear and powerful, which led to some interesting and animated dialogue within the group. The material invited us all to look at ourselves and life in a way which challenges and reveals false assumptions we may have be carrying due to conditioning and the prevalent world view or consentual reality. Rupert’s pointings were felt to be radical and effective for the participants and the retreat was considered to be very enjoyable and significant.