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.    

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.

For the November Stillness Within meetup gathering, there were 9 of us who enjoyed this final talk from Eckhart Tolle’s 2014 Australian retreat.  The talk explored the tendency for life to be in constant change and strategies for meeting particularly challenging times head on.  These can be potential opportunity for deeper states of awakening. Many of us, upon returning from similar retreats, find our days shifting quickly away from ‘being’ in stillness, to a lot more ‘doing’ and thinking (another type of doing).  The challenge, Eckhart notes, is not to lose that deeper rooted dimension of being as we move through our work and home lives.  This can be even more challenging when we’re faced with difficulties.  Eckhart noted that many of us are prone to a subtle resistance to challenge.  This is based on an underlying belief that there shouldn’t be problems.  He quoted the Road Less Traveled noting that “life is difficult” and that if you know that it’s difficult, and are accepting of that, it’s the end of suffering.  Of course, I wasn’t the only one in the group reminded of Krishnamurti’s openly shared secret – that he doesn’t mind what happens. Later in this talk, Eckhart emphasized that in his experience, everything is connected to the totality – an emergence of ‘what is’.  Eckhart talked about his own journey into greater and greater inner being, noting that there appears to be a direct link between one’s depth of beingness and our impact on the world around us.  We each contain the totality, a microcosm of the infinite…. Eckhart suggests that Humans, like a ray of sunlight emerging from the sun, can begin to remember our historic origin, and then also, find the experience of ‘self’ fading out, coming to know self only as one consciousness, a direct and eternal emanation of source (some use the term God).  When humans are aware of this inseparability from source, we can also begin to create in many new ways (Eckhart used the term ‘lucid living’), beginning to discover the dreamlike nature of existence, and finding a new dream and even a ‘new earth’ being birthed through us. 

  Krishnamurti Study Group Saturday, November 21, 2015     This week we looked into Chapter 10 of Krishnamurti’s book The First and Last Freedom entitled “Fear”.  K begins by pointing out that fear is never of the unknown but is actually of losing the known.  This was enough to stimulate two and a half hours of group inquiry into the nature of fear and the self in the absence of which there is no fear.  There were five people present and we were all very engaged in the exploration of fear and its transcendence in our own experience.  There was an energy of great interest and excitement with the ideas being shared, even to the point where the group was asked to slow down and be more meditative and in the present moment in the inquiry.  This was seen to be a relevant request and the quality of the investigation was enhanced.  It was very enjoyable and significant to share in such a manner.

Krishnamurti Study Group Saturday, November 7, 2015     A couple of interested people met on a Saturday afternoon to explore Chapter 9 in the text The First and Last Freedom by J. Krishnamurti.  The chapter is entitled “What is the Self?”  It was felt that this chapter required a subtle understanding and invited an in depth looking and listening to oneself.  K asks if it is possible for the self to be completely absent and then goes about exploring what the requirements might be for such a dissolution of self.  If we can see the whole working of the self, he maintains, we shall know what love is, for love is where the self is not.  The text material gave rise to some excellent exploration which was felt to be insightful and valuable.