Self-inquiry
Sunday, November 19, 2023
With Jackie McInley
At KECC Metchosin location

This Sunday afternoon meeting was attended by ten people, most of
whom were familiar participants in dialogue meetings sponsored by the
Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada. There was quite an intricate
sharing and weaving of thoughts, perceptions, questions, and challenges
to our assumptions and subtle concepts or activities of the mind.
Jackie began the session by asking the group “Do we have the energy to
inquire?” The question took us back to some recent meetings where we
had questioned the level of intensity we were bringing to the inquiry. We
then continued to probe into the subject of self-observation or
self-looking and the possibility of realising some significant degree of
freedom within the process. It was asked what was generating our
“energy” within a group, with care to notice how the concept of energy
was being used. We examined for some time the question “What are we
– or what am I – alert to in the dialogue conversation? It was suggested
that the most important factor in shaping the experience was the arising
of the “me” idea which tends to creep into our thinking regularly as we
talk and express ourselves. Are we alert to the “me” as it enters the
conversation and thought identifies with it and with the images that form
the idea of “me”? And do we see that the me is always looking for
security and stability in its movements. It was questioned if thought and
its movements are reliable or not given that thought is so often seeking
security in its activities. It seemed that we touched on some fairly
profound discoveries concerning the nature of the self. There was a
sense that the meeting had been both interesting and worthwhile in
terms of inquiry and self-exploration.

DB

Self-inquiry with Jackie McInley

Wednesday, November 15, 2023

At Esquimalt Gorge Park Pavilion

Victoria, BC

 

Twelve people in total were present for this Wednesday afternoon meeting sponsored by the Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada and held at the beautiful new pavilion in Esquimalt Gorge Park. The idea of hosting the meetings in Victoria is to make them more accessible for people living in town than having to drive out to the Centre in Metchosin.

As is usually the case, we began with about five minutes of silence followed by a brief talk by Jackie introducing the subject of “dialogue” to those not familiar. Somewhat surprisingly, she pointed out that we were not here to learn something or to become something (more free, loving, clear, etc.) The intention of dialogue in Krishnamurti circles is to see what we actually are. What is driving our lives in ways we may not be aware of? Can we see, within the group interactions, what is actually going on within us, within our thoughts and feelings, in a fresh and revealing way? Can we discover something new about ourselves?

Jackie asked what we would like to look at today and told a story of some happenings that had taken place while she was facilitating a dialogue group online a few days before. The incident had produced some conflict within the group, apparently based on a fear of offending other individuals. It was suggested that a desire for cohesion would inevitably create some conflict and the group spent some time looking at issues arising out of opposing desires for cohesion and individuality. Could the two co-exist? We explored some of the ways thought creates our reality and our world.

During our communication Jackie remarked that there was a lack of intensity in the group which she was experiencing as boring and “incoherent”. She wondered if asking a question about our sense of fear when speaking in front of a group would open up the dialogue and make it more “interesting”. She asked if we all felt fear when in such a situation, which opened up several avenues of inquiry. Themes of connection and disconnection were brought forward and it was suggested that attachment to an identity blocks connection and love. Is it possible to feel our vulnerability and yet not get caught in the full impact of feelings like guilt, for example. Can there be a sense of being stressed without losing the sense of space which surrounds our feelings and thoughts? This seemed like a valuable theme to pursue, but it was time to bring the meeting to a close. Participants were quite animated as they packed up and departed.

DB

Self-inquiry

Wednesday, November 8, 2023

With Jackie McInley

Esquimalt Gorge Park Pavilion

 

Eleven people were present for this Wednesday afternoon dialogue meeting at the lovely Gorge Park pavilion. Jackie McInley was again facilitating the session and, as always, she did an excellent job of keeping the dialogue on track with searching questions and comments. She began by saying that people have always met in groups to talk over problems and have found the format of sitting in a circle to be very conducive to worthwhile communication. In a Krishnamurti dialogue, she pointed out, participants might think the structure was quite different in some ways. We look at problems both individually and as human beings who share many issues and challenges, both physically and psychologically. Beginning with his statement that “the first step is the last step”, we look at our assumptions about what life is. Our individual awareness shapes how we experience the world, but we might not be aware that our thoughts are creating a reality. Our inquiry is to discover ourselves and the universal nature where we are all the same. We may get a sense of our particular responses to each other and also of how our responses are conditioned by our society and upbringing.

Jackie asked if people would be interested in sharing what they understood from Krishnamurti’s teachings, which stimulated some interesting feedback. Some of it seemed overly complicated and there was a request to keep our ideas more simple to follow.

Another group member asked what was the most important question for us, and it was suggested that the issue of separation was the core problem for humans. This led to a rather intense interaction exploring separation and why it is a problem. The focus on trying to meet our needs was looked into and a question was raised concerning how we are creating separation NOW in this very moment. It was asked if we have the intensity to really be with the question. Could we go beneath the current level of our state of consciousness and be with a deeper feeling or experience. One participant offered that, for him, it was fear that was underneath but we may be afraid to look. Jackie agreed that we are often afraid to look at the fear but that may not necessarily always be the case. Further inquiry is needed into the matter.

DB

Self-inquiry with Jackie McInley

Wednesday, November 1, 2023

Esquimalt Gorge Park

Victoria, BC

 

We were again fortunate enough to have Jackie with us to guide us through the sometimes complicated and challenging process of self-inquiry or “dialogue” intended to shed light on the fundamental spiritual question “Who am I?” Jackie started the session by asking the thirteen participants (all included) if any of them were carrying a question which they would very much like to explore in the group context. Her question stimulated further questions and comments that seemed (to the writer) fairly complex and not at all easy to comprehend. The writer perhaps failed to make enough intelligible notes to form a basis for a meaningful report of what went on in the meeting. He did his best.

Towards the end of the meeting the author remarked that it seemed very important in such a dialogue for participants to be “vulnerable” and open in their expression of what their experience was when they looked at the thoughts and feelings that were arising within themselves. Would we be willing to expose our concepts and ideas in a way that could clear assumptions and beliefs from the mind and dissolve them, leaving a non-conceptual state of “being” rather than intellectual and conceptual “truths” which were asserting some kind of knowledge?

There was some discussion of what it means to “touch the unknown”, sometimes mentioned by Krishnamurti. One person asserted that what is required is complete silence of the mind. Jackie regularly reminded us that the most subtle concepts are still concepts and are providing more content to consciousness rather than moving into a space beyond content which might be called “emptiness”. We all agreed that these things can be very challenging to talk about and to explore in a way that produces freedom rather than a more subtle expression of thought, which is always limited. (Even this very attempt to describe the process of the inquiry seems limited).

An attempt was made to suggest that the essence of self-inquiry is to be aware moment to moment of whatever arises in the thoughts, feelings, and sensations, including all evaluations of what arises and all assertions or rejections of what is being experienced. The “seeing” is the insight that is itself the transformation which is bringing about the necessary change in us that Krishnamurti is passionately wishing for.

DB

Self-inquiry

October 25, 2023

With Jackie McIinley

Esquimalt Gorge Park Pavilion

 

We are very pleased to have Jackie back with us from the UK for another series of meetings sponsored by the Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada. As before, Jackie will facilitate events at the Swanwick Road location in Metchosin as well as at the Esquimalt Gorge Pavilion at 1070 Tillicum Road in Victoria. Thirteen people in total were present for her return meeting on a Wednesday afternoon from 4:30 – 6:00 pm, an attendance the size of which was very satisfying. The participants quickly entered into the spirit of the dialogue and were attentive to Jackie’s introduction wherein she spoke about the differences in people who had attended her sessions in many locations around the world as well as the similarities at a deeper level of their experience. She outlined the phenomenon of “conditioning”, which is a central aspect of J. Krishnamurti’s perspective on the human being and involves the ways we have been taught to think and to behave in our particular society and in the world in its larger context. Krishnamurti’s teachings suggest we understand ourselves and our conditioning by carefully observing ourselves in our relationship with the world we live in. This may bring about an experience of freedom that is not normally accessible to us.

Jackie asked the participants if they would be willing to share what it was that drew them to such a meeting. In response, group members provided a variety of motives for their interest in such a gathering:

– seeking some depth in their lives

– wanting to explore the question “Who (or what) am I truly?”

– Desiring to be seen by others and to share such seeing

– Observing one’s life

– Attraction to what they see as Krishnamurti’s compassion

– going on the “soul’s journey”

– learning to silence the mind and to let intelligence emerge

– wanting to look “under the hood” to see what may be hidden there

waiting to be discovered. There may be revelations in store.

– There may be a deeper, non-verbal sharing going on that is of great

value

– desiring to see through the “mask” of oneself

– For the writer, there seemed to be a value in being vulnerable to each other and exposing our “deeper” persons (or beyond our persons).

– Jackie pointed out that dialogue is an opportunity to notice things we normally do not notice in ourselves in our regular lives.

– Other questions arose:

– Can we touch the sense of Presence, which is our true identity and is available in silence?

– Who is the weaver of our stories and who sees through the weaver?

– The mind comes up with many answers to the questions of life, seeking certainty. Is it possible to live without certainty, without quick answers?

– Is entering the Unknown an activity of something other than thought?

– What feels threatened by the unknown, by not knowing?

– Can everything be open to questioning?

 

It was decided that it might be interesting to stay with the last questions until the next meeting.

 

DB