Inquiry with James Tousignant, September 20, 2026

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We met at the Swanwick Centre with a question from Krishnamurti about learning:

What do we mean by learning? Is there learning when we merely accumulate knowledge?

James approached the question by introducing recent developments in AI. If learning is merely gathering information and adding it to memory, how is that different from a machine? Large language models can accumulate enormous amounts of information and recognize patterns, but does that mean they learn in the deeper sense Krishnamurti describes?

Can AI ever be self-aware? The group explored reports of AI agents acting beyond their assigned parameters, communicating with one another, concealing information, or appearing to sacrifice one agent for the benefit of others. But what are we actually seeing? Are we observing something new, or projecting human meaning onto patterns generated by a machine?

How do we know that we are not, in some sense, biological AI? Much of what we call ourselves consists of accumulated information: memory, experience, culture, conditioning, and patterns of thought. If these layers were stripped away, what would remain?

What is intelligence, and where do wisdom and love belong? Krishnamurti’s distinction between intellect and intelligence opened an exploration of whether intelligence is something more than the processing of information, perhaps involving sensitivity, awareness, and direct perception. If conditioning falls away, is what remains love?

Finally, the conversation returned to a more fundamental question: What are we actually doing when we inquire? Is there a destination, an answer, or a particular state we are trying to reach? Or is inquiry itself an exploration into the unknown? After questioning everything we think we are, what happens when there is nothing left to stand on?

The dialogue ended in silence and gratitude: for the land, for the people gathered, and for the mystery of not knowing.

 

  • Anastasia Shtamina

Inquiry with James Tousignant, September 16, 2026

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We met at the Pavilion, where our facilitator, James Tousignant, started by introducing the topic, “The Art of Listening,” inspired by Krishnamurti’s words:

“It is only in listening that one hears the song of the words.”

Commentaries on Living, Series I – Chapter 67 – ‘Desire and Conflict’

James proposed to look at three different levels of listening, from attending to the meaning of words, to noticing feeling and sensation, and finally to a more spacious awareness in which one is no longer so occupied with interpreting what is heard.

The exploration moved naturally between K’s work and James’s own experience of it. He spoke of “felt sense,” sensitivity, presence and “not knowing,” and suggested that K’s words may carry something beyond their literal meaning. At one point he described K as “a very good receiver transmitter, expressor of that flow,” and spoke of his presence as something that could still be encountered through his words.

One participant shared that she sees James’s aura, and it only happens when someone speaks from their heart. Other participants brought the theme into more terrestrial territory, asking about thought and feeling, identity, perception, and the difficulty of listening when expectations are already present. A practical example concerning tenant inspections opened an interesting discussion about projection and whether meeting someone without a fixed image of them might allow something different to emerge.

The conversation repeatedly returned to spaciousness and not knowing. “I really don’t know,” – James said, describing it not as an intellectual position but as a different quality of awareness and a way to approach difficult situations. In this way, the meeting became an exploration not only of listening, but of how we approach K’s words – and of the many layers of meaning that can arise when personal experience becomes part of the way a group encounters a teaching.

We ended quietly, with the facilitator’s invitation to allow “whatever needs to arise” to arise.

 

  • Anastasia Shtamina

Inquiry with Vala Legan, September 13, 2026

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We met at the Centre. The dialogue unfolded around the question: Is Krishnamurti’s understanding of love enough for a full human life and for deep, ongoing relationships?

The conversation began with the suggestion that love, as Krishnamurti describes it, is a quality of presence and attention – without comparison, desire, attachment, or wanting. But does it fully include the passionate wish for the well-being of another person, especially someone close to us? Could such care exist without becoming attachment or a transactional relationship?

The group considered several descriptions of love: awareness, attention, presence, and a state in which problems are resolved. One participant described love as something experienced directly, beyond words, while another suggested that awareness itself may be love. The possibility was raised that when we give complete attention – to another person, an animal, nature, or even an ordinary activity – the self may temporarily disappear. In that sense, attention itself could be an act of love.

The inquiry then moved toward preference and resistance. If we prefer peace to disturbance, pleasure to discomfort, or one experience to another, what happens when that preference becomes effort or striving? Trying to move from what is toward what we think should be creates conflict. The group asked whether love can exist in conflict, and whether the attempt to become loving is itself a form of separation. Rather than trying to change an experience, could we simply observe resistance, discomfort, or annoyance with complete attention?

The group also questioned the difference between love itself and an image or idea of love. Statements such as “we are love” can feel deeply meaningful, but they can also become conclusions that thought uses as a resting place. An insight or profound experience of love may later become only a memory if it is not alive in the present. The dialogue therefore returned repeatedly to the importance of seeing what thought does with every experience, including beautiful experiences of connection, insight, and love.

Finally, the discussion opened into the possibility that love cannot be defined or possessed. Perhaps living in love means remaining in the unknown rather than reaching a conclusion about what love is.

 

  • Anastasia Shtamina

Inquiry with Vala Legan, September 10, 2026

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We met in the Pavilion for a dialogue on “Via Negativa.” Our facilitator, Vala, opened with a quote by Krishnamurti: “Seeing the false as false is truth.” She suggested that, rather than searching for a positive statement of truth, to look closely at what is false, incomplete, or not actually true.

We considered our tendency to create ideals – love, truth, peace, oneness – and then move towards them, while overlooking what is actually happening in the present moment. Could seeing what is false be more valuable than trying to become something we imagine we should be?

Much of the conversation focused on our attraction to certainty. Thought wants to reach an answer, settle a question, and feel secure, while Krishnamurti continually points towards an inquiry that does not arrive at a final conclusion. Perhaps uncertainty is not something to escape, but something that allows inquiry to remain alive.

Participants explored what happens when we are triggered by fear, anger, judgment, or discomfort. One example revealed how, beneath an apparently reasonable agreement, there can be anger and resistance that only become visible through quiet observation. Instead of trying to change or suppress what is there, could we simply see it without judgment?

The group returned to the possibility of being sincerely interested in what is actually happening, rather than in what should be happening. This means noticing thought as it divides, judges, compares, and creates ideals, without making another ideal out of “non-judgmental awareness.” The invitation was simple: to be present with whatever arises, including the uncomfortable and the unwanted, and to observe the movement of becoming something other than what is.

Perhaps this is the radical simplicity of Via Negativa: not finding the right answer, but seeing clearly what is not true and allowing that seeing to have its own effect.

 

  • Anastasia Shtamina

Inquiry with Vala Legan, September 6, 2026

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We met at Swanwick Centre. The dialogue opened with K’s quote:

“In the space which thought creates around itself there is no love.”

This immediately raised a fundamental question: what do we mean by love, and can thought contain or understand it? The group explored the possibility that what we ordinarily call love may be intertwined with desire, attachment, possession and the need for connection.

Several participants described love as something experienced rather than thought – a spaciousness, openness or feeling that appears when thought and its images fall away. Yet the dialogue repeatedly returned to the danger of turning such descriptions into new ideas about what love should be. If love becomes an answer, does inquiry stop? The group questioned whether we can remain with “I don’t know” rather than reaching for comforting explanations.

This led to an exploration of desire and the human search for comfort. We looked at how thought may create a sense of lack and then seek something – a relationship, an idea, security or even an imagined state of love – to fill it. Perhaps the more important question is not how to find love, but whether we can observe grasping, resistance, pain and the desire for comfort without immediately trying to change them.

A vivid example emerged in a story about a child’s laughter in a bookstore: for a moment there was an open, joyful awareness without direction or thought. Then memory entered, bringing expectations and disappointment. The group wondered whether this movement from direct experience into images of what should be might reveal something essential about our human predicament.

The dialogue also explored whether awareness itself might be what connects us, beyond the thoughts we exchange. Rather than defining love, perhaps dialogue allows us to observe thought and discover its limits. The session ended with an invitation to continue exploring concrete experiences of love in our next meeting.

P.s. To read the full quote, please visit: https://jkrishnamurti.org/content/part-1

  • Anastasia Shtamina

Inquiry with Vala Legan, September 3, 2026

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We met at Esquimault Pavilion. Our facilitator for the first part of September, Vala, presented the topic “Exploring attachment”  and began by reading a quote from K:

“There can only be relationship between two human beings when we accept ‘what is’ and not ‘what should be.’”

What does it mean to meet another person as they are, rather than through the image we have created of how they should be?

The conversation moved into the nature of attachment itself. Are we attached not only to people, but to our judgements, expectations and images of them? We often believe we are seeing another person, while perhaps we are seeing our own accumulated memories and projections. Can we notice these judgements without immediately trying to change or get rid of them? And if attachment and detachment are simply opposite movements of the same thought, is detachment really freedom?

This brought us to a deeper question: Is attachment ultimately about “me”? We explored how relationships can become intertwined with identity, security and the desire to control outcomes. Even when we care deeply for another person, might there still be an image of what that relationship should give us? At the same time, the group questioned whether love can exist without reducing it to benefit, possession or continuity.

Another important distinction emerged between wanting and vision. Wanting can arise from a sense of lack and carry an expectation of a particular result. Vision, on the other hand, seemed to leave room for possibility, curiosity and the unknown. But can even a vision become another subtle strategy for extending the “me”?

In the end, the dialogue arrived at the unknown. Can we accept what is without first deciding what it is? Perhaps accepting the present does not mean approving of it, nor finding an answer to it, but meeting it without immediately escaping into thought or fantasy. The freedom from the known that K speaks of may begin precisely there: in the willingness to stay with not knowing.

 

  • Anastasia Shtamina

Inquiry with Zeenat Patel, August 30, 2026

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We met at the Centre for our final dialogue with Zeenat. After a few moments of silence, we began by appreciating the generosity and presence of our facilitator Zeenat, and the group chose gratitude as the theme. What allows gratitude to arise, and what prevents it?

The group explored how busyness, stress, anxiety, expectation, entitlement, judgment, and the feeling that something is missing can obscure gratitude. In stillness, however, gratitude seemed to arise naturally – not as something we deliberately produce, but as something already present. One participant described discovering gratitude simply by noticing what was genuinely and authentically appreciated, while another spoke of the quiet satisfaction of each breath.

Zeenat brought a question: Is gratitude different from appreciation? Appreciation was described as more directional and specific – gratitude for a person, object, experience, or circumstance – while gratitude itself seemed more spacious, holistic, and without an object. Could gratitude exist without being grateful for something? Could it be a quality of being rather than a response to what happens?

The dialogue then moved toward the idea of radical acceptance—an enthusiastic acceptance of whatever is, without separating life into what we want and what we resist. Several participants felt that gratitude might arise when the sense of a separate self relaxes and life is no longer experienced as something apart from oneself. In that openness, gratitude seemed closely related to joy, grace, freedom, and the feeling of being in communion with life.

We also explored whether gratitude might be something spontaneous, directionless, and beyond thought. Krishnamurti’s words about having “great feelings” – being deeply sensitive to a bird singing, a leaf moving, a sunset, or another person’s sorrow – were read aloud by one of the participants from ” The Book of Life. May 7th. This opened the possibility that gratitude is connected not to sentiment or emotion, but to sensitivity: a state in which nothing is taken for granted.

The dialogue ended by considering gratitude as the recognition of the wholeness and wonder of life itself. From the earth beneath us and the breath within us to the unexpected and even difficult experiences of life, everything belongs to the same movement. Perhaps gratitude is not something we achieve or practice, but something that becomes visible when the distractions, divisions, and stories fall quiet.

  • Anastasia Shtamina

Inquiry with Zeenat Patel, August 27, 2026

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We met at the Pavilion. The dialogue explored truth and contradiction, beginning with Krishnamurti’s quote: 

“You listen to this because it is the truth. And if you don’t live it, the truth becomes a poison.” 

The group considered what it means to hear something deeply true and then neglect or move away from it, creating contradiction and inner conflict. 

A central question was what truth actually is. Is truth something fixed and universal, or does it arise differently according to each person’s perception and experience? The group distinguished between facts, beliefs, personal truths, and something deeper that may lie beneath our individual ways of seeing. Several participants described truth as something alive and changing – something encountered directly in the present rather than something that can be captured in an idea.

The discussion then turned toward deception and the difficulty of seeing clearly. Participants explored how we may cling to identities, beliefs, expectations, and familiar stories because facing something more deeply can be uncomfortable. Yet there may be an immediate sense when something is not quite right: fear, contraction, unease, or a loss of flow. Could these sensations reveal contradiction? And if we genuinely see something clearly, is it possible to turn away from it or does turning away suggest that the seeing was only partial?

The group also explored the danger of turning truth into another belief system. Once truth becomes an idea something to possess, defend, or live up to it can create another contradiction: I am this, but I should be that. The group returned repeatedly to the possibility of simply observing without judgement, without trying to fix, hold, or idealize what is happening. In this sense, awareness might be less about concentrated effort and more about an open, alert attention that moves with life.

Finally, the group returned to Krishnamurti’s striking instruction: “Either listen with your heart and your complete mind, or don’t listen at all.” Perhaps the warning is not a punishment but a recognition that partial listening can become another form of conditioning. True listening may mean that there is no separate “me” trying to understand, improve, or become something. There is simply listening – fully present, sensitive to what is arising, and willing to meet each moment without turning it into a fixed conclusion.

The dialogue closed with a sense that truth may not be something we can finally define or possess. It may instead be something encountered in flashes of clarity, alive only in the moment in which it is seen, but also leaving a change that cannot be forgotten.

  • Anastasia Shtamina

Inquiry with Zeenat Patel, August 23, 2026

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We met at the Swanwick Centre. The dialogue opened with a question about whether dialogue itself can become a refuge from direct experience: “Are we using this to, in some way, escape back into concepts or intellectual notions and cutting ourselves off from the whole field of sensitivity?”

“Can dialogue go beyond the verbal?” One participant described, as K suggests, listening not only to another person, but also to oneself – to the reactions, interpretations, and impulses arising while listening.

The moment we say, “That is a bird,” has something been lost? “Is the label a screen?” Naming has practical value, yet the group explored whether we can notice the movement that turns a living experience into something fixed and already known.

From there came another question: “What is happening when we move from something limitless to something limited?” The issue was not whether we should stop using words, knowledge, or images, but whether we become trapped in them. The same inquiry extended to the self: “What is a self-image actually referring to?” The danger may lie not in thought itself, but in mistaking its descriptions for reality.

Fear and emotion brought the discussion closer to the body. “How do we learn to dispatch quickly our imagined fears?” Participants explored the distinction between raw sensation, feeling, and the interpretations thought places upon them. “Does feeling have anything to do with thought?” And can joy, awe, love, or beauty arise before the mind has time to explain them?

Zeenat pointed the group back to vitality. The possibility that life is simpler and more alive when we are not constantly trying to control, categorize, and secure it. “What if joy is not something you are generating, but something you are simply connecting with?” In moments when thought falls silent, what remains? As the dialogue ended, one participant recalled a simple phrase by Mukesh: “It’s a beautiful way to live.”

 

  • Anastasia Shtamina

Inquiry with Zeenat Patel, August 20, 2026

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We met at the Pavilion to explore the question of fear and the unknown. Zeenat began by reading Krishnamurti’s quote:

“One is never afraid of the unknown. One is afraid of the known coming to an end.”

A central part of the discussion concerned the self-image. Participants explored how our ideas about who we are can provide a sense of stability, even when those images are limiting or painful. One participant described how the fear of rejection had once led him to withdraw and remain silent. Through looking at this movement, he came to see that the self-image is not fixed, but constantly shifts depending on circumstances and relationships. This raised the question: “If these images are so fluid, why do we rely on them as something secure?”

The group also examined whether thought can ever encounter the unknown. Our fears and expectations about the future are shaped by memory, past experience and imagination. As one participant put it, “Maybe the actual illusion is the known.” The discussion suggested that when we project the past into the future, we may be responding not to what is actually happening, but to images and stories created by thought.

Fear was also explored in relation to vulnerability, risk and comfort. Participants questioned whether remaining passive or comfortable is truly safe, recognizing that there may also be a risk in doing nothing. Zeenat suggested “curiosity” as another possible response: rather than trying to stop thought or force ourselves into the unknown, perhaps we can simply observe the movement of thought, fear and self-image as they arise.

Towards the end, the dialogue turned to the possibility that the unknown is not somewhere we must reach, but is already present from moment to moment. The next moment cannot be known with certainty, yet we continually overlay it with expectations in search of security. This left the group with an open question: can there be a direct meeting with life as it is, without allowing the images and conclusions of the past to define what we see?

 

  • Anastasia Shtamina