Inquiry with Zeenat Patel, August 16, 2026

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The Sunday dialogue began with the question: “Is there something that matters more than survival?” The group explored the relationship between physical and psychological survival, and whether the need for psychological security has become intertwined with our basic instinct to survive. While food, shelter and clothing are necessary, the desire for belonging, approval, status and security can extend far beyond physical needs. Can we seek physical security without also seeking psychological security?

The discussion considered how fear of rejection, the need to belong, self-image and concern about others’ opinions may once have supported survival, yet can also become psychological traps. If there is always something to protect or fear, is psychological security ultimately an illusion? Could freedom begin when we see clearly how the “me” is constructed through images, memories and thought?

The inquiry then turned to surrender. What does it mean to surrender, and what are we surrendering to? Surrender was not seen as passivity or giving up responsibility, but perhaps as letting go of the urge to control while remaining fully responsive. One participant described the difficulty of working within an organization where those in power were causing harm, raising the question of how to act responsibly without becoming consumed by resistance. The image arose of being more like a “colander than a dam”—doing what one can while accepting what lies beyond one’s control.

The dialogue also explored the structures of organizations and society, and how fear, competition and conformity can keep us psychologically bound to them. Leaving one system may not solve the problem if the same patterns are simply reproduced elsewhere. Perhaps the deeper question is whether we can understand the fear and conditioning that keep us bound.

This led to reflections on love and connection. Is genuine connection possible while the mind is occupied with strengthening the “me”? The group considered moments when the story of oneself temporarily falls away, leaving a sense of peace and presence.

The dialogue ended by asking whether something beyond thought and conditioning becomes visible when the constant movement of the self comes to an end. The meeting concluded with five minutes of silence.

  • Anastasia Shtamina

Inquiry with Zeenat Patel, August 13, 2026

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We met at the Esquimalt Gorge Park Pavilion for a dialogue on authority, facilitated by Zeenat. She began by exploring the many forms of authority that surround us—public opinion, ideology, religion, belief systems and social structures—and asked whether, when we reject authority, we simply create its opposite. This became a springboard for looking more closely at how authority operates, both outwardly and within ourselves.

One participant, recalling a reading of Krishnamurti, pointed to the distinction between external authority and the authority we carry within ourselves, describing it as “the authority of a fragment”—a thought, judgement or belief that becomes so powerful that it appears to be unquestionable truth. The group explored how fear, conditioning and unquestioned assumptions can give thought an authority of its own.

One participant suggested that questioning opens space, while conclusions close the door. Zeenat asked, “What is it that is preventing us from staying with that aliveness, from staying with that questioning, from that almost quality of innocence?”

The inquiry then moved toward aloneness. Zeenat asked, “What does it mean to stand alone and why do we seem so afraid to do so?” Participants explored whether aloneness might mean freedom from the constant movement of thought, from the need for reassurance, and from the compulsion to solve every problem or arrive at certainty. Zeenat clarified that this was not about loneliness or physical isolation, but about a quality of being that can exist even when we are together.

This led to a deeper question: “Is it possible to act from a place that is not coming from authority – internal or external?” The group considered whether such action might come from a place of “unknowingness,” without relying on thought, belief or analysis, while still functioning practically in everyday life. The inquiry gradually shifted from trying to find an answer to noticing what is happening in the present moment. Perhaps freedom is not something to arrive at, but something glimpsed when we meet each moment directly, without trying to make it conform to an idea.

The meeting ended with a period of silence and an open question to carry forward: “Is it possible to live in this daily life of ours, without the authority of one storyline, one story that one carries within?

 

  • Anastasia Shtamina 

Inquiry with Zeenat Patel, August 9, 2026

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We met at Swanwick, outside near the pool. The dialogue began with an exploration of the quality of togetherness. A participant asked whether, in dialogue, it is possible to speak in a way that is “for everyone,” rather than from a personal opinion or position. This opened the question: What is required for that sense of togetherness? The group explored whether togetherness means simply accepting different opinions, or whether it is possible to look beneath opinions. “What is seeing that despite our different opinions there is togetherness?”

The conversation moved naturally into listening, safety and openness. Zeenat challenged the idea that dialogue necessarily needs to be a “safe space,” asking whether, if dialogue becomes too comfortable, it might simply become an echo chamber. Zeenat asked whether there is a type of listening that can create a sense of safety through listening to the whole of a person “going underneath the words.”

From there, participants examined disturbance, reaction and projection in everyday life. One participant described noticing how easily the mind can anticipate conflict and create a disturbance before anything has actually happened. The question: Where am I coming from when I share something? emerged as an invitation to look at whether our responses come from belief, opinion, fear, or projection. The discussion also touched on compassion and responsibility: Am I my brother’s keeper? If we feel compelled to help another, how do we know what action actually serves the situation?

The dialogue then expanded into questions of boundaries, conflict, and responsibility when opinions become actions that affect others. Zeenat referenced Krishnamurti and questioned whether right action can come from belief or opinion at all. Do we need to find the “right” belief in order to act rightly, or whether something more direct is possible when we see how thought, reaction and separation operate within ourselves?

Toward the end, the dialogue returned to aliveness, simplicity, vulnerability and courage. Participants explored whether it is possible to see a thought simply as a thought, without immediately engaging with it, and whether inquiry can remain light and playful rather than becoming another belief or practice.

The meeting ended in silence, leaving the questions open and alive. It was an engaging and thoughtful gathering, with the spirit of inquiry continuing beyond the meeting and participants looking forward to continuing the dialogue at the Thursday meeting in Victoria.

  • Anastasia Shtamina

Inquiry with Zeenat Patel, August 6, 2026

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The group met at Esquimault Gorge Park Pavilion. The facilitator started with opening remarks on dialogue, reinforcing that dialogue is not a debate or discussion in which one seeks to assert, defend, or persuade others of our opinions and viewpoints. Instead, it offers an invitation to examine our deeply held beliefs with curiosity and openness, paying close attention to our reactions as they arise. Sometimes these reactions are subtle, while at other times they may be quite strong. Observing these responses can be as important as the specific theme being explored.

We are all conditioned beings, shaped by our experiences, environments, relationships, and assumptions, although the particular nature of that conditioning differs from person to person. These differences can create a sense of separation, misunderstanding, and conflict. Dialogue provides an opportunity to examine both our individual and collective conditioning directly. A challenge was put forth to the dialogue participants to see whether it is possible to listen, observe, and act from an entirely different place that has nothing to do with this conditioning. This may require listening beyond the words themselves to the that which lies beneath the words.

The theme for the dialogue was relationship, a topic chosen because relationship is at the very heart of dialogue and, perhaps, at the heart of life itself. We are constantly in relationship—not only with other people, but with ourselves, our surroundings, nature, and the circumstances of our lives. Even when we attempt to withdraw from others, relationship remains unavoidable. As J. Krishnamurti states: “No one can live without relationship. You may withdraw into the mountains, become a monk, a sannyasi, wander off into the desert by yourself, but you are related. You cannot escape from that absolute fact. You cannot exist in isolation”.

The group explored whether we are actually relating to one another. Do we truly meet another person, or are we meeting the image we have created of that person through memory and past experience. When relationship becomes primarily a collection of memories, conclusions, expectations, and assumptions, it can become mechanical rather than something dynamic and alive. Relating does not require agreement. In the context of dialogue, can we remain connected even when another does not agree with us? Can we listen without any need for defending oneself and trying to change the other. Can we observe what actually happens in our relationships without immediately judging, explaining, or trying to change it? Krishnamurti connects the quality of our individual relationships to the wider human condition. If our relationships are characterized by competition, domination, possession, fear, and separation, then those same patterns inevitably become reflected in society. Transformation in society therefore begins with investigating relationship itself.

 

  • Zeenat Patel

Inquiry with Zeenat Patel, August 2, 2026

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The group met at the Swanwick Centre. The question brought forward by the group for exploration was how one can engage in society during times when it feels like action is imperative. The group explored the subtle but critically important difference between striving and right action on the one hand and apathy and surrender on the other hand.

The group explored how striving may come from the desire to achieve a particular result, to change society according to a specific idea of what we believe it should be. As a result, striving often requires tremendous effort and can feel exhausting and depleting, sometimes leading to apathy. Apathy may arise when one feels that things are hopeless and itself may be a form of withdrawal born from fear, frustration, or resignation. Surrender on the other hand does not imply apathy or passivity. Nor does surrender necessarily imply approval or that one must tolerate injustice. It is simply seeing something exactly as it is without any resistance.

From the direct observation of seeing things as they are, right action is possible. Krishnamurti often emphasized that when we see something directly and clearly, the action that arises does not require the effort that comes from an idea of what we should do. The group ended with questioning whether we can remain attentive to discover what action is called for in each moment.  Can we engage with society in a manner that neither results in withdrawing from the world nor trying to impose our will upon it but rather responding intelligently and compassionately to what we actually observe?

  • Zeenat Patel

Peace Concert  Musical Event at KECC

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On July 19, 2026, KECC hosted a special outdoor classical music concert beneath the beautiful oak trees near the main house. A string quartet from Vancouver performed six original compositions by KECC director Chanda Siddoo-Atwal, alongside well-known Bach and Handel favorites.

With lovely weather, delicious refreshments and a peaceful setting, the afternoon offered guests a wonderful opportunity to enjoy music, nature, and one another’s company. Friends gathered and mingled before and after the concert, creating a warm and intimate atmosphere of appreciation and togetherness.

Presentation and inquiry with John Duncan, July 30, 2026

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“Freedom at the beginning, middle and end” 

We met at Esquimault Gorge Park Pavilion. We sat in a beautiful room with large windows overlooking the park with its beautiful flowers, trees and reflective ponds. A fine spot for a dialogue, and today the subject was a very popular one with the group: Freedom! Who doesn’t like to go into that.

It was mentioned that, as the title suggests, we are always in the midst of Freedom. It is our natural state, it is beaming through the opaque glass house we live in called the me. It shines through darkly. We translate that glow into our own useful definition of what freedom means to us as egos. Freedom to do what we want, political freedom, religious freedom—all of which serves to maintain the safest or happiest existence for the self, the me, the ego, the fragment.

Krishnamurti asserts otherwise. Freedom is not for the me but from the me. Of course.

In this freedom, passion, for example, is not fueled by thought, such as ‘I am passionate about this or that’, resulting in a pleasurable experience; rather, it is the pure expression of joy and ecstasy, free of the striving, demanding and struggle to maintain it. Passion in freedom has none of the demands because it already is. It does not have to be strived for or maintained; it is the essence of life. This passion does not exist for the me. This passion is freedom, a light not lit from the past.

A peculiar quote from Krishnamurti was shared regarding our access or lack thereof to this essence of life, this freedom:

Only when the mind is really free can you discern and find out what the hindrances are that impede freedom.

This quote was taken in by the group with great enjoyment. It is a bit of a koan, with so much to learn by letting it sink in past the logical mind. Starting with freedom, at the beginning!

Another clue from Krishnamurti on what action in our daily lives will ensure that this passion is burning and operating in us:

Nothing will ensure it except the attention of learning, which is action, which is now. In this there is the beauty of passion, which is the total abandonment of the “me” and its time.

The obvious question arose: what is this learning? What is this action, which is now? Well, it was shared that when consciousness is not fragmented by a me, then thought can arise freely in consciousness instead of being grabbed by the me and worked on, controlled, hidden away, or experienced. The controller is the controlled. Me is thought, and me doesn’t understand that; it thinks its job is to control thought to make it manageable, safe, pliable or hidden. All this is the dimension of a me that has no access to passion as we described it.

It will experience a moment in its time according to its judgement of the moment and how it is going, and how it can keep it going or stop it. Otherwise, thoughts are free to flow and flower in consciousness without being experienced by an experiencer. Hence, there is freedom in consciousness, with content or without. The only requisite is freedom from the self, the me, the controller.

‘Not two’, as many philosophies say: not me and my thoughts, not me and you, … ultimately, not me.

 

  • John Duncan

An inquiry with John Duncan, July 26, 2026

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We met outside the main house and sat in a circle as a few raindrops fell. A piece from Krishnamurti was shared:

What is it that joins moment to moment, as the thread joins the beads in a necklace? The moment is the new, but the new is absorbed into the old and so the chain of continuity is formed. Is there ever the new, or only recognition of the new by the old? If the old recognizes the new, is it the new? The old can recognize only its own projection; it may call it the new, but it is not. The new is not recognizable; it is a state of non-recognition, non-association. The old gives itself continuity through its own projections; it can never know the new. The new may be translated into the old, but the new cannot be with the old. The experiencing of the new is the absence of the old. The experience and its expression is thought, idea; thought translates the new in terms of the old. It is the old that gives continuity; the old is memory, the word, which is time.

There was some difficulty with the group’s ability to stay with the topic and fully take in what is referred to as “a state of non-recognition, non-association.” When the subject of death came up in reference to what may be required to exist in such a state and our resistance to dying, there was a confusion as to whether we were referring to a fear of physical death or a psychological death. It was pointed out that they do share one and the same fear and resistance, but that we are truly referring to the cause of conflict and fear in us, which is the division of consciousness, the entity put together by thought, the ending of psychological self.

There was sharing of certain people in our lives who have had strokes or who have dementia, and how they are more carefree than ever. This received some pushback as to whether we can meet this challenge before we suffer from illness and disease.

There was also some question as to what we are sharing in dialogue. Is it several different perspectives, all of equal interest, or is it thinking with one mind, moving together rather than bouncing off each other? The intimacy of the former, with its collapsing of the space between us, was lauded.

It all seems to refer back to the quotation from above. While the new is desirable in a philosophical context, it is resisted by our brains and perhaps even our bodies. The absence of the old is an affront to the body’s survival instinct in this case, a threat to the psychological continuity as much as the physical continuity of the body. Several examples were shared of how to get the mind to accept that what we perceive as the old, the known, is actually the new without thought’s recognition and emphasis.

Only when the old is ready to stop seeking security in every moment, to be vulnerable while listening, being attentive, will there be any significant change.

 

  • John Duncan

Presentation and inquiry with John Duncan, July 23, 2026

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“Meditation without Effort”

We gathered at the Esquimault Gorge Park pavilion. An introduction to the topic, Meditation without Effort, was given. The emphasis was to create a greater understanding and inquiry into Krishnamurti’s assertion that true meditation is the spirit of religion, where one gathers all one’s energy to move from one dimension to another.

This is not to imply effort to make this movement; rather, it is a dimensional shift that takes place where the gathering of energy, which refers to attention, listening, observation—activities which do not require effort, they are activities of repose—are undertaken, and in so doing the dimensional shift occurs as such. It is wholeness vs. fragmentation that distinguishes the two dimensions.

To put it simply, fragmentation maintains the dimension of time, the me, and obscures the greater dimension of timelessness, the not me. The dimension created by psychological time, with its inherent conflict and fear, has been created by us and therefore it is our responsibility to stop creating it, to end it. As simple and logical an undertaking as this may seem, there are many challenges that keep this from happening. This is visible in oneself and by observing the whole of human history and the world today.

So, what are we to do? What is the *doing* of meditation beyond the description of what is happening regarding dimensional shifts? The tricky part is that there is no doer of meditation. Any action from within the dimension we have created as the me is only a furtherance of the me. The me cannot by its own effort remove the me.

It was noted that this was the Buddha’s key insight that led to his break from asceticism, which he realized was effort, and towards a period of attention that culminated in a transformation—the dimensional shift—that he was no longer attempting to control. His first words after the shift, “This cannot be taught.” This is not an effort.

Meditation without effort. Maximum non-effort. The stillness comes with the increased understanding that any action I make only extends the existence of the dimension of time. In that stillness, that listening, is the existence of something referred to as silence, which expands into the space made by listening. And soon one is listening to silence, rather than hearing the noise. The listening and silence has naturally quieted the noise. It is the silence that ends noise, not more noise.

The shift in dimensions is not one of time or in time; therefore, Krishnamurti’s assertion of Truth being a pathless land is key. This is not a progression of a me on a path, finally getting somewhere, finally arriving, achieving a fixed goal. No, this is a shift in dimensions where knowledge from the dimension of time has no validity. This is a trans-formation, a revolution in consciousness.

And the fact that the me is not a factor or does not have an existence in this dimension is one of the many challenges we mentioned earlier that make this a not-so-common event. Living with death, of an imaginary me, is the line in the sand. For all of us.

 

  • John Duncan

Presentation and inquiry with John Duncan, July 16, 2026 

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“A Brief History of Psychological Time.”

We met at Esquimalt Gorge Park Pavilion. A brief introduction to the nature of holistic consciousness and our fragmentation from it as separately identified individuals (egos) preceded our investigation into psychological time and its origin. Consciousness, or more inclusively, life energy as it pertains to all life on earth, can be compared to electricity coming out of a wall socket. It can energize a fan, a computer, an iron etc. which are all very distinct items but the “life force” of all of them is identical. Similarly, the life force in the squirrel, the tree, the human, etc. is identical, and manifests behaviorally via the various nervous systems of those beings. On top of that it was suggested that this energy flows between beings as well like a river. All is energy.

So, what is psychological time and why did Krishnamurti refer to it as the enemy of mankind? Why did he refer so often to the necessity of the ending of time?

The natural state is an ever new “now” with no trace of the past or future. A state of creation. Where is the problem? The continuity of a me, existing as dead memory brought alive by thinking it into the present and projecting a future exists as a contradiction to this fact of the moment being ever new. Still, why a problem? Krishnamurti asserts that the origin of conflict is this division, that fragmenting consciousness into individual selves is the root of an unending, unsolvable fear. He says, “Life, death and Love are the same movement, one must permanently die to know what love is.” And what we have done is taken death out of the present and put it into the future, hence the ability to maintain a continuity of the self. This continuity is a contradiction to the fact of an evernew moment.

The problem? Fear….of death in the future, rather than living with death as mentioned earlier.

Krishnamurti on the root of fear:

May I ask, “Is there such a thing as pure fear, fear by itself?” There is no absolute fear, fear is always of something, look at it carefully and you’ll see, all fear, however unconscious, is the result of thought. All fear, of the outer, of the inner, is basically the fear of extinction, the fear of not being, not being this or that or just not existing. We know all existence is transitory and yet we crave psychological permanence. And thus craving is the origin of fear. To be free from fear we must explore to its very roots this idea of permanence.

Our bodies are sending out an alarm regarding our imminent death, but that death is in the future. There is nothing we can confront in the present, but remember, the future is now in the present. Our only response in the present is fear, unending fear. This is the danger of psychological time.

What are we to do?

Bringing death back into the present, where life, death and love are one movement seems to be the reasonable answer, but that would mean the end of the continuity, the me, ME! This is the challenge, the stopping point for most, because a psychological death has all the resistance to allow that issuing from the body’s survival instinct as a physical death. The will to live is protecting the body and also the imaginary entity that exists by thinking because thinking has a physical component to it and the body recognizes it as worthy of protection.

K’s teaching is as much about ‘living with death’, psychological death, as it is about anything. If we do not meet this conflict of psychological time, if we do not end this contradiction, fear will go on and all of our attempts to distract ourselves and all of the misery we create by denying it will go on, including violence and war, which is an attempt to face our fear of death in the present by physically killing someone we believe to be a threat to our survival instead of allowing our ego to die.

  • John Duncan