The Two Paths Of Discrimination And Love

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Today’s theme was Embodied Enlightenment described by RS as the luminous space of Awareness in which our essential nature is not just understood and felt as the witnessing presence of Awareness in the background of all experience, but is known and felt as the light of pure knowing that pervades all experience, that is all experience.

 

In common everyday life, RS said this corresponded to everyone’s experience of love and beauty. When you love someone, the barriers and dualities between you collapse. When you look at something beautiful, the separateness of the subject—object dichotomy evaporates and you are left in the middle of luminous Awareness—peaceful, blissful, calm, collected and joyous.

 

It was a long tape of 43:09 but it gave us all the opportunity to be with our own experience as we listened—no matter what came up. Some felt a bit of irritation, some felt sleepy, some mentally aroused—but we all noticed our own reactions and that noticing gave us power, awareness—power. It was noted that awareness has a pull once you get used to going there and that pull moves us into a space of peace and well-being—both inside and out.  As K would say, this gave us the real opportunity to experience the reality that, the observer is the observed.

 

Some group members shared moments of beauty where their whole inner universe vibrated with energy and time-warped speed, either hiking in nature or deep into meditation practice. Those earth—shattering vibrations were a glimpse into the eternality of Reality.

 

It was mentioned that RS talks a lot about beauty and says that the task of any real artist is to reveal the true nature of reality to any perceiver such that they are moved, touched and inspired.

 

We started the meeting on time with a short session of silence, had a break at the mid—point to taste some lovely refreshments, and ended our session at approximately 4 pm.

Krishnamurti Study Session March 3, 2108 at KECC

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Krishnamurti Study Session at KECC
Saturday, March 3, 2018

This meeting focused on Q & A section 25 in The First and Last Freedom by J. Krishnamurti. The chapter is entitled “On Action without Idea” and it opens with a question from the audience at one of K’s talks. “For Truth to come, you advocate action without idea. Is it possible to act at all times without idea, that is, without a purpose in view?” K invites us, instead of attempting to act in accordance with an ideal, to be with what we actually are. “When I recognize I am uncharitable, stupid, what happens when I am aware it is so? Is there not charity, is there not intelligence? …In that very seeing of what is is there not love?”
Krishnamurti acknowledges that this question is not so easily solved and requires going into the problem profoundly, This is what the five participants engaged in as they explored the ideas in the text through group inquiry and sharing of insight. It was a very interesting session.

Exploring Stillness Within Retreat Feb 23-25th

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Eckhart Tolle has provided the world with hundreds of talks, pages and pages of writing and lots of animated antics leaving us laughing out loud.  We’ve grown to love his unique expression but also many of his talks have supported us to go deeper and experience less of everything, and more of just this, being in this moment.  The weekend gathering was comprised of a number of informative recorded Eckhart Tolle talks, but with a focus on  guided meditative sessions, Kim Eng’s breath and movement practices for releasing blockages or stilling the physical body, and a few new ways to explore awareness as a group. 

The agenda included some structured sessions balanced against open spaces in the schedule.   People took that time and used it well – for deeper quieting, presence and even some inner ‘un-doing’!  Funny though, I have to say that the thing I will remember most from the event was a magical  moment where we all found ourselves gathering on a break – in one of the guest rooms, sitting everywhere – asking that question:  can there really be ‘no self’?  Just a fullness of everything?  A great mysterious happening?  How is it that Eckhart can describe these propositions without sounding the least bit shocking?

There were many gleanings that attendees highlighted as ‘takeaways’ to extend the sense of still freedom beyond the weekend.

1.       We looked at ways to access stillness more deeply such as noticing the breath, sensing inner aliveness, noting the details of awareness and how it changes, and exploring and deepening the spaces between thoughts.

2.       Finding ways to embrace natural pauses in our day, the car stops, the coffee lineup, arriving home, finishing a meal – taking these pauses a bit further by settling into stillness – and not moving to the next action until truly guided by an inner impulse (rather than compulsive thinking/efforting to get the next thing done).  And seeing what happens if a decision is not consciously made about the next direction… does a direction seem to appear without ‘us’ managing it?

3.       Being with nature and softening our sense of constrained focus to take in the whole system of alive energy… letting ourselves really be with it, loving it and sensing the symphony of existence around us…. Feeling somehow an underlying intelligent current within that system…

4.       Loving what is, not fighting with the circumstances that arise but seeing them as a perfect coalescence of learning opportunities custom made for each of us (rather than poor rotten luck).

5.       The Krishnamurti book: First and Last Freedom was explored during an inquiry session on suffering – and how any resistance, desire to shift or remove it can only serve to strengthen or maintain our anguish.  Rather, K points to using open awareness (or looking) to see what suffering really is, noticing the whole system of thought and belief and through spacious being with it – fully – allowing it to express and possibly change or sometimes, to just dissipate gently out of existence. 

6.       Finally, we heard a bit about Eckhart’s sense of humankind’s unfoldment and evolution, with present moment stillness as the gateway and propulsion system for a new kind of human – a deeper expression of that which we already are. 

 

An exceptional weekend with an exceptional group of people!  Thanks to KECC for hosting this event!

 

 

Creating More Space in a Fast Paced World

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Creating More Space in a Fast Paced World

UVic Spiritual Awakening Meetup – February 22, 2018

Three of us made our way through the snow to enjoy a bit of meditation and discussion.  The topic was a great starting point leading to a rich sharing of different journeys that also seemed to converge.  While the group studied practices like Zen Buddhism, Course in Miracles, Vipassana and Transcendental Meditation, we all found ways to live from spaciousness ‘beyond the cushion’ in our day to day life. 

A recently discovered Krishnamurti quote points to the immense value of our inner openness:  “It is only when the totality of the mind is still, that the creative, the nameless, comes into being.”    

Some of ways this spaciousness seems to have propelled us along the way were shared, such as:

  • Cultivating openness and ‘allowing’ (being guided rather that directing life’s flow) and creating from this flow. 
  • Holding a stance of ‘hospitality’ or openness in the face of whatever is arising – for example, welcoming and even creating a sanctuary for agitated mental activity (or ‘the brain’) – allowing discomfort, and noticing how it naturally expresses and unfurls. 
  •  We also talked about wonder – seeing through unfiltered eyes when looking at the world around us.  This looking without labeling can allow us to notice the small exquisite details in the expression of life all around us.  And at times, we may even see our own character antics from that same place – viewing  immature ‘acting out’ as poignant and even cherishing it – like a small child.

 Thanks to KECC for supporting this gathering!

 

Krishnamurti Study Session February 17, 2018

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Krishnamurti Study Session
Saturday, February 17, 2018

We met at the Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada in Metchosin to study the second half of the Q & A chapter 24, “On Time”, in the book The First and Last Freedom. The question asked of Krishnamurti is “Can the past dissolve all at once, or does it invariably need time?” K goes into the inadequacy of analysis in seeking freedom from our conditioned patterns of thought, feeling, and behaviour. Is the analyser different from that which he analyses? When the falseness of analysis is seen, then what is left, he asks. There is a different state of consciousness which can receive the truths of life without thinking. The material in the text provided an excellent platform for our own group inquiry into the issues presented. The four participants enjoyed a meaningful exploration of some of the key aspects of Krishnamurti’s teachings and their relevance to our life experience.

Eckhart Tolle study meetup: Awakening Through Loss

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The Stillness Within February Meetup explored shared experiences with loss – and possible links to personal and spiritual deepening. There were four of us who enjoyed a recently released Eckhart Tolle recorded talk on sudden change – of a job, a relationship, personal status or other forms (often leading to a sense of self diminishment).  Eckhart showed that for many of us, the egoic sense of self can be resistant to any change which challenges its sense of identity. When we experience a major loss however, it can offer an opportunity to question the concepts we have about ourselves and also our attachments to them.

The group discussed experiences with sudden job changes, shaken sense of security and even lost dreams or expectations. Some of the strategies that people found helped them were – being with others or seeing with new perspective of a friend, surrender/prayer, allowing time for healing/recalibration and finding ways to be of service to others… And if not yet able to love the new conditions, it may be possible to begin to accept the perceived loss (i.e. to be ‘ok with what is’, including feelings of not being OK with what is!)

Eckhart emphasised the inherent impermanence of our life circumstances, the people and situations that pass through – he suggested that deeply attuning to that impermanence can support a sense of ease with change, and a growing awareness of that which is unchanging, the source of inner beingness – emphasizing that this underlying spaciousness cannot be diminished by external change.

Krishnamurti also has explored impermanence, using somewhat different language but nudging us towards a similar discovery:

“So there is nothing whatsoever permanent…. To realise that may be very depressing, melancholic, but it’s not. When you see the fact that there is nothing enduring, that very seeing is intelligence. And in that intelligence there is complete security. There is not your intelligence or my intelligence, it is intelligence…. that intelligence, not being yours or another’s, it is the intelligence of something infinite.” J. Krishnamurti, Third Public Talk in Colombo, Sri Lanka, November 1980

Thanks to the group for wonderful contributions to this inquiry… And thanks to KECC for hosting us this month.

Be The Seeing Not The Seer

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Rupert Spira Session—Be The Seeing Not The Seer—February 11, 2018

 

Today we had a very profound and inspiring session. We started with a silent time to get centered and then listened to Rupert’s audio on this topic. It was powerful. He was discussing the phenomenon of seeing and noting that there are three ways of seeing. The first is gross seeing where we look out and see a finite world of objects made of matter. We’re separate from this world and the very fact that we see external objects presupposes that we’re a separate subject. The next is subtle seeing where we see into the finite relationship between the seer and the seen. This is the world of mind. The third way of seeing is seeing seeing itself—that is to say knowing seeing experientially. This way is infinite because to see it is to experience infinite awareness. We do this, not by striving for awakening or the fulfillment of goals, but simply by relaxing, melting and falling back into ourselves. Instead of moving out to see an object we relax our eyes and let objects find us. Metaphorically speaking, the first way is like seeing a family photo on our computer screen and noticing specific relatives in it. The second is like seeing that there’s an image on our computer screen. The third is noticing the screen itself. Actually, there’s nothing there but screen. The worlds of mind and matter are made of nothing but screen.  (Awareness). When it comes to seeing, nothing is happening other than three different ways of seeing the same phenomenon. So seeing objects external to ourselves is nothing more than just one way of seeing. The other ways of seeing get more and more magical the more we penetrate them. And these insights are practical in real worldly ways—if we can shift our experience by noticing how we are seeing, rather than what we are seeing, we open ourselves up to significant injections of freedom and space. As we move into pure knowing, or pure seeing, we experience peace, tranquility and joy—no matter what appears to be happening out there in an “external world”.

 

Our discussion was lively and we touched upon other teachers who’ve spoken about seeing or other relevant subjects.  Teachers like Krishnamurti, Tolle, Gurdjieff, Lucille and Myss. We paused for refreshments and ended the session at 4 pm with another short period of silence. Many of us are looking forward to Passia’s full Retreat, or parts of it—along with the follow-up sessions. (Whatever form they take.)

 

 

Inquiry Sunday at KECC February 4, 2018

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Inquiry Sunday at KECC
February 4, 2018

For the morning session the gathering of five people viewed a recent talk by Paul Hedderman. Paul is a bit of a rough diamond, but he puts across his points in an very original and effective way, often with humour as well as wisdom. One of the main insights he shares pertains to what he calls “selfing”. The human mind tends to create a fictional person or entity, which is actually not there, and then proceeds to act and relate as that fictional entity without questioning its nature. Such a way of living produces much conflict and suffering. The basic issue is the claiming of personal ownership and doership in regards to actions that are just happening as a movement of life itself. There is, Paul says, no self but only the activity he calls selfing, which gives the impression of a self acting. It is very much what many of the teachers say, expressed with its own unique flavour. Everyone found the presentation enjoyable and valuable and were planning to attend his upcoming presentations in Victoria some time in early April. The video was followed by some group discussion and further exploration of the perspectives offered by Hedderman.
The afternoon session included some shorter video clips featuring three different teachers. First we looked at J. Krishnamurti responding to a questions from his audience at a talk in Ojai, California. He discussed the nature of insight and intuition, pointing to a vital and alive clear seeing of the movement of life and thought. Intuition should be questioned as it may be a subtle or hidden desire for things to be a certain way. Interest then led us to look at a sample of Byron Katie’s way of working with an individual who felt that her partner should understand her better. Katie’s inquiry can be very effective in exposing assumptions and beliefs that are causing conflict instead of harmony. We then watched two clips of Scott Kiloby introducing his Living Inquiry method for working with addictions and compulsions and giving a short talk about the power of being fully present with our emotional experiences without moving away or escaping. Scott has a clear and compassionate manner of presenting very helpful pointers. This writer was struck by the great similarity between what Scott was promoting and what Krishnamurti often recommended in relation to the same issue. We discussed whatever was most significant and relevant to us in each video.

Krishnamurti Study Session, February 3, 2018

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Krishnamurti Study Session
Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada
Saturday, February 3, 2018

Four of us gathered to explore Q & A chapter 24 in The First and Last Freedom entitled “On Time”. The questioner had asked K, “Can the past dissolve all at once or does it invariably need time?” In his response K goes into the fact that we are the products of the past and are conditioned to think and act from the background of the past, which inevitably means our responses to life are partial and incomplete. He explores the issue of analysing our activities in a never ending attempt to understand ourselves and bring about a change. The analyser is not different than that which he analyses and therefore cannot by analysis create any real change. This must be seen clearly.
The group found a great deal to probe into and moved through only half the chapter, with some interesting dialogue engaging our attention. A number of issues related to the text material seemed to invite us to branch out in our inquiry so that there was a sense of some richness and breadth to it. A good afternoon of looking and listening.

Victoria Church of Truth Krishnamurti Event, February 2, 2018

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Victoria Church of Truth Krishnamurti Event
Friday, February 2, 2018

The monthly meeting at the Church of Truth in Victoria was entitled “Learning About Ourselves”. There were five of us in attendance and we began with viewing a half-hour video of J. Krishnamurti responding to a question at Ojai in 1981 about being free of our conditioning. He pointed out, among other things, that we must not resort to the idea of taking time to be free. The discussion that followed went into different aspects of our conditioning and what it means to look at it directly and with full attention. A couple of people were new to the meetings but participated with a depth of understanding and interest that complimented the contributions of the more familiar participants. After almost an hour the group discussion came to a natural silence which felt quite lovely. There was a handout from the Krishnamurti book Freedom from the Known which participants took home with them.