Archive for category: Event Summaries

Canada Day was celebrated by four participants with an exploration of Q & A # 11 in J. Krishnamurti’s book The First and Last Freedom. The subject of the chapter was “On Fear” and began with looking at the idea of attempting to get rid of fear. Whatever is overcome has to be overcome again and again, K said, and who is the identity that will conquer fear? He suggests we be with fear, or any other emotion, without any intention to modify or change it. What happens when we stay with fear without imposing our opinions and interpretations on it? K suggests that when we are in complete communion with the fact of fear then fear is not. It is only when we are not in communion with it that fear continues. As a group we sat silently looking at our thoughts and feelings related to fear as well as engaging in verbal inquiry into our experiences and understandings. We were able to enjoy the beautiful grounds of the property in Metchosin and the gorgeous views as we sat on the lawn in the sunshine. We discussed the significance of learning about ourselves in all our daily challenges and experiences and looked at some more personal questions of relationship and “socializing” with others. It was a very worthwhile way to spend the afternoon.

DEFINITIONS SIMPLY DO NOT APPLY!

Review of the Skype session with Darryl Bailey – Sunday June 25, 2017

On behalf of Robert Keegan, this post is an attempt to define the happening that we call a Skype session with a so-called nondual teacher/speaker labelled Darryl Bailey.

The session started with Darryl guiding the participants through an exploration of the “happening of this moment”. We were invited to explore ‘all’ of the apparent movements as they are presented including all the normal, apparent, body/mind functions of seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and touch as well as thoughts and sensations. It was suggested that we suspend our normal tendency to “label” these sensations because none of these labels apply to ‘what is’ apparently happening.

He then went on at length about his experiences with Robert Adams and other apparent “awakened ones”, like Ramana Maharshi, Huang Po, UG Krishnamurti and finally Jiddu Krishnamurti.

Here are some comments and feedback from some of the participants…

Brigitte: It was a dream come true to finally “meet” him. Darryl’s session last Sunday has affected me profoundly. Since then I’ve been camping with my daughter and her two small boys at Rathtrevor Beach. The key words that Darryl’s message contained…expression, happening, eventing and movement…really helped to inform my awareness and appreciation of my grandsons as they moved spontaneously in every direction.

Instead of wanting to monitor or control their movement I spent more time observing and enjoying them. I kept thinking of the “tomato plant” and relating it to their behaviour. Consequently a lot of my anxiety has been alleviated….not only regarding my grandsons but for life in general. For this I am truly grateful!

Erik: Refreshing “story line”

Shannon: Darryl offered the group an honest view into his calm beingness. But of course, it wasn’t HIS beingness and even the word beingness doesn’t come close to capturing what we truly are.

For me, it had been a week of mind noise in the throes of a stranger than strange work world. What cut right through the din was the field of non-formed words that Darryl didn’t say but guided us toward, in his unique way. There was an alive sense of falling within whatever spark created all this… bubbling up in the space I sometimes call me. The group were truly touched by this unique opportunity – thanks so much for the K. Centre support which enabled this to come together.

Laurie: Darryl talked at length about how we do not direct anything that is occurring in our life. The only thing existing is an indefinable happening in nature. We don’t create our physical and mental abilities, needs, interests, urges, actions. This raises the question of freedom and free will. I asked Darryl how it applies to K’s teachings about choiceless awareness and the first and last freedom. Darryl studied K and had recurring contact with K for a number of years.

He said K was stating that “choiceless awareness” is just the seeing of the moving, shifting liveliness that is this moment. It is the first and last freedom. There is the only freedom.

I had always interpreted K’s teaching as something complicated I needed to understand in order to see, but the dialogue with Darryl and the group shifted that. Darryl pointed out that the mind always wants to understand but all that is required is “to simply acknowledge the life experience you already have in this moment”. This acknowledgment is not about coming to another idea or description. It’s not about a focus on new and complicated thoughts. It’s a simple acknowledgment of something we already know. Life expresses itself clearly; it simply happens on its own. There’s nothing else to get.

And finally, a few retrospective words from Darryl…

I enjoyed yesterday’s session as well. I’m happy it was of some practical use to you.

I’m including some of my favourite Krishnamurti quotes that relate to what I was expressing.

“The ebb and flow of the tide is like human action and reaction. … we are the ebb and flow of life … the outward and the inward. We try to establish a relationship with the outward, thinking that the inward is something separate … But the movement of the outer is the flow of the inner. They are both the same, like the waters of the sea, this constant restless movement of the outer and the inner.
Outer and inner are one movement, not separate, but whole. One may perhaps accept this as a concept, but when one focuses on concepts one never learns … To feel this movement … this ebb and flow … is to learn.”
[from Krishnamurti To Himself Ojai California Wednesday 28th March 1984]

“… you begin quietly and gently to feel a movement that is not of time … what is meant is a movement that has no beginning or end. A movement in the sense of a wave: wave upon wave, starting from nowhere and with no beach to crash upon. It is an endless wave.”
[Krishnamurti To Himself Ojai California Friday 11th March, 1983]

“When we look at this life of action the growing tree, the bird on the wing, the flowing river, the movement of the clouds, of lightning, of machines, the action of the waves upon the shore then you see that life itself is action, endless action that has no beginning and no end. It is something that is everlastingly in movement, and it is the universe, God, bliss, reality. But we [conceptually] reduce the vast action of life to our own petty little action in life, and ask what we should do …”
[Krishnamurti, Bombay 1958]

“Life is always in a state of arising. In this arising, there is no continuity, nothing that can be identified as permanent. Life is constant movement … action. Each moment of this action has never been before and will never be again.”
[from The Mirror of Relationship, Ojai, 7th Talk in the Oak Grove 17th May,1936]

“Perfection is not an end, an absolute, fixed point … there is a continual movement, a continual flow of reality. Perfection is the action, the continual flow … not an absolute objective to which you are progressing …”
[Rio de Janeiro 4th Public Talk 10th May, 1935]

Take care,
Darryl

The June Stillness Within Meetup….

Brought 12 people together to enjoy a recorded talk by Eckhart Tolle which drew out many themes that resonated with the group. The Denver talk explored the many ways that stillness invites us in – both in the small day to day joys but also in the more challenging expressions of life. Some of us have experienced the gradual reduction in thought that he described and more importantly, a shrinking identification as our thoughts.

April Eckhart Tolle Event

Stillness Within meetup in April featured a recorded talk “The Awakening Experience – Before and After”.  The talk described Tolle’s understanding of the nature of experience.  The talk focused on the unfolding of deeper consciousness and in his words “the liberation that comes when we transcend the limitations of a solely conceptual identity”.  We had some interesting discussion afterward and a group awareness exercise.  With a few new members joining in, it made for a wonderful Saturday afternoon in the gatehouse.

In Freedom from the Known, Krishnamurti points to the dropping away of identity and concepts in a very beautiful way:

“When you look at the stars there is you who are looking at the stars in the sky; the sky is flooded with brilliant stars, there is cool air, and there is you, the observer, the experiencer, the thinker, you with your aching heart, you, the centre, creating space. You will never understand about the space between yourself and the stars, yourself and your wife or husband, or friend, because you have never looked without the image, and that is why you do not know what beauty is or what love is. You talk about it, you write about it, but you have never known it except perhaps at rare intervals of total self-abandonment. So long as there is a centre creating space around itself there is neither love nor beauty. When there is no centre and no circumference then there is love. And when you love you are beauty.”

I love this expression – or love loves itself!

Inquiry Sunday

June 4, 2017

Our morning session began with a video featuring Fred Davis and entitled “Truth, Dream, and the Teaching”. He began by relating that most seekers tell him that they understand the idea “Oneness” intellectually but are not actually experiencing it. He said that in this realm everything is backwards from the way we think it is. The truth is that we are experiencing oneness but are just not understanding it intellectually. He went on from there to discuss some of the implications of his statement. The seven people attending our session then explored what was said, some finding it challenging to accept or comprehend what was being pointed to. It turned out to be a very alive and insightful dialogue for many of the group and certainly brought awareness to the process of questioning and remaining open to new ways of seeing.

The afternoon session involved choosing questions asked of Krishnamurti at various talks and listening to his responses, then exploring them in group dialogue. Three people stayed for the afternoon. We first looked at K’s response to a question about fear and the urge to escape from it rather than staying with the fear. K emphasized the importance of being fully with “what is” without trying to change it. A second question was about the correct approach to right livelihood in the world today. As he often does, K gave a wide view of what is necessary in our lives in addressing the psychological conflicts so prevalent in the world and in ourselves. There was plenty to look into further and the small group actively engaged in such inquiry.

Dialogue Session at the Centre

Sunday, May 28, 2017

Harshad hosted another group dialogue on a warm and sunny day in Metchosin. We were able to sit on the grass in front of the main house as we had on Saturday. Four people attended, two of whom had not been participants in the previous dialogues with Harshad this year. The text studied was from The Flight of the Eagle by J. Krishnamurti, Chapter 8: “The Transcendental”. K describes the nature of the (ego) self in accurate detail and how the attitude of seeking the “beyond” can strengthen the self rather than dissolving it. He questions the traditional concepts of self discipline and effort to achieve a higher state and asks us to be aware of our motivations.  The material stimulated some exploration and discussion into a number of issues, including the place of the head and the heart in the quest for wholeness. The need to see for ourselves how the mind and heart are functioning in us was emphasized.

We have very much enjoyed Harshad’s presence at the Centre over the past five weeks and, as always, have appreciated his straightforward and clear approach to the subject of self-knowledge.