Archive for category: Event Summaries

  Daily Dying and Living Well Retreat with Ravi Ravindra    For the third year in a row Ravi Ravindra, a PhD and former university professor of physics and philosophy, visited from Halifax to lead a weekend retreat at the Krishnamurti Educational Center of Canada in Metchosin, BC.  The subject of the weekend was death, including the universally recommended “practice” of dying daily in order to fully live, or “dying before we die”.  Ravi gave an introductory presentation on Friday evening at the Centre, attended by 22 people in all.  He asked the audience what questions we have about death and gave an interesting talk on religious and scientific views about death and the possibility of survival beyond the death of the body.  He emphasized that each of us must look into the issue for ourselves rather than accepting any outside authority.  An interesting distinction was the difference between looking into death with a motivation of fear and looking from a sense of wonder.  If we are perceiving from a sense of wonder fear does not exist.  Ravi spoke of the importance of the question “Who am I?”  Who is it that dies, and who is it that lives?  To fully investigate the questions of life and death we must look into the real nature of the “I”.     Sixteen people returned on Saturday for the full weekend retreat.  It consisted of a variety of activities, including guided meditations, exploring Krishnamurti quotations, “observing” without commentary while outdoors in nature, and a good deal of discussion about the central topics of the retreat both in the full group and in smaller groups.  Ravi shared a number of stories relevant to the topics at hand about his meetings and conversations with Krishnamurti.  He also prescribed some writing exercises in which a certain question was asked and the participants were given time of consider it and write their responses.  What would we do if we only had two weeks to live?  What is our expectation about death?  What insight(s) have we had about death over the weekend?  On Saturday evening an audio recording was played of a conversation between Ravi and Krishnamurti on the subject of death.     Many interesting questions and gems of wisdom were presented over the weekend for our contemplation and discussion.  Perhaps one of the most significant focuses for many was the issue of what assists the surrender of the self or ego and what prevents it.  Throughout the retreat Ravi demonstrated a skillful way of inquiring into what is really meant by any statement or so-called authoritative idea, encouraging us to break down unquestioned acceptance and absolutist positions regarding “truth”.  We thus come upon a more open and flexible mode of viewing reality.

  Victoria Krishnamurti Event Sunday, April 12, 2015.     Eight people gathered on Sunday afternoon at the Church of Truth in Victoria to contemplate the nature of pleasure and desire, a subject given some importance by Krishnamurti and other spiritual teachers.  The session began with a silent reading of a handout on pleasure taken from the book Freedom From the Known.  This gave some context for the following twenty minute video of K responding to a question about desire and its awakening.  He focused on the possibility of slowing down the process of desiring by paying careful attention to it.  Then a gap can be open up between the contact with an object or an image projected by thought, the resulting sensation, and the movement of thought which then wants to possess that object or fulfill the mental image.  This opening of a space naturally makes desire and the seeking of pleasure less of a driving force. The group then entered into a discussion of what had been read and seen.  Many relevant insights were shared and questions raised.  It often becomes apparent in these dialogues that people take many different viewpoints, even on subjects dealing with more subtle dimensions of life like non-duality.  The need to listen carefully to what each person is saying without quickly reacting and asserting one’s own opinion became evident to me as the facilitator and as a participant.  There was certainly a lively interest in inquiring into the subjects presented. After a tea break we watched a video of Gabor Mate giving a TED talk in Rio de Janeiro.  He spoke of the high cost of addiction in terms of damage to people’s lives and relationships and touched on the sources of addiction in the residual pain from childhood abuse and the sense of inner emptiness that many feel.   It was an excellent talk and very relevant to the exploration of desire and the drive to seek pleasure.  Finally we watched Eckhart Tolle answering a question about how pleasure fits into a spiritual life.  Eckhart covered some similar ground to K and Mate in his own style and ended with the idea that pleasure is not to be judged or avoided but there is also a deeper joy available which effortlessly arises from our contact with Being.  A short discussion followed. It felt like a densely packed afternoon but seemed to be interesting and insightful for the participants.

  Inquiry Sunday Sunday, April 5, 2015       On Sunday morning four people gathered to continue with the meditations of Rupert Spira on the nature of our experience. The DVD we have been exploring is The Transparency of Things and this completed our viewing of this particular series of interviews and guided contemplations with Rupert. Participants felt that Rupert is, like Krishnamurti in his time, presenting a radical and fresh perspective on the subject of self understanding and the seeing of reality. His pointings can be most helpful in leading us to a deeper seeing of what is.   The Sunday afternoon session included a showing of a question and answer meeting with Krishnamurti from Saanen, Switzerland. K responded to a question on the nature of desire and how it is awakened. He spoke of how to observe desire as it arises so that there is a gap before one acts and therefore a freedom. This freedom can release us from the sense of being slaves to our desires. The discussion that followed investigated the ideas further in terms of practical experience.

  “Secret of the Heart”, Part 2       On Saturday and Sunday Burt focused in turn on the rest of the K quote: not trying to change what you are, and the transformation that occurs.  He also spoke of love and the barriers to its full emergence.  We are generally seeking safety, love and approval, and control of our lives outside ourselves when these things are actually to be found “within”, in the sense of Being.  There were guided meditations on awareness and Being, much lively discussion withing the group, and various ideas presented by Burt which seemed to stretch the understanding of the participants.  He continually  pointed to the fact that the limited “mind” cannot adequately understand what he was pointing to and a certain kind of “letting go” or “surrender” is necessary.     An introductory video was shown about Krishnamurti and there was an evident integration of K into the subject matter.  The feedback from the participants was extremely positive and many were asking that Burt return for another retreat.