Archive for category: Event Summaries

  Inquiry Sunday Afternoon Event         In the afternoon a Krishnamurtij video was shown from the Evelyn Blau series Beyond Myth and Tradition.  The topic was “Choiceless Awareness”, and K spoke of the quality of attention needed for a significant transformation to take place in the human psyche.  Afterwards participants questioned whether K is distinguishing between awareness and attention or if they are for him essentially the same. There was discussion of what attention and awareness actually are for us and how we can become aware of our deeper conditioning and psychological patterns.

    Dialogue Group Meeting Sunday, March 15, 2015        Five people met at the Swanwick Centre for an afternoon of unstructured dialoguing.  Lynn was not able to facilitate due to a cold, so by default I, David, became the leaderless leader.  On the drive to the Centre I had been thinking about my purpose in attending these meetings and how I can best achieve that purpose.  It seemed immediately clear that the essence of it all for me is to “practice” being fully present and attentive to whatever is arising in my life and likewise in the meetings.  This can have many residual benefits and offshoots or aspects to it.  The question seemed to perhaps be an interesting one for the group as a whole, especially as there was a new member who might gain a good sense of what we are about as individuals and as a group.  Group members shared their own reasons for participation and their valuing of the group.  Appreciation was expressed for the quality of listening usually present, the emphasis given to questioning rather than to knowledge, and the opportunity to observe oneself in interaction with others.  The conversation moved into the subject of choice and “doership”, a fertile ground for inquiry and exploration.  Do we choose what to do or is there more a movement that happens from a larger field of intelligence – or perhaps conditioning?  The discussion turned to the problem of suffering and the urge to experience unity or oneness.  One participant mentioned that often the “what?” question is asked but it seems rarely the “why?”  Is there a plan or meaning to life and the universe?  Why are we here?  Why is life here?   I’m sorry to report that no conclusive answer was found.  It was mentioned that Krishnamurti said that if we see that the observer and the observed are one and the division collapses, then we will never need to ask what is the meaning of life.  Krishnamurti’s teachings were also referred to in relation to other points of discussion. The last part of the meeting was taken up largely considering the impact of beliefs on the stage of politics and international relations.  Hopefully an interesting and useful afternoon for all.

  Victoria Video and Dialogue Sunday, March 8, 2015         On a beautiful Sunday afternoon eight participants showed up for a session held at the Church of Truth in Victoria. These meetings are structured around material from the Krishnamurti book Freedom From the Known and this month we were looking at the topic of “awareness”, a central one in chapter 3 of the text. We watched a short video clip of K speaking on “choiceless awareness” at Saanen in the 1980’s, then read a handout from the book. A very lively discussion followed before a tea break, much of it focused on the subject of attention and what it means to look at ourselves totally. After the break we watched a video clip of Rupert Spira in which he suggested that when we are in the grips of an unpleasant feeling or emotion – and presumably also a pleasant one – we could become more interested in the awareness which knows the experience than in the feeling itself. We can pay attention not just to the feeling but to that which knows it and the feeling will naturally die from lack of energetic input. In the dialogue that followed some participants thought that what Rupert was pointing to was complementary to what K says whereas others felt they were very different. There may have been an issue of only partial information as Rupert’s approach goes on in other presentations a step or two further than he did in this short video, but the discussion showed how we are very different in the way we see and understand things. The thinking mind seems to be inherently fragmentary when it attempts to conceive of reality. The session ended with another video clip wherein Eckhart Tolle answered a question about being aware of a feeling and of the sense of presence or awareness itself at the same time. His words may or may not have resolved the differences in people’s views but rather than talk further at that point the session closed with a short period of silence. Perhaps the main purpose of these meetings is to observe ourselves in interaction with others, so there was plenty of opportunity for such self observation throughout the afternoon.

  Krishnamurti Study Group Saturday, February 21, 2015.        Three participants met on a lovely sunny day at the Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada in Metchosin. It was warm enough to sit outside and enjoy the spectacular view from the front of the main house, looking out over the Juan de Fuca Straight. The intention was to begin study of Chapter 2 in the book The First and Last Freedom. We began with a short silent period during which we sat with the question “Who was it that drove to the Centre and who is it that will engage in dialogue?” The idea was to see what images we may hold of ourselves as an entity and what happens when we are consciously aware of these images. This meditation spontaneously led into a discussion which lasted for the two hours set aside for the meeting, and when we did look briefly at the chapter material it was seen that we had been talking about very much the same subjects as K presents in the text. The conversation touched upon the creation of the self by thought, how the sense of a “doer” arises, how seeing what thought is doing can impact our experience, and various other interconnected issues. We will look again at Chapter 2 in the next session and presumably explore the text itself in more detail.