Self-inquiry with Jeff Brown

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Self-inquiry with Jeff Brown
April 17, 2024
Esquimalt Gorge Pavilion
Victoria, BC

Six people were present for this Wednesday afternoon meeting at the
lovely Gorge Pavilion on Tillicum Road, all regular participants in
dialogues sponsored by the Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada.
Jeff Brown was facilitating the meeting and he began with a period of
silence, which is a very common way to start a meeting in the
Krishnamurti world. We then looked into a number of issues which are
also often probed at our meetings as a means of understanding the
workings of our own minds and hearts as recommended by J.
Krishnamurti and forming the essence of his teachings on
self-knowledge.
The discussion or exploration followed a number of directions over the
hour and a half of the gathering. Athe topics could be labelled, if we were
to give them names, as some of the following:
– the sense of isolation involving attachment to ideas and to an
identity as a separate individual
– the formation of a sense of “self” or “ego”. (This is a regular topic of
exploration in our inquiry sessions).
– facing the unknown and being present with unusual and challenging
sensations and experiences
– sorrow, guilt, and isolation
– death, attachment, and the possibility of “letting go”
– the attachment to activity and having things happen
– ignorance vs. stupidity
– the importance of “awareness” and insight into the nature of our
thinking
– the creation of meaning and the importance of agreement in giving
meaning to life.
– the cruelty of nature vs. that of human beings
– the place of compassion
– the value of dialogue
– knowledge vs. insight
– free will and determinism
The group members seemed to very much enjoy inquiring into the
subjects that were of interest to participants and expressed their
appreciation of the dialogue.

DB

Self-inquiry with Jeff Brown, April 14, 2024

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Self-inquiry with Jeff Brown

April 14, 2024

At Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada

Metchosin, BC

 

Ten people were present in total for this Sunday afternoon meeting at the Metchosin location of the Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada. It was a sunny afternoon providing an opportunity to sit outside on the front lawn for the first time this year. The weather turned more cold and windy as the afternoon progressed, but most of the participants seemed to be fairly comfortable and able to enjoy the outdoors with the mountains, the ocean, and the trees all providing a lovely natural setting for the discussion of our true identity as human beings and perhaps beyond.

Jeff, our facilitator for the session, introduced a number of ideas about the functioning of the brain which were based on the experience of Jill Bolte Taylor when she had a spontaneous awakening resulting from, as she described it, a stroke in the left side of her brain which revealed to her capacities which had been previously completely unknown. Jeff had spoken previously of the extraordinary shift in Jill’s consciousness produced by this sudden change in the functioning of her brain which she had described as an opening of capacities which Jeff took to be similar in many ways to the mystical aspects of J. Krishnamurti’s experiences which formed much of the essence of his understandings and the teachings which emerged from them.

For both Krishnamurti and Taylor it was clear that thought cannot possibly describe the wholeness of the reality perceived by the right side of the brain, which shows the world in a non-linear and translogical mode that the left side cannot grasp but which can offer a deeper meaning and comprehension of what is possible for a human being to see and feel. Krishnamurti often spoke of the benediction that was available when thought became silent and that which is beyond thought could then reveal itself. We explored at some length the possibilities of entering into the unknown. Can we experience the unknown through our own efforts? Can the separate self that conditions our usual mode of experiencing life ever be vulnerable and sensitive to the truth beyond its own habitual ways of knowing reality? Do we need to cling to our familiar identity, our ideas of who and what we are? Can we move past the stuckness of our assumptions about ourselves and what is possible for us as human beings? Can we experience ourselves beyond our common and known identities? Just bringing up the questions seemed to create more space and openness in the group.

DB

Self-inquiry with Jeff Brown, April 7, 2024

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Self-inquiry with Jeff Brown

Sunday, April 7, 2024

At Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada

Metchosin, BC

Jeff has offered to facilitate self-inquiry meetings at the Krishnamurti Centre in Metchosin or elsewhere when we are in need of someone skilled and capable of leading dialogues (when regular presenters are temporarily not available). He appears to have a deep understanding of the dialogue and self-inquiry process and we are grateful for his willingness to take on the role when needed. On this occasion there were only a total of four participants present for the 1 ½ hour meeting which, nevertheless, turned out to be interesting and valuable in probing the perspectives shared by J. Krishnamurti during his lifetime.

Jeff opened the session with some explanation of the ways in which Krishnamurti and Physicist David Bohm explored the nature of reality together during their explorations of “shared meaning” and the workings of the human consciousness. One of the important inquiries they shared was a sometimes intensive examination of the nature of conflict and division and the possibility of transcending the sense of separateness between so-called individuals. Such inquiry included insight into the power of language and thought to create division and conflict.

Jeff spoke of a tribe in the Amazon – the Praha tribe – which apparently had a very different way of seeing the world and of expressing what they saw. This led into a discussion of the place of knowledge, language, and memory and a questioning of our very basic identity. “Are we anything but memory?” Jeff asked, challenging the group to look deeply into the ways we form our understandings and perceptions of ourselves and our world. “What is the self?” became the core question bringing us towards the difficulty of contemplating the Unknown and of following Krishnamurti’s lead into such indefinable territory. It provoked some very interesting looking and sharing within the small group.

DB

What is Real Inquiry?

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What is Real Inquiry?

March 20 – 24, 2024

With Jackie McKinley

Zoom Online

 

Jackie joined us online from the UK for two hours each of five days with the intention of going deeply into the question of what inquiry really is. Five days was considered to offer enough time to penetrate the issue in a way that might open up some significant “understanding” or insight into what J. Krishnamurti meant in his talks and writings by inquiry and/or self-observation. Fourteen people were present, including staff working with the Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada.

After the usual silent period Jackie shared a wondering about why people keep coming back to participate in the group dialogue process as “practised” within the context of Krishnamurti’s teachings and his approach to self-knowledge and self-transformation. And is the first step, the way we begin, important? What goes on behind the activity of thought or “the mind”? Is there actually much inquiry, looking, or observation actually going on? Are we actually aware of what is happening in our unconscious minds, our conditioned consciousness, as individuals and as expressions of the human race? How much do we miss when we look within ourselves? Are we aware or are we just thinking?

Jackie narrowed down the question to “What do I really want?” and encouraged group members to share their responses freely. Some of the answers were as follows:

– I want to understand what conditioning is

– I want to live in awareness as a felt sense

– I want to practise inquiry

– I would like to move beyond expectations and to see myself directly

– I want wholeness

– I would like to be involved in self-inquiry in a fuller way

– I want to share with others and explore our connectivity as humans

– I want clarification

– I want to have more fun in my life

– I want to be more alive

– I’d like to understand the source of my difficulties and I need help with this process

– I want honest communication

– I want intimacy, a pleasurable sharing with others physically, emotionally, and intellectually.

– I want distance from others at times

 

One participant expressed that as we engaged in the sharing he felt there was a kind of “peeling away” which felt like intimacy. Another asked if we were pushing down our desiring or wanting, and what happens when we do that? Are there desires I dare not look at? Do I fear being judged for my desires? Do I have space for looking at my wants, my fears, and my secrets? Would I just like to relax? Can I step out of myself? Does our sharing open us up or the opposite?

 

The feelings of “emptiness” and fear were mentioned and the issue of “managing” such feelings was discussed. We went into numerous such questions over the course of the five days, seeking greater revealing of our hidden tendencies, beliefs, and ideas. At times the inquiry process seemed very challenging to stay with and it was difficult to keep finding the meaning in what was being shared, though we kept pushing more deeply into the layers of our thinking and feeling. Core aspects of our identities were brought forward and the way we hold on to “content” in our way of behaving and relating or “let go” of it was examined. We asked if we have hidden motivations and, if so, how do we discover them? Are we really creating a “safe space” for each other?

The subject of contradiction in ourselves was raised. Krishnamurti maintained that thought is contradictory in its very nature. We often avoid the contradictions that influence our lives. Are we “doing” this by choice or is it mostly unconscious behaviour? How clearly do we see the movements of the “I” in all our thoughts and actions and is this an important aspect of “meditation” as K speaks of it? Do we resist inquiry at a deep level? Are we using thought to explore thought and is that not limited? What did K mean when he spoke or wrote of “negation”?

Over the five days of dialogue we seemed to cover a great deal of ground. Towards the end our attention moved towards the meaning of “love” and the reality of “sorrow” and “separateness”. Finally we came to the question of “emptying” the consciousness, which seemed to bring a sense of completion without a sense of conclusion.

 

Thank you, Jackie, for your wise and skillful guidance into the realm of inquiry

AWARE LIVING CAFE, MARCH 16/24

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This final in the six-part series had 8 attendees; the Book Of Life themes were Relationship and Fear. We started with a deep discussion on how relationships – if they’re genuine – bring with them a certain necessary friction wherein one may meet their own conditioned expectations and needs for comfort and security only in relationships that challenge one to see and listen and transform with self-awareness. Indeed, if there’s no tension, there is no relationship; it becomes a comfortable non-relationship, a convenience and an escape from reality.

We talked too of Fear; of there being two kinds: one instinctive and related to survival re food, clothing and shelter, and another imagined fear being psychological – mind-made, produced and believed by the apparent ‘me’. We explored how the craving to become in relationships – rather than to simply be, here and now – causes personal fears that one’s projected (conditioned) desires will not be met and achieved. Freedom from fear comes with one’s direct recognition and understanding of the source and past cause of it. In sum, the past mind-made nature of fear can only be comprehended and dissolved in the present, in passive awareness. In aware living, there is no past, no tomorrow – no fear.

Kind regards
James Waite

AWARE LIVING CAFE March 2/24

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There were 12  international zoom Cafe attendees; most were returning supporters. The themes from K’s Book Of Life were Dependence and Attachment. We talked about the deep need to be free, and that the free mind that has humility can actually learn, and that all learning is only when one observes clearly, moment to moment, without opinions,  judgement and beliefs that filter the direct recognition of ‘what is, as is.’ We discussed the fact that mind’s are limited to moving from the known, to the known, and that underlying insecurity – the conscious and subconscious conditioned responses to challenge – is an escape and the source of fear and attachment. We further discussed that in truth (which ultimately cannot be avoided) one does not know, and that there is in fact, no ‘knower‘ . We ended on a note of recognizing that the essential nature of one’s freedom from dependence and attachment lies not in any books or ‘outside’ authorities but only in deep and deepening  inner self-knowing; in directly recognizing that all that one is, is choiceless, infinite awareness: love, peace, beauty and joy.
Regards,
James Waite

Self-inquiry, March 3, 2024

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Exploring Ourselves

March 3, 2024

With Jackie McInley

Zoom Online

 

Jackie joined us online from London, England, for this Sunday morning (Pacific Time) meeting. Initially there were 11 participants present but one soon left due to poor internet reception at her location. Those remaining then attempted to connect with what we’d been dialoguing about during the previous meeting to see if we wanted to go back and continue to explore the subject in greater depth. What was most remembered was an interest in the significance of listening and being listened to, which could turn into a profound sense of “being heard” and “understood”. We collectively wondered what it is that we feel we need, including what sorrow needs in the way of support. Is it to be acknowledged? To be loved? Are we hurt in some way and wanting to be affirmed? Can we look carefully into the subject? Are we seeking to support the egoic self in us? When we hear ourselves speaking with our parents’ voices, can we stop and look at what we are trying to say deeply but not get caught in our identities? Is it possible, we asked, to look at exactly what goes on when we listen to others and to ourselves at the same time.

Is it “connection” we are seeking in our relationships? What do we mean by connection? Does it imply that we must negate the self we have “created” and break through the programming and conditioning that keeps us stuck in our personalities and cut off from love? And what is love? Is it a programmed response? Is it romantic? Spiritual? Does it involve beliefs, or is it beyond beliefs? Are we afraid of each other and limited by that fear? The dialogue went on for a good couple of hours then seemed to come to a natural ending with some closing comments by Jackie stressing the importance of “seeing”. If there is no seeing, she offered, then the conditioned responses continue. When there is seeing then the patterns may come to an end and something “new” may be revealed in our relating.

 

DB

AWARE LIVING CAFE, FEB 17/24

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There were 11-12 international Zoom attendees, almost all were regulars. The themes from The Book of Life were Action and Good and Evil. We started with a discussion on ‘fact’, that it’s not personal, and that there is only the direct recognition of fact when one is communing with and as, what is, as it is happening, here and now, apparently. We talked about how one removes the conflict of the opposites when the fact of this moment is seen and perhaps, acted upon in that seeing. In fine, it’s only when the mind is free of belief, of idea, that there can be true experiencing of reality. On good and evil, we explored that, according to K and our own experiencing, one can recognize that there is no good and evil in fact, but only the lack of attention. If one is inattentive, then one is not seeing the whole, from the whole, which requires total attention in, and as, awareness. Attention comes into being when there’s no becoming, no believing, no believer.
Regards,
James Waite

Exploring Ourselves, February 18, 2024

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Exploring Ourselves

With Jackie McInley

February 18, 2024

Zoom online

Jackie joined us online from the UK for this dialogue meeting attended by eleven people in total. The session began with some discussion of the previous meeting which had featured a newcomer to the group and had included some conflict as a result of differing ideas concerning how to go about engaging in a dialogue. It was suggested by a couple of participants in today’s group that we’d have more effective communication if we examined people’s actions while observing them as examples of universal human tendencies rather than idiosyncratic habits of separate individuals which can be judged as “right” or “wrong”, intelligent or otherwise, and so on. Also, it would be more useful to look at our own reactions rather than pointing out other persons’ reactions. This took us into a sharing of past experiences featuring fight, flight, and freeze responses and then into a discussion of our motivations in exploring the nature of our communications. We questioned if there is a possibility of healing when we explore difficult issues in our dialogues. The exploration moved into looking at our pain, with some arising of sadness and tears within the group. We questioned whether unfinished childhood experiences might carry old pain into the present moment and if there is still conflict in us at a deep level. Are we attempting to escape from old and deep levels of pain in ourselves? And how can we best deal with such energies? Can we stay with the pain, listening to it as if it were a child? It was suggested that, as human beings, we may often be open to the idea that there is something wrong with us. We may not have been properly loved as a child and may still be suffering the results of such treatment as a sense of sorrow as adults. Can the incomplete process of childhood be completed as adults? It was very interesting to probe into these issues and to investigate our conditioning in the complex world of emotional and psychological development from childhood forward to present experience.

DB

This Light in Oneself, February 9 – 11, 2024

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This Light in Oneself: True Meditation

February 9 – 11, 2024

With Cynthia Overweg

Zoom Online

Cynthia joined us online from the UK for a series of three sessions exploring the teachings of J. Krishnamurti on the subject of meditation. Each session was attended by 15 or 16 participants in total. Cynthia made use of striking photographic images in order to support her well-constructed words, in many cases taken from Krishnamurti’s talks or writings. Over many years he taught and discussed his perspectives in the public domain as well as privately. Cynthia also played brief passages of music to support our going inwards during moments of silent sitting while watching the breath and feeling our feet on the floor.

As an introduction, Cynthia shared some of the most essential aspects of K’s teaching, which often involved observing ourselves in our daily transactions with others and with the world around us. She made a strong point of the fact that Krishnamurti’s words were an attempt to express the “wordless”, the beauty beneath and within the words and ideas. She emphasised, as K did, the fact of light in the natural world and the “mystery” of it. On Friday the focus was on the question “What does it mean to be a light to oneself” and “What is true meditation?” Are the two separate?

Cynthia pointed out that, for Krishnamurti, meditation was not a technique. It was a seeing of “what is”, an understanding of oneself at the very depths of one’s being. It was the emptying of the mind of all activity of the self. Ordinarily the observer separates itself from the observed, creating the “me” and the “you”. Can we look without the interpreting process, without translating our observations into words? Nobody but ourselves can teach us about ourselves. We experimented with noticing all activity of the self, the arising of images, the slightest movements of thought, and the formation of a fragmentary existence in oneself. There was some discussion of these issues in the group.

Cynthia shared what K himself had also shared in his lifetime when he stated that light can only appear in us when we carefully examine ourselves. In fact, looking at ourselves affects the whole consciousness of humanity. This was a significant feature of K’s teaching wherein he challenged us to be aware of our conditioning, to be free of it, and asked if we can create a totally different society. Much of the material studied on Saturday took up this question about which K was extremely passionate. Cynthia shared many quotes guiding students’ explorations of the conditioned mind, awareness, meditation, and self-observation. Is the entity that desires to free itself different from the conditioning? Can an analytical process free the mind from its own creation of a “self”? The seeing of the limitation of such seeking may bring freedom without any seeking and the mind may become quiet. If we begin to understand ourself without trying to change, then what we are may undergo a transformation. Meditation is looking and listening without controlling. It is not a means to an end: it is both the means and the end.

We tried observing a number of evocative photographs and the effect they had on us. Krishnamurti was quoted. “When you are a light to yourself you are a light to the world because the world is you and you are the world”

On the second day we spent a good deal of time looking at issues of authority and fear. What are some of the obstacles preventing our full understanding of our true nature? If we can understand these things then we don’t have to identify with them and we may be able to break away from all authority, including the authority of our own experience. We must face our own insecurities and be aware that we are frightened of losing the “known”. In such awareness the problem of fear may be resolved.

On the third day we looked more deeply into the nature of love and its relation to beauty. We were encouraged to speak of our personal issues with love, compassion, and living “from the heart”.  Cynthia had many quotes on love and the difficulties of living without a centre or a “me”. Love is beyond thought and time. When there is no mind being dominant, then there is love.

The three-day workshop ended with some expressions of appreciation from the participants, many of whom praised Cynthia for her hard work and dedication in putting together such an extensive presentation. She had created a space of beauty and wisdom wherein there was a sense of relaxing into a space of looking and listening which was supportive, nurturing, and enjoyable, providing meaningful insights. DB