Choiceless Awareness, Part 2
Choiceless Awareness, Part 2:
Awareness and Transformation
With Cynthia Overweg
Zoom Session, April 8, 2023.
Cynthia joined us from Ojai, California, for this Saturday morning online session exploring the teachings of J. Krishnamurti in which he often spoke of “choiceless awareness”. For most of us, Cynthia suggested, choice is a normal part of life. And yet in another realm we could call “choicelessness” it may be possible for human beings to be free of conditioning and this could change the world. All problems arise from the centre, the “me”, and to see its ways we must be silently observant without judgement and without looking for a result. K has said that “when thought is free of time there will be a timeless transformation.”
What do we mean by transformation? Cynthia asked. Like tilling a field, she responded, transformation requires intelligent persistence, not casual awareness at odd moments. The “how”, if there is one, is in the seeing. Seeing what one is is the beginning of transformation for the individual and for the world.
As she normally does, Cynthia guided the group of twenty participants into a short silent period of watching our breathing and relaxing the body and mind. She then conducted a short experiment with images she projected onto the screen, asking us to pay attention to our responses and our naming of the images – whatever arose in our experience. It was interesting to notice the different qualities of sensation and thought that the mind created in its observation of the images.
Cynthia spoke of the importance of compassion or love, which arises in seeing through the misconceptions of the “me”. Choiceless awareness transforms us and without the compassion that arises with its application there is no chance of a new culture appearing.
The fundamental obstacle to self-transformation is fear, which is, as K said, what makes us accept our conditioning. Uncertainty creates fear, but all the mind can do about it is to be passively aware without any choice, just being with “what is”. Then the mind becomes quiet and the problem of fear can be resolved. Space to observe is essential. Transformation can only take place immediately and out of that understanding comes love. This, Cynthia said, is the essence of K’s teaching.
A one-hour presentation was then followed by half an hour of discussion and further questioning. Topics explored were:
– The way Krishnamurti kept bringing his listeners back to the actuality or humaneness of what is and what we are.
– How does it work that the individual affects the whole world?
– Is love an energy?
– Does compassion require being “nice”? Was K nice?
– What is the deepest level of human consciousness?
– Simple kindness with each other
– The light of one star has power
– The importance of seeing and being seen on the personal level
– Standing in another’s shoes (or moccasins)
– Is what K is talking about a “process” which unfolds in us?
– The need to break up our habitual patterns of living
– Being in nature gives us energy to experience something deeper than technology and mechanical life.
Some people commented that such sharing is like spiritual food for which they feel grateful. Although it may not be quantifiable, such group communication contributes to the quality of life within us and beyond us. Why does a flower bloom? There is perhaps no “why”, but a finer energy is working in the Whole and we are learning to listen and to see.
DB
