Meeting Life, January 20 – 22, 2023

Meeting Life

January 20 – 23, 2023

With Mukesh Gupta and Ann Engels

Zoom online

 

Mukesh joined us from Agra in India and Ann from Belgium in order to form a strong team which provided a loving and sensitive environment for a group of eleven inquirers to explore the topic of “Meeting Life” for a period of three days. Each day offered a couple of hours of contemplation in a large space of silence, awareness, and love that Ann invited us to create together. Each day she guided us in an opening meditation which immediately brought a sense of spacious silence. Mukesh then asked us to be simply aware of our experience in the present moment. Can we meet this moment’s reality with a silent stillness that implies meeting everything in ourselves and in our experience?

Usually we are meeting life from our past memories and projections, Mukesh pointed out. Is the quality of this “meeting” limited or are we meeting life from the wholeness of our being, with all our senses? Can there be listening from the space of silence and attention? If there is, then whatever is false will fall away and what is true will remain. The mind is naturally quiet when engaged in looking and listening. No force or suppression is needed. We are simply aware of how thought is creating “noise” and this awareness brings a spontaneous silence and a seeing of what is arising. Whatever arises passes away like a cloud in a blue sky but the sky remains as it is.

Is it possible, Mukesh asked, to see the futility of effort and conflict? Can the noise be understood in clear seeing? He spent a little time describing the process of thought which creates conflict and noise and the significance of naming our experience in the pursuit of happiness or desire. Mind is pursuing its own idea of happiness depending on conditions, but what is it that is searching for happiness as a seeker? Are we creating a separation? Understanding ourselves is essential. It requires inner silence and awareness beyond thought and “ego” as a noisy mind cannot meet life in any new way. To be aware of this fact brings peace.

After a five-minute silent break we continued with questions and discussion. Many interrelated perceptions were shared and the reality of the “separate self” was questioned, The topic of Silence was looked into from numerous angles and its existence in the here and now was acknowledged and given value. In silence the desires of the mind can be seen and dissolved. The energy of silence may even invoke that same energy in others and the truth of this was reported to be felt in the group.

The theme of the second day was Awareness. Again, there was a lovely guided meditation with Ann and a talk by Mukesh. Some of the significant differences between thought and awareness were explored and time spent with their many implications. The limitations of judgement and belief in “good” and “bad” were looked at and the presence of attention and awareness right from the beginning of self-inquiry were suggested. We explored the desire to change the way things are and the problems it generates. After examining awareness from a number of viewpoints it was expressed that it acts without goal or motive and is, in fact, a kind of “deep love” with a transformational quality.

About half way through the session it was suggested that we break into smaller groups. This option was reported to create a greater intimacy and depth in the investigation and it was employed again on the third day of the workshop. After the breakout sessions the whole group reconvened to share the experience.

The theme of the third day was “Love”. There was a sense that we had prepared the ground for such an exploration and were perhaps able to enter it more “skillfully” than in the first hours of the workshop. Ann read some passages from Rumi and Krishnamurti which seemed right on target and led to fruitful “meditation”. The quote from K was as follows: “Can all that is not love be washed away? If we don’t know what to do, then do absolutely nothing…. then there is love.” This quote stimulated a rich discussion of the factor of “not knowing” in the unfoldment of self-knowledge. There were long silences and a quality of stillness in the group as the meeting moved on through the days. As Ann said in her concluding thoughts, the weekend was “a beautiful, slow sharing of awareness and love.”

DB