Self-inquiry, October 25, 2023

Self-inquiry

October 25, 2023

With Jackie McIinley

Esquimalt Gorge Park Pavilion

 

We are very pleased to have Jackie back with us from the UK for another series of meetings sponsored by the Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada. As before, Jackie will facilitate events at the Swanwick Road location in Metchosin as well as at the Esquimalt Gorge Pavilion at 1070 Tillicum Road in Victoria. Thirteen people in total were present for her return meeting on a Wednesday afternoon from 4:30 – 6:00 pm, an attendance the size of which was very satisfying. The participants quickly entered into the spirit of the dialogue and were attentive to Jackie’s introduction wherein she spoke about the differences in people who had attended her sessions in many locations around the world as well as the similarities at a deeper level of their experience. She outlined the phenomenon of “conditioning”, which is a central aspect of J. Krishnamurti’s perspective on the human being and involves the ways we have been taught to think and to behave in our particular society and in the world in its larger context. Krishnamurti’s teachings suggest we understand ourselves and our conditioning by carefully observing ourselves in our relationship with the world we live in. This may bring about an experience of freedom that is not normally accessible to us.

Jackie asked the participants if they would be willing to share what it was that drew them to such a meeting. In response, group members provided a variety of motives for their interest in such a gathering:

– seeking some depth in their lives

– wanting to explore the question “Who (or what) am I truly?”

– Desiring to be seen by others and to share such seeing

– Observing one’s life

– Attraction to what they see as Krishnamurti’s compassion

– going on the “soul’s journey”

– learning to silence the mind and to let intelligence emerge

– wanting to look “under the hood” to see what may be hidden there

waiting to be discovered. There may be revelations in store.

– There may be a deeper, non-verbal sharing going on that is of great

value

– desiring to see through the “mask” of oneself

– For the writer, there seemed to be a value in being vulnerable to each other and exposing our “deeper” persons (or beyond our persons).

– Jackie pointed out that dialogue is an opportunity to notice things we normally do not notice in ourselves in our regular lives.

– Other questions arose:

– Can we touch the sense of Presence, which is our true identity and is available in silence?

– Who is the weaver of our stories and who sees through the weaver?

– The mind comes up with many answers to the questions of life, seeking certainty. Is it possible to live without certainty, without quick answers?

– Is entering the Unknown an activity of something other than thought?

– What feels threatened by the unknown, by not knowing?

– Can everything be open to questioning?

 

It was decided that it might be interesting to stay with the last questions until the next meeting.

 

DB