Self-Inquiry with Javier Gómez Rodríguez, October 9, 2025
We began with the topic of hope. One of the participants had seen a recently released interview with Jane Goodall for a Netflix series entitled ‘Famous last words.’ The interview had been made to be shown only after her death. At one point the interviewer had walked out of the room, leaving her alone with the camera and in that space she chose to talk about her hope for humanity. This contrasted with Krishnamurti’s general dismissal of hope as an escapist projection into the future, therefore irrelevant to the essential task of staying with what is. This was the starting point for our inquiry into the various implications of hope and the reasons why K might have dismissed it.
One aspect was that the Jane Goodall interview could be seen as representing her expression of her honest views in the face of death, implying that the encounter with death is a moment of truth. But if so, how did hope fit between truth and death? While hope might not seem like such a big thing, in the Christian religious outlook it figures among the three cardinal virtues: Hope, Faith and Charity: the hope of salvation, the faith in Christ on which that hope rests, and the love we owe to our fellow human beings universally as the way of virtue that makes us worthy of divine dispensation. Is such hope misguided and irrelevant? Is it an escape?
It was commented that K dismissed hope because he was all about living in the now, without past or future. And yet, he was deeply concerned with the future of humanity. Another participant added that, when one finds oneself in a crisis and hits the point of hopelessness, something like grace takes place. Another reported on a recent bicycle accident in which he broke both wrists – his forearms were still in a plaster cast –, leaving him unable to look after himself or to play music, which he had done for many years. But even though he was normally a restless person, this new state brought an unexpected calmness to him, for he could not do anything about it and therefore it was not a problem. And hope, as the wish for something to be different than what it is in the future, did not enter into it. Hope was not needed to face facts. That state, he said, was neither one of hope nor of hopelessness.
Can we live without hope, which is without a future? Human beings find the meaning of their existence in the fulfilment of their purposes in time. When that future and those purposes collapse, we feel that our lives have lost their meaning. So we live for hope, for the future. But, it was asked, what is the meaning of life? If we knew the meaning of life there might be no question of invoking hope, for life would unfold according to its own meaning and there would be no need to wish for anything else. So what do we understand by the meaning of life? Does life have a meaning that necessitates delving deeper than the surface expressions of existence? Or is life its own meaning, the meaning of life being in the living? Human beings have the need to understand and understanding means delving beyond the concrete manifestations and appearances to the deeper substance and essence of the given thing. This is what is done in science, which necessitates insight to discover new levels of physical law, new orders of necessity. When we talk about finding the meaning of life, are we talking about discovering the very source and essence of it beyond the superficial level of appearance and its everlasting conflicts and contradictions? K would seem to be talking about a surface activity of thought under which lies a subtler and deeper structure which we must traverse to the very end if we are to discover not only a wholesome quality of being in ourselves and our relationships but to awaken to the cosmic dimension of the sacred in which ultimate meaning resides.
The question of meaning was raised. Bohm’s notion of meaning as significance, value and purpose was put forward. We are creatures of meaning. As significance, it points to something, just like a sign would do. So significance depends on whether the pointer indicates something actual. Value is attached to meaning because we value whatever means a lot to us. And value is the guide of our purposes, which is what we mean to do pursuant to the previously surmised value and significance. Meaning is central to Bohm’s dialogue proposal. Dialogue is about the sharing of meaning, which is the purpose of communication, which means to establish meaning in common. Meanings are generally contradictory between one person and another, making for division and conflict. They are also generally incoherent. This fragmentation makes working together very difficult and it breaks down the very fabric of society, when not that of the individual psyche. Holding all the contradictory opinions or thoughts together without judgement goes a long way to creating a common consciousness among the participants which does not suppress the individual.
In that sense, this approach to dialogue is an invitation to become aware of the process of fragmentation created by the various subcultures and assumptions that tend to break up our communication and to break down our relationships. This quality of attention is part of the movement to wholeness with which we are all supposedly concerned. So it is not just a verbal disquisition or entertainment but a serious experiment in the perception, understanding and transformation of consciousness. It is the fragmentation of consciousness that makes life meaningless. The meaning of life is its wholeness, not only in oneself and in society, but in relation to the cosmic ground of being. A fragmented existence is a meaningless life. That’s why it is important to understand the fragmentation, so there can be freedom from it and the flowering of goodness in the world.
The meeting proceeded in a very friendly and open way. While it seemed clear that we all had our angle on things and even a set of convictions, there was a prevalent sense of listening and mutual consideration which opened up new perspectives on the topic and made for a very harmonious exchange. It also helped that it was a mild and sunny Autumn afternoon, with bunches of dahlias blooming in the garden just outside the windows, adding their beauty to the dialogue. Is there hope in beauty, in goodness and truth? Or hope is when they are not?
Javier Gómez Rodríguez
