Self Study Meeting, January 3, 2021

Self Study Meeting

Sunday, January 3, 2021

Zoom Online

 

Seventeen people in total attended this first meeting of the new year. The readings chosen for the session were the December 23 to 31 selections on “Meditation” from The Book of Life. The last entries of the book seemed appropriate as a completion of 2020 as well as a relevant opening for 2021, as meditation is central to Krishnamurti’s teachings and will be a central theme throughout the year.

The meeting began with a guided meditation based on the December 23 entry wherein Krishnamurti says that “what one has to do is to be aware of the thinker, and not try to resolve the contradiction and bring about an integration between thought and the thinker.” That basic idea was filled out a little more during the meditation and presumably in the following discussions. We experimented with a new format, using one of the Zoom options, in which, after the guided meditation, the group was split into smaller groups of four or five so that there could perhaps be a more intimate sharing in the smaller groups than in the full group. Although there were some technical difficulties, mostly involving a problem with a participant’s computer, it turned out that people enjoyed the experience of the smaller groups. Generally they were all very gracious and accepting of the difficulties. The group reformed in its full size for the last forty-five minutes.

Hopefully the problems will be remedied before the next meeting so we can take full advantage of the “Meeting Breakout” option and have a more focused session with minimal distractions. Anyway, it seemed that the experiment was considered worthwhile and something worth continuing with in the future. The online format involves a continuous learning process!