Swanwick Star Issue Nr. 16 (2023)

With the Covid-19 pandemic coming to an end, the Centre facility reopened this year for small group meetings and personal study stays.  Our online program has continued over these past years and what follows are excerpts from reports by our staff member David Bruneau about some of the Zoom workshops and meetings as well as onsite meetings at the Centre and in Victoria.  The names mentioned refer to workshop facilitators.

 

 

 

 

Special Summer Event – July 2023

As part of our gradual re-opening of the Swanwick Centre following the pandemic, we had a special summer event on the front lawn for staff, personal study facilitators & volunteers. There was food and drink, as everybody re-connected and chatted gaily. The birds added to the enchantment by twittering in the trees and flying overhead joyously as a string quartet played modern esoteric music composed by one of the KECC directors and classical pieces by Bach and Handel.  The receptive audience helped forge the marvelous ambience of this afternoon peace concert. Most importantly, everybody seemed to enjoy themselves thoroughly!

It was also a celebration of the fact that, after 3 years of closure due to Covid and with summer arriving, we would be able to hold more events in the lovely outdoor environment at Swanwick with its views of the ocean and snow-covered mountains. After enjoying a generous layout of sandwiches and refreshments with gusto in the sunny weather we had been blessed with for the occasion, we were entertained for about an hour by a classical string quartet. The music was delightful and much appreciated by the audience. It formed a fitting complement to this lovely setting in nature. As the guests lingered on, they enjoyed further interaction with old friends.

  • Lovely music and initiative!
  • I wanted to express my thanks, whilst it is still fresh, for a lovely afternoon of excellent music in such a beautiful setting and on a perfect summer’s day.
  • it was an  unexpected pleasure that I really did enjoy her compositions, which fit perfectly into the environment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exploring Ourselves

Sunday, March 19, 2023

With Jackie McInley

Zoom online

 

The experience of shame drew our attention for some time and its validity or

non-validity. Is shame just a result of conditioning? How do we know

what is right and wrong? Is there a sensitivity to right and wrong which

doesn’t need the experience of shame? Can shame be a mechanism of

appropriate correction of behaviour?

 

 

 

 

Exploring Ourselves

March 12, 2023

With Jackie McInley

Zoom Online

 

    As a group we explored the factor of thinking that is beyond our conscious awareness but at the same time is creating our experience of life or reality. We are mostly unaware of our thinking process while it is inventing a “me” and guiding that “me” in its responses and reactions.

     We looked into the issue of “Identification” and the creation of our identity, especially the role of memory as an abstraction which nevertheless determines much of our experience of reality. Jackie felt that the dialogue today was one of a great richness of discovery as we looked at the workings of thought and its creation of images, memories, and interpretations. Our images are mistaken for reality, which is a very serious matter! It is how we can end up killing each other. Krishnamurti and Bohm gave great importance to “thinking together” because it meant penetrating the illusions of thought so they are not believed to be worth going to war over. Does “thinking together” mean questioning our assumptions and finding a quality of freedom in the spaciousness of such inquiry?

 

 

 

 

 

Choiceless Awareness

With Cynthia Overweg

Saturday, March 11, 2023

Zoom Online

 

     Cynthia joined us online from Ojai, California, the site of the Krishnamurti Foundation of America. She will be presenting a series of four meetings which invite an exploration of the theme of “Choiceless Awareness”, a central element in the teachings of J. Krishnamurti, and what he had to say about it. For this first gathering there were twenty-one participants, including interested seekers, facilitators, and support staff. The format of the sessions will be powerpoint presentations and following discussion periods along with short periods of silence and listening to beautiful music in which participants will be encouraged to be grounded with feet on the floor and to be fully present with whatever is arising in the space of Awareness. The silent breaks offer an opportunity to integrate the words of Krishnamurti that have been shared as well as the words of wisdom that may have been shared by the group members.

     The first session was entitled “Approaching Choiceless Awareness”. Cynthia asked “What is awareness without choice?” First there is awareness, a silent observation of “what is”, then there is choice, like and dislike, and interpretation of what is observed, including descriptive words or naming, with their conditioned ideas. Krishnamurti asks if we can be aware without choice, interpretation, and words. He asks us to look into the “mirror of relationship”. Seeing the workings of our minds in relationship, K says that every form of conditioning is dissolved. In the perception of what is there is freedom from what is.

     Cynthia suggested that awareness and attention are synonymous. They both point to an observing of the “me” which spontaneously brings about a capacity for stillness and silence in the mind. In such stillness the “Immeasurable” can reveal itself and the human being can experience “bliss”. Other ideas shared by Cynthia were as follows:

  • There is a relationship between relaxation and attention
  • The mind cannot understand if it looks only at its judgements and opinions
  • “Only when the mind is not self-concerned is there a possibility of bliss”. (K)
  • “When I understand myself, I understand you, and out of that understanding comes love” (Cynthia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Self-Inquiry with Mukesh #1

 

The inquiry turned to the fact that we often turn away from the sense of

nothingness or emptiness in life and in ourselves. This creates a great

deal of noise in our minds. Can there be another sense of ourselves

beyond the noise of thought? Can we make a quantum leap into a space

of peacefulness? It may begin with a noticing of the movements of

thought and then a “staying with” this questioning observation. “What is

the capacity to be simply and consistently aware?” it was asked. And

can we keep asking such questions?

 

 

 

 

 

Self-Inquiry Sunday with Mukesh #2

 

We went slowly and carefully into the nature of thinking and what it is like

to move without a method into a state of seeing and listening which is

beyond the definitions and descriptions that thought draws on to label

such subtle realities. Every participant found his or her own inner

insights and conceptual terms which added to the group process of

discovery, producing a creative flow of fresh and lively perceptions. It

was an unfolding, largely beyond thought, which brought a sense of

timelessness in the slow and gentle unravelling of the nature of thought

and awareness. The insights were sometimes difficult to describe but

were very interesting to the contemplative minds that all participated with

deep perception and intelligence, seemingly with minimal effort, in the

creation of a rich experience of “meditative self-inquiry”.

 

 

 

 

Self-Inquiry Sunday with Mukesh #3

 

First, we looked into the challenge of calming the nervous system as a

ground for self-understanding and realization of a deep peace within. We

then moved into an examination of the concept of “innocence” and what it

might really mean. This opened into some dialogue about fear, greed, and

war in the world. Related to these explorations, the issue of our

conditioning as human beings in our current society was raised and a good

deal of time spent in looking at different aspects of our conditioning, for

example the need to be competitive and to compare ourselves with others.

Right education is needed to move beyond this quality of conflict.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Self-inquiry

Sunday, August 27, 2023

Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada

With Mukesh Gupta

 

 

     Eleven people were present for Mukesh Gupta’s last meeting before his departure from Canada. He began the session in his usual manner with a short guided meditation and an introduction to what takes place in a self-inquiry meeting, the main intention of which is to understand ourselves. Mukesh pointed out that if self-understanding is not present the implications are immense. Self-understanding brings love, beauty, and a freshness into our lives and without it there is a gap in our experience of ourselves. These qualities must be rediscovered every day, beginning with simple sensations and exploring the deeper aspects of living a “conscious” life. Right understanding is when all faculties are in harmony. This involves a “dying” to the false ideas of ourselves, which must be seen by observation. The seeing is the transformation, the falling away of the false self. It is a life-long process which involves insight each day, each moment, as one opens to the exploration of the challenges and obstacles involved.

     Mukesh encouraged participants to share some of the obstacles they had come upon. The first to speak suggested that his greatest obstacle has been “unconsciousness” in himself and others. In delving more deeply into the question, issues of emptiness and manifestation were looked at with a careful curiosity about the sense of separation and isolation that many feel and the illusion of such a deeply held belief. On the other hand, it was shared by some that coming together in a group such as this in order to witness the workings of our own minds and “hearts” was in this very moment producing an experience of Being which contains love and a sense of communion. People may speak as if they hold a kind of knowing about what they are speaking of but there seems to be more profundity and fullness to the truth of “not-knowing”!

     In conclusion, Mukesh encouraged us to keep on learning and opening our hearts, awakening from moment to moment to the truth that Life is being in Love. He suggested we pay attention to whatever is taking us away from love and unity.

 

 

 

 

Self-inquiry

Sunday, October 29, 2023

With Jackie McInley

At KECC Metchosin, BC

 

     Thirteen people, all included, attended this event sponsored by the Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada and held at the Centre’s main location at 538 Swanwick Road in Metchosin, BC at 3 pm on a Sunday afternoon. The meeting was facilitated by Jackie McInley from the UK, who seems to attract on a regular basis a good number of serious seekers committed to exploring who or what they truly are in a context of group exploration and investigation. She pointed out right from the beginning that it is not a group with membership, rules, particular loyalties or principles. The group is not focused on the individual but, at the same time, does not ignore him or her. The subject of interest is the human mind or the human being itself and how it creates its experience of life.

     Where should we begin such an exploration? Jackie asked. One interesting approach might be to focus on something that is weighing us down, that we would like to address, or anything we felt stuck on in our lives. We may be disturbed by changes in our world, by uncertainty, chaos, or our expectations not being met. What is our relationship with anxiety and insecurity? Jackie asked, and with a sense of instability we may feel in our lives? And what is it that triggers these feelings? These questions stimulated a string of penetrating observations and ideas from the participants which challenged the conventional ways we might inquire into such issues and brought us into ever-deeper insights and perceptions in the realm of understanding the nature of thought and its movements in ourselves. We considered the proposition that observation of thought brings about a silence in the mind and explored the possibility of touching the “Unknown”, which Krishnamurti and others suggest is of utmost importance in our self-exploration. Group members seemed to feel that the dialogue was very worthwhile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Self-inquiry, November 29, 2023

With Jackie McInley

Esquimalt Gorge Park Pavilion (Victoria, BC)

 

     Ten people were present for the penultimate session of this visit to Canada by Jackie. She will be missed. Her skill in reflecting back to the group what its members have expressed and suggesting directions we could move to deepen our inquiry has made her facilitation extremely effective and valuable. To begin this session, Jackie brought forth the phenomena of the “lone wolf” and that of The Hundredth Monkey in the behaviour of certain animals in nature. She mentioned that human beings display similar patterns, which have been taken by scientists such as David Bohm to offer “hope” that we could find ways to cooperate and live in a greater state of harmony than we have up until now. One group member asked at this point if there was fear in the group and a self-protectiveness which might prevent a working together on the part of humanity.

     Another participant asked if we have an understanding of how to deal with fear when it arises. How can we transcend fear when it appears? Can fear sometimes be an impetus for a healthy response to life situations? Can we “go through” our fear, and do we in fact actually have any choice in the matter? Is there a fear that actually is us, without separation, and without it being “my” fear?

     We asked whether the source of fear is thinking, especially the generation of the “I” or “me” thoughts which form our identity. Is there a “me” which is creating the fear? And along with that, is there a motive for getting rid of fear, which keeps us caught in fear? Can there be a “seeing” of what is going on without a drive to find a resolution? Can there be a seeing with our whole being? These and other questions kept our attention for the full time of the meeting and then we had to draw it to a close.

     It seems that our dialogue meetings have progressively taken on a sense of cooperative harmony and exploration that brings us together in a real search for truth and, perhaps, even love.

 

 

 

 

Self-inquiry

December 3, 2023

With Jackie McInley

At 538 Swanwick Rd. in Metchosin

(the Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada)

 

     Thirteen people in total were present for this, the last meeting with Jackie on her present trip to Canada. She picked up on a subject that had been looked into during the previous meeting in Victoria: the idea of the “mask” and if we are functioning with or without one. How authentic are we in our moment-to-moment interactions with each other?

     Once the idea of the mask had been re-introduced we sat for five minutes or so in silence. There was a comment that it was nice to have such a quiet beginning. Then Jackie gave her usual short introduction to the dialogue and responded to a few inquiries about what is allowed in it. Anything is allowed, she explained. We can talk about and explore anything we wish to, but it usually is more meaningful when we focus on some issue that has some weight for us. A spontaneous silence came upon the group for some minutes, at which point one participant took the risk to expose his mask by sharing some of the insecurities and anxieties that were commonplace for him in his daily life and the self-definitions that went along with those feelings. He ended by summarising his ideas about himself with the words “I am a loser.”

     Another participant challenged the first by asking “Why, then, does the mask continue to exist?” Various members of the group contributed ideas about the dynamics of group interaction. “Is it common to project a mask in such a situation? Does everyone feel insecure when speaking out in front of a group? It was suggested that Krishnamurti is offering an alternative experience in that he is speaking of a process of self-observation that can be applied to any life situation. Such a close watching of one’s responses can bring in a fresh perception of oneself which involves a continuous learning about oneself and a questioning of the habits of thinking that are determining one’s experience. Such observation can create a space in oneself where a kind of freedom is revealed. The session concluded with what seemed like a satisfactory feeling of peacefulness and harmony.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Goodbye Tsuki!

 

Tsuki was a very special soul, beloved by all, especially everyone at Swanwick.

He brought so much joy to every life he touched.

We wish him peace, love, and light on his onward journey.

 

 

 

Swanwick Star Issue No.15 (2022)

The Centre facility remained closed due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

Our online program, however, continued throughout the year and what follows are excerpts from reports by our staff member David Bruneau about some of the Zoom workshops and meetings hosted by Ralph Tiller for KECC.

The names mentioned refer to workshop facilitators.

 

Self Study Meeting
Sunday, January 2, 2022
Zoom online

      Fourteen people were in attendance for this final installment of what has been a series of monthly meetings facilitated by David to explore deeply the teachings of J. Krishnamurti. The meetings have been going on now for a few years and most recently have been via the internet, which allows participants to join us from all over the world. Our investigations are supported and stimulated by selections from The Book of Life: Daily Meditations with Krishnamurti. In this case the readings were the April 1 – 14 selections focusing mainly on the topic of desire. The April 4 entry was used as guidance for a silent contemplation to begin the session and bring attention to observing ourselves. The passage was read slowly while participants sat quietly, opening to the meaning and experience of what K was saying. The main thrust of the pointers was that if we look at desire without any judgement or “condemnation” then the nature of desire will be revealed in unexpected ways and with new and fresh aspects. K challenges us to be open not just to particular desires but also to the “total quality” of desire.

     The contemplation of these utterances triggered a variety of responses, sometimes quite contradictory and emphasizing different perspectives and ways of approaching the issue of desire in us. There were manifestations of apparent conflict between participants and, on the other hand, of significant “truths” or insights. There were sharings of appreciation for the opportunity to discuss such subtle but important matters with like-minded individuals. As usual, the nature of “the self”was questioned again and again and discussed with some intensity. Many of the group agreed that kindness, patience, and compassion are elements much needed in the practice of dialogue if it is to be not only fruitful but also enjoyable.

 

 

 

Exploring Ourselves
Dialogue session with Jackie McInley, online
Sunday, March 6, 2022

 

Participants were asked to bring up topics for the dialogue. Based on the responses, the nature

of dialogue itself became the focus, including What is dialogue? Is something being generated

in dialogue that is different? Are we on the same page, or not? How do we know? Does

dialogue help create unity? Are we here to be comfortable, even getting comfort from others

sharing their discomfort?

It was asked: What happens when I don’t feel we’re on the same page? And do we need to be

on the same page as others? The need for security in dialogue was raised.

One participant asked if we can all be on the same page with K’s statement: ‘As long as there’s

an ‘I’ there cannot be love’.

 

     

 

 

The Only Revolution: Meditation on Interior Change
With Cynthia Overweg, online
March 12, 2022

 

      This was the first session in a new series to be presented by Cynthia Overweg from Ojai, California, and based on the book by J. Krishnamurti entitled The Only Revolution. Thirteen people in total were present for the Saturday morning meeting which began with a setting of the context, which included the facts that the pandemic has now been active for two years and also that war is raging in Europe. Can we find a still point in a turning world? Sensitive people are interested in responding to the challenge in a loving way, and Krishnamurti’s teachings can be of help in this endeavour. K said that revolution is the deep abiding living change that transforms our consciousness.

      Cynthia wished to focus the exploration in this session on the question “What is meditation?” She suggested that it is the purging of the mind of its self-centred activity, which is hard work. “Seeing” is the crucial element in meditation; in fact meditation is pure attention. The process of the mind freeing itself from the known takes great attention and energy. Can it be present in our every-day life? K taught that life lived fully begins where (psychological) thought ends. When we go beyond thought we are more alive and connected with the life force. This can only take place immediately, when the mind is attentive to the movement of life in all its relationships throughout the day. Meditation is the awakening to our own sorrow and the ending of it. It is silence, a lack of self.

      After Cynthia’s initial presentation the audience was invited to pose questions and make comments. One participant offered that the mind has a tendency to want things to be different than they are and is often attached to those differences. Cynthia suggested that we can make a meaningful difference by shifting the quality of our own consciousness and embodying a deeper silence and quietude in our presence. This involves a decreasing of the dominance of the mind and a bringing forward of “the heart”. The discussion seemed to naturally produce a quality of silence and peace in the group, apparently a natural outcome of this type of inquiry and self-observation. When we cease identifying with the “ego” and its suffering and come back to the quiet beingness of the body and the breath, then we are more able to extend loving kindness to the suffering world around us.

 

 

 

Javier* began the meeting with some comments on the present

situation in the world with its conflicts, divisions, violence, and

nationalism. The root of violence, he pointed out, is the notion of self or

the separate “me”. Identity is based on memory, the structures of the

past, and the contradictions of thought, which creates its own problems.

Are we willing to drop our identities and our sense of separateness?

Javier asked.

*Javier Gomez Rodriguez

 

 

 

 

Meditative Self-Inquiry
with Mukesh Gupta, online
Sunday, March 13, 2022

 

      Seventeen of us were present in total for this Sunday morning group dialogue. It was the first in a new series of events with Mukesh. He emphasized a question he feels to be essential in our self-inquiry: “Can we not live in a deep peacefulness in our daily lives?” What is the cause of war and conflict inside ourselves and in the world? Can we, Mukesh asked, explore the question without motive or expectation, from a place of quietness and stillness? Can we be aware of our inner disorder? The sense of a separate “me” or “ego” must be understood, not by thought but by awareness. Why have we accepted the separate self as a reality? Is it a thought? And is there any other instrument of exploration than thought? He suggested that awareness and attention are not dependent on thought; we must begin with them and move into our inquiry employing a deep looking and listening which has no past prejudices.

      Our group was split into smaller sub-groups of three or four for a more intimate sharing. It was suggested that we approach the questions without having any quick answers. Could we explore as an activity of the heart in a quiet presence and observation? After a valuable twenty minutes of sharing in the small groups we came back together in the large group and engaged in further discussion. The importance of facing any crisis with a “new mind” was explored in some detail by Mukesh and other group members. There must be an openness, a stillness without old ideas and concepts which have little aliveness and creative discovery in them. It is the new mind that can respond adequately to the challenges we are up against at this time and perhaps at any time. Some time was spent at the end of the meeting in silent sitting, being with our bodily presence and breath.

 

 

“Why is there not this space or freedom?” Mukesh* asked. “Is it

because our minds are so busy, preoccupied?” There must be a

quietness which listens to, and feels, the suffering of another. Separation

must be seen to be just a story, an image. The truth of our Being is

beyond images and thought. Identification with thought and images

creates suffering and diminishes the beauty of life.

*Mukesh Gupta

 


 

 

Ravi* introduced his subject by bringing our attention

to the mystery of our existence in this vast

universe. Who or what are we? We must look

within to find our connection with the “divine” reality.

The urge may arise in us to seek for something beyond the body

and the thinking mind and, at the same time, we need to appreciate

the body and mind as sensitive instruments of inquiry. Krishnamurti

recommended that we keep asking questions; more from the heart than from the mind.

*Ravi Ravindra

 

 

Cynthia* opened the session by connecting the universal issues of fear and loneliness with the current

world situation, including the Covid pandemic,the war in Ukraine, and climate change. Covid, for

example, with its isolating effect, is forcing us to look at ourselves in a way that is unusually

demanding, and war asks us to look into the sources of division and violence.

 *Cynthia Overweg

 

 

 Jackie* began by noting

that there were three people present who were new to dialogue, which

led her to ask the question, “What is dialogue?”

We are not here to just to talk about what we are thinking about,

but more to observe the psychological

and energetic movements as they arise in us.

*Jackie McInley

 

 

 

 

 

To be aware that we are not in a state of meditation is meditation.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

 

 

 

 

Let thoughts come and go; just don’t serve them tea.

– Shunryn Suzuki

 

 

 

Swanwick Star Issue No. 14 (2021)

The advent of the coronavirus pandemic has brought us many challenges, including a degree of physical isolation that we have never, perhaps, felt before. It has called upon us to change many of our old habits, which may be a useful exercise in some ways, including examining our relationship to Krishnamurti’s teaching and what we hope to get out of it. The Krishnamurti Educational Centre has also had to adapt to these new circumstances and 2020/2021 has seen many of our activities and weekend workshops, which were always a delightful and refreshing venue to meet new people, going online. An exciting new aspect of these online sessions is that friends from all over the world have joined in.

At the same time, we face the challenge of climate-change, which is impacting every ecosystem on the planet, and causing the propagation of bacteria, viruses, and fungi along with various destructive insect species. Scientists are predicting that we may have to change our food staples in the future from wheat to unfamiliar items like algae and maggots with changing weather conditions. We are confronted by new situations and environmental conditions, like smoke from wildfires raging all over the continent and an increasing incidence of respiratory disorders and disease. What can we do?

 

These words of K’s from Commentaries on Living seem particularly relevant in this current context:

 

“Freedom from the desire for an answer is essential to the understanding of a problem. This freedom

gives the ease of full attention… As long as there is conflict with or opposition to the problem, there can

be no understanding of it; for this conflict is a distraction. There is understanding only when there is

communion…”   Similarly, “Awareness is the silent and choiceless observation of what is;  in this

awareness the problem unrolls itself, and thus it is fully and completely understood” – J. Krishnamurti

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here were some of the programming highlights this year:

 

Doing Without Doing:  Krishnamurti and Transformation

An online weekend workshop with Oda Lindner

May 21-23, 2021

 

The workshop facilitator Oda Lindner is a yoga teacher who has been holding annual workshops hosted by KECC for many years. Attendance this time was smaller than usual, likely the result of the event coinciding with the Victoria Day long holiday weekend. Also, yoga sessions on the Centre lawn in beautiful natural surroundings may well be preferred over holding them online.

Oda was trained by the same yoga teacher as Krishnamurti, Desikachar, and has a keen interest in, and understanding of, K’s teaching. The focus of this workshop was on bringing an attitude of open listening to our ways of moving and being. This listening is in many ways a doing without doing. Is it possible to observe and sense without immediately interpreting what is felt?

Comments by the facilitator were skillfully interspersed with slow movements, Krishnamurti quotes and answers to questions from participants.

Included were:

  • Body sensing
  • Finding knots, habitual patterns and tensions
  • Being with tightness and tension
  • Guided movement sequences
  • Quiet sitting: Where or what are we now?
  • Breathing and sensing
  • Slow movement sequences (‘bodymeditation’)

These activities, together with Oda’s gentle guidance, were designed to explore the meaning of doing without doing and its potential for transformative change, rather than trying to create change by bringing in previous experience and ingrained patterns of behavior.

Participants were already familiar with K’s teaching which led to fruitful sharing and an expressed appreciation for its experiential approach that effectively applied it to movement and increased body awareness.

RT

 

 

 

 

 

 

Becoming

Sunday, May 2, 2021

Zoom online

 

Sixteen of us were in attendance for this Sunday morning meeting. Participants had prepared by reading and contemplating the February 1 to 8 entries in The Book of Life: Daily Meditations with J. Krishnamurti. This section of the book was entitled “Becoming”. Amongst other aspects of self-knowledge, the selections look at the falseness of attempting to become something other than what we are (in the psychological sense) and the significance of being aware of what we actually are without moving away from it towards some ideal of behavior or identity.

The meeting began with a guided meditation experimenting with Krishnamurti’s suggestion that we look and listen to ourselves without naming or labelling our experience. This will dismantle the structures of our conditioned selves that are held in place by conceptual thinking. After the meditation participants were invited to share their experience, which opened a space of dialogue which flowed spontaneously for the two hours of the meeting, with occasional references to what had been studied in the text material.

There were occasional bottle-necks where communication was less than completely clear and frustrations arose with the difficulty in understanding what was being shared.  Nevertheless, there seemed to be a worthwhile inquiry into a number of issues, including the possibility of a deeper quality of perceiving and communicating. What does it mean to be fully attentive to the various dimensions  – “outer” and “inner” –  of what is transpiring in a dialogue? Perhaps the measure, if there is any, of such an endeavor is the very attention itself and the learning that results.

DB

 

 

 

 


 

 

Meditative Self-Inquiry: The Transformation of Consciousness

with Mukesh Gupta

May 29 – 30, 2021 (2 days)

Zoom online

 

This was the final session of the spring series on “meditative self-inquiry” presented by Mukesh Gupta and sponsored by the Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada. Eleven people (all included) were in attendance. The Saturday meeting featured a presentation by Mukesh covering quite widely the subject of the transformation of consciousness as Krishnamurti spoke of it in his teachings. Mukesh clearly stated that he was presenting his own understanding of the teachings and not claiming to be an ultimate authority on what K has said.

He soon asked the question, “What is consciousness?” According to his understanding of K, there is no consciousness as we know it without the contents, which are our experiences, thoughts, memories, knowledge, desires and fears. There may be something else when consciousness is emptied of its content, but normally we only know it through conflict between fragments, between one desire and another, between what is and what should be (the ideal). There is the conflict between “me” and my experiences, the thinker and the thought, the observer and the observed.

K asked if there is a separate “I”, or is the “I” merely a thought and therefore, in a sense, an illusion or unreal. What can be done about this sense of separation that creates all our suffering and problems psychologically speaking? Is there anything to be done other than to be completely still with it? Transformation cannot happen through effort, thought, idea, or desire. There must, rather, be a seeing of the patterns of thought and division. This seeing is the ending of conflict. The nature  of this seeing includes the facts of no observer or “past baggage”, no psychological time or effort (which is futile), and no motive. It is not part of thought and is therefore free of time and conflict. Seeing is also supreme action, negation, intelligence, love, and transformation. The false drops away when seen. Supreme discontentment is necessary in this self-inquiry process.

DB

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Art of Seeing

with Cynthia Overweg, June 25 – 27, 2021

Zoom Online

 

This series of three presentations by Cythia Overweg from Ojai, California, was attended by between twelve and fourteen persons in total each session. Cynthia combined talks on the teachings of J. Krishnamurti with periods of quiet meditation, breath and bodily awareness, silence, and music. She also invited questions and feedback from the attendees, to create a space of focused attention in which what K is saying may be understood through direct seeing and self-observation.

“Seeing”, she stated, is central to Krishnamurti’s teachings and warrants a deep immersion in his explanation of its nature. When true seeing takes place there is no separation between the observer and the observed. The mind is quiet and there is a transformation. According to K, “the act of seeing is the only truth; there is nothing else.” Seeing is the perennial transformation spoken of by many sages. Watching ourselves, Cynthia said, is fascinating and it opens the door to the “immeasurable”. With self-understanding comes love.

Why do we not see? K explains that our mind is not free but is occupied with self-interest. To find freedom we must learn what the mind is doing and be sensitive to all the activities of thought.

DB

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Self Inquiry and Nonduality

with Hillary Rodrigues, August 27 – 29, 2021

Zoom workshop

 

A long-time contributor and friend of the Krishnamurti Centre, Hillary was welcomed back to present a three day online workshop exploring the teachings of J. Krishnamurti in contrast to modern and ancient nondual teachings which have been attracting a great deal of interest in recent years. Sixteen people were in attendance for the event.

Hillary began with the essential issue he wanted to consider with us: the possibility of having a transformative realization that is more real and experiential than mere knowledge, which has its own place. Over the three sessions of 1 ½ hours he went into the history of nondual teachings such as Advaita Vedanta and the Upanishads in the Hindu tradition, including the teachings of Shankara, Buddhist teachings such as Zen, and modern offshoots such as Ramana Maharshi and current teachers such as Rupert Spira and Adyashanti.

He then led an investigation of Krishnamurti’s teachings along similar lines and where there were at least apparent differences and emphases. Along the way we touched on various questions of identity, knowledge, and awareness,as well as some of the paradoxes that arise as the mind attempts to understand something which essentially cannot be grasped through thought. When asked to guess at the source of a number of quotes from different spiritual teachings it became apparent that it is in many cases difficult to distinguish between them.

When it came to looking at Krishnamurti’s expression of self-inquiry, we spent some time exploring his approach to being with pain and suffering.  K gives great emphasis on not moving away from our suffering and not creating a duality between the observer and the observed or the “me” and the “other”. It is our movement away from “what is” that is the problem in that it creates a duality which results in conflict. When we stay with “what is”, it changes. This change leaves no residue and there is a transformation.

These ideas were explored, sometimes very seriously and sometimes with a sense of humor and lightness which did not detract from the depth of the inquiry and the resulting sense of freedom and uncaused joy felt by some. Hillary’s integration of academic skillfulness and logic, along with his depth of direct realization of that which he speaks, created a space where it was possible to touch at least a somewhat different dimension of consciousness. We are grateful for his ongoing participation in the life of the Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada.

DB

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Krishnamurti’s Notebook

with Javier Gomez Rodriguez, September 24 – 26, 2021

Zoom workshop

 

Javier joined us online from the Netherlands for a three-part retreat exploring J. Krishnamurti’s writings as published in the form of Krishnamurti’s Notebook. The meetings were attended by twenty-two people. Each of the three sessions was 1 ½ hours in length and consisted of a talk by Javier followed by some time for questions, comments, and inquiry.

The book reveals details of K’s experience that he didn’t often discuss in his public talks and dialogues and is thus more personal and intimate than usual. Javier began with an introduction to the work that was first published in 1976 and describes some of the painful “process” K endured for many years along with more ecstatic experiences of  ”benediction” and joy seemingly arising on a regular basis in K’s consciousness.

The issue of K’s engagement with “meditation” and the forms it took, along with some of the unusual phenomena experienced, were discussed in the context of his teachings which normally gave less detail about such matters. The question of awakening kundalini energy was touched on as an explanation of his “process” but then the focus shifted to K’s insistence that we need to face the facts of our lives, the suffering and the desires, without escaping from them. This releases a huge amount of energy which he felt was necessary in order to enter the realms of “truth” beyond the thinking mind and its projections and to contact the dimension he called “the other.” Consciousness must be emptied of its content.

We must ask ourselves if we are addressing the fact of division and conflict in our lives. According to K, his meeting the reality of “death” freed him from the reality of thought. He spoke thereafter of the flowering and dying of thought and its expressions such as fear and loneliness.

DB

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Bird in the Verandah                               IX                                             March 14, 2010

 

 

CS –      Being a romantic and a poet, I find human relationships very dissatisfying…there seems to be such a lack of love, care, sensitivity…

 

AA –     There has been an increase in this trend over the past century due to the mechanization of society. America is not a contemplative country; there is a lack of inwardness of lifestyle. In fact, I had quite a culture shock at the age of 14 or 15 when we emigrated from England. I was disappointed by the lack of depth in children my own age.

 

CS –      Yes, this is something I have always struggled with and, yet, even philosophic discussions I engaged in as a student at Brockwood often had a certain emptiness or hollowness to them because they lacked that quality of attention or listening that we seem to share…it is so nurturing.

 

AA –     Ah, yes, that is because people do not listen…not to themselves, not to others.

 

CS –      I know K. talked about aloneness as something positive and, yet, there is a certain loneliness which is the other side of the same coin; when we attend to Nature there is a very deep and rich experience of fullness and fulfillment, however, there is also a sort of loneliness in the inability to share that same quality with other human beings. For example, when one is walking alone, there may be great joy in chancing upon a tree with maraschino-pink cherry blossoms and, yet, these may be totally ignored by other human beings who are more likely to notice you than these exquisite flowers.

 

AA –     Yes, it is true…there are certain cultures which cultivate this sort of communion with Nature.

 

CS –      Yes…and we call them primitive; ironically, I had a program about hyenas hunting on for the cat the other night because I thought she might enjoy it and my mother rushed into the kitchen saying, “I cannot stand it – it is too violent!” I looked at her and said, “Yes, it is violent, but we cannot judge it, for in judging it we judge our own Creator”. She was stunned by my response and pursued the conversation no further.

 

AA –     I can see why she would not want to pursue it any further, as your statement was true; in fact, it is the source of our human crisis in the sense that our capacity for higher thinking has made us able to challenge the source of our very existence. This is a very fundamental difference between animals and humans – animals need to listen and commune with their surroundings in order to survive while mechanization has allowed humans to forget that aspect.

 

CS –      Then, it seems we may have taken “a wrong turn” as discussed by K. and Bohm and the weight of this imbalance may be against our species; if there is a fork in the road and one path leads to a dead-end while the other leads to the Garden of Eden, the majority of humans seems to be on the wrong road while just a few may be on the way to the Garden.

 

AA –     There is an imbalance; the weight of numbers seems to be against us.

 

CS –      Then we are just left with ourselves and enjoying our own company, if we cannot commune with the majority of humans who are caught up in making money or whatever they are pursuing. Even children seem to be old and wizened, these days, and seem to lack spontaneity.

 

AA-      In most cases, they have been robbed of their childhood and the opportunity to play.

 

CS –      A lack of leisure even at that tender age must affect one’s development, adversely –

then, we are still just left with ourselves…I told a friend recently that one of the greatest

lessons in life is to learn to enjoy one’s own company.

 

AA –     Yes, the only possibility we have as humans is self-inquiry.

 

[These are personal impressions of dialogues with Professor Allan W. Anderson printed with his permission given on May 23, 2010; in no way does Chanda Siddoo-Atwal (CS) purport that these are verbatim discussions, but only excerpts recalled after conversations in which she has tried to “pluck out” their essence from her notes taken during these talks. It has been serialized in its entirety as a tribute to his life and work in past issues of The Swanwick Star. This is the eighth and final serial installment from a compilation called “The Bird in the Verandah“]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swanwick Star Issue No. 13 (2020)

 

It has been a challenging year with the advent of the novel coronavirus pandemic. As a result, the Centre facility has been closed since March and all our workshops and other sessions are now held online only.

We have all probably spent a lot of time indoors by ourselves with time to contemplate our lives and their meaning. It has also given us the opportunity to realize how deeply we need a connection to Nature and, how fragile that connection can be, if we do not respond to the immediate requirements of climate-change.

Many of our little friends that bring joy into our lives will be lost and some may already have been lost because of a lack of caring on our part. In this regard, here is an apt quote from K below and a series of photos that celebrates our fellow creatures who are so sensitive and vulnerable to these changing conditions on the planet.

 

“In the modern world where there are so many problems, one is apt to lose great feeling. I mean by that word feeling not sentiment, not emotionalism, not mere excitement, but that quality of perception, the quality of hearing, listening, the quality of feeling, a bird singing on a tree, the movement of a leaf to the sun. To feel things greatly, deeply, penetratingly, is very difficult for most of us because we have so many problems. Apparently, there is no end to man’s problems, and he seem utterly incapable of resolving them because the more the problems exist, the less the feelings become”

– J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bruce Martin was the Biology teacher during the first year of operation of the Krishnamurti school (called Wolf Lake School) which opened in 1977 and was visited by Krishnamurti in 1978. He moved from Nelson, BC, to Metchosin where the residential school was located with the intention of later moving it to land owned by the Siddoo family at Wolf Lake, a little further north on Vancouver Island. He was a member of a team of ten, including Jackie and Sarjit Siddoo (the directors), four teachers, and other staff that administered the school during its first year. There were ten students from Grade 6 to Grade 10 level hailing from all over North America, one of whom was Chanda Siddoo, the daughter of Sarjit.

The school was one of a number endorsed and supported by Krishnamurti with the intention of providing an excellent academic education while at the same time investigating the possibility of educating children without the usual social conditioning and exploring the question of true freedom in life. Krishnamurti himself arrived at the school in April of 1978 and stayed for one week in the main house on the property. He gave a public talk in the living room with the room full to overflowing (about sixty people) and held a couple of talks with the staff and students of the school.

Bruce was a source of valuable support to myself and the other teachers and staff as well as being very popular with the students and inspiring interest in the natural world through book study as well as exploration of the beautiful environment surrounding the school. He participated with staff and students in the athletic activities like soccer and hiking. Other commitments took him back to Nelson at the completion of the school year. He now lives in Comox with his wife Barbara, where he enjoys painting among other interests. On a trip to Victoria in late October of 2020 he included a visit to the Krishnamurti Educational Centre in Metchosin, where he had a long conversation with Luis Torres, the property manager, and then met with me for afternoon tea and discussion in Victoria.

It was good to talk briefly about our experiences at the school, about what has transpired since then over the years, and about the present functioning of the Krishnamurti Centre with all the recent changes and challenges of Covid-19. Bruce expressed an intention to return before long and to donate some of his extra K books to the Centre library. I look forward to exploring our friendship more fully again.

Submitted by David Bruneau

 

 

 

Krishnamurti: Leaves from a Diary (1933-34) – Leena Sarabhai (excerpt)

 

“ My mother died when I was five years old. She was extremely orthodox. I was her eighth child. Our father used to beat us. He was getting only fifty rupees as salary. We lived in utter poverty, in starvation and dirt, and were miserable in every respect. My father was a Theosophist, and sometimes we used to go to Adyar. “ There, Dr. Annie Besant saw us – me and my brother, Nitya, who was a year younger than me. At that time I was ten or eleven years old. She formed some hopes for us. She promised us nice clothes and enough good food if we would stay with her. We were children, and what else could we desire? We welcomed her suggestion and Dr. Annie Besant took us in her charge. She sent us both away abroad. At this time Dr. Besant used to teach us herself and she had also engaged a few learned tutors for us. Most of the time, she used to read to us from Dickens, Alice in Wonderland, The Jungle Book, etc. For a long time, we never read ourselves but preferred always to listen to someone else reading.

At that time and even now, I hate ( Walter) Scott. In those days, our hair was long and came down to our shoulders. An English newspaper remarked, ‘Dr. Besant has come with her two black monkeys’. “ In the meanwhile, some antagonists of Dr. Besant instigated my father against her and financed legal proceeding against us. A search was made for us; so we wandered through the whole of Europe in hiding with Jinarajadasa and Dr. Arundale. During that time, we were not able to come out openly. We read a great deal, saw a great deal. We saw paintings in museums. We enquired about who’s who. We went to Sicily. There, a golf instructor told me, ‘If you will learn golf for three months, I will get you +2.’ 1 did as he told me and attained it.

In England, we were living with aristocrats and came into close touch with them. We were very intimate with the family of Lady Willingdon’s sister, Lady De La Warr. Five years passed. “ My father took the case to the Privy Council, but Dr. Besant won the case and we were placed in her charge. So, for the first time we were sent to a school. Although we had been leading a rich and unsettled life, we did not find it difficult to settle down in that school in Kent; but it took us about a week to get accustomed to other boys eating meat at the same table. I used to hate algebra and geometry, but I liked Latin and French. But more than anything else, I liked to sit for hours in a comer by myself. I used to look at the sky and think. You know, I was very dreamy. My brother was clever. If he went through a book once, he could secure first class marks in it. In Latin, he secured 100% marks, which is unheard of.

We studied for four years in that school, after which it occurred to Dr.Besant all of a sudden that we should get admitted to Balliol College at Oxford. The authorities said, ‘For God’s sake and for the sake of these boys, don’t send them here. We do not want Gods here. They will be ragged to death. ’ Through Lord Curzon, Dr. Annie Besant tried to influence Lord……; he tried to bring pressure to bear on the authorities concerned; but nothing could be done. “

At this period I had been proclaimed as the World Teacher. In consequence, we had to suffer very much. Those who did not accept me as their Teacher made fun of us. Those that believed in me made such a fuss that we felt shy to meet them. ‘ ‘In the beginning, I used to play with the boys in our school, but then I used to creep out of their company. I did not like their ways; spitting on one another, throwing mud. English children play such dirty tricks! They used to call us black devils, brownies and blackies, but we too bullied them. In this way we managed to get on well with each other. “ In the school, we got to learn something; but we learned more on our vacations. We used to go to Lady De La Warr’s with her. We went to her big house in London. There, amongst butlers, many servants, fine linen and silver plates, we lived lavishly. We met people in political circles and had occasion to know Labour leaders McDonald, Lansbury and others, and hear their discussions. I belonged to the Labour party. They would ask us our opinions, but we could not express them; yet when I and my brother were alone, we criticized them all thoroughly and tore them to pieces.

We started to attend Labour meetings and to canvass for their Party. We met members of the guards and the most fashionable folks. Most of them were aristocrats – people of fine breeding – good company, but no brains. “ In this way our school days eventually came to an end. We had to appear for our examination. I could repeat very well all the words that I had learnt with my master; but when I went for the examination I became vague, I was thoroughly nervous, and my paper was left blank. But my brother would go to the Lincoln’s Inn, read a book half an hour before the examination, and secure first class honours in law. In this way, I tried to pass three examinations respectively – London Matric, Senior Cambridge and Responsions, but I failed in all these. I gave up my studies. My brother was very keen to go to college; but he gave up the idea because of me and we went to Lady De La Warr’s. “ Now, we started to criticize and censure everyone openly.

We did not even spare Dr. Besant. We quarrelled with Dr. Arundale, also a lawyer. One Mr. W—–was made our guardian. He led a very loose life; but when he became our guardian, he gave up everything. He was very fond of us. He supplied us with money whenever we were in trouble. “ The war broke out and in its excitement we joined the Red Cross. We lived at Lady De La Warr’s and as we were short of servants and men, we boys and girls milked the cows and made hay. There, we came in contact with Lord Curzon’s daughter, Lady Cynthia Morley, and some persons related to Lord Lytton and Lady Emily. “ Most of our acquaintances got irritated by our views. One day Lady De La Warr said to us, ‘If you want to say such things and hold such opinions you can’t stay here. So we left the house. Many efforts were made to bring us back but we chose to live on our own in Piccadally in great style. “ We were exceedingly fond of fine clothes. We rejected a suit after we had worn it twice during one week. Our tailors told us that we were the best dressed men in London. We were so fastidious about our shoes that to give them a particular shine we used to polish them with our own hands. We had an allowance of only £ 700 lent to us; we ran short of it. We could have got more if we had asked for it but we did not like to do so. The best way and the easiest was to reduce our diet. All our money was spent on attending opening nights at the theatres and at fashionable resorts. As we had no money for our food, we managed to get invitations for lunch or dinner with our friends.”

J.Krishnamurti, as recorded by Leena Sarabhai

 

 

 

 

 

 

Krishnamurti’s Noteboook: UVic Stillness Within Meetup – February 26th

The February UVic meet-up brought eight of us together for quietness and ponderous readings from Krishnamurti’s Notebook. This was new material for almost everyone in the group and the absolute poetic beauty of K’s day-to-day observations had a reverberating affect within many of us.

We reflected on Krishnamurti’s intimate descriptions of his moments in a quiet grove of trees – in stark contrast to his arrival back in populated city describing his sense of violence within the built hubbub of humanity.  We were struck by his seeming merging or love within each expression.   With each new passage, we enjoyed a very provocative exploration.  For example,  what did he mean when describing shifts into a state of ‘benediction’… ? was it grace?  purity? centreless divinity?

In one passage, K. offered view of meditation that takes us beyond our mats and temples…

“Meditation during that walk, beside the stream on a path which meandered gently through many green fields, was not there because of silence or because the beauty of the evening absorbed all thought;  it went on in spite of some talk.  Nothing could interfere with it;  meditation went on, not unconsciously somewhere in the recesses of the brain and memory, but it was there, taking place, like the evening light among the trees.  Meditation is not a purposeful pursuit which breeds distraction and conflict; it’s not the discovery of a toy that will absorb all thought, as a child is absorbed by a toy;  it’s not the repetition of a word to still the mind.  It begins with self-knowing and goes beyond knowing.  On the walk, it was going on, stirring deeply and moving in no direction.  Meditation was going on beyond thought, conscious or hidden, and a seeing beyond the capacity of thought.”

Krishnamurti’s Notebook, 2003

We considered our own moments of unencumbered awe with the world around us – and seeming surrender – minus a surrender.   It was a fabulous dip into the eyes and heart of Krishnamurti;  I think we all felt lighter moving off into our ordinary yet extraordinary moments.

Thanks to KECC for supporting these meet-ups!

Shannon Mullen

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

VIII                                                      January 10, 2010

 

CS –      What is spirituality?…this question never seems to end for me.

 

AA –     There is no end – you cannot pin it down or answer it.

 

CS –      Mindfulness in relationship as the mirror of the self seems to be my meditation, now. I can see the reflection of my wilfulness, arrogance, etc.

However, I found it disturbing recently to hear a quote from K. to Pupul Jayakar, saying, “Where you are, the Other is not”, because there is a lot of me around these days!

 

AA –     That would be disturbing as it is false; for, the Other transcends even the limitations of species.

 

CS –      Yes, that reminds me of my relationship with my cat. As a friend said, she is one of my best friends. Being a predatory hunter, the cat has great Awareness and, yet, is thoroughly concerned with self. In fact, she is similar to me in this respect. She always wants the best of the best.

(laughter)

 

AA –     The cat has a perfect sense of timing probably developed while hunting in the wild; it has no more than two or two and a half chances to succeed, or, it goes hungry and dies.

 

CS –      And, I am sure it does not worry about the distinction between “the Other and the self” or “the observer and the observed”.

 

(more laughter)

 

AA –     I once challenged K. about that, saying, “If I am the Other and the Other is me, there is no space for deliberation”; he agreed, but, sadly, never changed his stance in his lectures.

 

CS –      Perhaps, he had established a certain terminology like a professor and did not want to vary it in his talks. Can you imagine the confusion?

 

AA –     Yes, and, he lacked precision at times as a result of this.

 

CS –      In a way, lectures are an artificial medium for spirituality. Our discussions do not seem to rely on any established terminology but are moving, changing, living, and vital. It is what is behind the words that is so much more important than the words themselves.

 

AA –     Thank God!

 

CS –      This sense of timing – I am sure it is what allows us to break out of the bounds of space and time.

 

AA –     Yes…as a part of Presence.

 

[These are personal impressions of dialogues with Professor Allan W. Anderson printed with his permission given on May 23, 2010; in no way does Chanda Siddoo-Atwal (CS) purport that these are verbatim discussions, but only excerpts recalled after conversations in which she has tried to “pluck out” their essence from her notes taken during these talks. It shall be serialized in its entirety as a tribute to his life and work in the coming issues of The Swanwick Star. This is the seventh serial installment from a compilation called “The Bird in the Verandah”]

 

 

A baby hummingbird flying through the netting to drink the nectar from these purple flowers

 

 

 

 

The current state of the world is marked by a series of global challenges whose gravity turns them into veritable crises. These crises are not due to natural phenomena but are the direct result of human action. They are the outcome of our conflicted relationships with nature, with things, with each other and with ideas. We are collectively failing in our total responsibility for peace and cooperation among human beings and for the welfare and protection of the biosphere. The wave of destruction humanity has unleashed has reached such proportions that scientists are talking about a new age of extinctions which they’ve named the Anthropocene as it is human beings who are causing it.

 

Our knowledge has given us power and that power has been deployed at the service of self-interest. Our general materialist outlook and our near-total disregard for the whole and wholeness of life are ever being enhanced by our increasingly more sophisticated technical prowess. The predominance of social tribalism and psychological fragmentation continue to ensure that our human condition is plagued by the universal blights of violence and sorrow. These endemic core problems have ever stained the pages of history, which is the story of humanity, the chequered record of both our great achievements and of our inherited brutality. This deeper crisis has been with us from the beginning and no amount of scientific progress is going to resolve it for it is the result of our profound lack of self-knowledge.

 

In this author’s perspective, Krishnamurti’s teachings offer one of the broadest and deepest diagnosis of the human condition that has ever come to light. In K’s own metaphor, they constitute a reading of the book of humanity, which is our common consciousness. This consciousness is the repository of our universal history and the very field of time which limits our intelligence and condemns us to a mechanistic and conflict-ridden way of life. Insight into and freedom from this limitation is therefore critical in the transformation of consciousness and the liberation of humanity from its enduring ills and tragic mode of existence. The very perception of this global predicament, that it affects all human beings everywhere independently of race, class, culture, language, ideology and belief, places each of us at the centre of the challenge and makes us all equally responsible, for we are the world.

 

This is one of the most fundamental insights at the core of K’s teachings, and one whose profound relevance and utter urgency is daily demonstrated by the ongoing panorama of social injustice, ecological devastation and war. For K it was a law that where there is division there must be conflict. These divisions are the result of our identifications with nations, ethnic groups, traditions, etc., which then enter into a struggle for power and resources. These separate entities are invested with the fundamental values of our security, happiness and self-worth and become the very definition of what we are. But at their core lies a deep and dangerous confusion concerning being. The insight that we share a common consciousness and, therefore, that we are the world, is a denial of these seemingly entrenched separate realities. Consciousness is not yours or mine, just as the earth is not yours or mine. The perception of the falseness of these conceptual divisions is a fundamental first step in the healing of the traditional psychopathology of mankind and the establishing of a truly wholesome and responsible relationship with the whole.

 

Relationship, K never tired of reiterating, is life, for nothing can exist in isolation. And yet we live in a world whose culture is characterised by an insistence on separateness as the very trademark of identity. This insistence on identity may have its primary source in our animal background and its instinctual territorial, sexual and hierarchical survival strategies. This is an instance of what K called the spilling over of the biological into the psychological. This conditioning becomes the primary drive of thought and blinds it to the broader implications of its own actions. Although we consider that thought represents the glory of man and the pinnacle of evolution, as long as it remains bound to this instinctual background it fails to respond to intelligence and compassion. So the universal issue of division and conflict has a deeper cause in this biological conditioning that has become the nucleus of our individual and group psychology. And no amount of environmental manipulation will solve it for, as K tended to observe, in human affairs the inner invariably overcomes the outer.

 

This is another profound insight that seems to be lost on most people and cultures. Most of us appear to put our faith in social reformation and structural change, to the neglect of the inner or psychological dimension, whereas it is in the latter that the key to harmonious relationship and creative order is to be found. We ignore a simple truth, namely that the troubled reality we face is of our own making, that the world is what it is because thinking makes it so and unless there is an insight into the nature of thought, the world will carry on in the same old way regardless of our best intentions. That brings the whole question of transformation directly home and places it right at the centre of our very psyche and sense of self.

 

Although K was not systematic in his use of language, in terms of bringing about a radical transformation, words such as ‘knowledge’, ‘consciousness’, ‘thought’ and ‘self’ have a very specific weight. Knowledge, which in its scientific aspect has been regarded as the ladder in the cultural ascent of man – as opposed to his biological descent –, is made to include not only the factual and useful information we need to operate objectively and sanely in all kinds of fields, but also the whole cultural tradition with its inherited patterns of conditioning. In this sense knowledge is also ignorance, for it includes prejudice, superstition and all manner of bias. Not only is such content problematic but, as the result of past experience, it is inherently limited, which naturally reduces its domain of applicability. The past is memory and memory, however vast or ancient, does not encompass and can never encompass the present. It has its place in the management of recurrent features, without which knowledge, which is recognition, would not be possible, but its outlook must of necessity miss out the new, without which we can hardly be said to be alive and, therefore, in relationship.

 

This memory, experience and knowledge constitute the content of consciousness and thought is its response. From there K infers the inherent limitation and danger of thought as the dominant factor that it has become in human existence. Not only is thought, with its emotional component, seen to be reduced to a mechanical reflex process but the very notion of self, which traditionally has stood for the spiritual in us – the soul, the atman –, is perceived as a projection from that very same material psychological background, for its essence is the identification with the content of consciousness, however vulgar or refined. Without such content, the self has no substance, which means that it has no independent existence, for the self, the thinker, is the product of thought. This denial of the independent existence of the self is perhaps an even deeper insight, as it concerns the most fundamental and pervasive duality at the heart of the psychopathology of our everyday life.

 

The encompassing nature of the teachings is amazing. K considered that they covered the whole of life. They move seamlessly from the outer dimension of the vast scope of relationship to the inner workings of consciousness in a perceptive unfolding of the true nature of the human predicament and its needful liberation. The inner and the outer are a single movement, the ebb and flow of existence. The individual is the world and the world is but the workings of fragmented consciousness. The dissolution of the factors of fragmentation is what allows the so-called individual to become the link between the cosmic and the collective dimensions, thus generating a total and harmonious whole.

 

But this grand vision of freedom and wholeness is characterised by the greatest simplicity and immediacy, for it is founded on pure perception. K called it the art of living, art being to put everything in its right place, therefore implying a quality of unfolding creative order in relationship. The problems of humanity are generated by the persistence of illusion in the way we see, think, feel and act. This illusion is brought about by the interference of the observer, i.e. by the time-bound projections of self-centred thought. What is required is a heightened form of sensitivity in which thought and time do not distort seeing. This sensitivity establishes the facts and permits an action that is free from conditioning. This is the proper meaning of responsibility. Thus, the pure aesthetics of perception becomes the free foundation of a truly ethical behaviour. Laying this ethical ground of order is seen by K as the necessary foundation for a deeper movement. This deeper movement he calls meditation, which involves the emptying of consciousness of its psychological or self-centred content. This is equivalent, in fact, to perhaps the deepest insight of all, namely that psychologically we are nothing which, paradoxically, signals the emergence of being from the delusions of becoming.

 

Mankind has lost itself in a labyrinth of its own making and its technical dominance and selfish ways is the greatest threat to its own survival as well as to the sustainability of life on the only living planet in the known universe. Krishnamurti’s insights into the nature of consciousness are fundamental in the understanding and ending of violence and sorrow, which are the core endemic problems facing humanity since time immemorial. This author cannot think of a more relevant and urgent endeavour than the unfolding of the liberating potential of self-knowledge that the teachings so sensitively and truthfully reflect. This potential is not merely a matter of bringing about a quality of moral integrity and the corresponding social and universal order, but of discovering the inward or spiritual dimension he called the religious mind.

 

Again, in K’s language words such as ‘meditation’, ‘wholeness’ and ‘religion’ acquire a profound significance. The word religion, particularly in the West, has practically lost its meaning in our time. And yet K’s teachings are essentially concerned, from beginning to end, with awakening the religious spirit. His approach to religion is perhaps the purest there has ever been, for it dissolves all sectarian identity, dogma, authority and practice. It is perhaps the most austere, for at its core lies his essential insight that truth is a pathless land. And yet K also makes it clear that without the total freedom of that timeless truth there cannot be a wholesome culture or a peaceful world.

 

For this author K’s teachings represent a deep mirroring of the human condition and the way of its liberation and wholeness. That’s why they deserve the greatest attention, not only within the K institutions but in the world at large. They were freely given out of a compassionate concern with the whole of life and that is what they stand for. Anyone equally concerned will find them to be the clearest expression of spiritual wisdom in our time and a veritable and universal education to mankind.

 

Javier Gómez Rodríguez

Javier facilitated an online KECC retreat in October and sent us these reflections at the time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unconditionally Free
Krishnamurti’s description of his life work’s intent or goal

 

Unconditionally Free describes a state of mind, not its content.

When discussing the writing of his biography Krishnamurti encouraged the writer to “Begin with the vacant mind.” The vacant or silent mind describes a state of mind, not its content.

The so-called teachings of Krishnamurti, as Bill Quin and Padma note, describe the limitations of thought as a means of psychological mutation or transformation. This insight is central to all of Krishnamurti’s collected works, the teachings.

The most direct summary of the one thing Krishnamurti described a thousand ways is:
Truth, which is the natural, unconditioned, state of the mind, is a pathless land. The state of the mind called truth cannot be approached by any path, any system, any method, which are all forms of conditioned content.

Paths, systems, methods, including the so-called teachings, are implicitly conditioned. We used the metaphor of noise, or darkness. A mind that is creating noise is incapable of experiencing silence. A mind that that is blinded by the noise it is producing cannot experience the bright light of a mind that silent. Love, intelligence and compassionate action abide in that light, not in conditioned darkness.

Nearly all of the 250,000 pages of Krishnamurti collected insights describe the limitations of thought as a means of psychological mutation or transformation.

In doing so, this body of insights reveals how thought operates as a structure or system, including its obsessive, compulsive tendency to misuse, and therefore ‘get lost’ or ‘enchanted’ by, its capacity to create mental images.

Because we don’t know how the process of thought operates, we fragment this image making capacity and create an image of a thinker that we falsely believe is producing thought, instead of perceiving directly what we are doing, that thought creates the image of the thinker, and not the other way around.

Unnoticed, this fragmentation, a pervasive misuse of memory and imagination, produces inwardly the appearance or image of a self as we know it, and outwardly the image of ‘culture’ (or ‘the world’). Both are reified, assumed to be real (independent things), when on close examination both are actually the same capacity to create mental images projected in the mind differently, inwardly as self, the thinker, and outwardly as culture. Krishnamurti’s core insight was to see in himself this misuse of memory and imagination, which is the source of conflict and sorrow throughout the world.

According to Samdhong Rinpoche, this direct realization or insight is common to all who achieve what is called the Buddha Mind or Buddha Nature. There is one enlightenment and thousand descriptions, depending on the unique time in history of the insight, the culture, language and capacity of the listener.

The overarching theme of the book Unconditionally Free is the simple observation that noise or darkness cannot bring about silence or light, which is the same as K’s seminal statement Truth is a Pathless Land.

Attention is the key to the direct experience of a mind that is Unconditionally Free, not content. Complete, 100% attention leaves no attention remaining for the brain to create mental images from its conditioned memory. Complete attention returns the brain-mind to its natural order, which is described as silence or emptiness. This natural order is free from the limitations implicit in conditioned thought and memory, which brings us back to the title of the book Unconditionally Free.

Being free from the limitations and implied blindness of conditioning, such a state, without effort, will or control, is open to the full, complete and infinite spectrum of direct, innate perception and potential participation in creation (Tantra), which is something that the conditioned state of the brain can never perceive. As Rinpoche described, fragmented thought can never contain the whole.

The missing step or ‘original sin’ in Western culture is believing, without proof or even questioning, the fundamental assumption that the ego and culture are ‘real,’ independent entities, an assumption, as Bohm described, that embodies a strong defense that conceals the true nature of the self and culture as images.

Being concealed, Western science, psychology and sociology fails to include as part of child and human development what thought is doing to itself, which is the ground floor of the Secret Oral Tradition in Tibetan Buddhist practice. Secret in this regard, is not something intentionally hidden, rather it is a quality of perception that is concealed from most by the defensive nature of the conditioned brain. It takes a rare quality and depth of perception to penetrate this defensive concealment that Bohm described.

The ‘content’ we describe as the teachings of J. Krishnamurti attempt to reveal what is generally hidden or concealed by the normal state of human consciousness. Taking the medicine, as Rinpoche shared, is having the insight into one’s self that the teachings describe. Without taking the medicine, the revelation that the teachings intend remain as an idea or concept in the conditioned mind. There is a lot of activity, rearranging the furniture in the same mental realm or state, but no fundamental change or transformation, which is discovered in a fundamentally different state of the mind, what Krishnamurti called living the teachings.

Not appreciating the above generally results in a ‘begging bowl’ approach that prevents most of us from experiencing directly what the teachings are inviting.


This text was prepared by Michael Mendizza for online sessions hosted by KECC in May 2020, based on his upcoming book ‘Unconditionally Free: The Life and Insights of J. Krishnamurti’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Memoriam

Dorothy Whitworth, was a gem and one of the pioneers of Swanwick Study Centre. Once it became an Adult Centre in the 1980s, as manager, Dorothy helped to nurture Swanwick as a warm and inviting place for guests who wanted to undertake spiritual inquiry in a special setting. She was loathe to turn anyone away and always found chores for them to do around the grounds so they could stay as guest-helpers. Her gracious nature and excellent vegetarian cooking skills made it a most welcoming place for everyone. Whether it was a quiche served with our crisp green garden vegetables, or, a really savoury Shepherd’s pie with a wonderful organic salad picked from the garden, she was truly an outstanding chef. Personally, I shall never forget her delicious granola baked in the oven with oats and all sorts of tasty nuts and raisins that everyone enjoyed at breakfast.

She took great pride in her gardens and, if she wasn’t in the kitchen, you were most likely to find her outside. I loved helping her pick vegetables for the fantastic salads she prepared at weekend retreats and that’s probably how I developed a love for picking fruit in the autumn. That’s when my Aunt Jackie and Dorothy would get us all picking brambleberries for the famous Swanwick jam as they toiled over the stoves mixing and boiling the mysterious preparation nobody has been able to duplicate since. In any case, many people enjoyed this house specialty for numerous years!  I shall always think of Dorothy as part of those warm, wonderful, idyllic Swanwick days. And, I’m sure, many people will have their own fond memories of dear Dorothy who devoted so many years to The Centre.

Chanda Siddoo-Atwal

 

 

 


UVic Stillness Within Meetup (online)

Saturday, July 25, 2020

We enjoyed this virtual get together in July on Cultivating Equanimity. Five of us looked at some practices that may prove useful in reducing stress, increasing a sense of well-being and strengthening overall emotional resilience. We listened to a few video clips, including a guided excerpt from Rick Hanson’s “Meditations for Happiness”.  The group shared some of their own strategies, such as reframing challenges as opportunities to grow and evolve ourselves.  We also talked about Lester Levenson’s story – a man who discovered that his key to enduring peace and happiness was to find love within every relationship… and to use his own form of personal inquiry to see what might be in the way of love fully expressing.

Krishnamuriti points to love as a wellspring of deep inner peace and comfort as well:

“The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed.”

At the same time, Krishnamurti suggests that happiness is not something to be pursued:

“Happiness is strange; it comes when you are not seeking it. When you are not making an effort to be happy, then unexpectedly, mysteriously, happiness is there, born of purity, of a loveliness of being.”

Whether we can or can’t bring about our own deep joy and peace could be debated at length. Still, it’s really a joy to gather, to share our inspirations and challenges and to let the stories fall away for a spell, just to be.

Shannon Mullen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swanwick Star Issue No. 12 (2019)

Some Notes on Mind and Passive Awareness

Naftaly Ramrajkar

 

 “Meditation is the process of understanding oneself. Self-knowledge brings wisdom. And the mind begins to understand the whole process of itself. It becomes very quiet, completely still, without any sense of movement or demand. Then, perhaps, that which is not measurable comes into being.”

  1. Krishnamurti; Collected Works of J. Krishnamurti, Six lectures given at Hamburg, Germany, 1956.

 

The conscious mind is what we use in our everyday waking life and it includes perceptions, memories, concepts, imaginations, emotions and desires.

The unconscious mind was discovered very recently. The whole of unconscious is below the ‘threshold of consciousness’; we can be conscious only what is above the threshold. Like an iceberg, above the water is conscious, below the water is unconscious.

Between conscious and unconscious, just below the threshold of consciousness lies the region of subconscious, which hold all the skills and knowledge we have acquired. It is the region of our abilities and talents, not fully conscious but easily made so when required.

Between the subconscious and the unconscious there lies the main dividing line, what may be called the threshold of suppressions, which can be crossed only with the greatest difficulty and usually under abnormal conditions.

The unconscious contains not only the memories of everything that has ever happened to us but also our biological, racial, national and family heritage as well as painful experiences of the past, mostly those of early childhood.

It is the threshold of suppression that is the cause of trouble, because it keeps the vast content of the unconscious away from the conscious, though it cannot completely prevent the unconscious from affecting deeply our actions and sometimes bursting through the barrier; invading our life in various forms of insanity.

Krishnamurti stresses the importance of breaking down the barrier of repression and finding a way of bringing the unconscious in to the field of conscious.

The image that is usually chosen to describe the mind is that of an iceberg. The water line is the threshold; the tiny visible part above it is the conscious mind, whilst the huge submerged portion represents the unconscious. If we melt away the top of the iceberg, the iceberg will gradually rise up and if the process of melting is maintained, the entire iceberg will ultimately disappear and only the ocean will remain.

This process of melting the iceberg can be maintained by a piece of ice shaped like a lens to create a hot spot to melt away the ice.

This is exactly what we need to do; to create in our conscious mind a focus of intense passive awareness, of full consciousness of its content and watch the content dissolving and new content emerging to dissolve in its turn. This process will eventually break down the barrier between the conscious and the unconscious.

In fact, the conscious and unconscious together form one mind and dividing line is accidental. The opacity of the barrier makes direct awareness of the unconscious impossible, but it is possible to gradually bring the unconscious into conscious by a process of simplifying and reducing the resistance of the conscious content. This is done by fully passively aware of the whole content.

Both the subconscious and the unconscious are composed of memories, of two kinds: factual and psychological.

The former are memories of factual experiences, judgements of facts. They create no problems as they are helpful to the conscious mind, enabling it to learn by experience. Psychological memories are those of past valuation or ‘judgement of value’, each heavily charged with emotions. They do not rise to the conscious mind individually or as separate factors, but as a vague background, a coloring, a conditioning of the conscious content.

This conditioning obeys no fixed rules and follows no fixed pattern.

Conditioning of mind is divided into two classes or kinds: 1) Primary 2) Secondary

Secondary conditioning is related to the more obvious problems of life, the miseries, sorrows, conflicts, frustrations, worries and fears which are the common lot of men. There are general lines, grooves or channels along which conditioning usually flows.

Primary conditioning: Habitual conditioning which is universally present in all forms, is the presence of the ‘self’ or ‘I’. Wherever there is conditioning, there is the presence of ‘I’, and conversely, wherever ‘self-consciousness’ exist, conditioning is bound to be there.

This primary conditioning is at the root of all our problems, and arises out of this the very nature of all mental activities.

This primary conditioning takes three distinct forms:

  1. Partial use of our minds
  2. More emphasis is given to ‘what was’ and ‘what will be’ than to ‘what is’.
  3. Mind works in dichotomy, pairs of opposites; e.g subject/object, thinker/thought, experiencer/experience.

It somehow cannot see the ‘Antiphony’ in nature but only pairs of opposites.

This thinker takes form of ‘Self’ or ‘I’, the owner of body and mind, who is continually engaged in strengthening and expanding itself.

We should live with whole of our mind (Wholistic) and not only with a small portion of it, which is least interesting. It is also already impressed with stale memories and valuation.

Actually, part of the mind dominated by self-consciousness is a wasted, crippled part almost impervious to Life, to Truth and to Joy.

Primary conditioning truncates the total mind, while secondary conditioning distorts and maims that part of the mind which we use daily and call our own.

This double conditioning deeply affects our relationship with others; the primary separates us from our fellow being whilst the secondary pits us against them.

In short, we cannot cure conditioning by more conditioning. Therefore, generally methods of meditations or intellectual discipline, austerity or physical discipline, cultivation of virtues, moral discipline, practice of prayers or religious discipline, introductions of reforms or social discipline does not help.

No amount of efforts can destroy memory. The only remedy against our conditioning is to accept the fact, to see it as conditioning, to go down to its very roots and having laid it bare, to look at it without justification, identification or condemnation, in passive and silent awareness, without calling it one’s own.

Passive awareness is effective because it destroys the ignorance of primary conditioning and the possessiveness of secondary. When we try to see that our mind is conditioned, conditioning withers away.

Passive awareness puts an end to all forms and habits of thinking to which conditioned mind has been accustomed, as well as to the emotional reactions caused by conditioning.

Passive awareness gives us insight into working of our mind.

It is important to clear the mind of problems, for a mind tortured by conflicts is useless. We need a mind that is free from all conditioning, a transformed or unconditioned mind; for only then are we able to discover truth, reality, God – whatever the name we give to the Unknown. What we discover reflects the quality of our mind. We cannot discover what is quite foreign to the mind and for the discovery of the real we need a clear, a real mind, not a mere bundle of memories and habits, problems and conflicts. To find a real mind, we must first understand the full significance of that state which is a ‘passive awareness’.

A ‘Passive Awareness’ is important because it is the only means for putting an end to wrong thinking and distorted feeling, both of which not only make us utterly unhappy as individuals, but when projected on a larger scale threatens the whole of humanity.

A mind that is conditioned and mind that is aware that it is conditioned are entirely different states. The former will get more and more entangled in the meshes of its own conditioning, because it does not know that it is conditioned, much less how it can be free of the conditioning.

A mind that is aware of its conditioning, on the other hand, is already on the way towards disentangling itself and, therefore, is proof against further conditioning. The state of ‘Passive Awareness’ is both curative and protective.

 

References:

  1. Krishnamurti & The Texture of Reality by A.D. Dhopeshwarkar
  2. Krishnamurti and The Experience of The Silent Mind by A.D. Dhopeshwarkar
  3. Yoga of J. Krishnamurti: A Catechism by A.D. Dhopeshwarkar
  4. J. Krishnamurti and Awareness in Action by A.D. Dhopeshwarkar
  5. The Nameless Experience by Rohit Mehta
  6. Philosophy of J. Krishnamurti by R.K. Shringy
  7. That Pathless Land by Susunaga Weeraperuma
  8. J.Krishnamurti as I Knew Him by Susunaga Weeraperuma
  9. Saying of J. Krishnamurti by Susunaga Weeraperuma

 

Some of these books are out of print but available from the Acorn Press for regular price.

Web Site:

http://www.intuitiveapp.com/acornpress/product-category/author/a-d-dhopeshwarkar/


NR


This retreat, hosted by Mukesh Gupta in June, was an extremely inspiring one and we met for meditation every morning before starting the dialogues for the day. Sometimes there was an excerpt of haunting flute music from the Himalayas or the dulcimer tones of the santoor. The group also did a few exercises during the six-day retreat as we shared this extraordinary space and we undertook one memorable exercise in pairs. David Bruneau was my partner and each pair took a card with a theme written on it. Our card was “Cooperation”.

This was a very nice theme for both of us since we have each spent quite a bit of time during our lives living in communities with other people, and, of course, communal living is not possible without cooperation. David asked me for my observations on the subject and we discussed these together out on the lawn in front of the Mainhouse on a perfectly sunny day.

We agreed that since communal living requires cooperation, it entails a certain diminishing of the ego. There is a lessening of self-identification as one embraces a wider world view based on the experience of many people in the community rather than just being limited to one’s own isolated opinion. There is also less emphasis on personal possessions in a communal environment as one is often called upon to share things with others. Personally, this sort of living, also diminished my interest in the family unit and in engaging in possessive relationships. David also had a similar experience. Finally, we concluded that the UN could benefit from the experience of living all together on an estate and speculated that it may instill a greater spirit of cooperation among the member states. At the very least, the UN might start with a six-day retreat like this delightful one and invite Mukesh to be their facilitator!

The last evening of the retreat was a beautiful bacchanal of music, singing, and dancing in the Meditation Room where there had been arguments, tears, agreement, and hugs before the final goodbye on the next day.

CS

 

June Retreat with Mukesh Gupta from the KFI

 

This past month, a friend and I travelled to Brockwood Park for a five day intensive study/dialogue retreat on the topic:

Death: the end of everything or the start of something new?”

As always, on this, my fourth visit, alighting at Brockwood is to breathe in deeply, the perfume, the silence, the peaceful beauty of the buildings and surrounding landscape. It is such a contrast with the hurly burly of getting there and one can always count on a warm welcome, a cup of tea and a nourishing meal, prepared largely with food from the gardens or local produce. There is, ever present, a quiet diligence of the staff and guest helpers working behind the scenes to support the visitors who are there for inquiry.

In this particular group, there were twelve of us, from divergent cultures, ages and backgrounds, which made for a rich variety of life experience. At first we knew each other not, yet by the end of the week we had become close companions. Overtly, we had our differences, but a sense of communion was developing by itself, building upon the willingness to look together at the ‘what is’ of our lives within the context of the topic. Not easy! Stephen Smith was our guide, whose competence and immersion in the teachings over very many years served us well when things started to bog down.

The days of study retreat are generously balanced at Brockwood with plenty space for personal contemplative time, or for informal dialogues.  Many participants pick up K’s lead by taking an afternoon walk in the lovely countryside.

Each day we would listen to an audio or watch a video on our topic. Some of this was unpublished material. We were able to turn our chairs towards the garden whilst listening to K speaking, which I found to be a soothing combination.

It was impossible, I observed, for most to keep listening intently for an hour or more, for the completion of each topic, for every talk includes many aspects of the teachings. What worked for me, was to watch where my interest sparked. One such example was the phrase : “Look at your problems as you would look at a flower.”

During the coffee break, I wandered into the walled garden* which, in early September, is still full of roses. This provided a perfect opportunity to test out the phrase. So, I deliberately studied a particularly beautiful rose by looking with no other agenda. Possibly ten minutes or so passed before I stirred and walked along the path ready for the next step, which was to look in the same way at a problem of this life. To my astonishment, the only problem became that there were no problems!

I searched quickly through memory banks, recalling my life back home in Canada where in each day some sort of problem arises daily. I could not recall that life. At first there was a bit of panic, as in, “this is a serious senior’s moment!” Still, nothing would come. Mind was quiet, empty. Returning to the group, which I had judged previously as ‘difficult,’ there was nothing to see but love and willingness. A deep quietness pervaded my looking and listening.  This remained through subsequent travel days back to Canada, which seemed to be filled with ease. It still remains, underneath the inevitable problems of ‘my’ constructed and conditioned daily life. The one I would call ‘mine’ because that is what I identify with.

One can see that the problem with problems is that they are self-generated, arising as they do, from the partial solution to the last problem. This can be seen to be true whether it’s a small personal difficulty like say losing keys, or on a societal scale such as pollution of our planet or political turmoil.

You cannot solve a problem through the means by which it was created.”

Beyond our meddling and our fretting, that which transcends and encompasses the whole, remains.

As a result of a study group on death I have come away with life. K says death and life and love are all one. That was revealed to me without any effort of ‘mine.’ The only thing necessary was attention. This was easy with roses which assail all the senses so fully that they practically demand our attention.

Now, post Brockwood, I am able to wholeheartedly recommend the suggested activity. When beset by a problem, go and look at a flower, a tree, a bird, the ocean. Just look!

 

Look until there is no one looking.

 

*NB.   Walled gardens date back to medieval times. They were called “hortus conclusus.”  Entering the garden was to enter sacred space. In the centre was usually a fountain, in this particular garden, a circular pagoda. Here resided Mary of the Christian tradition, symbolizing love and compassion.  Mary was also associated with the rose. Possibly the hortus conclusus at Brockwood had its origins in the medieval period, for the land is ancient. As such it will have nurtured many inquirers and contemplatives.

LW

 

February Retreat with Caterina Maggi (from Italy)

 

CS –      Allan, I propose that there is a locus of tranquility in one’s life while the well of silence is endless and can become an addictive drug; one could easily abide in that tranquility, but just a glimmer of that locus of tranquility is enough to live intelligently. I’d call it a middle path or a happy medium.

AA-      Once a Buddhist teacher said “The Middle Way has no middle” meaning that it cannot be quantified or divided. The core of this endeavour is, of course, the display of one’s true nature, or, getting out of one’s own way so that one can see oneself clearly.

CS –      I further propose that an intelligent recognition of destructive thought patterns is the core of spirituality.

AA –     Yes.

CS –      So, we seem to share a consensus but, is that all one needs spiritually?

AA –     Yes, that, and, an unwavering resolve to abide in that locus of tranquility as a limitless proposition.

CS –      Yes, there is no limit to how aware one can be because Awareness is timeless – it is in the realm of magic and expecting the unexpected; there is an Order that is timeless. However, impatience can be caused by a desire to abide or dwell permanently within that realm or in the locus of tranquility.

AA –     St. Augustine said, “The reward of patience is patience”. Anxiety is not innately part of our natures, but tranquility is. Religion and psychoanalysis seem to be more interested in disease than in health.

CS-       Yes, it seems so. I recently started to read the Dhammapada, but found I could not finish it…

Do you believe a transformation takes place in the brain as K. talks of to allow Intelligence to function?

AA-      Yes, I believe it does.

CS –      So, something has changed chemically in the neurons to allow a new way of thinking?

AA –     Yes.

 

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

 

CS –      The mysticism of Egypt has always impressed me.

AA –     The Sphinx has a lot of presence viewed from many different sides.

CS –     Apparently, it came to a Pharaoh in a dream and that’s why it was built.

AA –     Oh, really?

CS –      I saw it as a child, but I do not recall my impression vividly.

AA –     It is good to remember one’s impressions from childhood as they are often fresh.

CS –      I shall look up my notes from our trip; it is incredible how pyramids show up in South America, as well, and, this whole business of an idea occurring simultaneously around the world (or a mutation).

AA –     Yes.

CS –      K. and Bohm talked of 5 or 6 transformed individuals being able to change the world. Why not 2 or 3?

AA –     Why not?

 

[These are personal impressions of dialogues with Professor Allan W. Anderson printed with his permission given on May 23, 2010; in no way does Chanda Siddoo-Atwal (CS) purport that these are verbatim discussions, but only excerpts recalled after conversations in which she has tried to “pluck out” their essence from her notes taken during these talks. It shall be serialized in its entirety as a tribute to his life and work in the coming issues of The Swanwick Star. This is the sixth serial installment from a compilation called “The Bird in the Verandah”]

CS (April 11, 2009)

 

With Prof. P. Krishna and David Moody (May Retreat)

Reflections on the Self Dialogue Group

Meeting October 20th, 2019

Present: 8 members: 3 apologies

There have been a number of absences throughout the summer so that some members were meeting again after 4 months, others were not present. The fluctuating nature of the group was commented on along with a question around a sense of separation and how to become reconnected?

Lynne opened the group by commenting on and reading from the first two pages of the chapter on “Freedom,” where K  declares that “Freedom does not imply choice.”Applying this to our mutual situation of voting in the federal election tomorrow it seemed pertinent to look at his statement “ You choose according to your temperament, your desire, your pleasure. You are faced with the question of whom to listen to, whom to follow.” Whom to chose indeed!

It was suggested from the outset that we cannot really dialogue about Freedom, our topic of the month and last chapter of the book, as though it were, in itself, a topic. We can only look at any situation, for example, the election, and ask if we are approaching it out of freedom, for K is clear that freedom is at the beginning.

When are we not free? This involved again going into conditioning.
Some members of the group, rather painfully and slowly, took this up as others listened. It was not clear that many had given much attention to the chapter or using it for self inquiry  as was the original intention of this group.

We returned many times to the need for paying attention in the immediacy. Are we currently in a state of separation or in a state of inclusion/communion? If not, who it not?

Is it possible to attend to all points of view, seeing that every one is only partial? What is our experience of the whole? Does action arise all by itself from that?

It was acknowledged that Freedom is synonymous with unravelling Conditioning, otherwise we assess things from our conditioned and partial standpoint, negating other views in the process and taking ‘sides.’ There were comments abut the nature of partisan political rallies.

We moved to the topic of confusion in making choices, any choices, and K’s point of view on this, ie “is it possible to be still in the midst of confusion ?”was gone into with examples.  To attend to confusion is not in itself confused.

Two other members drew our attention to sections of the chapter which were of interest and which we looked at.

As well the topic of the nature of conditioning, including biological conditioning was suggested and augmented the dialogue.

The main understanding today was that freedom could only be now, in the act of complete attention, which means communion. What is it that separates us, here and now and within society? Examples were given of faulty attempts at inclusion ie with regard to sexual fluidity, which, in the end, through multiplicity of choices ( 72 now reported on facebook!) end up creating further separation and alienation. Similarly with alternative pronouns.

Much of our looking oscillated between the world at large, ie society and our own ‘world’ including presence in the group on this Sunday afternoon. Everything which we can comment on in the world can be also seen in ourselves. There is no greater take away than this!

LW

[Photos courtesy of LT, 2019]

 

 

I loved staying at KECC, watching lots of videos, reading and taking long walks. The immensity of the sea and the soaring mountains naturally create space in the mind, silencing the chatter and leading to quiet contemplation and enquiry into the nature of human brain/human life and its function, role in the immensity of the universal or cosmic order. Clearly, the conditioned brain, to borrow K.’s terminology or the words of the Buddha, who had also pointed towards the conditioned state of human existence, clearly this brain is incapable of grasping the immensity of another state of mind or consciousness.

Both, the Buddha and Krishnamurti have unequivocally stated that there is another dimension or a state of being, or whatever words one may use, however, unfortunately, it is not in our limited, time-bound, narrow, self-centered consciousness. We don’t know what it is. And our brains, as they are now, can never grasp it unless the physical structure of the brain itself changes. Which means total insight. I don’t think that one can have partial insights into the matters of existence. One can have more clarity and rationality, but partial insights here and there into the matters of life and death, love, truth and beauty, comic order and supreme intelligence, are not possible, as far as I can see. Or they are not possible as long as time/thought, which is the make-up of the ego, are operating.

Here is a radiant statement Krishnamurti made when talking to KFI people in India:

“You always want me to come into your world and discuss your problems. But I have been saying all along to come into my world, where there are no problems. But you won’t do that.”

I wonder why we don’t do that? Are we so heavily conditioned? After all, the world is in such a crisis: a crisis beyond all crises!  The Earth may be uninhabitable in twenty, fifty years. So the only thing to do is to actually change the structure of the brain and bring about a cosmic shift or go on …!

ER (Fall 2019)

 

  

My Aunt (Dr. Jagdis Kaur Siddoo) was one of the most incredible women I have ever met and one of the great female influences of my life. She and my Mother (Dr. Sarjit Kaur Siddoo) were the first and second persons of Indo-Canadian origin to graduate from medical school in Canada, respectively (University of Toronto). In fact, it was a trend throughout her life – my Aunt was never afraid to be the first to do something. She also had a passion for philosophy and Krishnamurti as evidenced in her book “Listening is the Guru” about how the two sisters started Wolf Lake School, which I attended as a child. She enjoyed hiking and had a keen love of the outdoors that she imparted to all those around her. There is no doubt that Aunt “Jackie” was a veritable force in all our lives and really molded everything we did.

Like my Aunt, I started composing music based on birdsongs and many were the fond discussions we had about our avian friends. In fact, in the evenings near the end, I tried to amuse her by telling her a new bird story based on my encounters with birds during the day. She seemed to relish these stories whether it was about my resident woodpecker, Woodie, who would wake me up each morning by knocking on the chimney or Hummie, the hummingbird, who came every Spring looking for the red hummingbird feeder that had not been there for many years! However, I assured her that I would get a new feeder for him this year. Luckily, I was able to complete my latest opera dedicated to her in time for her birthday this year and have a classical string quartet perform it at her party.

Every new interest of hers was taken up with great energy and enthusiasm like her study of the Sanskrit language, which she mastered in her seventies, and, of course, gardening was always a favourite hobby. She excelled at everything she touched and enjoyed the detective stories which I read to her from time to time. Probably, most of all (even though she did not shy away from disciplining naughty children), she was fun, fun, fun to the end with a zest for life that I shall never forget!

CS

 

Before coming to this Second ‘You Are the World’ Conference at KECC, I’ve been asking myself what I have done to embody some of the things we talked about last time in my life over the past year & this is what I came up with:

*Continuing to live peacefully without confrontations

*Working at creating green spaces for wildlife & plant life

*Using less plastic & paper; using only the resources one needs; cutting back on excess in business, as well

*Promoting peaceful means of communication on social media

*Promoting a ban on nuclear & depleted uranium weapons; teaching others about their negative biological effects on social media and in co-authored books

*Advocating remediation of radioactive contamination on social media

*Respecting Nature & trying to help preserve other species (one can do this just by having a single birdfeeder in one’s garden – it’s perceived as a ‘safe space’ & it’s amazing the baby birds and squirrels I’ve found myself babysitting!)

 

When I asked a friend who participated in the conference last year the same question, he said:

*Living a peaceful life without conflicts

*Leading a simple life

*Not using more than he needs;

*Not having more things than he requires to exist

*Caring for others & Nature

 

Even before we can start talking about cooperating and begin to curb the current climate-change crisis, it is clear to me as a scientist that there are certain basic issues we must address like using war as a means of ‘trying’ to solve our problems. With the advent of biological, chemical, nuclear, thermonuclear, depleted uranium, and, possibly, meteorological weapons, war must cease altogether in order for there to be a serious dialogue, cooperation among nations, and any meaningful change in the world.

So, I’ve crafted The World Peace Treaty & would like to put it forward for everyone’s input as part of this dialogue

  1. No country should invade any other & all nations should agree to peaceful coexistence
  2. If one country invades another, it should be boycotted by all other nations & subjected to rigorous economic sanctions
  3. One country should not be able to start a war against another, but if it does, it should be ostracized by all other nations & all diplomatic relations should be severed
  4. State-sponsored acts of terrorism, sabotage, or civil war should be punished in the same way
  5. No country should be able to use nuclear, thermonuclear, depleted uranium or any other type of bombs against another country, but if it does, then it should pay full reparations
  6. Chemical, biological, and meteorological weapons should be illegal
  7. Nuclear testing should be banned since it contributes to climate-change

 

*Note: As a result of the First You are the World conference in 2018, many serious environmental issues that are confronting the planet were discussed. This year, the Canadian climate-change authority, Dr. Peter Carter, was the invited speaker and he touched on various topics during the retreat. Historically, we are currently in the Sixth Mass Extinction in which many species are being wiped out and certain experts predict that humans will be extinct by the end of the century. The last Fifth Mass Extinction famously wiped out the dinosaurs. We also learned about an interesting new movement of teenage climate activists like Greta Thunberg, who are shaking up the world of complacent politicians. As a young man, Peter was involved in the nuclear disarmament movement, which is still a relevant topic, today.

CS (September 2019)    

 

Musical Interlude organized by Chanda (November Retreat)

 

 

Swanwick Star Issue Nr. 11 (2018)

I tried to apply K’s teachings to my own experience of nature at the K Center. I find the Center to be an extraordinarily beautiful place, and I spent most of my days walking in nature on the beaches, trails and country roads.

I spent a lot of time watching my thoughts as K suggests, and can confirm that they are entirely made up of the past, or anticipation of the future. I find that being in nature makes it easier to experience the present moment without division, where the observer is the observed, where there is only experiencing, but no experiencer. I noticed that when one is just listening and looking openly then the mind is silent. When thinking comes in it wants to label experience, and comment about it. But there can never be a thought about the absolute present, it’s too immediate – the moment a beautiful flower is seen there is no separation in that instant but when the mind comments about the beauty, it is already in the past and not fresh.

Taking photos can aid in noticing beauty. It seems to heighten attention and I love noticing the details of nature that are entirely missed if we are walking in nature and lost in thought. The pictures below illustrate this beautifully – notice the heart on the wildflower and the incredible detail and beauty of the rocks on the aptly named Pebble Beach. Simply stunning.

 

 

The picture book “Flowering” sums it up well:

“Beauty is where you are not. It is a tragedy if you don’t see this. Truth is where you are not. Beauty is, love is, where you are not”.

KL
Krishnamurti Centre Personal Retreat
April 14-18, 2017

 

Report on a ‘Beyond Myth and Tradition’ Film Series Session

at the Monterey Centre in Victoria,  June 13, 2018

 

Topic: Choiceless Awareness

In this video K goes into topics of Observation, Fear and Attention.

As usual the half hour video was very much appreciated. Some were quite moved by it, especially K’s talks in the last year of his life.

Discussion after the video centred mostly around the directions that K gives for true observation. He advocates training a highly sensitive mind through being aware on a daily basis of every simple thing that is taking place, as well as the movement of thought. This requires intention! It was commented, plus examples were given. of doing this in special retreat conditions or when reminded, but how easily that is lost in the ambitions of life and living.

Again there was the reminder, which we talked over, with examples, of being aware of “what I am” and not “what I should be.” Even in attending to the video it was noted that the mind wandered through association to other topics. Obviously in being reported on, it was observed, where it may not otherwise have been. It was noted that attention can notice the movement of mind when it is not concentrated on content of mind. “Can you observe without choice or desire?”

It was acknowledged that a judging self quickly tries to orient the movement of mind to something that is preferable. K discusses this as the effort of psychological becoming, which sets up conflict. We looked at many examples, such as non-violent communication training, mindfulness training, and psychological self-help, which are quite deeply conditioning us at this time in history. All assume a becoming (better) in the future.

It was pointed out that when we read K books, these were not actually written by him but were transcribed talks. It was commented that there is a deeper listening when he is present, even on video, than there is whilst reading, which tends to look for memorable concepts. An astute observation.

We ended at 5 pm for a two month summer break. Everyone present continues to come to the weekly coffee group.

LW/RT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“ I think it is essential to sometimes to go on retreat, to stop everything that you have been doing, to stop your beliefs and experiences completely, and look at them anew.”          

 J Krishnamurti

 

“ As I see it, A study center has become a necessity because this is the place where the treasure is. From that treasure you can draw. You can draw your strength, your energy, your sustenance…here is something that is sacred…and from that everything flows. It must last a thousand years, unpolluted, like a river that has the capacity to cleanse itself, which means no authority whatsoever for the inhabitants. The teachings themselves, have the authority of truth.”                                                               

J Krishnamurti

 

It takes planes, trains and automobiles to travel from KECC, Victoria, to the village of Bramdean, 60 miles south west of London, in Hampshire, UK, the rural home of the Brockwood Park Study Retreat Center.

After this long journey, alighting from the final taxi ride, a little weary, I stand…. still for the first moment, allowing senses, dulled from the tedium of travel, to flower again in this world away…….bird song, perfume, the crunch of gravel underfoot, sheep calling, foliage, sunshine and above all, a pervasive sense of peace. Once inside the heavy wooden front door there is a warm welcome from Wilfred, a cup of tea and the sanctuary of a quiet room overlooking, as all rooms do, the tranquil grounds and beyond, to the rolling hills of Hampshire.

It is two years since I was last here and now there are ten days of retreat time ahead. The first few days of no agenda followed by a 5 day study/dialogue with 11 others who have also travelled from Europe, London, Scotland to be in this remarkable and unusual setting.

All who find their way here are privileged indeed to be housed in such a remarkable and beautiful, sacred building. At first glance it looks like a sprawling English country manor house, set, as it is, in 40 acres, but is indeed much larger than that (19 single rooms.) It was  designed by  the architect Keith Crowley in consultation with Krishnamurti. The design was the result of a dream in which Crowley ‘saw’ the building as being in the form of a seated meditator with a quiet space being at the center. All rooms extend outwards from this core, which also holds a spacious dining room, to enjoy the organic, vegetarian meals, also a comfortable sitting room, so arranged to foster small group gatherings for mutual inquiry. Meals are taken at tables for 6 where visitors meet and share what interests them and what brings them here. There are many windows, such that all spaces open onto each other or to a courtyard. The library, which holds copies of  all of the Krishnamurti books, videos and audios, in many languages, is tranquil with comfy chairs for reading and contemplating. A book shop offers many new and updated editions for purchase.

So much care and consideration was put into the creation of this place, (as well as everything in it) which opened a few months after K’s death in 1986. K had requested that it should last for a thousand years and  would preserve the purity of the teachings. Those who manage the center, the guest helpers and the visitors, all present together at any one time, are encouraged to participate in this atmosphere of sacred space. The attitude of reverence  is palpable and quite remarkable as a rarity in the 21st century.

The first few days were settling in to this silence with no access to Wi-fi, phone, TV or any other distraction. There is something akin to withdrawal as the absence of external stimulation sinks in. Walks on English footpaths are available outside the door, and wandering amongst the woods and fields is a lovely possibility of absorption in nature and summer tranquility. Even cars are infrequent on these roads. Horses and their riders are more common  than vehicles. I cheated a bit, in that the nearby village ( A 6 k round trip walk) has a sweet little coffee shop at the back of the post office which has both free Wi-fi, newspapers and home baked treats. A little decadence goes a long way when the world of immediate gratification has been left behind!

After a few ‘settling’ days, more people arrived in preparation for an intensive retreat of video and dialogue, looking into the topic of the “Transformation of Man.” As always with a group of disparate people it took a while to settle in to becoming a whole group inquiring together for an official 5 hours a day or so, but many more dialogues continued over meals and into the night. Others, including myself, took more personal quiet time for digestion of the seven sequential video/ dialogues.

I cannot say enough about the benefit of this kind of sustained inquiry and the sense of being present as David Shainberg, David Bohm and Krishnaji together dialogued on the  topics of the nature of disorder, caused by a misperception of the nature of thought, a misperception of our natural capacity for image making, and the perennial conflict inherent in our relationships. All due to fragmentation. The barometer of “ the sorrow of mankind,” was seen as a central underpinning to all these fragments for investigation, for deconstruction.

Not only the content but the process of this initially chaotic, yet ever deepening rapport, between the three men, developed. One could say that the first two videos especially were fractious, and by the last there was a meditative harmony which could be felt by all, participants and viewers. Indeed in this series, K is at pains to consider the viewer.

Dr Shainberg obliges by frequently acting as ‘everyman.’ David Bohm, as always, is reliably as he is with K, the voice of rationality and objectivity. He provides a calm foundation to absorb the challenge  of  K and the excitability of Dr Shainberg.

Our group mimicked these processes and was alternately, thoughtful, reactionary, emotional, calm, confused, talkative, quiet, chaotic and possessing of insight. At these rare insightful moments, there was a sense of oneness, of being permeated by compassion, intelligence and love. Regardless of the fragmentary nature of habitual approaches, there was always held and maintained a sense of respect and acceptance which, outside of this particular place and circumstance, would be hard to imagine. Separation would be the norm, yet here ongoing participation and commitment to the process was evident as the gradual maturation of fragments into something whole.

Some ‘enjoyed’ it more than others, some had not studied K at all, others for a lifetime, but regardless of history or experience I suspect that all were radically changed by such participation. The last words were these:

All these discussions, dialogues have been a process of meditation. Not a clever argument but a real penetrating meditation which brings insight through everything that is being said. Seeing the truth of every statement, or the falseness of every statement. Seeing the false as it comes out in each of us and is clarified. Seeing all this is to be in a state of meditation and then whatever we say leads to the ultimate thing. Then you are not sharing.

Where are you?………There is no sharing. It is only that.”      

K & Shainberg

 

Now, on the long flight homewards, I am so very glad that I went. It was not a vacation by any means, yet more worthwhile than almost anything one could imagine. I will be back, and recommend to anyone who has found an inkling of  the love and wisdom  inherent in K’s teachings that they take up the invitation to visit, at least once, this extraordinary and unique place on planet earth.

LW
July 2018

 

The Biological Wrong-Turn – Is there any way back from Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

 

Even as a child of ten, to the surprise of one of Oppenheimer’s colleagues, I had figured out how to build an atomic bomb. He happened to be visiting our house because my mother was always inviting over guests. This fact is not meant to be a reflection on my own brilliance, but, rather, on the rudimentary nature of the technology involved. Even then, once I had that under my belt, I decided the far more noble thing for any nuclear physicist (for that was my ambition at the time) would be to turn their attention towards a clean energy source like nuclear fusion or other alternate for the good of mankind.

Ladies and gentlemen, that was in 1976 and, now, it is 2018. I have often asked myself if a ten year old could figure out nuclear fission, could not the best brains in the world figure out nuclear fusion or a better alternative in 40 years? – apparently, not, since nuclear fission still reigns supreme at nuclear power plants across the globe with all its radioactive waste and other hazards.

Following over 1000 nuclear tests and detonations in New Mexico and at the notorious Nevada Test Site, the US developed the atom bombs that were deployed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 to end World War II. At autopsy, 17% of Hiroshima & Nagasaki atom bomb survivors were found to have thyroid carcinomas. Ironically, studies in the 1950’s, revealed that individuals exposed to radioiodines generated by detonations at the Nevada Test Site also had an excess of thyroid neoplasms.

Did you think that was the end of the nuclear story? So did I, until I attended a conference in Bosnia and Herzogovina and started to research the topic upon my return. That was just the beginning of how we entered the atomic age, my friends…

In the 1950’s, even after WWII, America continued testing nuclear devices in the Bikini & Marshall Islands. The consequences for the natives were devastating. Many islanders developed thyroid nodules and thyroid cancer within a decade.

The short-term effects of environmental radiation include a decrease in white blood cells and a weakened immune system. Chronic fatigue is another symptom associated with radiation exposure and various disorders such as respiratory, pulmonary, and digestive. Many radioactive isotopes generated by nuclear explosions will remain in the environment for thousands, if not millions of years and these can be transmitted into the human body through the air, water, and soil. Gamma radiation released steadily from these radioisotopes can also cause somatic genetic mutations and other DNA damage, which may be transmissible to future generations. The long-term effects of radiation can include leukemia, thyroid and other cancers in humans.

The first nuclear fission-based power plants started to spring up in Russia and America during the 1950’s. And, slowly, the nuclear power plant disasters started to pile up decade upon decade and pollute the environment – Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima…

In the 1980s, Soviet and other scientists started warning about the impact of nuclear weapons on global climate and their role in climate-change.

Then, in the 1990’s, some unscrupulous individuals had the bright idea of using the nuclear waste from these power plants to make depleted uranium weapons. Depleted uranium is a by-product of the uranium enrichment process employed in nuclear reactors. It has been used to make depleted-uranium bombs and to coat bullets, which proved to be effective armour-piercing projectiles. The US & NATO proceeded to use depleted-uranium bombs and bullets in the Gulf War, the invasion of Iraq, the Bosnian and Serbian War, Afghanistan, and, contemporaneously, in the Syrian War.

Taken together, this means that a significant portion of the world is contaminated with radioactive heavy metals, now, and, that the citizens of these countries suffer their deadly and debilitating radiochemical effects daily. It is a fate equal to consigning our fellow human beings perpetually to the final hell of Dante’s Infernoright here on this earth. The potential pollution of the entire planet with this radioactive waste in endless wars should be cause for humans to examine their collective conscience.

Do we need to re-think a nuclear world? Surely, by creating a weakened race of humans with cancers and immune deficiencies, the future of mankind is in jeopardy, and total extinction lies that way. Animals and plants are not immune to the biological effects of radiation either and the extinction of a myriad other species lies down this garden-path we find ourselves treading.

When I got back from Bosnia & Herzegovina, I kept looking in the mirror and not recognizing the person I saw there – inside, I felt like I had been shattered into a thousand tiny, little pieces. The whole world I knew had come crashing down – our society, civilization, media, politicians, institutions of higher learning had all completely betrayed and deceived us by pretending to be so morally virtuous. However, they had successfully hidden this skeleton. It was as if there was not a single beating heart left in the world and everything had suddenly turned to stone.

There is not much around us in the world to help us retain our equilibrium,  but the two shining examples that came into my mind were Krishnamurti and David Bohm, who had actually been conducting workshops on using Dialogue as a means of peaceful communication at Swanwick concurrently with the development of depleted uranium weapons and just prior to the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. Suddenly, it seemed like something momentous had taken place during that era…something that we must continue into the present…something that may be our only hope…so, here we are, asking ourselves if there is an alternative to the exclusive self-interest of war in our own lives. If we can change, perhaps, the world around us will also change.

I would like to open this dialogue session with a quote from Life Aheadby Krishnamurti –

“We have been talking about the deteriorating factors in human existence, and we said that fear is one of the fundamental causes of this deterioration”.

Personally, I have never been so afraid of the human capacity for destruction in all my life.

CS

presented on August 18, 2018 at the ‘You Are The World’ dialogue-retreat

 

 

 

 

CS –     I’ve been thinking about the longing and regret common to most humans that seems so hard to shed and shake off like a snake-skin; the longing for the future and regret for the  past.

It seems to hover around us, to surround us, to follow us everywhere like a shadow.

What is it, that we don’t seem to be able to drop it?

It holds us captive like the bird in the birdcage that won’t fly away,            even though the door is open.

Is it fear of the unknown?

Is it to do with the perception of life as a continuum – a continuous series of events –  and our reluctance to drop that “theory” even for a moment?

Are we just like jaded scientists ? – our theory fits someof the data, so we’ll stick to it.

We’re not open to something new and unexpected.

In fact, we’re not even ready for love which blasts the continuum to smithereens..

In Sufi poetry, the theme “to be free means to be free of sensuality” comes up over and   over again.

 

AA –    I like to call it “sensism”, as sensuality includes all that brings joy and beauty in life also.

 

CS –     I have really used the word “sensuality” in a provocative way. I mean a perception of life that is limited to the senses. So “my anger”, “my lust”, “my passion” carries enormous weight and I continuously give it validation.

 

AA –    Yes, that is true.

 

CS –     “My” violence is justified…but, “yours” is not!  My wanting must be fulfilled and my anger is righteous.

I just do not consider that there may be something beyond my emotions.

 

AA –    On the other hand, an idea like “non-violence” is equally dangerous.

 

CS –     Just as is the idea of sensual repression or suppression.

 

AA –    Indian theology is an interesting study in that regard – the polarization of Vedanta and Tantra. Two extremes.

 

CS –     Perhaps, both are products of excessive cerebration!

 

AA –    Indeed, the Buddha was sorely misunderstood by the scholars. He never preached eradication of the self.

Freedom is something that must be discovered anew by each generation.

It cannot be accumulated like knowledge:  wisdom is not transferrable.

 

CS –     Then, what can one do?

 

AA –    As Confucius said, “Light a candle in a dark room”.

 

[These are personal impressions of dialogues with Professor Allan W. Anderson printed with his permission given on May 23, 2010; in no way does Chanda Siddoo-Atwal (CS) purport that these are verbatim discussions, but only excerpts recalled after conversations in which she has tried to “pluck out” their essence from her notes taken during these talks. It is being serialized in its entirety as a tribute to his life and work in these issues of The Swanwick Star. This is the sixth serial instalment from a compilation called “The Bird in the Verandah”, from September 2001].

 


Anne McPherson was half the teaching team (along with identical twin “Cappy”) of English literature for a short time at Wolf Lake School. She was a dynamic teacher with a terse sense of humor, who really relished imparting personal insights on Shakespeare (whether King Lear or Macbeth) to her students. She was always keen to take students on field trips to the theatre so that they might absorb some local color & culture on the subject matter. And, surely, she was able to enrich her students’ lives by giving them an appreciation of art & Shakespearean drama. Sadly, she passed away this year in Toronto at the age of 84 after a long illness.

Sadly, long-time Vancouver Dialogue Group member, Steven Sallay succumbed to a bladder infection while in hospital in July at the age of 80. He shall be remembered for his relentless perseverance in pursuing the Unknown, a real spiritual warrior who was intent upon breaking through to the other side! We trust, now, he has found what he was always looking for – at least, the possibility is there that he has found some sort of peace at long last.

Our brave and beautiful neighbor and friend, Smythie, who pulled horse carriages in Victoria for many years, also succumbed to cancer earlier this year. He was one of the finest specimens of the equine species that could ever be found with the sweetest of temperaments and shall be sorely missed when we go to feed his friend, Bluie, carrots and apples in the evenings. Apparently, at one time, they spent a little time in the Swanwick Centre fields, too.

 

 

Steven Sallay (1937-2018)

Steven Sallay was born in Hungary and experienced both occupations under German as well as by Soviets. After the uprising against Soviet occupation, he immigrated to Canada and initially lived in Abbotsford and then moved to Vancouver.

He was an architect by profession, but lived the life of an artist. he has painted various paintings that are in possession of his family and friends.’

He started with ‘Fourth Way’ of G.I. Gurdjieff and P.D. Ouspensky and eventually got interested in the teaching of J. Krishnamurti. I met him in 1987 when he attended a Video showing of J.Krishnamurti in the West End.

In ‘Mundaka Upanishad’ we read about two birds, very identical, one dancing, singing, arguing fighting etc. A very busy one. While the other one sits and watches the first one.

Steven was like this, he was always very passionate about his understanding, views, opinions etc.  He defended them and fought for his views,

This one has departed us.

The other one?

How can we forget his other side like the second bird, sitting and watching.

Shanti

NR, October 2018

 

Throughout our 28 year friendship I had the privilege of discovering Steven the artist, the intellectual, and the man. I will remember the fascinating ‘Persistence of Memory’ lithograph by Dali in his living room, his acuarela cityscapes as well as his beautiful depiction of Michelangelo’s Pietà, which he made when young and presented to me when he found out I was once a Catholic.

As the intellectual, I will remember his passion for architecture, for Jiddu Krishnamurti, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and his admiration for his uncle Elemér, who wrote “Mozgó Vesztöhely,” a book about survival and heroism in the Hungarian concentration camps.

And I will never forget the man who my children called Uncle Steven. On learning of his passing, my daughter Chantal shed tears for her adopted “Uncle.” My son Emmanuel has nothing but fond memories of him.

RB, October 2018

 

A more fun memory and a diversion from philosophy was when we used to attend the Fairview Club on Broadway that featured the creme de la creme of Blues musicians in Vancouver. There Steven would be out on the floor, solo dancing, uninhibited and in full force. He received many compliments and cheers from musicians and patrons alike and as one patron put it he was “a barometer for the band”.  I remember him saying you need to bring that same energy from self-inquiry into the movements on the dance floor. He also said that his performance would be increased if the band played a little more “happy blues”.

AS, October 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swanwick Star Issue No. 10 (2017)

 

When I first read a book by Krishnamurti, I had a sense that I didn’t get it, so I put the book away for a year.  When I picked it up again, the door was open.  I felt like every word I read detached congealed braincells, like peeling apart velcro, and I could see deeper.  I could now read what he was saying, and then I could see what he was saying, and then I could see.

While exploring, I’ve often had this sense of profound insight or perception, as if it’s the most immense ever, which is followed by an intimation that I’ve had that sense before, not as time, sameness or accumulation, but a vast, unknowing forgetfulness, that is eternal.  There is a newness, a freshness, as if the words have never been seen before, even if the scribbles in the margin say otherwise.

Can one see the teachings with fresh eyes each time, thus approach daily life in that way?  Since his languaging avoids abstractions and concepts, this negates the brain from extracting in order to add to one’s matrix of knowledge and associations.  Thus exploring the teachings seems to de-condition my brain.  He writes that we think together and think things through in order to find.

I visited Krishnamurti’s house in Ojai in January of 2016 and February of 2017.  This was a dream come true and the energy and beauty that Krishnamurti created there is palpable and transformative.  Krishnamurti’s teachings have impacted my brain to be deeply in touch with nature.  Looking closely and attentively at her dance of colors, the light of perception transforms into sound-like subtle whispers from Gaia herself.  She tells me something of her majestic beauty, so immense, that it doesn’t leave a trace, even if I wanted it to.

 

 

 

I spent an hour with the tiniest caterpillar I’d ever seen.  He was walking on my jeans, nearly camouflaged, yet perception makes life salient whenever it wiggles within the visual field of choiceness awareness.  I said aloud, “Is that a tiny caterpillar?” as if spotting him moved my vocal cords.  After the hour, I reluctantly returned the hitchhiker to the base of the Pepper Tree.

There is a sensitivity to the movement of life that grows each moment one puts one’s attention on life.  In this way, the brain cells for seeing and being with the Now grow.  It seems that reading and listening to Krishnamurti’s teachings de-conditions the brain such that perceptions is action, at the level of the brain cells.

Life meets life, and there is an explosion of energy.

I recently went to Swanwick Centre and the beauty was immersive.  It took hours before the land imbued the body with its energy to participate in moving fluidity amongst its splendors.

To me, Krishnamurtis teachings are alive and are not separate from daily life.


Anonymous

 

 

Krishnamurti Study Group
Saturday, January 21, 2017

The subject of study for this session was Q & A # 5 “On Discipline” in The First and Last Freedom by J. Krishnamurti. A questioner had asked K if self-discipline was necessary for moderating the “instincts of the brute in man” in order to realize God. K asked if these tendencies in the human being can be dealt with by suppression, sublimation, control, or by attempting to approximate one’s behavior to an ideal. Is there not a need for a more intelligent response to the issue, a creative response which does not involve the deadening of self-discipline as control.

The five participants were asked at the beginning if we could look into the question without preconceived ideas and be open to fresh and new ways of seeing. This was done very effectively and one person commented that we were in fact doing what K suggested as we inquired into the question. There was a sense of discovery and a feeling of wholeness in the group members. A very enjoyable session.


David Bruneau /Ralph Tiller

 

 

This interesting topic discussed at a Swanwick group meeting proved highly evocative for me. It triggered a stream of thoughts in the context of the violent society in which we live, today.

The brutish side of human nature is ever-present in us; our constant work is its sublimation* through Awareness.

This brute also causes madness and incoherence; this brute is the ego.

This brute is accepted by society and everyone seems to make apologies & excuses when it does terrible things.

What if this brute were totally rejected by society?

In fact, David Bohm often talked about “suspending” our opinions, judgements, reactions when interacting with others. Like K, he maintained that these mechanical exchanges are so often a result of past feelings and memories,

not a spontaneous response to the present situation. So, this seems like a very healthy exercise to undertake in these modern times when tempers flare and shootings take place within seconds and the threat of nuclear war looms.

Can we suspend our actions and reactions, momentarily, to recognize the brute within?

I dare to go even one step further and mention “the wrong turn” K and Bohm thought humanity had taken. It seems this wrong turn is inherently related to “the brute within” and, if we cannot successfully curb its destructive tendencies,

that brute will lead our species to its doom.

 

*even though K. did not like this word, scientifically-speaking, “sublimation” means transforming a substance from one form to another via a chemical reaction and is eminently applicable.

 

Chanda Siddoo-Atwal

 

 

Part IV  (August 2001)

 

CS –      There is an interesting passage in the “Tibetan Book of the Dead” that refers to “people who have recognized ‘the clear light’, but have not developed that recognition with practice”.
I take this to mean an intellectual recognition of something, perhaps a “state” or             “experience” outside the boundaries of thought.

AA –     What do you think “practice” means?

CS –      I do not think it means a particular daily regimen or routine.

AA –     Then, dropping dependency on the intellect.

CS –      …on the intellectual process which is necessary but not sufficient –
to “explode” the limits of thought.

AA –     “Suddenly, deluded thoughts arise!” – (Ashvaghosa, The Awakening of Faith)
Where do these come from?

CS –      I think we share a common consciousness not only with other humans, but with all living creatures. Modern physics eliminates the boundaries between EVERYTHING as do the             ancient philosophies.

I have been thinking of something very exciting –

I would like to extend your metaphor of the walk at Swanwick to the different levels of    consciousness:

*          “I” as my feelings:

“I am here now, but, my God, where will I be tomorrow?” (accompanied by a feeling of       desperation – then, one is caught in an “eddy”!)

*          The Observer as the Judge of one’s thoughts who tries to struggle out of the eddy:

“How stupid to be caught in this trap! I know better”.

*          Awareness of all these states;

each thought as it arises;

the state of no-separation.

AA –     The state of no-separation: yes,

but, inclusive of distinction.

CS –      Awareness of all these levels of consciousness, simultaneously:

there is always light at the beach, even though the woods are dark.

AA –     This point needs to be clarified – it can be a source of great confusion.

 

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

 

CS –      I think getting caught up in the eddy and
trying to struggle out of it is what we call “time”.

In the “timeless” dimension, the eddies are still there, but somehow Awareness allows   one to “skirt around” them without falling in.

AA –     One misses them.

CS –      I know you don’t like the word “time”.

Let’s define it.

AA –     Time as “change” and “suffering”, that is to say one’s passage through the world:

coming in, reaching one’s peak, the decline, death, the movement through death –

CS –      So, Time as a linear model of existence that always includes a sense of the past or future.

AA –     Yes, it cannot account for “presence” (I do not mean Nullfication or the negation of         everything or some kind of emptiness – ideas that seem to be gaining increasing                popularity).

CS –      Those are just linear models of the present! I associate Time with a linear perception of life in which there is no “explosion”.

AA –     But Time is not that alone – don’t forget, Time as Change – that definition leaves no          room for “timeliness”.

CS –      Yes, we must avoid the “vilification” of Time.

That brings us to the problem with words –

sometimes they may cause more harm than good!

AA –     I love this quotation from Maharaj:

“Realized persons are very quiet”.

CS –      Sometimes, I think we are like two lovers that cannot be kept apart

because they want to share their reality.

AA –     The phrase “shared celebration” comes to mind.

 

[These are personal impressions of dialogues with Professor Allan W. Anderson printed with his permission given on May 23, 2010; in no way does CS purport that these are verbatim discussions, but only excerpts recalled after conversations in which she has tried to “pluck out” their essence from her notes taken during these talks. It shall be serialized in its entirety as a tribute to his life and work in the coming issues of The Swanwick Star. This is the fourth serial installment from a compilation called “The Bird in the Verandah”]



 

Questioner (asking God):       So, what about your wayward children, the humans who have gone so wrong?

 

God (slowly nodding sagely): Yes…it was an experiment that has not been such a great success…

 

Questioner:                                Then, what will you do about them?

What future lies ahead?

 

God:                                            Why I need not do anything! They will simply destroy themselves…

 

[Professor Anderson got a good chuckle out of this one page-play a few years ago when I first read it out to him. In fact, I lost or discarded it after that and had to resurrect it from memory on December 26th, 2013 as it seems so relevant in retrospect – CS]

 

Chanda Siddoo-Atwal

 

 

 

 

 

I have no name,

 

I am as the fresh breeze of the mountains.

 

I have no shelter;

 

I am as the wandering waters.

 

I have no sanctuary, like the dark gods;

 

Nor am I in the shadow of deep temples.

 

I have no sacred books;

 

Nor am I well-seasoned in tradition.

 

I am not in the incense

 

Mounting on the high altars,

 

Nor in the pomp of ceremonies.

 

I am neither in the graven image,

 

Nor in the rich chant of a melodious voice.

 

I am not bound by theories,

 

Nor corrupted by beliefs.

 

I am not held in the bondage of religions,

 

Nor in the pious agony of their priests.

 

I am not entrapped by philosophies,

 

Nor held in the power of their sects.

 

I am neither low nor high,

 

I am the worshipper and the worshipped.

 

I am free.

 

My song is the song of the river

 

Calling for the open seas,

 

Wandering, wandering,

 

I am Life.

 

I have no name,

 

I am as the fresh breeze of the mountains.

 

J. Krishnamurti (from the Song of Life)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                               

 

 

 

 

This Canadian Krishnamurti School operated from  1976 – 1981

 

 

 

 

 

I was fortunate enough to spend all of September 2017 on retreat at the Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada. I’d found my way to the Centre in June for a few days’ retreat, and was awed by the stunning location, the charming buildings and rich libraries, and the warmth and kindness that I felt from the people who care for the place. I had been in the midst of some general life upheaval, and the timing seemed ideal; I inquired as to whether a longer retreat would be possible, and was delighted to be welcomed back for a full month.

I spent my first week at the Centre meditating, reading, exploring the grounds, and attending the reading and discussion groups on the weekend. In my second week at the Centre, Oda Lindner was giving a workshop on yoga and body-meditation. I hadn’t actually planned on taking the workshop at first, but spending some time with Oda and taking her demo class earlier in the week gave me an inkling that it might be important to incorporate some yoga and physical activity into my retreat.

I’m still extremely grateful that I took this workshop, because I almost might have missed out on a vital component of my study retreat. It’s easy for me to get stuck in my brain and ignore my physical body. Oda’s workshop offered a conscious, slow approach to staying connected with the breath and body, and helped me set the foundation for my explorations throughout the rest of my stay. Not only that, but my partner Matthew, who stayed at the KECC as well for part of the month, was inspired to offer a short, related workshop on connecting with the breath and voice in relationship with others.

Early on, Oda drew attention to the mind’s innate tendency to want to achieve some goal, and asked us to check in with ourselves as to what our motive might be from moment to moment, even in a simple moment like choosing to do a yoga asana. My favorite K quote that I discovered on my June visit is: “You can understand a problem only when you don’t condemn it, when you don’t justify it, when you are capable of looking at it silently, and that is not possible when you are seeking a result.” It’s helped me a great deal to ground myself when I consciously notice my mind wanting to spin off into problem-solving mode. But Oda’s comment about motive helped me become more aware of the subtler activity happening at the unconscious level, when I’m not fully aware that there may be something I want, but I feel an internal conflict that something isn’t “right” and “should” be changed. It’s become easier to catch my mind pushing towards a goal I didn’t know I had, and quietly let it go.

Kirsten Starcher

 

 

After coming back to Vancouver from my visit to the Krishnamurti Centre, I wondered why I waited so long.  Krishnamurti has been one of my biggest influences over the last 20 years, and I’ve hosted Krishnamurti discussion groups in Vancouver over a decade ago.  The center is a perfect place to look inward and find new ways of being.

In my study plan I wrote that I’d investigate my own inner tendencies of what Krishnamurti would call violence, e.g. trying to control oneself, conforming to an ideal, or acting out of “shoulds”.  I also wanted to investigate the feeling of “home” – often that sense is elusive to me, and he described once that he always felt at home wherever he is.  The center itself was conducive to that – a perfect mix of simple living and beauty.

My perception of beauty changed; in the city I’ve since noticed how much energy is spent trying to block perceptual inputs, such as noise pollution, social pressures, and cognitive dissonance in communication.  In the simple times at Swanwick, there wasn’t any need for that, and so there was a relaxing into more unconditioned awareness, and from that a perception of beauty grew naturally.  This beauty wasn’t of trying to get there, such as in an art gallery studying paintings in depth with focus, but naturally, from a relaxed responsiveness.  Krishnamurti connected responsiveness, a full ability to respond with one’s being, with the feeling of home, and I felt some of that.

Michael Spears

 

 

(photo courtesy of Cyril Galland)

 

Mon séjour au Centre Krishnamurti de Swanwick a été idéal. Une retraite de trois jours à appréhender et partager nos expériences autour de l’Intelligence, l’Amour et Soi puis trois jours en solitaire pour intégrer, et profiter pleinement du charme du site. Il est exceptionnel, sa superficie et son accès direct à l’océan, en sont pour moi les principaux atouts. Très bien équipé pour permettre d’y vivre à un rythme calme et paisible.

So grateful to those involved to preserve and offer to the public this beautiful space and programs,

Cyril Galland

(Montréal, QC)

 

 

 

 

 

Swanwick Star Issue No. 9 (2016)

 

dsc05327

 

 

I inquire deeply into the interrelation of my experience with psychosis and Krishnamurti’s pointers.

 

There is congruence.

 

There is a lived experience of the realization of truth as a pathless land.

 

There is more madness in society than in an individual mind.

 

Once this is seen, it feels difficult to operate in what has been conditioned as necessary reality.

 

On returning to consensus reality via medication in my case, there is an innate movement to be able to express in words what is beyond words, what the words can only point to yet never capture.

 

The divine ecstasy of complete human nervous system, rapture that comes upon the realization…I could go on, but I wouldn’t do it justice.

 

How can the heart be set free from the constraints of the mind that categorizes, judges, divides, psychologically…

 

I really don’t know…

 

And in that, there is freedom.

 

 Andrea Hollebakken

 

dsc05258

 

All great masters are original, not necessary novel. They are original in the real sense of the word—they are close to the origins. Therefore, they each express truth in their own quite unique way. Krishnamurti spoke of an intelligence beyond thought. He insisted that we need to go beyond knowledge. Although we usually think of knowledge as being a good thing, Krishnamurti emphasized the point that thought is the source of the problem, not the source of the solution. Patañjali, who is said to be the author of The Yoga Sutras, said the movements of the mind are the source of the problem. There is much in common between Patañjali and Krishnamurti, but each one expressed their insights in a unique way.

 

Sutra 1.2 Yoga is establishing the mind (chitta) in stillness.

The literal translation of this sutra, “Yoga is the stopping of the movements (vrittis) of the mind” speaks of the process of yoga to reach the aim of “establishing the mind in stillness.” An accomplished yogi’s mind has a quality of deep silence. Krishnamurti embodied this stillness of the mind. On one occasion, I asked him, “What is the nature of your mind, Krishna Ji? What do you see when you look at that tree?” He was silent for a while and then said, “My mind is like a mill-pond. Any disturbance that is created in it soon dies, leaving it unruffled as before.” Then, as if reading what I was about to ask, he added with the most playful smile, “And your mind, sir, is like a mill!”

The sages have said that when the mind is silent, without distractions, the original state of intelligence or of consciousness, far beyond the capacity of the thinking mind, is present. That intelligence is more aligned to direct perception than to thinking or reasoning. The reminder from Krishnamurti, and from the philosopher Wittgenstein in a different context: “Don’t think; look!” calls us to a perception of the intelligence beyond thought. We may well say that Yoga is for the purpose of cultivating direct

seeing, without imaginings. Yoga leads to gnosis, a knowledge which is quite different from rational knowledge. In fact, Patañjali prefers to call the Real Knower, the Seer.

Sutra 1.3 Then the Seer dwells in its essential nature.

Sutra 1. 4 Otherwise the movements of the mind (vrittis) are regarded as the Seer.

The essential nature, or the true form of the Seer, or the Seer’s own form, is Purusha, the Transcendent Being. Purusha is steady attention without distractions, Conscious Energy or Pure Awareness. When the distractions are removed, the Seer resides in its own true nature. The true Seer is Purusha who knows through the mind. The purpose of Yoga is to refine the mind, so that it can serve as a proper instrument for Purusha. When thinking enters, the mind brings its expectations and its projections; then we cannot see reality as it is.

On one occasion, I had asked Krishnamurti what he thought of something we had been looking at. He said, “Sir, K [that is how he often referred to himself] does not think at all; he just looks.”

In the Indian tradition, the emphasis has always been on seeing, but it is a perception beyond the sense organs, an enlightenment beyond thought, an insight from presence. The real knower is not the mind, although the mind can be a proper instrument of knowledge. The mind needs to become free of the distractions which occupy it and prevent true seeing. The Yoga Sutras emphasizes the need to quiet the mind so that there can be more and more correspondence with the clear seeing of Purusha. Only a still mind can be attentive, and only a still mind can be the dwelling place of Purusha in its own true form. There is a quality of attention and seeing which can bring about an action in ourselves which allows a radical change to take place naturally, from the inside.

I once asked Krishnamurti about the nature of this attention, what he himself called total attention. I said to him, “What I find in myself is that attention fluctuates.” He said with emphasis, “What fluctuates is not attention. Only inattention fluctuates.” We can see from this brief dialogue that for Krishnamurti, attention is the ground, like Purusha, and it does not fluctuate. My question implied that attention can be distracted and can fluctuate—clearly a misidentification of the Seer with the distracted mind.

Patañjali begins with the statement that attention is the main concern of Yoga. Otherwise the Seer—which is above the mind—is misidentified with the instrument of seeing. Steady attention is the first requirement of letting the Real reveal itself to us. The Real is always revealing itself everywhere, but in our untransformed state we are not receptive to this revelation. All the sages of humanity are of one accord in saying that there is a level of reality pervading the entire space, inside us as well as outside, which is not subject to time. The sages call it by various names—such as God, Brahman, Purusha, the Holy Spirit, Allah. However, we are not, in general, in touch with this level because we are distracted by the unreal, by the personal and by the transitory.

Sutra 2.9  Abhinivesha is the automatic tendency for continuity; it overwhelms even the wise.

Freedom from abhinivesha, from the wish to continue the known, is a dying to the self, or a dying to the world, which is so much spoken about in so many traditions. It has often been said by the sages that only when we are willing and able to die to our old self, can we be born into a new vision and a new life. There is a cogent remark of St. Paul: “I die daily” (1 Corinthians 15:31). A profound saying of an ancient Sufi master, echoed in so much of sacred literature, says, “If you die before you die, then you do not die when you die.”

During a conversation about life after death, Krishnamurti said, “The real question is ‘Can I die while I am living? Can I die to all my collections—material, psychological, religious?’ If you can die to all that, then you’ll find out what is there after death. Either there is nothing; absolutely nothing. Or there is something. But you cannot find out until you actually die while living.”

Dying daily is a spiritual practice—a regaining of a sort of innocence, which is quite different from ignorance, akin to openness and humility. It is an active unknowing; not achieved but needing to be renewed again and again. All serious meditation is a practice of dying to the ordinary self.

Direct and impartial perception is the heart of the matter.  Seeing what is, not how it should be or could be; just the way it is.  But this is not possible as long as the mind is not completely silent.  And the mind cannot be completely silent until one is totally free of fear and selfishness.  An ordinary person like myself is not free of my conditioning, my fears and ambitions and therefore does not have a silent mind.  To me it was clear quite early on in my meetings with him that K’s mind was quite different from mine—and we have his own last statement from his death bed that an energy of that quality will not come again in a body for a long time.  However, a part of his upbringing was in the early twentieth century England with a polite nod to democracy and egalitarianism, and he would so often imply that he was no different from the others and that we could all come to the same clear perception as his. To me it just seemed nice manners and not the truth and I expressed some frustration on one occasion.  He turned to me and asked, “Sir, do you think the speaker is a freak?” Without any hesitation, I said, “Yes.” Of course, what was intended by the two of us by this word ‘freak’ was different.  To me, at that time it did not mean anybody distorted, but ‘someone who is extraordinary and unusual, not like the most of us.’

In more or less a continuation of this exchange, but a little later, it so happened that I was with him in the house of Mary Zimbalist.  There on a small table there was a vase with some flowers. I said, “Krishnaji, I am convinced that your mind is very different from mine.  What you see is not what I see. Please look at these flowers and describe what you see; I will do the same.  Then it will be clear whether our perceptions are the same or different.” He agreed and looked the flowers. “My mind is like a mill-pond.  Any disturbance that is created in it soon dies, leaving it unruffled as before,” he said calmly.  Then, as if reading what I was about to ask, he added with the most playful smile, “And your mind, Sir, is like a mill!”

Krishnamurti once said during a conversation with me that the intelligence beyond thought is just there, like the air, and does not need to be created by discipline or effort. “All one needs to do is to open the window.” I suggested that most windows are painted shut and need a lot of scraping before they can be opened, and asked, “How does one scrape?” He did not wish to pursue this line of inquiry and closed it by saying, “You are too clever for your own good.”

Here is a very interesting remark of Krishnamurti about yoga:

“The word ‘yoga’ is generally understood as bringing together, tying together. I have been told by scholars that the word ‘yoga’ doesn’t mean that at all; nor all the exercises and all the racket that goes with it. What it means is unitive perception, perceiving the whole thing totally, as a unit, the capacity, or the awareness, or the seeing the whole of existence as one-unitive perception, that’s what it means, what the word ‘yoga’ means.” (Saanen 1971, Seventh Public Discussion).


Ravi Ravindra

 

ravi-yoga-crib-1-2014

 

 

CS –      Let’s talk about the possibility of stepping out of time and how the need for physical        space fits into it.

 

AA –     It is a very seductive notion explored by many others before including the New                 Romantics etc. etc.

 

CS –      It seems that the ending of psychological time is the ending of all our problems.

 

AA –     Be careful – K. has not clearly delineated the difference between psychological and         chronological time. The whole concept is rather cumbersome: we exist in time after all!

 

D.T. Suzuki has said something useful – There is no infinitude except in finite things.

 

CS –      Yes, we live in a world of finite things and our minds are filled with finite thoughts.

To find space within that frame…

I guess “stepping out of time” is a cliche, then. Let us look at the whole thing afresh.

I will only talk from my own experience.

The mind is not very quiet these days, not because it is pre-occupied with one particular             thought but because thoughts flit in and out in a chaos; dreams reflect the same pattern. Perhaps, it has a lot of responsibilities at the moment.

YET, life does not seem to be limited by its activities.

 

AA –     Is each instant not new? –

a giving up of the past,

a rediscovery of Awareness.

 

Is not limitation, or its perception,

a consequence of self-misunderstanding?

 

CS –      …the inability to dissolve the imprisoning walls…

yet, silence is required for this to take place, a sense of limitless space.

It seems that Silence is the source of Self-Awareness;

it is a way of life born out of “aloneness”.

If there are always people and noise around, one cannot be alone.

 

AA –     Yes, silence and quietude are essential to existence. There is a rhythm, a pattern that is peculiar to oneself. One has to listen to it and respect it.

 

CS –      …without becoming a recluse, running away, suppression…

 

AA –     Of course – there is always that danger.

There is a harmony in living, a balance.

 

CS –      Yes, it is like a dance.

Silence feels just as comfortable as speech.

Company is just as comfortable as solitude.

The Tao is always at ease.

 

AA –     Indeed, existence can be a series of jarring or incongruous events.

I am reminded of the walk down to the ocean at Swanwick:

how it starts in the pastoral scenery around the house,

passes through the darkness of the forest, and,

suddenly, emerges in the light upon the pebbly beach by the sea.

What a contrast!

 

CS –      It has always struck me that way, too. Life is like that walk.

I guess what matters is one’s relationship to the challenges presented by it.

 

There is no Good or Evil:

Awareness is the only thing.

 

 

[These are personal impressions by Chanda Siddoo of her dialogues with Professor Allan W. Anderson, held in February 2010 and printed with his permission; in no way does CS purport that these are verbatim discussions, but only excerpts recalled after conversations in which she has tried to “pluck out” their essence from her notes taken during these talks. It shall be serialized in its entirety as a tribute to his life and work in the coming issues of The Swanwick Star. This is the third serial installment from a compilation called “The Bird in the Verandah”]     

 

We had many retreats this year, one each month.  Here are group shots of a summer retreat with Prof. Theodore Kneupper, followed by another with Dr. Ashwani Kumar.  Wonderful opportunities for shared inquiry on the lovely Centre grounds.

 

img_0333-001

 

img_0448

 

 

One day, Raman, one of my old teachers from Brockwood Park School rang me up in Vancouver and said he was in town. Immediately, I said that I would love to meet him. He was the master chef when I was a student at the school and had been cooking with that elusive ingredient called “love”. Even though he had trained as an engineer, his passion to embody K’s teaching was so great, that he had decided to fill the only vacancy at that time for the school’s cook.

However, true to the Brockwood form, Raman was a teacher in the actual sense of the word, and taught me many valuable lessons about life and relationship. Such “teachers” are much appreciated and eternally revered. One never forgets the long chats in the kitchen or the philosophical discussions during walks in the countryside.

So, we met at a restaurant called “East is East” with a group of friends, some of whom had formed the core of the Vancouver dialogue group since the days of David Bohm’s retreats at Swanwick. We were saddened by the news of Saral Bohm’s passing just a few weeks ago in Israel. She was a great support to David throughout those dialogue years and a real champion of the whole dialogue movement. I think I remember her best for her sharp wit and sparkling sense of humour. Also, a certain motherliness seemed to emanate from her – I think I always felt somehow cared for in her presence.

This impromptu gathering in a rather richly decorated cubicle of oriental design gathered momentum while Raman reminisced about staff meetings with K and we talked about another of my old teachers, Shakuntala, and her daughter, Natasha Narayan. Once, I remember attending an outstanding concert of Bismillah Khan’s with them in London at the Royal Albert Hall. Another time we travelled together on the overnight train to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to attend Peter Brook’s production of The Mahabharata. Raman also told us Mark Lee was recovering admirably well from his fall in the shower and was even able to drive a car now. Everyone was delighted by this news.

The conversation rapidly developed into an outstanding night of dialogue. We touched on many timeless topics raised by K and wondered if one could ever take away a lasting understanding from such an evening, or, if it would just fade away. We talked about a stream or a river where one is standing on the banks and likened it to human consciousness. One can either jump into the river and be lost in it, or, just observe it flowing by on the banks. Then, I recalled a particularly poignant discussion with Allan Anderson in which he had likened one’s changing relationship to consciousness to experiencing different landscapes. That conversation had never left me…perhaps, it had even changed me forever on some level

Chanda Siddoo

 

patel-and-friends

 

Another interesting meeting took place later this summer with my French teacher from Wolf Lake School, Suzanne. We met at a cafe in the chic Yaletown area and, then, went for a walk along the waterfront where the sea forms Burrard inlet. We talked about how K. was really a unique teacher and probably the only one who never encouraged dependence from his listeners. His common refrain was, “Why do I see the same old faces at my lecture? Why haven’t you got it yet?”. So, it almost seems like he was encouraging his listeners to break away from his teachings and find their own way. It was almost as if K. felt that people could get stuck in a rut by clinging to his teachings and the K-culture that had grown up around his schools and adult centres due to the adoring individuals who surrounded him. He wanted something better from his audience.

We discussed how we had both done this having met K. at relatively young ages. In effect, we had taken his advice and explored life without the shadow of his teachings. Then, we had re-connected with the truth of K’s words much later after having a richer experience and understanding of the world. He was a truly remarkable teacher!

Chanda Siddoo

 

suzanne

Swanwick Star Issue No. 8 (2015)

Last year I was introduced to the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti. While his observations struck a deep chord within me, in retrospect I was only capable of relating to his message in a very limited way. This is in part due to the fact that his teachings are indeed quite novel and intellectually challenging, but also because my ego was filtering out a great deal information so as to mould his message to its own egoic patterns. At first this exercise was very stimulating and seemingly enlightening, but the outcome of such a way of relating to his teachings was inevitable- I would only absorb so much and then feel compelled to move on to other forms of “spiritual” stimulation so that my mental patterns would remain sustained and intact. Now, by the latter what I’m actually saying is that I really am usually quite uncomfortable simply being with myself in the present moment, and am almost always finding ways to be anywhere but here, to be anything but what I actually am.

Spirituality has been a big part of my identity for a very long time, but over the past year this aspect of my ego really intensified and became the central theme of much of my thinking. I moved from K to Mooji and then found myself deeply immersed in the teachings of the many non-duality teachers who share their messages online and in many books that I read. Now, this wasn’t all for naught. My growing knowledge enabled a much deeper understanding of spiritual teachings and texts, from contemporary teachers to Buddhist, Taoist and Vedic scriptures.  I also became intuitively aware of certain perspectives which I’m sure will continue to shape my perception in meaningful ways. For these things I am grateful. But my growing understanding also further solidified my belief in some ideal alternative state to be attained, hence increasing the belief that I can be and am supposed to be something different than what I actually am. By placing increasing importance on a non-dual ideal I was actually feeding my dualistic thinking. And so I experienced a growing state of division inside.

This growing division was at first more of a subconscious process, however I’ve become increasingly aware of the actuality of what is occurring and now see a serious need to address this division in a more honest and grounded way. One of my main goals over the past year, after all, has been to heal inner division, even while I was actually feeding it. With growing inward division comes growing outward hypocrisy (paraphrasing K), and instead of becoming a more authentic person I found myself increasingly compelled to wear the mask I have so desperately longed to discard.

Last night I decided to go back to Freedom from the Known. I went to the specific chapters relevant to what I feel I am particularly struggling with, and instead of the mostly abstract spiritual perspectives I’ve been so immersed in, I found K was addressing me, as I truly am. Instead of abstract spiritual concepts of a transcendent self that actually isn’t my experience of self at this time (despite glimpses of expanded awareness), I found words addressing my current struggle as a human being, along with a message that urges me to be with myself in the present moment and really see what’s actually happening.

So long as we are seeking to become other than what we are, believing our current state is merely something to be transcended or improved, how can we be truly present with ourselves? How can we be present enough to see ourselves and others clearly, in this moment, and allow for compassion to arise as a natural response to the fear and suffering that are at the root of our divisive and self-defeating beliefs and behaviours?

I look at myself and see that I continually run from the present.  I have become deeply dissatisfied with myself and seek comfort in a variety of ways, which ultimately stops me from being present with myself and finally understanding what it is that I’m running from and why I’m running.

My growing understanding of psychology and spirituality has made me increasingly aware of my inner workings as an individual, but without a framework of truth such awareness can easily lead one astray, either into despair or a newly glorified identity that is even more of a barrier to authenticity and presence. It seems to me K’s teachings are uniquely grounded in such a framework of truth, and that they have a unique capacity to point us to the truth in this moment, which is the truth of who we are as individuals and as a society.

I’ve come back to K a number of times over the past year, but it seems I am only now finally aware enough to read his teachings and say “Yes” from a place of honest agreement. This “yes” involves a clearer seeing of myself in the present, including both the loving and unloving aspects of myself, as an individual and a connected part of a much larger system.

I am deeply grateful to all the teachers out there who speak from a place of awareness, and while I might question the value of different approaches, certainly I have received valuable gems of wisdom from many sources. I have deepest respect for many of these teachers, whose wisdom resonates with me on a deep level. Indeed, I think it would be impossible for me to abandon certain truths that have come into my awareness as a result of these teachers. It’s just that I need to remain vigilantly mindful of what’s actually driving me in this and other realms of my life if I am not to continue leading myself astray, and it seems to me that K’s teachings are unsurpassed in their ability to help me stay on track in this way.

Ultimately, the goal is still greater peace and greater awareness, but I can only work with what is actually happening in the present, in this complex and beautiful and messy present that is my current experience as a human being.

Julian Ruszel

AA –     Have you ever watched a cat? How self-composed and deliberate every movement is? How it fixes you with its stare? That is the quality of Awareness.

 

CS –      But, for me, there seem to be times of the day where there is no Awareness at all!

 

AA –     Maharaj has said something interesting in this regard: “Intelligence is aware of Consciousness, but Consciousness is not aware of Intelligence”

 

CS –      Yes, I see – these could be the gaps. Intelligence is only sensed by the cessation of Consciousness and so, Consciousness can have no idea about its quality what-so-ever.

Chanda Siddoo-Atwal

[These are personal impressions of dialogues with Professor Allan W. Anderson printed with his permission. I have tried to “pluck out” their essence from my notes taken during these talks. They will be serialized in their entirety as a tribute to his life and work in the coming issues of The Swanwick Star. This is the second serial installment from a compilation called “The Bird in the Verandah”.]      

My first religious influence was my grandmother, who was a good, spiritually open-minded person born into the Sikh faith. She never forced any rituals, ceremonies, or prayers upon me. My parents were highly educated – my mother and aunt were the first two doctors of Indian origin to graduate in Canada. My father was Dean and an educator at the Punjab Agricultural University and was known for his pioneering research in introducing the European honey-bee (Apis mellifera) into India.

Then, I started going to school. After a few years, my mother and aunt noticed that I was developing certain neurotic tendencies based on competition and comparison at the Catholic School I was attending and decided to start a school based on Krishnamurti’s teachings. It was called Wolf Lake School and they felt that it would benefit other children as well.

My father was against the idea because he saw it as part of the “Hippie Freedom Movement” of the 1960s and 1970s. Just like the East, the West had its own brand of repression and tryranny typified by McCarthyism, Civil Rights inequality, and the Vietnam War, that these young people were revolting against in America which set the whole stage for someone like K. to make an impact on society. However, my father and K’s critics could not have been more wrong about J. Krishnamurti, who had dissolved The Order of the Star and rejected organized religion, as having a “Laissez Faire” attitude towards education.

When we finally met, I was near the beginning of my life and K. was nearing the end of his, but he retained something so unspoilt and child-like that one was immediately drawn to him. His vision of education was that each child should develop their full potential without the shadow of competition and comparison to destroy their spontaneity. As a teenager at Brockwood Park School, I met another student who had been at Summerhill, but he said nobody there really seemed to care. Everything in life was an exploration according to K. – at the academic level and at the spiritual level. Thus, a lot of discussion between students and teachers, students and students, teachers and teachers went on at his schools ranging from lessons to personal relationships to K’s teaching which was basically for each person to be their own guru in learning about oneself, one’s hopes, one’s desires, one’s motivations – in effect, to recognize all that makes one mediocre and is an impediment to one’s inward flowering. It was a very liberating experience to live in a community that encouraged this sort of self-inquiry for a young person, because I think it is the natural preoccupation of the young to want to discover all about themselves. Moreover, it engendered a caring and nurturing atmosphere.

K’s approach to education benefitted me a lot in my undergraduate studies making me thrill in the joy of questioning and exploring things. I always carried that sense of excitement with me which made learning new things such a tremendous pleasure. However, this approach can only take you so far and by my twenties, I felt ready for something more. K. was old and frail and seemed tired out at times and to lack the energy for students, now. Dr. David Bohm, the world renowned theoretical physicist, was younger and had visited Brockwood sometimes for student discussions. He had participated in a number of taped dialogues with K. and others. I got to know him in Canada when I was a graduate student and he would come up for dialogue groups in the summer at the school, which was now an adult centre called The Swanwick Centre. He had developed a very special approach to “dialogue” after years of discussions with K. He felt that K’s teaching could be refined and distilled by the diligent self-inquiry of a committed group of people together. The “energy” to explore could be magnified if it involved a number of serious individuals rather than just one – he was passionately convinced that this was the way forward. It did seem to work for awhile – a great impetus and excitement was generated just as it had been during the establishment of the K. schools in the sixties and seventies. But, eventually, this movement lost its momentum, too, even though, a real sense of community that expanded on K’s vision had been initiated in Canada and America.

David Bohm’s main point was that in dialogue we should examine the underlying assumptions with which we approach everyday life like true scientists, who must question the basis of their minutest beliefs. This had great appeal for me being a science student and he convinced me to continue with my scientific studies at a time I had begun to question my own purpose. The “Dialogue Movement” did not really survive his death, though. We started to find that it was too easy for the group-dialogue proceedings to be “hijacked” by certain individuals with their own personal agendas. There was also the danger of getting into a rut as one might in any relationship at these meetings.

Allan Anderson entered my life suddenly and mysteriously after David died. He came as a breath of fresh air and there was an immediate affinity between us, perhaps, because we both wrote poetry. Allan had done a series of dialogues with K. which he felt had deeply transformed his understanding of life. He was a Professor of Religious Studies at San Diego at the time.

He and I started to have talks on the telephone about K. in the context of many other religious teachings and philosophies over a period of about ten to fifteen years. These have been collected in a work called “The Bird in the Verandah”. The inspiration for this title and what became the theme of our talks is a bird that gets caught in a glass verandah and, initially, cannot find its way out. A terrible struggle ensues. Then, after a pause, two other birds alight and show it there is a way out between the glass sheets and that it has always been there. Finally, the trapped bird understands its freedom.

I told him it was like my Bible or the Upanishads in which the essence of all spirituality was held for me as we delved into the deepest mysteries of mankind on our own terms, without the “K. rhetoric” or “K. terminology” which had come to epitomize so many clever, but meaningless conversations in the K. world. Thus, it all had to be re-discovered by each seeker in the depths of their own soul as K. himself had always insisted. In effect, K. and everything associated with K. had to be rejected in order to reach a new understanding of his teaching.

Allan was retired and leading the life of a Zen master and I was like his pupil and we were exploring together, relentlessly, having rejected the “K. culture” that had been built up by the people around him which simply replaced the restrictive, inflexible constructs of the Theosophists. We really had to break free of all this in order to reach further into infinity.

Near the end, Allan said that he did not need to meditate per se as a practice because he had attained a harmonious relationship with himself and that “listening” was the key. It is one’s relationship to consciousness that matters; one must “listen” in order to plummet its depths which has so many shades and textures of the thinker and thought before the final silence of Intelligence – and, to know the content of one’s consciousness in that silence.

Strangely, sometimes, I would say to Allan that I felt a responsibility to share what we had explored together in our discussions with others and I could just feel him smiling like the Cheshire cat at the other end of the line. He was quite fond of quoting “Alice in Wonderland”.
[Re-printed in part from a paper presented by Chanda Siddoo-Atwal (Ph.D.) with Professor Hillary Rodrigues at the 21st World Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR) and dedicated to the memory of Dr. Allan W. Anderson, Professor Emeritus Religious Studies, San Diego University.]    

Attending and presenting at the World Congress of the International Association for the History of  Religions (IAHR) in Erfurt, Germany (August 2015):

Prof. Hillary Rodrigues (University of Lethbridge) with Chanda Siddoo-Atwal and Carey Siddoo, two of  KECC’s directors.

 

 

The International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR) World Congress (August 2015) marked a significant milestone in the development of academic studies on Krishnamurti’s teachings. This is because it was the first time that such a renowned body as the IAHR accepted for presentation an entire panel as well as a paper presentation, thereby acknowledging a growing recognition of Krishnamurti’s place as a religious teacher whose thought elicits and warrants academic research. In order to contextualize and report on this crucial event adequately, a bit of background information is useful.

Many well-regarded books have been written on Krishnamurti’s life, and new publications continue to emerge in the form of biographies and memoirs by individuals about their personal experiences with him. However, scholarly studies on his life and thought have received marginal attention. Nevertheless, over the past decades certain pioneering scholars have written master theses, doctoral dissertations, journal articles, and academic books on Krishnamurti’s thought. These works have often been within the disciplines of education, psychology, philosophy, and religious studies. One of the first academic conferences dedicated solely to Krishnamurti’s thought was held in 1995 (Krishnamurti’s birth centennial) at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, a renowned centre for the study of Indian philosophy. It was organized by Prof. S.S. Rama Rao Pappu, and Prof. Ninian Smart, one of the pioneers in the discipline of religious studies, delivered a keynote address. Another academic conference, which focussed on Krishnamurti’s influence on education, was organized in 2010 by Dr. Meekashi Thapan, a professor of Sociology at the University of Delhi. There, a keynote address was delivered by Professor Samdhong Rimpoche, former principal of the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies. While each of these conferences were landmark events, by being exclusively focussed on Krishnamurti they did not position Krishnamurti’s thought within the broader world of academia. By contrast, the IAHR 2015 panel and paper mark a pivotal event in which Krishnamurti’s thought was situated within one of the highest profile gatherings for the academic study of religion writ large.

Despite its name, the IAHR is dedicated to the scholarly study of religion using multi-disciplinary approaches including, but not restricted to, history. Scholars may study religion through philosophical, anthropological, sociological, text critical, and a variety of other methods. What is crucial is the effort at objectivity and rigor in studying religious phenomena, teachers, teachings, practices, and beliefs, without any attempt to promote a particular teacher or teaching, and without engaging in apologetics, confessional concerns, or proselytizing. The IAHR was founded in 1950, and is a member of the Conseil International de la Philosophie et des Science Humaines/The International Council for Philosophy and Humanistic Studies (CIPSH) under the auspices of UNESCO. It consists of  42 national and 6 regional member associations and societies, which are international and global in character and scope. The IAHR world congress meets every five years, and this, its XXIst gathering, was held in Erfurt, Germany. As the capital of Thuringia,  Erfurt has the distinction of being the birthplace of the Christian mystic Meister Eckhart, and the renowned sociologist of religion, Max Weber. It is also the home of oldest standing synagogue in Europe, established in the 11th century, and thus a very suitable setting for a religious studies world congress.

The keynote address was delivered at the Theatre Erfurt by Hubert Seiwert, professor emeritus of Comparative Religion at the University of Leipzig, and his lecture kicked off the conference that ran from Sunday, August 23 to Saturday, August 29. The Congress attracted over 1300 delegates, including such figures as Donald Wiebe (University of Toronto) and Tomoko Masuzawa (University of Michigan), both well-known for their contributions to theory in the academic study of religion. In such a large event, there were almost always over twenty sessions taking place simultaneously, requiring participants to choose the panels they wished to attend carefully. Inevitably, and typical to such large gatherings, several sessions of similar interest to the same groups were scheduled at the same time slot, compelling the potential audience members to choose just one session of the many possibilities.

The IAHR Congress sessions were held at the University of Erfurt, originally founded in 1392, and both the city and university are proud to have had Martin Luther as their most famous citizen and student. The original university was closed in 1816 and has only been reopened since 1994 after German reunification. The setting was intimate and provided all participants with ample opportunities to interact with each other frequently during and between sessions, as well as in the evenings after sessions over dinner in many of the quaint restaurants scattered throughout the old city.

The idea to attempt to place a panel on Krishnamurti at the IAHR was initiated by Prof. Theodore Kneupper, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Slippery Rock University, Pennsylvania. Finding generous support from the Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada (KECC), and advice from the Krishnamurti Foundation Trust (KFT), the Krishnamurti Foundation of America (KFA), and Mr. Friedrich Grohe’s team, Prof. Kneupper was able to put together an excellent panel entitled “J. Krishnamurti’s Apophatic Mysticism: its Implications for Religion, Creative Insight, Spirituality, and Individuality,” which was very suitably aligned with the objectives and orientations of the discipline of Religious Studies. Since the maximum number of panel participants permitted was four, Prof. Hillary Rodrigues, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Lethbridge (Alberta, Canada) proposed a separate, joint paper with a fifth participant, Dr. Chanda Siddoo-Atwal of the KECC. We waited with eager anticipation to see if the proposed panel and paper would be accepted, and were absolutely delighted when we learned that both the panel and the joint paper were. This was a first for Krishnamurti studies within the broad, public, academic venues of the discipline of Religious Studies, and particularly appropriate because despite Krishnamurti’s influence in such fields as psychology, philosophy, and education, he is undoubtedly a highly influential religious teacher.

The IAHR panel started with a paper by Prof. Rodrigues that provided the audience with some background on Krishnamurti’s life. Rodrigues primarily argued that Krishnamurti was far more influential in the new Nondual Spirituality Movement than has been heretofore recognized by scholars. In part, Rodrigues suggested that this was because Krishnamurti’s teachings do not lend themselves to simple categorization, and that Krishnamurti himself was particularly effective in undercutting efforts to link him and his teachings with traditions, lineages of transmission and influences, and so on. This paper provided a context and background allowing the other papers to focus more directly on much more select features of Krishnamurti’s thought.

Professor Theodore Kneupper’s paper illustrated how in his critique of religion, Krishnamurti’s language had modified throughout his long life. Kneupper noted that in the earliest phases, Krishnamurti mostly challenged institutional religions. In later years he moved to distinguishing between the fragmented mind and a wholeness that characterizes “true religion,” and finally emphasized “living meditation” and the negation of thought as potentially transformative of human culture. Kneupper next offered reasonable hypothetical objections to Krishnamurti’s views, but ended with responses to those objections, pointing to the highly effective potential in Krishnamurti’s vision.

Professor Gopalakrishna Krishnamurthy (Principal, Brockwood Park School), whose formal education includes a Ph.D. in Education and a degrees in Physics and Philosophy, presented a discerning analysis of notions of radical negation, which characterize such religious philosophies as Advaita Vedanta, and Nagarjuna’s Madhyamaka Buddhism. With the use of helpful diagrams, Krishnamurthy showed how the approach of radically negating various intellectual categories (e.g., ethical, metaphysical) can erroneously lead one to an essentialist position. In other words, one might mistakenly think that at the end of all the negation, there is still some essential notion that is left standing, which is the target concept to be discovered. Alternately, one might be led through negation to a position of radical skepticism regarding all discourse. Drawing upon Krishnamurti’s teachings, Professor Krishnamurthy used the illustration of how, within a two-dimensional world, a circle may be the best image that one has to “hint” at the reality of a sphere, even though a circle is clearly not a sphere. Thus while the circle is a helpful pointer, it is not what is being pointed to. In the same manner, radical negation, he argued, points to or “hints at” a particular quality of attention, but that the utterances of radical negation can mislead as often as they illuminate.

Professor Alastair Herron (Ulster University), whose areas of expertise include Art History and Communication Arts, presented a critical examination of Krishnamurti’s notion of “creative emptiness”. Herron’s paper inquired into whether there is anything distinctive in Krishnamurti’s approach, which on casual inspection appears to parallel the apophatic (i.e., negation, denial) dimension of certain Eastern religions, such as Daoism and Japanese Zen. In fact, these traditions have also been associated with eliciting creative expression, so evident in material arts such as pottery, painting, and printmaking. However, Herron notes that Krishnamurti does not adhere to any form of traditionalism, which is characteristic of the other systems, and strove to undermine anything like it developing around his own pointers to creative emptiness. Herron suggested but left open the question whether Krishnamurti’s approach actually points to a profoundly creative and compassionate observational awareness that undercuts authority and interpretation.

Those who attended the panel were highly engaged, and some contributed their names to be added to a database of scholars that Prof. Kneupper is currently compiling. These audience members shared their observations, and asked pertinent questions. For instance, a scholar working on New Age religions in Taiwan noted that a series of publications by a New Age press in that country has over half of its titles dedicated to books by Krishnamurti, which is a clear illustration of Krishnamurti’s influence.

On the following day, Dr. Chanda Siddoo-Atwal (Director, Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada), and Prof. Hillary Rodrigues jointly presented a paper entitled, “J. Krishnamurti’s Critique of Religion and Religious Studies.” The paper was included in a session chaired by Prof. Richard L. Gordon (Max Weber Centre of Advanced Social and Cultural Studies, Erfurt University) dedicated to theory and method in the study of religion. The joint paper, began with Dr. Siddoo-Atwal presenting a highly empathetic account of three persons, namely, J. Krishnamurti, the theoretical physicist, David Bohm, and the religious studies scholar, Alan Anderson, and how they had influenced her life. Prof. Rodrigues, then spoke about the same three individuals in a relatively objective manner, initially causing the audience some surprise about the nature of the joint paper. The effect was to illustrate aspects of “emic” and “etic” approaches to discussing religious phenomena. Dr. Siddoo-Atwal’s presentation was sympathetic, personal, and evoked some features of an “insider’s” or emic perspective, which is typically marginalized in religious studies. Rodrigues’s etic and “outsider” information presented a contrast, but also illustrated how a deeper understanding of those three key individuals and their influences were probably better obtained by moving past the dualisms of such categories as emic/etic and insider/outsider. This served as a segue into a presentation of Krishnamurti’s critique on the limits of scholarly study, and on the complexities offered to religious studies scholars by Krishnamurti’s notion of religion and the academic study of people aligned with his teachings.

The session was well attended, and both audience members and fellow panelists raised questions or made observations that sometimes synergistically integrated features of all the papers, including the one on Krishnamurti. For instance, Dr. Siddoo-Atwal’s presentation of David Bohm’s approach to inquiry (Bohmian dialogue) elicited questions about breaking through tired and binding scientific paradigms, and how Krishnamurti’s teachings point to the space and silence of the mind, within which fresh insights might be possible in the sciences and all fields of study.

The choice of setting for the IAHR Congress was no accident, because Erfurt enjoyed a rich affiliation with notable figures and edifices in religious history. Moreover, it is very close to the city of Weimar, renowned for such patriarchs of the German Enlightenment as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller. It seems auspicious, if one could use that term, that the initial discussions to set up an association dedicated to the scholarly study of Krishnamurti’s life and thought began among the Krishnamurti scholars who had travelled to Weimar on a day trip. These, and various other lunch and dinner discussions, as well as those that occurred at times in between throughout the course of our days together, focussed on assessing the successes of the conference presentations, and envisioning ways of moving forward. Prof. Ted Kneupper volunteered to continue his labours to head up the formation of a scholarly association dedicated to Krishnamurti studies, and Dr. Siddoo-Atwal indicated her support through the auspices of the Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada (KECC) for such an endeavour. Current proposals include the possibility of holding a scholarly conference at the KECC headquarters in Victoria, British Columbia, creating a website as a nexus for the scholarly association, and initiating an academic journal dedicated to Krishnamurti studies, complying with the highest scholarly standards. Friedrich Grohe’s team has already offered some financial support to initiate the development of the website. Scholars from any disciplinary orientation, who are interested in joining such an association, are urged to contact Dr. Kneupper at theodorekneupper@gmail.com, or the KECC.

Professor Hillary Rodrigues

Summer weekend retreat with Prof. Hillary Rodrigues (back row; right of center)

For three afternoons, May 25-27th, Harshad Parekh, a humble Indian man, quietly sat with a small group of 6-8 people, all of whom had attended the weekend retreat/seminar at the Centre with Dr. Krishna.

Whilst the weekend had been a series of expositions on the nature and implications of Krishnamurti’s teachings these seminars with Harshad were characterized by little, if any, teaching of ‘something.’ Rather Harshad repeats a simple message, largely through consistent personal example, of “being nothing and going nowhere.” (This phrase is borrowed from my memory and attributed to the title of a book by Joko Beck, a now deceased Zen Roshi.) Thus, as group members asked questions or inevitably proffered their own opinions, Harshad just listened. Actually, he listened intently such that folk found it remarkable that they felt ‘heard,’ and ‘seen.’

This man looks at people in the same way that he looks at a flower, a tree, a bird, that is with choiceless awareness. He himself calls this ‘looking,’ or the pure act of observation, without a watcher or a commentator. It seemed to me that it was equally a listening, simultaneously inwardly and outwardly. Whatever the contributory sensory actions taking place, this is an act of relatively pure perception without the intrusion of a thinker. In this way Harshad indicated that truth becomes apparent, obvious, without question. Whatever is false similarly reveals itself.

As well as simply being with us and our questions, Harshad also selected various readings from K. These  reiterated in different terms the idea of freedom being found only in the act of direct perception.(Personally I prefer Toni Packer’s term ‘ beholding,’ as there are times when perception is influenced by thought.)

In K circles we hear a great deal of reference to self inquiry and self knowledge. I have always seen this as problematic in practice, as there is inevitably a thinker implied, or automatically invoked, who is watching and inquiring, out of thought. Not unlike the joint  activity of the process of psychotherapy, ie looking together at a personal problem with the aim, subtle or not so subtle, of solving it. Harshad’s life has been devoted to looking at this issue and learning to get ‘I’ out of it.

For him, observation goes on as a participatory flow with life events without a personal observer, let alone commentator. Over and over he repeated, “Out of silence just look at what is.”

From this looking the outcome emerges by itself. It is an outcome with complete integrity and in fact has the power to possibly change brain functioning. It was this radical message that K spent his life time offering. Not partial and psychological solutions to suffering, arrived at through thinking, but complete transformation which arises out of participatory intelligence. This is wholistic  or “holy.”

The group were reminded of what K had said, through the showing of some selected videos, to make clear the foundation from which Harshad’s way of being and living have arisen.  He himself has made a careful life long study of what K said, as well as maintaining ongoing correspondence with him until his death. He indicated that the best way for us to study the K teachings is to contemplate small sections of writing and live with these until they penetrate without effort. He also suggested that these teachings are best absorbed in silence, likely the necessary accompaniment for real contemplation.

I felt extraordinarily privileged to have sat in a beautiful garden, bathed in sunshine, bird song and the perfume of roses, with this authentic man. As well, for being with a small, yet committed group of people who are seriously listening and grateful for some insight, which is readily available through this direct and experiential approach.

Clarity, peace and ease are the normal states that Harshad claims as his fundamental way of living and being in the world . To be of it, participatory but not demanding or possessing, seems extraordinary in this day and age. My observation was that at the end of these few days those who attended felt those qualities more deeply.

As such, learning had taken place and it was learning without effort.

Lynne Walker 

May weekend retreat with Prof. Krishna (middle row, centre), Harshad Parekh (front row, right end) and Bulletin contributors Julian Ruszel and Lynne Walker (back row, left end).

Swanwick Star Issue No. 7 (2014)

My father, Dr. A.S. Atwal (the Indian entomologist who introduced the European honey bee into India) used to go to Kulu and Manali regularly to perform his bee experiments in the early sixties. On one such occasion, he came to know that the famous Bengali actress, Devika Rani, lived in a village he often passed through with her aristocratic Russian husband. Naturally, he could not help wanting to meet this intriguing couple.

They lived in an apple-growing area of the Kulu Valley in a big bungalow that was originally built by a British landowner. It was located on a hilltop where one had to send up a request to visit them. If accepted, their caretaker brought word down the hill right away. My father was elated to find out that his request had been granted.

So, he was invited to visit them for afternoon tea at their residence and they were very pleased when he presented them with a bouquet of local wild-flowers. It turned out that this was their summer home while they lived just outside Delhi during the rest of the year. Nevertheless, the tea-service was conducted in the finest English bone china and nothing was lacking.

Svetoslav Roerich was a quiet and reserved man while his wife was very talkative as might be expected. However, Roerich gracefully answered my father’s many questions about Russia without betraying any bitterness on the subject. He said that he had left Russia during the Revolution. It is quite likely that he was no longer welcome there with his family’s ties to Theosophy.  My father had little time for discussions about religion and philosophy, though, unlike my mother’s side of the family, which would not meet Roerich until the next decade once their spiritual quest was well under way.

It appears that Roerich spent much of his time painting while in the valley and some of his works decorated the walls of their house. This was of particular interest to my father who was also an amateur artist and could connect with the spiritual nature of this endeavour.

At the end of this quaint meeting, my father left feeling gratified that he had met an unusually sophisticated pair.  The two sisters, Jagdis and Sarjit Siddoo, had first come upon Theosophy in their college days when a friend of their father’s, a Theosophist, had arranged for their lodgings in Toronto where they both studied medicine. The elder, Jagdis, was interested in the occult even at that age, but it was still a little too early for Sarjit to turn her thoughts to spiritual matters so she encouraged more mundane interests in her sister. That particular quest would commence in earnest in their thirties once they had become the first two Indo-Canadian doctors in the country.

In the meantime, after graduating, they went to India where they built and ran a free rural hospital in the Punjab according to their Mother’s and Father’s wishes.

Then, their thoughts turned towards religious matters and they started seriously seeking a spiritual teacher.  India, of course, abounds in gurus and there was no shortage of them, but they soon realized the special quality they were looking for was “guidance” and not “mental slavery”.

Scattered throughout the Himalayan foothills of India, there was a thriving community of artists which particularly appealed to Jagdis, who was also quite artistic. They talked of “artistic communes” and it was in this same region that Roerich and Devika Rani lived. It was at one of these retreats in the mountains that the two sisters met Baba Sobha Singh, a renowned Punjabi artist, who told them about Krishnamurti and The Theosophical Society. Apparently, K. was meant to be their “World Teacher” but had broken away from them in an act of defiance. Now, he was acknowledged as a great spiritual teacher, even though he denied being a “guru”.

As soon as Jagdis and Sarjit heard K. speak in Delhi for the first time in 1960, they were both convinced they had met an enlightened soul and embarked upon their life-long dedication to his teachings.

Years later, they decided to visit Roerich and Devika on their way to trek in the Himalayas at Hemkunt and the Valley of Flowers. They went up the hill to see them and were first greeted by the film-star wife, who was chain-smoking. Roerich had a white beard by that time.

The grounds around the house were filled with the rather eery idols for which Kulu is famous. Apparently, Devika Rani insisted on a Brahmin coming every morning to adorn them with auspicious tilaks on their foreheads and to pray to them.

Roerich’s main message seemed to be to look within and to know thyself and was very much in keeping with K’s philosophy.

Before the meeting came to a close, they also talked about the sisters’ charitable hospital near Rahon. Devika Rani said it was a very good thing and that they should continue this work.

Chanda Siddoo-Atwal

August 19, 1999

If we were to talk together about the nature of “awakening” and the meditative insight in one’s life, how might it sound, even though words are wholly inadequate?  –

 

Once “the light goes on”, time and space must be created in one’s life to accommodate that energy.

 

With this nurturing, right action comes into being.

 

Right action is choiceless, inevitable –

 

outside the realm of normal consciousness.

 

It has no blue-print, no mandate.

 

It is the voice that must be heard and obeyed.

 

It negates all that is false.

 

It recalls all that is truth.

 

It creates all that is good and pure.

 

It is timeless in conception.

 

II                            November 14, 1999

 

There is an Insight which can fundamentally change one’s perception of things, if it is embodied in one’s life:

When the Intelligence within one awakens and sees that calculative reason is intrinsically incapable of realizing enlightenment, a displacement occurs and, if obedience to the inner voice ensues, it check-mates all frivolous activity. Then, one does not enter the world of falsehood and turns back at the threshold. That mind is a transformed mind and is open to revelation or the Unknown.

 

 III                               March 17, 2000

 

A mutation can occur in the brain bringing about a radical change of view whereby the past and future lose their hold and one becomes incapable of sustaining thoughts about them; it is this capacity of the human mind to sustain certain thoughts that seems to link it to the induction of falseemotion lived in the past or projected into the future and, therefore, to cause suffering. The result is a totally stale and unspontaneous way of living.

Suddenly, one wakes up from this stupor and says:

God knows how many times we’ve come round and married and had children and gone through all the hell of human existence, but, this time it’s a party –

and, I’m not going to miss it for anything!

 

[The above are personal impressions by Chanda Siddoo-Atwal of dialogues with Professor Allan W. Anderson printed with his permission;  these are not verbatim discussions, but only excerpts recalled after conversations in which she has tried to “pluck out” their essence from her notes taken during these talks. It shall be serialized in its entirety as a tribute to his life and work in the coming issues of The Swanwick Star]

Vancouver Public Library screening – March 23, 2014

The video opens with an open invitation from K to explore the nature of disorder. Is it possible to live a life without disorder? Is the mind capable of creating order in our lives? Or, perhaps, the mind could be the source of disorder itself?

In his usual fashion, K invites the listener to enquire together with the ‘speaker’ into the movement of the mind and to enquire into the nature of desire, fear and time; enticing his audience to find out for themselves the factors that prevent order from springing into our lives.

The dialogue started with an open question: Can the mind create order?

In order to start the conversation, I expressed my perspective, that to me it seems that K suggests that order is a natural state, the underlying sense of peace and purpose that is under covered with the confusion and self-centered activity of the mind. Pablo questioned my point of view suggesting that the mind is useful and necessary to maintain order in technical activities of our lives, like driving, working, doing homework and to organizing ideas and expressing them eloquently.

Stephen suggested that for him, and according to personal experience, it is a matter of intelligence to balance the technical abilities of the mind and the infinite possibilities of creation that lie beyond its limitations. He implies that there is no definite answer to determine when the mind should be used or not, but rather to discover that answer from moment to moment as one walks deeper into that which is.

Avinash, on the other hand, made the warning that no matter the position one takes, the mere act of looking for order is a form of escape from what is, and close the dialogue with the enlightening statement, that what liberates your mind from confusion is your sensitivity to recognize the disorder in your life as it is, without condemnation or justification. And said that for him, is more valuable to learn and explore the causes of disorder in one’s life in order to remove them rather than looking for new ideologies and beliefs. According to Avinash, the ability to recognize disorder in one’s life is what liberates and not your effort to be free.

Veto Barraza

Recently I had the pleasure of attending a retreat at the Krishnamurti Centre in Metchosin, British Columbia. The centre itself is located on a majestic estate which was a Krishnamurti school from 1977 to 1981, and is currently being used for a variety of spiritual retreats and gatherings. It was certainly refreshing to relax in such a beautiful setting, the property itself flowing down to the ocean and surrounded by the serenity and majesty of the Canadian west coast, but the content of the retreat itself was especially refreshing. In fact, while the word “enlightened” gets thrown around quite a bit these days, I can say with sincerity that I left the retreat a great deal more enlightened than when I had arrived two days earlier.

I’ve struggled since I was young with issues surrounding identity and purpose. This is something most people wrestle with at different times in their lives, and to varying degrees, but it was something that I could never reconcile enough to actually feel grounded in my own being. My father introduced me to Buddhism and mysticism when I was a teenager, and I’ve been exploring different philosophies and spiritual practises since then. Beneath that exploration though- and something that was far more pervasive than the outward seeking- was a constant underlying questioning that had permeated every corner of my psyche. “Who am I?”, “Why am I here?” and “What’s the point of all this?” were questions that were really tearing me apart inside. There’s nothing wrong with these questions in and of themselves, but if our sense of self is contingent on finding reasonable answers, than such questioning can easily become a slippery path to confusion, despair and existential crisis.

It was a combination of questioning and crisis that led me to pick up Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now last year. For the first time in my life I was reading something that was actually affecting a very real change in the way I related to my thoughts and the world around me, but it only took me so far at the time. While The Power of Now remains my favourite “spiritual” book to date, it ignited a process in my psyche but I would require further wisdom to help me take the next step. This year I started listening to Alan Watts lectures, which ultimately led me to the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti. I was quite surprised when my mother informed me that she had seen an advertisement for a Krishnamurti Centre right outside of Victoria, the city I’m grateful to call home.

The retreat itself was based on Krishnamurti’s teachings, and it was entitled The Nature of Relationship. It was led by Dr. Harshad Parekh, who was formerly a teacher at a number of Krishnamurti Schools in India, and someone whose life has been deeply impacted by Krishnamurti’s teachings. Dr. Parekh shared an excellent selection of videos and excerpts from books, elaborating and answering questions in ways that helped to clarify the teachings, which can sometimes seem quite esoteric. Ralph Tiller, who hosted the retreat, also provided valuable insight and helped to engage the conversation in meaningful ways.

The nature of relationship is truly at the core of Krishnamurti’s teachings, and so this retreat was not merely about “relationship” as many might presume. When most of us think of relationship, we tend to default to the realm of interpersonal relationships, such as those we have with our friends, family and coworkers. But the relationship Krishnamurti refers to is much more all-encompassing than that. In fact, he is referring to something that encompasses the totality of our experience.

We relate to the world by attaching meaning to our experiences, and by mentally labelling objects within the field of those experiences. In other words, we relate to the world through our thoughts. While thinking certainly serves its purposes, Krishnamurti asserts that our thinking has become a terrible barrier where our relationship to reality is concerned. Our thoughts are based on our past experiences, and in relating to the present by way of our thoughts we are relating to reality as a construct of the past, reducing it into a series of “likes and dislikes”. Instead of experiencing and engaging in life in a natural and dynamic way, our relationship to our experience is based purely on the images we have formed about ourselves, each other and the world. Krishnamurti explains how this incongruent relationship is at the root of suffering, at the heart of the conflict and dysfunction that has troubled humankind since time immemorial. He explains that society is simply an extension of the individual, and that as long as individuals continue to perceive reality by way of the past, then their actions will be out of step with reality and society will continue to be a destructive affair. This deep conflict manifests at every level of society, in such sad and tragic affairs as broken marriages, suicide, and war.

One of Krishnamurti’s most powerful and challenging assertions is that to correct these problems is not simply a matter of correcting negative or hateful thinking, but that the entirety of our normal process of thinking is at the root of all this suffering. And because the very basis for the way we think and relate is a product of social and cultural conditioning, the process of freeing ourselves from that conditioning is not a matter of using thought, because that simply limits the outcome to the realm of that conditioning and always essentially leads us right back to where we started. For that reason, the process of undoing this conditioning cannot directly involve any teaching, system, or tradition. The path to freedom is pathless, as Krishnamurti says, and involves embracing what he calls choiceless awareness. This is a state of consciousness that is free from judgement and condemnation, of likes and dislikes, and one that is not constantly defining experience- because every act of such definition is a distortion of the present into a construct of the past.

Now this may all seem like intellectual abstraction that has very little value in terms of real world application, but I believe that it is actually a deep understanding of human psychology and the roots of personal and social conflict. I’m just becoming acquainted with Krishnamurti, and even if my knowledge were greater, I certainly couldn’t explain the intricacies or implications of his teachings in such a space. Personally though, I have already started integrating his teachings into my awareness, and I can attest that they are indeed very powerful. I’ve become aware of how I’m constantly defining elements of my experience and how that causes a great deal of inner conflict for me. Practising “just watching” (as Dr. Parekh often says) as a means of nurturing choiceless awareness, I find my awareness is increasingly stepping in when I would otherwise be caught up in thinking, and that interruption can lead me to a place of true mental stillness. It’s a huge relief from the incessant mind that has been burdening me for so long.

Eckhart Tolle and Alan Watts paved the way for my understanding of Krishnamurti’s teachings, and my retreat at the Krishnamurti Centre seems to have ignited an ongoing process that continues to unfold on a daily basis. Just as I could only explain so much about Krishnamurti’s teachings, I have only explained just a bit about how these teachings are playing out in my daily life. I’m treating this as an ongoing experiment.

As for my big questions about life, thanks in large part to Tolle, Watts, and Krishnamurti, I’m developing an understanding of “self”, “other” and “society” that is helping me make sense of many things. I’m seeing more clearly just who I really am (by a process of understanding who I “really am not”), and also coming to understand some of the major underlying reasons for the suffering and chaos that have been humanity’s close companions for such a terribly long time.

Once we begin to shed those layers of self that are merely conceptual, it might seem like there is a great emptiness at the heart of all this, and at the core of our very being. In a sense, I think that’s correct. But I don’t believe this is a cold emptiness- quite the opposite in fact. I believe it’s something divine, and as we let go of the concepts that rule our perception, there is a real opportunity to enjoy a relationship with this underlying stillness that can enrich our lives in ways most of us can barely imagine, deepening our relationships and helping us to live our lives in ways that are truly serving both ourselves and others. This is a new path- a path to real freedom.

Julian Ruszel

When we were young, before going to schools, we looked at everything with a fresh and curious mind. There were clarity, freshness and beauty in our way of looking. We were fascinated to look at flowers, birds, moon, people, colors and shapes. There was not much knowledge about these things within us.

After we went to school, we were encouraged to remember the names of birds, flowers and other objects around us. We were enthusiastic in gathering knowledge about our environment. Learning was fun up to the end of 7th standard (grade). There were no examinations at the end of academic year to test our knowledge.

When we came to senior school in Standard 8, we had to learn too many subjects.  Slowly learning became a burden. We had to memorize too many things in order to pass examinations. We developed fear and other psychological problems like competition, ambition, shyness and guilt about the nature of sexual feelings and insensitivity to nature.  Our mind was occupied with too many thoughts and problems. Now trees, flowers, birds, colors, shapes did not look strange and beautiful. We looked at all these things with the words and knowledge we had learned.

We became intellectual as we grew older. We learned how to solve mathematical problems and apply our knowledge to solve problems in science. We learned how to analyze social, political, economical problems. We became clever in expressing ourselves through words and ideas. But in this process, we paid a heavy price. We lost the ability to look at things, people and nature with the sense of wonder and freshness, the way we looked before we went to school.

Is it possible to get back the way of looking at everything with freshness and beauty, without knowledge and images? Is it possible to have a silent and awake mind which can look at all things with innocence, beauty and love?

It is possible but for that one must have a passion to look within, to see how thoughts arise and how they move from one thing to another. One can observe in relationship how thoughts create all kind of psychological problems. Without turning our attention within, it is not possible to be free, happy, peaceful and to feel love and beauty. Without this freedom, life can become mechanical and meaningless even if one has money, power and fame in society.

Harshad Parekh

May 7-13, 2014

The KFA’s Annual May Gathering took place on May 10-11, 2014 at the Krishnamurti Educational Centre (KEC) in Ojai.  I had been invited to attend on behalf of KECC.

I stayed at the Theosophical Society’s Krotona Guest House, together with the Indian delegation, and for meals and the events I commuted to the Pepper Tree Retreat at the other end of Ojai valley.  The mealtimes turned out to be an unusual opportunity to meet many Foundation trustees, KFA staff and other members of the ‘K World’.

For this year’s Gathering the theme of “Unconditioning” had been chosen.  Workshops took place Saturday and Sunday mornings and afternoons at Pine Cottage, Arya Vihara and the Archives building.

About 150 people were at the opening session and then attended about 24 different sessions and activities, including presentations by some trustees. Many of these were also videotaped and simultaneously broadcast online.

Three different events were held at any one time, so it was not possible to attend every event.  Of the ones I attended, the talk by Dr. Krishna of Rajghat School on ‘What is meant by Freedom from Conditioning?’ was impressive in its scope, insight and accomplished delivery.  Of special interest also was a presentation by Amanda Lezra, a 21 year old graduate of Oak Grove School, who reported on her project ‘Think on These Things’, an outreach program of the KFA aimed at young adults in high schools and universities.  It uses social media in an innovative way to engage young people in the exploration of questions such as ‘What is success?’ and ‘What is learning?’ and to stimulate discussion for deeper self-understanding. I also attended two dialogues facilitated by Kandaswamy, the secretary of the KFI, and Eric Hassett, mainly to see how they were being conducted.

I had opportunities to meet with Jerome Blanche, the secretary of the KFT, Kandaswami, the long-term secretary of the KFI and Jaap Sluijter, the Director of the KFA (who said he was happy to finally ‘put a face’ to the KECC), as well as many of the attending trustees.  Ray McCoy of KFT, who had visited Wolf Lake School and is now senior editor of the KFT, was unable to attend, but instead I had interesting conversations with David Skitt, who works with him and wrote the preface to K’s classic ‘Freedom from the Known’, among others.

The trustees from the various K Foundations seemed interested in knowing more about KECC and they were pleasantly surprised to hear that KECC is this year offering five K based sessions each month, in addition to the monthly weekend retreats, most of which are also K based.

I also met with K. Krishnamurthy, the head of KFI Publications, to finalize the publication in India of the small K booklet “On Knowing Oneself”, a good introductory talk by K in Sydney in 1955,  that we will be handing out to guests and visitors free of charge.

I also reconnected with Mark Lee and Asha in their home for tea, with Ivan Berkovicz who had spent time at Wolf Lake School, as well as with Michael Krohnen, K’s cook and author of ‘The Kitchen Chronicles: 1001 Lunches with J.Krishnamurti’.  Michael had given a cooking workshop at Swanwick many years ago and is now in charge of the library and book store. With him I visited the book store and received helpful feedback as to the books most in demand.

The KEC staff was very busy during the Gathering, but I briefly met most of them, including Eric Williamson, their website developer and Kelley O’Mara, their marketing manager and social media person. Most of the present staff are quite young, with Michael Krohnen the one long-term staff member. This seems to reflect the renewed energy that Jaap has brought to KFA since becoming Director two years ago. There is, moreover, an interesting new Intern Program for young persons, mainly in their twenties, and I met with some of them.  One of them mentioned she would want to come to Swanwick at some point as a guest helper.

I also met with Richard Waxberg and Deborah Kerner in their home to finalize arrangements for them to hold a K based dialogue retreat at Swanwick that is now scheduled for October.  They have successfully been holding Intensives at the KEC over the last decade, and also some 6 years ago at Swanwick.  This workshop, together with Mark Lee’s July retreat here, are concrete ways of strengthening the KECC-KFA connection.

I had an interesting conversation with Ulrich Brugger at his Ojai Retreat, now a top ranked B&B, who at one time trained dialogue facilitators for the KFA, including Richard Waxberg. He also hosts dialogues and made some helpful suggestions in this regard.

I also visited the nearby Krotona library and book shop, both of which now also include a good selection of K books.

Before leaving, however, I left with Mark Lee some ‘Talking Points’ that he agreed to present at the ITM on behalf of the KECC. They clarified the role of the KECC, its relationship with the K Foundations and its intention to maintain and further strengthen its relationship with the KFA for the purpose of disseminating K’s teachings.

All in all, my presence at this event helped create greater awareness of KECC among the Foundations and helped create new contacts that may be helpful in the future.

Ralph Tiller

“Perhaps nobody can really meditate, because the very presence of you trying to meditate eliminates the arising of meditation. The meditator is not someone who meditates, but is the meditation itself. Meditation, he (Krishnamurti) says, is the ending of thought, but not by the meditator. The meditator is a thought-constructed “self” and thus cannot meditate. The meditator cannot bring an end to the movement of thought, because it is a product of thought. In that sense, perhaps meditation is a sort of brain-washing, but not of the scary, cultish kind that replaces one set of mental conditionings for another. Instead, to Krishnamurti perhaps meditation is a sort of detox, or purification of the mind, by allowing thoughts to find their proper place, and not dominate or shut out the silent mind with their constant chatter.”

Prof.Hillary Rodrigues

 


We at KECC are saddened by the recent loss of Mary Cadogan, who visited Wolf Lake School with Dorothy Simmons just before its inauguration in 1976 from Brockwood Park School in England. We were all impressed by her handsome and statuesque appearance and the gift of her autographed, new book “You’re a brick, Angela”. Although Dorothy (the sculptress-principal of Brockwood Park) was the vivacious one, Mary was the kind, soft-spoken one. She remained a Trustee of the Krishnamurti Foundation Trust until the end.