Swanwick Star Issue No. 14 (2021)

Krishnamurti’s Notebook

 

 

 

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