Swanwick Star Issue No. 6 (2013)
Dialogue with Dr. Ashwani Kumar, June 3, 2013
Dr. Kumar teaches at Mt. St. Vincent’s Education Department in Halifax. He had recently given a presentation at the annual gathering of the Krishnamurti Foundation of America and was staying at Swanwick for a personal retreat. He has participated in numerous Krishnamurti dialogues at locales such as Brockwood Park in England, as well as using the dialogue format in his university courses. He kindly offered to meet with interested persons for a dialogue while in Victoria, so we met with him for a special dialogue in lieu of the normal Inquiry Sunday. Altogether 11 people gathered for a two hour session, very interested in experiencing Dr. Kumar’s approach to group dialogue.
Following brief self introductions by the participants, Dr. Kumar suggested we discuss questions that are the most significant to us in our self exploration. What is our central urgent question? One participant raised a, to her, burning question, namely what is meditation and the role of the meditator? Dr. Kumar then asked: Why do we meditate? In the ensuing dialogue Dr. Kumar was quite directive in maintaining a focus on the essentials of the inquiry and guided the group to consider what it is we are looking for and what are the obstructions.
He shared that his own most pressing question was why, once the ego has become quiet or non-active for perhaps a short time (or no-time) it always returns and takes a central position in our sense of ourselves. Many of the group agreed that this was also a real question for them and some discussion took place on the topic. Dr. Kumar suggested that a question such as this one can be asked from the thinking mind, in which case it has little power to transform, or from the totality of our being, which creates a disturbance in our lives which has creative potential to respond to the question in a profound way. The importance of intense awareness of the subtleties of the thinking process was emphasized and explored. The session ended with 5 minutes of silence.
Participants seemed to very much appreciate and enjoy the chance to share meditative inquiry with Dr. Kumar and it seems there is a good possibility he will return next year to hold a retreat at the centre.
The following day Dr. Kumar gave a presentation at the University of Victoria as part of ‘Congress 2013’ which was attended by Ralph. The topic was Brockwood Park School, a residential Krishnamurti school in England, where he had recently spent 3 months observing the way the school implements K’s approach to inquiry-based education. A 13 minute introductory video of the school was part of the presentation (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi9aaFNqpU8 ). For an earlier presentation by Dr. Kumar at Brockwood itself, with some of his observations about the school, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKPxp7FtpBU .
Ralph/David
