The Transformation of Consciousness, with Prof. P. Krishna

It was my pleasure and privilege to attend P. Krishna’s retreat, Krishnamurti and the Transformation of Consciousness. He opened the weekend by giving a public talk on Science and Spirituality, which I found very interesting and relevant. Why is it that humanity has made such leaps and bounds scientifically and technologically, but remained so ignorant in the realm of self-knowledge? He went into this question in great deal, and explained the thoroughness of scientific inquiry in comparison with the shallow acceptance of belief that has kept humanity in spiritual darkness. He discussed order and disorder, and what those terms might mean both inwardly and in society. It’s extremely interesting that the inquiry in K’s teachings has certain parallels to scientific inquiry, in the degree of diligence and the emphasis on actually getting to the truth of the matter. Over the weekend, Krishna emphasized the importance of the learning mind, of being able to inquire into our conditioned responses, always from a place of passive awareness. He explained that by inquiring into beliefs that are causing anger and other such oppressive feelings, we can gradually dissolve the conditioning that is such an obstruction to inward freedom. He explained with great clarity how such freedom is synonymous with order, and how our conditioning is the root of disorder (both inwardly and outwardly). I returned on Monday to attend one of Harshad Parekh’s dialogues, which Krishna attended also. It was very interesting to hear these two different views on K’s teachings. Harshad is very keen on the simple act of watching, of passive awareness, whereas Krishna believes the process is a little more involved than this. Harshad shared his experience with K’s teachings and how they transformed his relationship with thought, himself and the world. Ultimately truth is a pathless land, and what this means to me on one level is that K can share his observations with us, but the process that leads to insight is a very personal one, which requires each of us to awaken a certain intuitive intelligence that can guide us towards greater self-knowledge. One person’s understanding may not lead to another person’s insight. I think that certain understandings are very worthy of being shared with others, but the thing is that each person’s insight can ultimately only come about in a way that arises out of their own intuition, their own natural intelligence. Personally, one of the more powerful moments over the weekend came when we watched a video wherein K discussed the fact that the “analyzer is the analyzed”, and why psychoanalysis usually only perpetuates psychological division. It was this segment that led to a personal insight about the actuality of phrases such as “the observer is the observed” and “the thinker is the thought. I’ll be sharing “my” understanding of this in greater detail in future posts.  I would like to thank P. Krishna, Harshad Parekh, Ralph Tiller, the Krishnamurti Education Centre of Canada, and all the wonderful participants for this very valuable weekend retreat.