Victoria Krishnamurti Event
Victoria Krishnamurti Event Sunday, April 12, 2015. Eight people gathered on Sunday afternoon at the Church of Truth in Victoria to contemplate the nature of pleasure and desire, a subject given some importance by Krishnamurti and other spiritual teachers. The session began with a silent reading of a handout on pleasure taken from the book Freedom From the Known. This gave some context for the following twenty minute video of K responding to a question about desire and its awakening. He focused on the possibility of slowing down the process of desiring by paying careful attention to it. Then a gap can be open up between the contact with an object or an image projected by thought, the resulting sensation, and the movement of thought which then wants to possess that object or fulfill the mental image. This opening of a space naturally makes desire and the seeking of pleasure less of a driving force. The group then entered into a discussion of what had been read and seen. Many relevant insights were shared and questions raised. It often becomes apparent in these dialogues that people take many different viewpoints, even on subjects dealing with more subtle dimensions of life like non-duality. The need to listen carefully to what each person is saying without quickly reacting and asserting one’s own opinion became evident to me as the facilitator and as a participant. There was certainly a lively interest in inquiring into the subjects presented. After a tea break we watched a video of Gabor Mate giving a TED talk in Rio de Janeiro. He spoke of the high cost of addiction in terms of damage to people’s lives and relationships and touched on the sources of addiction in the residual pain from childhood abuse and the sense of inner emptiness that many feel. It was an excellent talk and very relevant to the exploration of desire and the drive to seek pleasure. Finally we watched Eckhart Tolle answering a question about how pleasure fits into a spiritual life. Eckhart covered some similar ground to K and Mate in his own style and ended with the idea that pleasure is not to be judged or avoided but there is also a deeper joy available which effortlessly arises from our contact with Being. A short discussion followed. It felt like a densely packed afternoon but seemed to be interesting and insightful for the participants.
