Weekend Retreat at the Centre
Preparing the Ground for Meditation
Weekend Reteat with Dr. Ashwani Kumar
July 7 – 9
Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada
Dr. Ashwani Kumar is currently a professor of Education at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax. He has been seriously engaged with J. Krishnamurti’s work for more than 14 years and has spoken at Krishnamurti schools and study centers in the US, Canada, the UK, and India. He is the author of the book Curriculum As Meditative Inquiry (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) which explores Krishnamurti’s insights regarding meditation, consciousness, and education. Dr. Kumar joined us for the fifth year in a row to present, this time, a weekend retreat entitled “Preparing the Ground for Meditation.” The retreat began on Friday evening with an introductory exploration of the subject of self-deception. Ten participants engaged with him in looking at how the mind is constantly deceiving itself by creating realities which are assumed to be true and dependable when in fact they are illusory concepts and ideas which serve mainly to bolster up a sense of a false self “me” which wants to be solid and secure. Ashwani does not present anything as knowledge to be accepted or rejected but, rather, as encouragement to look clearly for ourselves at what is actually happening in us from moment to moment. He invites an intense looking and listening which involves the whole being rather than just the intellect.
The participation in a number of awareness and relaxation exercises, including some very dynamic forms of “meditation”, promotes a balanced approach to self-inquiry and meditation. Over the course of the weekend we jumped into meditations involving dance and movement, laughing, and speaking in gibberish. We engaged in group dialogue sessions and were guided in deep explorations of the questions that were most important to us. There was also a generous amount of time to be quietly with ourselves and to be in nature in order to integrate what had arisen in the dialogues and meditations. Ashwani regularly asked us to share our experience of what was going on for us as we engaged with the exploration of what it means to “prepare the ground for meditation” in the sense of the word pointed to by J. Krishnamurti and others and by our own understanding as we look and listen.
Ashwani presented an experience of real substance and depth which all group members found of great interest and benefit. We look forward to his return to the Centre in the future.
