Observations from the meetings

Kinfonet Discussion
1

@jmelo @Compassion

Hello

I couldn’t find the other participants but if they see this post they are welcome to post.

Thank you John for organizing the meetings and the welcome. To answer your question from that day it wasn’t value that prompted me to wake up at 4.30 am but it was curiosity. Like i said in the first meeting i have been participating in local dialogues for a few months. To add an introduction, i found K’s teachings about a year ago but been participating in local dialogues for few months like mentioned. I have been reading on this forum for few weeks but to be honest decided not to participate here.Like i said during the meeting it was my first zoom experience and i was absorbing everything. Come to think of it maybe i have done the full circle of witnessing the local as well as a cosmopolitan situation in regards to K’s teachings and effects.

Two meeting in a row and one at 4.45 am should indicate my interest in what’s going on n the meetings.:slight_smile: It was an unique experience and i got to observe many things.

First i will make a confession, i did push it slightly. By that i mean my way of speaking. In all honesty i wanted to observe the reactions. While i didn’t get a direct attack but i did get plenty of reactions and saw the defensive comments between members talking to each other. Instead of saying something to me. Maybe if i had a phony even tone with a thousand mile gaze, and either remaing silent or saying yes to all, maybe Robert wouldn’t have said something about me trying to control the discussion although he said it in a friendly way but nevertheless gave away his true thoughts. Not sure how that is even possible when someone is new alone and talking to a already established group of “veterans”. To clarify why i pushed it, it was an attempt to understand the people i was dialoguing with and to get a first hand observation of whether K’s teachings have made any actual impact on people. Because as you guys have that expression, “that’s where the rubber meets the road”. It’s our behavior which will give us away.

In my observation of the dynamics i have no reason to doubt that this is the probably the norm of K dialogues. At this point i am alluding to not my interactions but the general direction the conversations go, each talking about their priorities, from their problems, from their conditioning, from their motives.This is probably expected.

But what really affected me was the degree to which we’ve bound ourselves. Probably the best way to describe what i wish to describe in my limited vocabulary is by an image. The image i got was of people being bound in chains. Unable to express, unable to have a good laugh, unable to being candid. The facial expressions were that of sadness and the language was for the lack of a better word extremely negative. The negativity wasn’t about anything particular but there is a strong underlying negativity about everything. Misplaced doubt and rabid skepticism seems to have eroded even the possibility of anything or anyone being “good”.

These observations reminded me of the wrong turn of society K talks about but has also made me question if we’ve take a wrong turn in the teachings themselves. Reason i say this is because as the expression goes, “the proof is in the pudding” or something like that?

All this has made me question what has happened to us and our society at large. What have we become. I have a better sense of K’s seriousness now.

Thank you John and others for this wonderful opportunity. Feel free to respond if you wish or not if you don’t. But please may i request in the event of any posts the be made by the participants with whom i have interacted and not from the vitriol posters from the forum who weren’t there. .

2

The editor isn’t allowing me to notify the other participants because it says “i am a new user”.

Is it possible for the staff to override this or alternatively to let them know to contribute if they wish.

They are @Robban @Howard

3

I was at the first meeting and there was definitely some funny jokes from David (white hair goatee talks slowly) - some speakers can get deadly serious and dogmatic though, but luckily I didn’t feel anything too painful this time (although there were one or 2 cringey moments - cannot be avoided it seems - humans involved an all)

I personally accept that humans are involved and although some stuff can be a bit painful, we can either love them or send them away to live on an island (oh no, wait, we can’t!)

3 Likes
4

Abhijeet, I joined the first meeting, but not the second. I also wonder if a wrong turn has been taken in interpretation of K’s teachings. In some sectors of K groups, there is a pervasive entifying of thought and demonizing of the self–almost like an extreme religion with a fear base. They have forgotten that thought and sense of self originate in the human brain, which is part of nature.

1 Like
5

HI there!

Thank you for flagging me. In reading your entry, this is what comes up for me in reference to dialogue groups and “taking a wrong turn”:

I wonder if we can use Krishnamurti’s writings and speeches as entry points into our own seeing beyond reference to any authority, outer or inner? (Including blind faith in Krishnamurti’s teachings aka spiritual dogmatism)

In so doing, I see dialogue as a unique opportunity to explore the possibility of inquiring with our authentic interest in the “truth” (or falseness) of ourselves and our way of living.

Kind regards,

Zahra

1 Like
6

Douglas, you never cease to make me smile with your candidness!

1 Like
7

I found this fine description by Bob on listening:

Choiceless awareness is listening. And listening is only with a quiet mind. This listening is a different way from the listening that is used when one is trying to learn, to understand something. Listening to learn, to understand is the way we have been taught to listen and it is vital for functioning. It is listening with a motive and engages thought. So the ‘new instrument’ has no motive. So the arising of thought is an interruption. One can observe the interruption, let it flower (though the flowering may be an explosion of feeling, of energy) and the flowering is the effortless ending. From listening choicelessly, flowering is the point at which one is in new territory and fear of this unknown, not knowing where one is, is where most escape through thought.

1 Like
8

Hi Doug

I agree with Zahra’s observation about you. But then she also has some of the same quality.

DeNiro

I don’t remember seeing your last name, what’s your first name?

Hi Zahra

The wrong turn was used in context of where we as a society are heading. A new possibility was also suggested, whether we have taken a wrong turn in our understanding of K’s discussions. It was also suggested our behavior both in our lives and during the dialogues is a clear indicator of whether the wrong turn has been remedied or not.

I have tried but can’t make a connection between the rest of what you’ve said. Maybe you can help clear their relevance to my main post.

Danmcderm
Bob was in the zoom meeting but you weren’t. I guess you will have to inquire why you couldn’t simply “choicelelessly listen” to a clearly stated request in the last paragraph of my main post. As well question yourself, why in spite of calling Bob’s description “fine” you couldn’t actually listen to it. Had you listened to Bob it is plausible you could have also listened to me. But it seems the inquiry doesn’t stop here because it still has to show in behavior.

Hi Dev
As I was telling you I was attempting to notify the participants in the zoom meeting and invite them to chime in if they wished. I see everyone is a member here except couple. I see @clive_elwell , @davidpage, Bob Hearns, David Rose, Sylvia Eckardt , Dani Gunawan, Andrea, and David Paige. I do not see Tyler and the Lady whose name starts with the letter M. You ought to know them since you also attend the meetings.

Thank you for reaching out to me. So far I was restricted by 20 words minimum limit in a post, 2 at-mentions per post, 2 posts per day, but what was really strange is I couldn’t even reply back to your second message. Not being able to respond to private messages, even to those initiated by the administrator himself is a new experience .Today i couldn’t re-post for 45 min while simply trying to edit the same post. You mentioned something about security features and honestly I have been wondering about what you’re trying to be secure from. The nature of the fear which has led to this level of restrictions/ What could be the threat or the fear to an online discussion board? What are we afraid of?

Naturally the forum isn’t facing threats from weapons of mass destruction or of govt. espionage. Is it possible that you have a secret hidden somewhere that explains how to invisibly get into fort Knox?

But on a more serious note, I observed you have a post which is titled “It’s desire, stupid”. The post is an extract about a questioner questioning K and trying to grapple with his inquiry. I am somewhat shocked. You are the administrator of the website presumably with an interest in K’s teachings. I am trying to wrap my head around the fact that you are calling this struggling questioner “stupid”? Is that our attitude towards struggling people? I understand we are all struggling in some form or another but if you wish to maybe air out some of your struggles please feel free. We can discuss it if you wish. Thank you for making this platform available.

9

There appears to be a cultural misconception going on here. The title was a play on this phrase. It wasn’t directed at the questioner - who by the way in this instance is Krishnamurti having a question and answer session with himself - but was rather a question to at all us, myself included, who are studying K’s messaging that perhaps we aren’t seeing the forest for the trees.

On another note, please be mindful of the fact that your tone in the forum - and it appears in the dialogues as well - is coming across as rather impetuous and forceful. A little patience and consideration would serve you better. How to engage in more discourse and less debate is something you might want to reflect on.

1 Like
10

Thank you for joining and clarifying.

I’m positive you’re aware there is no American vs Indian versions in the gamut of experiences we call living. We all strive, suffer, occasionally are happy, etc. Likewise a derogatory address has the same implication and impact whether delivered and received in different parts of the world. Maybe i was thinking along the lines of substituting the word stupid for something else which is not so insulting and forceful.

The tone in the dialogues has already been explained in the main post voluntarily and without any prompts from anyone else. Indicating one’s consideration and probably hoping for a similar consideration and patience from those that talk about it.

Right It will serve all of us better. We could all use as much of it as is possible without referencing or vetoing it to any way. This is the best part of your response and i welcome it. Duly noted. Thank you.

11

What Clinton said was his very American way of saying, Don’t be distracted from the problem at hand! Most Americans knew this and were not offended.

It may interest you to know there is another American saying that is the acronymn KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid.

12

It may interest you to know the request in the last paragraph had you in mind. Which means your posts aren’t welcome here, if i was to simplify it for you. Thank you for your future consideration.

13

I’m not surprised that you don’t welcome my posts, and I wonder if you have any evidence that my posts are not welcomed by others.

14

I’m beginning to suspect that Simple has some real control issues.

1 Like
15

It has been 6 days since i was in the zoom meetings. 5 days since this post was started. And 4 days since the allegedly considerate and maybe kind? post by DeNiro above.

Having listened to everything that has been said directly and indirectly as well as having listened to all of the elective silence, having witnessed the flagged posts, I questioned this invitation, again. The answer again is, an invitation had to be extended, how else could it be? How else would i have lived through all of it if I hadn’t started this invitation? How else would the rubber have met the road?

For some reason K’s words from Freedom from the Known is coming to mind where he says, we are each one of us responsible for every war because of the aggressiveness of our own lives.And only when we realize, not intellectually but actually, as actually as we would recognize that we are hungry or in pain, that you and I are responsible for all this existing chaos, for all the misery throughout the entire world because we have contributed to it in our daily lives and are part of this monstrous society with its wars, divisions, its ugliness, brutality, only then we will act.

–x–

16

Excellent incentive for us to change. Grandiose, to believe that one can change the world, by simply changing.

17

Presumptuous, to assume that I, the conditioned brain, can know anything about what effect a transformed brain might have on “the world”, don’t you think?

18

I’ll stick with “Grandiose”.

19

As Gautama’s mother said to the little boy, “where do you get such grandiose ideas?!

20

It’s grandiose for the conditioned brain to presume to know what effect a transformed brain might have on humanity.

Why isn’t the conditioned brain humble enough to acknowledge how little it knows and how much it presumes?