Adminstration note on Groups and Meeting Dates

Hi everyone,

This first post is just an administrative note. It’s quite important so please read all the way through.

As there are about 15 of us interested in studying Krishnamurti’s teachings, I thought it would be helpful to split our group into two.

About 8 people per group seems ideal and has the added benefit that there will now be a study group meeting every Sunday from 5:30-7:30pm. So if you are away for work or ill, you have an opportunity to drop into the other group and catch-up.

This makes the blog quite handy. If we all make regular postings it will keep us in touch with what the other group is looking at and might facilitate some cross-group dialogues which might be very interesting.

From time to time the two groups will meet up anyway, such as when we have a DVD evening to look at and discuss some of Krishnamurti’s talks and conversations.

Here are the groups and the dates for the meetings so you can refer back to them as needed.

Group A, which is meeting at Uncommon Grounds (5:30-7:30pm).

Pauline
Jackie
Jeff
Karen
Maureen
Jacob
Angela
Melissa

Group B, which is meeting at the Second Cup (5:30-7:30pm).

Amanda
Dorothy
Laureen
Scott
Ted

Dates:

Feb 8 – A
Feb 15 – B
Feb 22 – A

March 1 – B
March 8 – A
March 15 – B
March 22 – A
March 29 - B

April 5 – A
April 12 – B
April 19 – A
April 26 – B

May 3 – A
May 10 – B
May 17 – A
May 24 – B
May 31 – A

June 7 – B
June 14 – A
June 21 – B
June 28 – A

July 5 – B

I’m actually going to be out of town from July 7 – August 16.

It’s very exciting for me as I’m going to the Krishnamurti Foundation in the Ojai Valley in California. I’ll be taking two courses on Krishnamurti’s teachings and two courses on Krishnamurti’s approach to education and teaching.

My fifth week will be spent doing research for myself in the Foundation’s Education Center where they have a vast archive and library of Krishnamurti’s teachings.

I’m hoping that you’ll be able to keep the study groups going while I’m away. Maybe one person from each can step into the facilitator role if that position is still needed by then.

We can keep in touch via email of course and now we have the blog too. I will make every effort to make a daily posting while I’m there, even if it’s just a short one, so you’ll have an idea of what I’m working on.

I’ll be ready to rejoin the weekly schedule from Sunday August 23. It might be nice if I give a short report on my experiences for part of the first two meetings.

You might be wondering what we’ll do after we’ve finished reading and talking about The Awakening of Intelligence?

I’d like us to view all or part of a DVD of Krishnamurti in conversation with Dr. Allan Anderson. This was recorded a short while after The Awakening of Intelligence was published. It’s referred to now and then throughout the conversations, and so it’s a nice compliment to reading the book.

We could view the DVDs over a couple of weeks. We would need a place to view them, so if anyone is able to volunteer to be host at their home please let me know. I’m guessing that we’ll be ready for this on April 19 and April 26.

After that I’m thinking that it would be interesting to read The Ending of Time. This is a series of conversations between Krishnamurti and the physicist David Bohm.

I’m open to everyone’s suggestions for reading after that.

The First and Last Freedom is quite famous. So is a Whole New Way of Living, and the series of writings on education are very interesting too. I’d like get to the latter before the summer if we can.

If we make our book orders as a group we could support one of our local independent bookstores, The Bookmark, with a special order.

The cost of The Ending of Time is about $15.00 per copy. If we want it for May 3, we should probably put our order in by March 15. Let me know if you want to do this and I can take cash for the order.

For the use of the blog, you are all authors on the blog, which means you can make postings yourself whenever you like.

I will make a blog posting after every meeting, just drawing attention to what were the most interesting and useful points that came out the meeting for me. I hope you’ll do the same and that we’ll reply to each other. Please don’t wait for me to post something! J

Finally, just a short note on what I guess we could call protocol.

Please don’t feel like you can’t come to the study group if you don’t get all the reading done. That’s ok. It is important to keep up with the reading though. I always make short notes as I go through a book. If it’s a first read, I usually read all of it straight through and then go back and make notes.

The notes helps to create a thread on the page in front of me and it often makes me pause and really take what he is saying and look at it my myself, which is the whole idea of course.

I would definitely suggest that you look at each book we read as something to read again 5 or 6 times. Not necessarily during the time we have to focus on it but over a year or two for sure. I promise that you’ll keep seeing new things every time. It’s a good way to deepen your understanding.

At the same time if you feel like you are getting confused with what Krishnamurti is saying please bring this up at the study group or on the blog. Other people might be able to clarify things. Sometimes just hearing something put in a different way can make a huge difference.

You might also find that watching the DVDs will help. Remember that you can find a lot of Krishnamurti videos YouTube but don’t let this become a substitute for reading and thinking for yourself. Watching and listening is far too passive a medium to ever be a truly effective learning tool. Reading, thinking it through for yourself and conversation with others is far better. J

Last of all, I want to say thank you to all of you for responding so enthusiastically to the study group.

There are a lot of possibilities ahead in terms of what we can do as a study group if you are really taken by what Krishnamurti has to say and want to keep pursuing it. I’ll start to outline these as we go along.

Best wishes to everyone.

Robert