From the mundane to the profound, thought shapes our perceptions, actions, and ultimately, our reality. Most of current day society treasures human thought as the pinnacle of our civilization. All our achievements, our cities, our institutions and our technology are the result of our capacity to think, express and record our thoughts. However, try as we may, the chronic problems we have created with our thought processes, war, divisiveness, personal and global conflict, climate change etc. etc. appear only to be exacerbated by our efforts to solve them. Krishnamurti questions the thought process itself particularly regarding ourselves and our relationship to others as being the root cause of our conflicts and inability to solve our human problems. He states that thought is not merely a tool for cognition but also the root cause of our conflict, suffering, and illusion.

“One can see very clearly that thought in the field of technology is essential. In the field of knowledge thought can function logically, sanely, objectively, efficiently, but that efficiency, sanity, objectivity becomes polluted when thought seeks through technology status.” -Krishnamurti

We have not been educated to question the thought process itself. Might thought itself be at the root of many of our human relationship problems as individuals and as a society?

“The problem of conflict is created by thought, conflict between two human beings because each one wants his own particular way, each one is so ambitious, greedy, envy, and all the rest of it. Each one wants his own fulfilment and therefore conflict is inevitable in relationship. And to end that problem of conflict in relationship one has to look at it, one has to be aware of it, not escape from it. Look at it so as to see all the consequences of it and when you are diligently aware how the problem arises, the cause of it, it is all very clear.” -Krishnamurti

Krishnamurti’s teachings challenge us to question our deeply ingrained assumptions about thought and reality, inviting us to explore the depths of our own consciousness. Do we see things as they are or do we see things as we are? During our week of dialogue together, we will look into, question and reflect on the possibility of a deeper perspective on our thought processes.

We will meet each day for a 3-hour session that will include but not be limited to discussion/dialogue, some short video clips and short excerpts from texts.

Daily afternoon sessions
2:30pm-5:30pm PACIFIC TIME

Facilitator Darcy Gray became interested in the teachings of Krishnamurti in his early twenties.  In 1978 he joined the Krishnamurti School in Ojai, California a few years after its opening in 1975.

In the early years of the school, Darcy participated in staff dialogues with Krishnamurti and with David Bohm. Over the three decades he spent at Oak Grove School, he taught Math and Physics and held many other roles in the High School, Elementary School and in Administration. He also traveled to many of the other K schools and joined Oak Grove School’s first High School excursion with Brockwood Park’s students staff visit to the sister schools in India.

“Teaching at the Oak Grove school didn’t seem like I was working in a job but more like joining in an endeavor that made sense to me. During my years teaching Physics and Mathematics (both subjects traditionally often taught with rote methods) my main focus became exploring alternative ways of presenting the subject in ways that both myself and my students could make sense of it and in developing an atmosphere of learning together in the classroom.”

“When working with students, I would question both right and wrong answers. Another thing that happens often is that the students will come up with an answer  that appears to be totally off the wall to me. My tendency is to grimace, but I have learned to hold off and try to find out why this person is saying what they are. Most often they have very logical, well thought-out reasons for what they say. But they don’t always match up with what I’m expecting. To tell them they are wrong is way off base, because usually they are not wrong. They may have had a different interpretation of how the problem was defined, or a totally different approach to the problem, and that’s why they responded the way they did. Our thought process often wants to come to quick conclusions and as a teacher you can easily cut students off and may undermine the exploration process.”

Darcy retired from teaching at the school in 2020 but continued participating in the Oak Grove K discussions and was an active volunteer. His keen interest in dialogues and in the questions Krishnamurti has posed, persists.