One of the key qualities of being human is that we are social animals. We all live in society, in close interaction with others. These social relations range from the family to the community to the nation and the entire world. What we see in this global network is an enduring dynamic of fragmentation between groups as well as inside them. There are ethnic, class, national, religious and ideological divisions which make for a sustained condition of conflict, the ultimate expression of which is the tragic spectacle of war. This has been the shifting pattern of history, whose pages retain the record of these recurrent tragedies. After all these thousands of years we continue in the same vein, having learned nothing. The awareness of these facts points to the need for change. Being an inseparable part of the world, the question naturally arises as to what is our responsibility for all this, for the state of the world and its needful transformation.

1. The State of the World:

Most of us are very aware of the current human condition. We are in the midst of a catastrophic ecological crisis and facing two major armed conflicts of the most horrific kind. The ongoing social, political and economic struggles are the standard fair of the daily news. We watch the devastation, the brutality, the suffering and utter lack of justice and compassion and wonder what we can do. The sense of impotence in the face of these ongoing catastrophes, in the face of the pervasive callousness, cynicism and lack of moral conscience, can be rather depressing for many, especially when considering the future that awaits the new generations. So what can we do? While we may not be able to stop some of the ongoing disasters, we have it in us to change the culture by freeing ourselves of the inward or psychological causes of division and conflict, thus restoring a sense of creative wholeness to our lives and to the whole of humanity. For, after all, we are the world and the world is us, which is the foundation of universal compassion, cooperation and peace.

2. Individual and Society:

Our so-called civilized existence has been characterized by an uneasy compromise between individual and society. In answer to the question whether the individual exists for society or society for the individual, the historic pendulum has swung between democratic freedom and totalitarian regimentation. Independently of its constitutional orientation, the social system invariably compels the individual to become a cog in its machine. The individual is not separate from society. There is a symbiosis between them: the individual creates society and society in turn shapes and defines the so-called individual. The individual is the product of his sociocultural environment. As such a local, conditioned entity, he is not an individual. Conditioning is the key to understanding their relationship, not the usual structure of rights and duties. We are not only conditioned idiosyncratically as individuals and culturally as social entities, but also as human beings. This human conditioning is much older than our social and individual makeup. It has, to begin with, a great deal of the animal in it. It is at this deeper universal level where we can transcend the struggle between the individual an society, so that we are in the world and not of the world.

3. Relationship:

K never tired of pointing out that society is the outcome of the relationship between individuals. Therefore, if we change our relationship, we change society. And society, as is perfectly evident from the high levels of confusion, conflict and disorder, needs changing. Our relationship with things, nature, people and ideas constitutes the constelation of values governing the social structure. These relationships are characterized by a materialist, possessive outlook, by the pursuit of pleasure and security, by use and convenience. Their principal motivation is the agrandisement of the invididual and the group through the pursuit of ambition, greed and power. The very self-centred nature of such an enterprise is the factor of division and conflict, for it makes for isolation and conflict. And where there is conflict there is no love. Particularly in human relations, the image plays a central role. Our relationships become masked balls in which the dancers continuously see each other through the screen of their projections. We are objects for each other, not living beings. The image is separation, with its inherent satisfaction, frustration and violence. In love there is no me and you, no image, for where the image is there is no relationship. And without right relationship society will carry on in the same old chaotic and destructive way.

4. Self-knowledge and Transformation

We are concerned with the transformation of the individual and society, which is of the human condition. As the inner invariably overcomes the outer, it is to the inner we must look for a radical change in society. K would say that the only revolution is a revolution in consciousness. Consciousness is the common ground of humanity. It is also its content, not superficially at the level of collective or individual conditioning, but deep down at the structural level. If this conditioned structure changes, our lives are transformed and through relationship humanity undergoes a change. This transformative and liberating endeavour requires self-knowledge. This self-knowledge is made possible through the sustained choiceless awareness of our perceptions, feelings, thoughts and actions as reflected in relationship. To transform the world we must transform ourselves and that can only happen when we have an insight into the particular content and the universal structure of consciousness. The key to this insight is the quality of observation in which the image does not intervene, so there is no division between the observer and the observed. Only the perception of facts liberates. This sets the ground of order, wholeness and creativity that can transform the world.

5. What is our Responsibility?

While theoretically we might be able to draw a relatively coherent map of what is involved in our responsibility, not only as so-called individuals in society but as human beings, and not only in relation to each other but to the whole of existence, we have to ask ourselves in which way that responsibility actually expresses itself. As responsibility means to respond, that is equivalent to asking how we meet the fundamental and urgent challenge of change. Are we aware of its nature and depth and of our total involvement in it? Seeing what the factors of fragmentation are, we have to examine whether we are identified with an ethnic, nationalistic or religious group; whether we are ambitious, envious, greedy and competitive; whether we are bent on the pursuit of pleasure, security and power; whether we use others for our satisfaction, convenience and becoming; whether we are ruthless and dishonest in the pursuit of our self-interest, etc. etc. Our relationship with each other as well as with nature, things and ideas is what needs changing, for that is the key to the transformation of society as well as to a meaningful life. And, as K would say, to go far we must begin near and the nearest is ourselves, which is the expression of the common consciousness of humanity.

Daily online sessions:  10:00 am-12:30 pm PACIFIC TIME

These sessions will be recorded and made available to the participants only for further personal study for 2 weeks after the last session.

Facilitator:

Facilitator Javier Gómez Rodríguez comes originally from Spain. In his mid-teens he came across the work of Krishnamurti and was instantly struck by its wholeness and ‘ring of truth’. From 1975-1978 he was a student at Brockwood Park, the school K founded in England in 1969. After briefly lecturing in Spanish at Texas A & M in the US, in 1990 he returned to Brockwood Park as a teacher. There he met up with K’s close collaborator David Bohm and actively engaged with him in the exploration of the latter’s dialogue proposal.

Javier spent two years (1993-95) as a resident scholar at the KFI headquarters in Vasanta Vihar in India. On his return to Spain, he conducted a K-inspired inquiry group, translated several K books into Spanish and became a trustee of the Fundación Krishnamurti Lationamericana, the K foundation responsible for disseminating his work in the Spanish- speaking world. He also joined Krishnamurti Link International (KLI), an informal group of former Brockwood staff members brought together by the German industrialist Friedrich Grohe, who was K’s close friend during the last 2-3 years of his life and a lifelong financial supporter of the K institutions worldwide.

In 2000 Javier moved to The Netherlands, where he has been residing ever since. He is a member of the Stichting Krishnamurti Nederland (the Dutch K committee). He currently edits Friedrich’s Newsletter and is active in KLI’s international network of activities. In 2016 Javier started giving a course offering a comprehensive introduction to K’s life and teachings (www.thebookofyourself.com). This course is based on his notion that the teachings are universal in nature and a potential avenue of significant insight and fundamental change. Javier is currently working on compiling a book on K’s life and teachings based on his research for the course.