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Dialogue:

Communication Towards Unity


Krotona Institute of Theosophy – September 21-23, 2018
Michele and Pablo Sender
Consciousness is in all life. Man is self-conscious; in his unawareness he is
selfish and self-centered. He has to understand that his self as he knows it, is
a limitation. When he knows the truth about this self, he is free. The
consciousness that is free becomes or rather is the spiritual consciousness.
N. Sri Ram, 3/1960, The Theosophist
There are two kinds of suffering: the suffering that leads to more
suffering and the suffering that leads to the end of suffering. If you
are not willing to face the second kind of suffering, you will surely
continue to experience the first.
Ajahn Chah, Still Forest Pool
Understand an impersonal approach to life’s problems.
Coming of the next evolutionary stage.
from whence …

Many of the opinions we form are formed unconsciously, we should


have opinions that are the result of CAREFUL CONSIDERATION.
But even then …
The Method
same destination

▪ David Bohm … suspending judgments


▪ J Krishnamurti … choiceless awareness
▪ Theosophy … meditative inquiry
▪ UK … mind the gap
The average man—even among the most intellectual—giving all
their attention to the testimony of appearance and outward form,
and disabled as they are from penetrating a priori [without
experiencing through the senses] to the core of things, are but too
apt to misjudge of the whole situation.
Mahatma Morya, cML, no. 29, p. 86
discussion

 DISCUSSION, has the same root as percussion and


concussion … it really means “to break things up”.
 It emphasize the idea of analysis, where there may be
many points of view.
 Like a ping-pong game. Or more like negotiations or
trade-offs.
 The one with the strongest will wins.
On Dialogue by Bohm
dialogue
DIALOGUE comes from the Greek word dialogos. Logos means “the word” or
meaning of the word. And dia means “through” … a stream of meaning flowing
among and through us and between us.
 In DIALOGUE – there is no attempt to gain points or make your particular view
prevail.

 You must be open to question your fundamental assumptions.

 Enter with a different attitude … not knowing … with the mind of a child

 Are we coming to class to build upon old knowledge or can we come to


dissolve old ways of thinking?
DIALOGUE is not … to analyze, to argue, to debate, or to
exchange ideas
DIALOGUE is … to suspend your opinions, to look at them, to
look at others opinions and suspend those, then see what it
all means … sharing common content even if we don’t agree
… may turn out opinions are not important, they are just
assumptions …
If we can see them all … we can move in a creative direction …
TRUTH then emerges unannounced
opinions, assumptions and judgements

 Strong reactions come from self-identification with opinions and


assumptions.
 Different opinions that you have are the result of past thought: all your
experiences, what other people have said and whatnot.
 That is all programmed into your memory.
 You may then identify with those opinions and react to defend them. …
But if your opinion is right, it doesn’t need a reaction. And if it is wrong,
why should you defend it? It is as if you yourself are under attack when
your opinion is challenged.
“Opinions thus tend to be experienced as ‘truths’, even though they may only
be your own assumptions and your own background … culture, ethnicity,
economics, race, religion, etc.

The big problem is when we unconsciously defend our opinions … “we usually
don’t do this on purpose. … at times we may be conscious … but we just feel
that something is so true that we can’t avoid trying to convince this stupid
person how wrong he is to disagree with us.”

But before we can wash away incorrect assumptions, we have to realize and
acknowledge we have assumptions and opinions … about what we think an
individual should do, or what life is all about, etc.
On Dialogue by David Bohm
suspend assumptions and judgements

Suspend those assumptions, so that you neither carry them out nor suppress
them. You don’t believe them, nor do you disbelieve them; you don’t judge
them as good or bad.
You simply see what they mean – not only your own, but the other people’s
as well. We are not trying to change anybody’s opinion.
coherent thinking

 Ordinary thought in society is incoherent … going all sorts of directions.


[Analogy of the power of light vs a laser.]
 If people were to think together coherently … and a group sustained this
together then we might have a coherent movement of thought. [zen
counting]
 DIALOGUE … is to realize what is on each other’s minds without coming to
any conclusions or judgements.
 This is part of COLLECTIVE THOUGHT … thinking together
1. someone comes up with an idea, 2. somebody else takes it up, 3.
someone else would add to it.
participatory consciousness
 If each of us in the group are to suspend, then we are all doing the same thing. We are all
looking at everything together. The content of our consciousness is essentially the same.
Accordingly, a different kind of consciousness is possible among us, a PARTICIPATORY
CONSCIOUSNESS … Everything can move between us. Each person is participating, is
partaking of the whole meaning of the group and also taking part in it.
… TRUE DIALOGUE
 If we manage true dialogue … PARTICIPATORY CONSCIOUSNESS … everybody will be sharing all
the assumptions of the group! … if everyone sees the meaning together of all the
assumptions, then the content of consciousness is the same … *if we all have different
assumptions and defend them, each person is then going to have a different content …
because we won’t really take in the other persons assumptions … we will be fighting,
pushing away, defending – trying to persuade.
common consciousness
 In this participation a common mind would arise, which nonetheless would
not exclude the individual. The individual might hold a separate opinion, but
that opinion would then be absorbed into the group.
 If we can all suspend carrying out our impulses, suspend our assumptions, and
look at them all, then we are all in the same state of consciousness … the
content is the same … then we have established a COMMON CONSCIOUSNESS …
not necessarily shared bliss.
 If people can share the frustration and share their different contradictory
assumptions and share their mutual anger and stay with it … if everybody is
angry together and looking at it together … then you have COMMON
CONSCIOUSNESS.
transformation

 Bohm is suggesting … there is the possibility for a


TRANSFORMATION of the nature of consciousness, both individually
and collectively … however, individual changes have little power
compared to collective changes.
 The collective dimension … has a qualitatively new feature: it has
great power – potentially and actually.
hate

 Even HATE is a very powerful bond. And if people can stay with it together,
then they are really sharing … then that can change into something else. If
people could stay with power, violence, hate, or whatever it is, all the way
to the end, then it would sort of collapse …
 Because ultimately they would see that we are all the same. And
consequently they would have participation and fellowship. … They
become more open and trusting to each other. They have already gone
through the thing that they are afraid of, so the intelligence can then
work.
[We are] going step by step into what is [DIALOGUE]. Please don’t wait till the end, hoping
to have a complete description of how to [DIALOGUE]. What we are doing now is part of
[DIALOGUE].
Now, what one has to do is to be aware of the [ONE WHO JUDGES], and not try to resolve the
contradiction and bring about an integration between thought and the thinker. The [ONE
WHO JUDGES] is the psychological entity who has accumulated experience as knowledge;
he is the time-bound center that is the result of ever-changing environmental influence,
and from this center he looks, he listens, he experiences. As long as one does not
understand the structure and the anatomy of this center, there must always be conflict,
and a mind in conflict cannot possibly understand the depth and the beauty of [DIALOGUE].
In [DIALOGUE] there can be no [ONE WHO JUDGES], which means that [CONDITIONED] thought
must come to an end—the thought which is urged forward by the desire to achieve a
result. [DIALOGUE] has nothing to do with achieving a result. It is not a matter of [VOICING
YOUR OPINION], or [STICKING WITH] your [ASSUMPTIONS], or [DEFENDING YOUR IDEAS], or any of
the rest of that immature nonsense. … [DIALOGUE] is not something apart from life, to be
choicelessly aware … [in daily life] or is [DIALOGUE].
J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life, December 23, 1995
Dialogue:
Communication Towards Unity
Krotona Institute of Theosophy – September 21-23, 2018
Michele and Pablo Sender
invocation

May those who are the


embodiment of Love
Immortal bless with
their help and guidance
this Society, founded to
be a channel for their
Some time ago there was an anthropologist who lived for a long while with a North American tribe. It
was a small group of about (20-40) this size. Now, from time to time that tribe met like this in a circle.
They just talked and talked and talked, apparently to no purpose. They made no decisions. There was
no leader. And everybody could participate. There may have been wise men or wise women who were
listened to a bit more – the older ones – but everybody could talk. The meeting went on, until if finally
seemed to stop for no reason at all and the group dispersed. Yet after that , everybody seemed to
know what to do , because they understood each other so well. Then they could get together in
smaller groups and do something or decide things.

In this large group we are not going to decide what to do about anything. This is crucial. Otherwise we
are not free. We must have an empty space where we are not obliged to do anything, nor to come to
any conclusions, nor to say anything or not say anything. It's open and free. It's an empty space.
“Occupied” is the opposite of leisure; it's full. So we have here a kind of empty space where anything
may come in – and after we finish, we just empty it. We are not trying to accumulate anything. That's
one of the points about a DIALOGUE. As a friend of mine used to say, "The cup has to be empty to hold
something."
differences

Not a place for personal problems … not a therapy group … not an


encounter-group … not a decision making group … not identifying
with the group but with the process … it’s mainly a cultural question.
People have to get to know each other and trust each other and
establish that relationship of sharing.
a way of council

1. Listen deeply and exclusively


2. Pause and be thankful
3. Speak from the heart
4. Be lean and without conditioned thought
sensitivity

 Sensitivity is needed … we live through the screen of


thought … we see but we don’t notice
 If your mind and the speaker’s mind are moving together
in understanding, with sensitivity, then there is a
possibility of real communion with each other.
Choiceless Awareness, J Krishnamurti, p. 11
choosing

 You can’t be totally aware if you are choosing. … And you


can’t be aware totally if you are condemning, if you are
justifying, … p. 23
 The mind cannot understand the total process of itself if it
condemns or justifies any part, or identifies itself with the
pleasurable and rejects the painful. p. 25
 Your approach is one of inquiry, which means that you don’t
start from a conclusion; therefore you are in a state of
attention, which is really listening. p.12
Choiceless Awareness, J Krishnamurti
To understand what is knowledge and go beyond the
partial, the limited, to experience that which is creative,
requires not just a moment of perception but a
continuous awareness, a continuous state of inquiry in
which there is no conclusion—and this, after all, is
intelligence.
Choiceless Awareness, J Krishnamurti, p.
13
The Nature of the Mind
“Your axioms of logic can be applied to the [material
mind] only and it is from those perceptions alone that
you argue. But Theosophy teaches only that which comes
from the [spiritual mind].”
HPB, CW, vol. X, pp. 384-5
It is only through a sincere effort to perceive
what lies beyond the concepts that access to
the higher mind can be gained.
Most of us must be aware that a fundamental change is necessary. We are
confronted with so many problems, and there must be a different way—
perhaps a totally different way—to approach all these problems.
And it seems to me that, unless we understand the inward nature of this
change, mere reformation, a revolution on the surface, will have very little
significance. … a fundamental transformation of the mind …
To understand this problem of change, it is necessary, first of all, to
understand the process of thinking and the nature of knowledge.
Choiceless Awareness by J Krishnamurti, p. 9
Our existence is a series of conflicts, contradictions, a process of struggle,
pain, fleeting joy, momentary satisfaction. We are bound by so many
adjustments, conformities, patterns, and there is never a moment of
freedom, never a sense of complete being.
There is always frustration because there is always the seeking to fulfil. We
have no tranquility of mind, but are always tortured by various demands.
So to understand all these problems and go beyond them, it is surely
necessary that we begin by understanding the nature of knowledge and the
process of the mind.
Choiceless Awareness by J Krishnamurti, p. 11
ways of knowing
 Material mind (kāma-manas)
 concrete, logical, mundane
 technology, business, etc
 opinion – senses

 Spiritual mind (manas)


 abstract, rational, philosophical (not affected by the emotions)
 spiritual truths – Unity, Absolute
 understanding
 science – reasoning

 Spiritual intuition (buddhi-manas)


 direct perceptions, apperception
 insights, experiencing truth (mystical experience)
 illumination – intuition

… ways of communicating
nature of the material mind
 The mind always seeks for explanation.
 Through the personality our knowledge will always be partial, limited, conditioned.
 We know ourselves only in relation to something. There is a conditioned reflex to take
ourselves for a somebody, a thinker, a seeker, a doer, a sufferer.
 Most of the time we live in reaction and double reaction.
 There is a lack deep with in ourselves. This lack is a central one giving rise to all the
others. The need to fill this lack, quench this thirst, urges us to think and act. Without
even questioning it, we run away from this insufficiency. We try to fill it first with one
object then with another
 The idea of being a person, an ego, is nothing other than an image held together by
memory.
our aim

It is upon the serene and placid surface of the unruffled mind that the visions
gathered from the invisible find a representation in the visible world.
Otherwise you would vainly seek those visions, those flashes of sudden light
which have already helped to solve so many of the minor problems and
which alone can bring the truth before the eye of the soul. It is with jealous
care that we have to guard our mind-plane from all the adverse influences
which daily arise in our passage through earth-life.
Mahatma Letters, no. 65, p. 169
some of our work

 Watch for tamas, rajas, sattva.


 Watch without naming. A perception is the first message given by the
senses before the brain names it or the psychological mind qualifies it.
Perceptions and concepts cannot exist simultaneously and we tend to cut
the perception short before it has fully flourished. Be aware without
naming.
 Watching is acting it is solving the problem
 In choiceless living the situation is given to freedom to unfold.
The Conditioning of the Mind
SKANDHA is the seed (consciousness)
THOUGHT-FORM is the substance (matter)
ELEMENTAL is the energy (vitality)

SKANDHA generates THOUGHT-FORMS


which are then ensouled or vitalized by ELEMENTALS.
thought-forms
THOUGHT-FORMs are the matter clothing the energy of ELEMENTALS
 Physical – garment of sensations
 Astral – garment of feelings
 Mental – garment of thoughts

We must be careful what feelings we allow to arise within us; we need pay
no attention to the feeling which press upon us from outside
 Thought and feelings – emanate from our own minds
 Moods – which come without volition on our part

The mood is the result of our thought of yesterday; and we cannot do


anything about it; our business is with the original thought of today.
 These moods make no difference to the facts of life
 Future destiny lies before us – entirely unaffected by our moods
Thoughts are things — have tenacity, coherence,
and life — that they are real entities.
Mahatma K.H., cML, no. 18
skandhas

Definition:
“Bundles”, or groups of attributes; everything finite, inapplicable to
the eternal and the absolute. There are five … attributes in every
human living being …. These unite at the birth of man and constitute
his personality.
Theosophical Glossary, p. 302

Five patterns for the personality for this life time


 Material Form
 Feelings
 Perception
 Mental Habits
 Consciousness
 The soul, working as mind, creates a mental image [SKANDHAS]. This
mental image remains attached to its creator, part of the content of the
consciousness: it is a living, vibrating form of subtle matter, the Word
thought but not yet spoken, conceived but not yet made flesh.

 It forms … part of the content of the consciousness of its creator, part of


his inalienable property; it cannot be separated from him; he carries it
with him during his earthly life, carries it with him through the gateway of
death, carries it with him in the regions beyond death.
elementals

Mme. Blavatsky described the ELEMENTALS as “centres of


force or energy which are acted on by us while thinking ….
We also act on them and give them form.”
ELEMENTALS “are constantly assuming the impression
conveyed by the acts and thoughts of that person, and
therefore, if he sets up a strong current of thought, he
attracts elementals in greater numbers.
An ELEMENTAL essence is undefined, when it is attracted to a THOUGHT-
FORM … it assumes a certain artificial individual and becomes “a”
ELEMENTAL.
The THOUGHT-FORM plus ELEMENTAL become an active entity on the subtle
plane which is magnetically and irresistibly attracted to its creator [the
person].
The THOUGHT-FORM will last for a longer or shorter time and eventually
dissolve but the SKANDHA that produced it remains in the consciousness
of the person, until it is destroyed purposefully by spiritual practice.
Otherwise they are carried over incarnation.
A SKANDHA produces a thought for every time it is stimulated, and every
time this happens the SKANDHA becomes deeper into the consciousness
and produces that THOUGHT-FORM that effects us and others.
Paraphrased … Karma by Annie Besant
Freedom from the
Conditioned Mind
sitting with the discomfort
 If we are able to sustain the DIALOGUE and go through the unpleasant phases … this whole
structure of defensiveness and opinions and division may collapse … and suddenly the
feeling may change to one of fellowship and friendship, participation and sharing … the
fact is when we are sharing all these opinions, we are participating in the same thing.
 This is the container, the space that can take in all the frustration and anger and rage and
hate and fear ...
 As we stay with the frustrations, an uncomfortableness of trying this process … we are part
of the solution, instead of being part of the problem … our very movement has the quality
of the solution; it is part of it.
 However small it is, it has the QUALITY OF THE SOLUTION and not the quality of the problem.
The major point is to start something that has the QUALITY OF THE SOLUTION.
minding the gap
 Everyone does not need to be convinced to have the same view ... this is a sharing of mind, of
consciousness … more important than the content of these opinions … finding the answer is not in
the opinions, TRUTH does not emerge from opinions, it must emerge from something else … from a
more free movement of this tacit mind … THE GAP
 There is NO road map to truth. We are trying to say in this dialogue we share all the roads and we
finally see that none of them matters. We see the meaning of all the roads, and therefore we come to
the “no road”. Underneath all the roads are the same because of the very fact that they are “roads” –
they are rigid.
 THE GAP … If we talk about harmony and all our feelings about harmony and how we think we can
arrive at harmony … we will never get to harmony … HARMONY isn’t in the talking or even the doing, it
is found where everything else is … in the tacit level of mental process … THE GAP … beyond the
mental processes, beyond the thinking … in the place where all things are possible.
truth
 Dialogue is not concerned with TRUTH … it may arrive at TRUTH but it is concerned
with … meaning! A common meaning or coherent consciousness … what we
usually have is incoherent meaning and this will never get to TRUTH.
 create an empty space where we don’t have an objective, or an agenda or a
program … we just talk to each other … we are not committed to accomplishing
anything. Nobody has to agree to anything. We simply listen to all the opinions.
And if nothing seems to get done … WE DON’T CARE … because the process of
DIALOGUE is going to affect us at a much deeper level if we can create an empty
space.
 Listening to all the opinions will bring us together. The defence of opinions
separates people. The dialogue is aimed for those people who can commonly agree
that this is the way to go about it.
love

Love goes away when we cannot communicate and


share meaning … if we can really communicate … we
will have fellowship, participation, friendship, love …
growing and growing.
“… study may become a form of yoga—more specifically,
of what is known as jnana yoga. On this path, the
aspirant studies spiritual teachings in a special way,
seeking to raise his consciousness so that he can relies
these truths, instead of merely becoming acquainted
with the conceptual side of things.”
Jnana Yoga and “The Secret Doctrine” by Pablo
Sender
“The seat of Self-consciousness is moved from the lower mind
to the higher by strenuous thinking, by the intellectual travail of
the student, the philosopher, the man of science—if the latter
turn his thoughts from objects to principles, from phenomena
to laws.”
The Reality of the Invisible and the actuality of the Unseen
Worlds,
Annie Besant, pp. 14-15
“The mundane life stimulates almost exclusively the ‘eyes of
the flesh.’ It forces the mind to remain focused on concrete
things, so that the person can ensure the survival of his body
and psyche, …. But transcendental realities such as the
underlying unity of all things … are beyond the plane of
perception of the lower mind. And although within us there
exist spiritual eyes, in most people they remain closed …”
Jnana Yoga and “The Secret Doctrine” by Pablo
Sender
*self-knowledge … aware of the totality ... thinking, conditioning, without naming
*accumulation of too much conceptual knowledge leads to a fundamental way of thinking
because if I don’t know it, it doesn’t exist.
*one cannot be constantly be aware – but awareness can be constantly available for when it is
needed.
*when something is out of tune you are aware of that.
*start by being aware of outward things without condemning – “there is no accumulation” p.34
this happens when you watch something pleasant.
**aims to improve, to modify, to change become something with condemnation - introspection
… concentration, awareness, attention, focus, observations without condemnation becomes
+awareness
* Fact – looking at someone with disappointment
Ideal – to follow an ideal is to move away from what is really there (the fact). At the moment, the
ideal is an obstacle; at the moment you cannot push through … look at the fact … watch it and
once the (fact) dissolves the ideal can emerge. When we get rid of the fact through observation
the filter we look at situations through is gone. p.47
The wise person realizes that truth is a many-sided
thing, not commonly held in its entirety by any one
person, or by any one set of people. He knows that
there is room for diversity of opinion upon almost any
conceivable subject, and that therefore a person whose
point of view is opposite to his own may nevertheless
have something of reason and truth in his belief.
C. W. Leadbeater
[A] man can only think in his worn grooves, and unless
he has the courage to fill up these and make new ones
for himself he must perforce travel on the old lines.
Mahatma K.H
The brain is the instrument of waking consciousness, and every
conscious mental picture formed means change and destruction of
the atoms of the brain. Ordinary intellectual activity moves on well
beaten paths in the brain, and does not compel sudden adjustments
and destructions in its substance. But this new kind of mental effort
calls for something very different—the carving out of new “brain
paths,” the ranking in different order of the little brain lives. If forced
injudiciously it may do serious physical harm to the brain.
H. P. Blavatsky
Remember that all our members have been bred and born in some
creed or religion, that all are more or less of their generation both
physically and mentally, and consequently that their judgment is
but too likely to be warped and unconsciously biased by some or all
of these influences. If, then, they cannot be freed from such
inherent bias, or at least taught to recognise it instantly and so avoid
being led away by it.
H. P. Blavatsky

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