Mar 15

Actuality & Ourselves

Date and Time

March 15 - 19 2021 PDT

Location

Online event

Co-ordinator

Kristy Lee
More Information
+1 (805) 646-2726

About This Event

Actuality and Ourselves
We often seem to find ourselves seeking something, a happier situation, a way to avoid unpleasant feelings or circumstances, an escape from boredom, or something that is deeper and lasting, Truth or Actuality itself.  Yet, this search can seem to have no end. What we are seeking eludes us, something seems to be missing…..

Is it possible that this “something” is not eluding us, does not lie in some other dimension, or is not hidden away in some secluded location that we must seek out?

Perhaps what many of us are seeking is not apparent because it is assumed to not be here already. This assumption can create a movement in which we are constantly moving away from what is here, toward an imagined elsewhere. This constant moving away from what is here may become its own self-fulfilling prophecy.

Is it not so much that something is eluding our view, but instead that we are eluding it by continually moving away? Are we missing an unconscious assumption that something is missing runs our lives?

Is it possible that in all this movement, we never stop to look at what is truly here already, right now? And what does this mean, if so? Is stopping to look an act of will or a result of some effort? Does it require that something be in place first, such as silence? Or is it the realization of what is actually happening, this very movement away from what is here right now, all at once?

Is what we are eluding, because it does not seem to contain what we assume we are looking for, the present moment? Is the Actuality we are seeking, ourselves as we are?
In this program, we will explore these and other questions as they arise, in relation to our own lives. This exploration is not about presenting or reaching conclusions, or exchanging opinions. It is an invitation for the unexpected revealing of our unconscious assumptions and our shared inner movement, in the moment.

Facilitator:


Dan Kilpatrick is a retired Associate Professor of the Department of Microbiology and Physiological Systems, and the Program in Neuroscience, at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He has had a long-time interest in our shared, underlying nature and inquiry into how we perceive ourselves and the world around us. The insights of J. Krishnamurti and others have been an invaluable part of this journey, helping to reveal that the opportunity for self-discovery is present in each and every moment and does not depend on circumstance. Coming to see that our sense of self is something in which we all share, not as a conclusion, but as an immediate and living fact, is also perhaps our greatest challenge.

Dan received his undergraduate degree from the University of California at San Diego in chemistry and his doctorate degree in biochemistry from Duke University. His research focuses on how self-organizing gene networks controlling development and its timing give rise to emergent properties of the nervous system.