Author: Duncan Toms

Second Class

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Yesterday evening I taught the second weekly class. It felt very different this time. Last time I didn’t really feel present and wasn’t really sure how the whole thing went. I was rushing through the poses and nervous. This time I was much more comfortable, steady, relaxed and paced the postures better. I felt the nerves and continued gently. I really enjoyed teaching. It is a very new experience for me. I’ve never really taught anything in my life, apart from helping individuals with computer issues. This is very good learning for me, to be in front of a group, to be using my voice, to be sharing. I relish the opportunity to teach in a non-commercial atmosphere at Brockwood Park, not having to be concerned with class sizes, paying for a studio and all that malarky. That may come but for now I’m keeping it simple.

So we come to that point when we know there is this extraordinary sense of self-isolation. We may have a very good job, work furiously, but inwardly there is this tremendous vacuum. We want to fill that and dependence is one of the ways. We use dependence, amusement, church work, religions, drink, women, a dozen things to fill it up, cover it up. If we see that it is absolutely futile to try to cover it up, completely futile – not verbally, not with conviction and therefore agreement and determination – but if we see the total absurdity of it … then we are faced with a fact.

– Krishnamurti, Book of Life, 10 March

Cunning

Posted on by Duncan Toms

The ways of cunning are always complex and destructive. It is this self-protective cunning that makes for attachment; and when attachment causes pain, it is this same cunning that seeks detachment and finds pleasure in the pride and vanity of renunciation. The understanding of the ways of cunning, the ways of the self, is the beginning of intelligence.

– Krishnamurti

March 8

Posted on by Duncan Toms

The birds outside are now in time with the birds in the alarm clock
Six o’clock
They sound much the same
The mornings are getting lighter
Easier to get up
Beginning the day with a stretch
Breathe and relax
Breathe and relax
The sun is warming now, after a long winter

There is only attachment; there is no such thing as detachment. The mind invents detachment as a reaction to the pain of attachment. When you react to attachment by becoming “detached,” you are attached to something else. So that whole process is one of attachment. You are attached to your wife or your husband, to your children, to ideas, to tradition, to authority, and so on; and your reaction to that attachment is detachment.

– Krishnamurti