Future Lies Desire

What is it that I run towards? What is it that I am looking for? The most difficult aspect of life is to be honest with one's self. If I know exactly what it is that I am seeking, then I can stop playing games with myself. I have hidden and buried the things that I am searching for and hope to get in future. Some part of me does not want to see that which it seeks. If I could see what I was trying to get, would I still seek it? If there was no tomorrow, no future, then the movement of seeking would end. What would this state of mind be like? How can a person who seeks a state of mind which is free of becoming something in the future ever be free of seeking? One must accept one's self in the moment no matter what they happen to be. Which means one must drop all ideas of how one should or shouldn't be. The here and the now is all that matters. Can I look at myself and see the whole thing, the whole movement completely without judgment which means without ideas born of past experience and knowledge? Can there be no comparison with even with the past knowledge? I see what I perceive to be and and I see that which I want to be. I assume that the becoming something different must take course over the space of time which then implies effort, will, force and desire. The one who desires to become desireless. Action born of desire only takes the desire into account; the rest of life is not considered. This disconnection from all but desire breeds inevitable conflict in all other aspects of life. Loneliness and desire walk hand in hand. Desire increases and the farther disconnected from life we become. Soon a desire to be connected and rooted in life is formed once one feels and sees the disconnection, then one desires to be connected and the very desire created the disconnection. When one is in the movement of desire, clouded becomes the exterior and the interior. The desire becomes all important. The desire is the answer and the problem at the same time.

Between the Lines

There seems to be moments in one's life when one could say that they have experienced something or thought about something in such a way that now one is changed. We might use the word insight to describe this change. I underwent a series of thoughts to try and understand what might be happening within myself when this insight occurs.

To know one's self is to know change. Like the river that moves but is still a river. I am a collection of cells that constantly move and change yet is still recognizable as a human. This human is moving and it is with all my might of thought that I may try and stop or change this movement. Thought itself is born of the movement. For movement to stop so must thought.

Can thought change the movement? I tend to have the assumption that if I think about a certain idea long or hard enough, I can bring about this insight. Can I have a thought which then translates into something different happening to the cells of the body? Thought cannot stop the movement for it is itself a movement, but can thought change the movement? Which is then asking fundamentally can the movement change itself? We can see change over generations. When DNA from two animals of likeness merge together you have something new and different, with luck, more able to adapt to life's challenges than the previous two. But, can thought, which is a product of the whole movement of the body and its parts produce a change within the body so that something else, something new is occurring?

Is thought a product of the change? One other possibility is that one has a thought because the function of the body has changed. New pathways in a person's mind have formed and this could possibly bring about a new and different way of thinking. This idea is contrary to me who operates under the pretense that I have thought, I control my thought and I have the power to change the world around me and change the world within as well.

Is it possible, however, that the thought and the process through which this thought can occur happens at the same time? We tend to believe that because we have thought that we are the thinkers. The ones who think and the ones who produce change. Though, our thoughts are limited because without the body, the thought does not exist which essentially means that the body and thought are one. When the thought moves so does the body and when the body moves so does thought. They are not separate, but one. They move together just as my foot does not move without the leg moving as well. Did the foot make the leg move or did the leg make the foot move? Obviously neither.

As I was thinking and speaking with Tvrtko about this, I saw an image in my mind. An image which represents a power unknowable by the conscious mind. The darkness is the thing that brought about the change of mind and body. I wanted to try and convey what I could visually depict in my mind - the above picture is what came out of me. I cannot help but see images in this drawing which represent many different thoughts I have had over the past few months.

One thing seems clear; there is a lot more to life than conscious thought can grasp.

The Machine of Thought

As part of a Yoga class I was asked to question and write about the relation of the mind body connection, if there is one at all. The following is what I came up with. I assume share it with you all as it quite well sums up what I have been doing here in Brockwood. Additionally, the school I am attending recently launched a revised website which you can view here http://brockwood.org.uk/home.html

It does seem true for me, when my body is dealing with something difficult, my mind suffers for it as well. When I ingest things that my body does not like or has a hard time dealing with, I find that I become irritable, irrational and at times angry. I can see quite clearly, especially in my most recent years of life, how important eating a "good" diet is for my mental health. It seems to follow logically for me then that having a body which is in good physical condition would help me to have a mind which is better adept at dealing with life.

Whether or not having a healthy body would then allow my mind to be more alert and awake, I have no idea. How does one determine this to be true? How do I even acquire any evidence to support such things? I am not sure there is any physical evidence one could gather which would support such a notion. I can only make assumptions as to how my mind would react to a particular situation if my body were in a state different from the present state under which the conditions apply. Having this been said, however, I do find myself answering in the affirmative to the stated questions. In general, I feel that if I have a responsive body which is capable of dealing with the hardships that it endures over time; a body that can quickly, and with little effort, assimilate the energy that it needs for proper functioning while simultaneously discarding and excreting the matter that it does not need or want, this would be a body with exponentially more energy to use for other processes. It is my assumption that this unused energy could be directed more inwardly towards ones own nature and how one reacts in the environment which it is presented. Having such energy may possibly mean that I could experience, notice and/or pay attention to things happening within and without me that otherwise may go unnoticed when the body and mind are using its energy for other things.

I do see one problem with everything that I have stated above though. The basis for these views and assumptions are precluded by the very first assumption that the body and the mind are two separate things. It seems we find it quite easy to assume what exactly the thing that I call "I" really is. The common view of what I is in the west assumes a separation between the machine, which is the body, and the thing that resides in the machine called "I". "I" am separate from the thing in which "I" am housed. Being separate we then can assume that actions taken on the machine have no effect on the "I". This line of thinking can be seen in many aspects of society and in the way that I personally view and treat my body. I have the basic view 'keep the machine well oiled with good fuel and the machine will take me far with little trouble'. It is certainly possible though that the thing which I call "I" is nothing more than the machine itself. Logically, this seems much more realistic and plausible to me. A machine which operates in conjunction with numerous other machines working together to give rise to that which we see, feel and observe around us. It may have been that once it was a machine that acted in harmony with others around it, at some point seemingly this machine recognized and became aware that it was functioning and could control things around it through a will in of its own. This state of self awareness has assumed itself to be an individual separate from that which it acts on and observes externally. Born out of this perceived process of 'will, action and consequence' were the seeds which gave rise to the conscious being which I call "I". A machine with the ability to make decisions for itself which have a perceivable and definable consequence which the I is able to observe. The I that acts on the things that it can see, but has no relation to. I have then taken this a step further and assumed the thing that is the machine which I call "I" is separate from the thing that I call my body. I can act on the body; I can change the body through thought and will. The assumption being that anything I can change through my will is not then connected to or a part of me. The thing that I call "I" is everything that I assume cannot be changed through thought and self-made will. And to change the content of the the immovable "I" would be to destroy the "I" altogether. Conscious will and action taken from the point of view of the "I" to change or otherwise alter the "I" would be in essence a sort of mental suicide. In essence, a thought to change the very thing called "I" which makes the thought is an assumed contradiction and is dismissed as soon as it is thought up.

So, long story a little bit longer: this machine believes that it may have the energy and the will to see through that which itself has created in thought if indeed this machine took better care of that which it calls its body.

Brockwood Park School: Mature Student Program

I find myself to be completely disconnected from my old life back in California. There are times that I want to talk to friends and family members back home, but I just do not know what I might say to them. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I am in a new place doing a new thing for reasons which I cannot fully explain and really do not enjoy explaining. I do feel quite guilty for being so disconnected from all my family and friends.

For those of you who do not know, I am in England attending a school called Brockwood Park. I am what is known as a Mature Student at the school. I have written an article for the school newspaper trying to detail exactly what a Mature Student really is. This will help to explain what I am doing here and perhaps why I have chosen to come.

Here is the article:

What are the Mature Students?
At Brockwood Park School, any permanent resident is given the title of Staff, Student or Mature Student. The role of Staff and Student is relatively straightforward as their titles' seemingly suggest what their purpose, goals and activities might entail. But what exactly is this person who is called a Mature Student? What does a Mature Student do? Why are they there? What do they provide and/or gain from the educational institution of Brockwood Park School? In order to convey the role of a Mature Student at Brockwood I must first give the context in which we all live.

What is now called Brockwood Park School was once a plantation/manor-house with supporting buildings owned by the local farming family the Mortons. In 1969 the Krishnamurti Foundation and Trust of England bought the buildings along with 40 acres of land and converted it to school use. Located in the county of Hampshire, England, Brockwood is a boarding school set in the countryside surrounded by fields, trees, rabbits, sheep and alike. During term time, the school is filled to its current maximum capacity with about 65 Students ranging in age from 14 to 19, and originating from about 25 different countries. The majority of Staff that teach at Brockwood, live at Brockwood along with the Students and Mature Students. Staff take on not only the role of teacher/educator, but the role of parent as well. Their duty is to raise a healthy individual with a mind and body capable of meeting life's daily challenges in a manner that does not restrict the natural ebb and flow of life, but rather compliment it.

The primary goal of the school, originally laid down by the founder, J. Krishnamurti, is to educate individuals to question all aspects of daily life; to not accept what others say is truth, but to discover for one's self what truth really is. The idea being that an individual who can perceive life as it is will be capable of living with no internal conflict concerning what one is and what one believes one should be. However, the manner in which this education is to be carried out is not written down in any manual or text that Staff can follow and abide by. Instead, it is left open for interpretation, discussion and attempted implementation. Additionally, the school is physically rooted in a society that demands it conform to certain rules laid down by government and, if a Student is University bound, by the strict entry requirements mandated from said bodies. These facts combine to create a very difficult task for the Staff members of Brockwood who try to balance their educational style with the realities of higher education and a form of education heavily emphasised by founder Krishnamurti. Staff members constantly find themselves stuck in the grey area between educating a student to fit into society as it stands and educating the student to create a new society born of the ideas stressed by Krishnamurti.

This different approach to education, and indeed to life itself, attracts people of all ages, experience, education and background. Krishnamurti's intention was not to educate only young students at Brockwood Park School. Rather, he viewed education as an on-going process that never stops no matter what age a person is. Thus born out of these ideas is what would become the present day Mature Student Program. Though not a firm rule, in general, the Mature Students are between the ages of 21 to 28 years old. There have been Mature Students older than 28 and there have been Staff hired younger than 28. Mature Students were originally termed "Open University Students", indicating that this was a program for individuals of a certain age who have already passed through their mandatory education and are choosing to continue their academic pursuits in the physical and religious realm of Brockwood Park School. At some point, this title was dropped and was replaced with the Mature Student title. Whether or not the original intention was to have Open University Students enrolled in a sort of external academic program while attending Brockwood is unclear. What I can tell you is that this is certainly not the case today. There is no pressure from Staff upon the Mature Students to pursue any kind of academic achievement. What then are the Mature Students expected to do if not study some kind of academics? After all, the term student seems to indicate some form of intentional learning goals.

There are a few things that the Mature Students are expected to do while living at Brockwood. Seemingly the most important practical role is the physical work that aides in the daily functioning of the school. Unlike the younger Students, Mature Students do not pay tuition to live at Brockwood. Instead, they work 20 hours a week which pays for their room and board. There is a lot of work to be done in the school, but usually a Mature Student will perform a job on any given workday in either the Kitchen, Vegetable Garden, Grounds, Maintenance, Housekeeping, Primary School Inwoods, Krishnamurti Center or Krishnamurti Foundation. Through the work, Mature Students are learning practical skills and knowledge from the job they are assigned to perform. The school does make an effort to allow each Mature Student to perform the job or jobs he/she is most interested in. Besides the work, it is expected that the Mature Students have, at the very least, a casual interest in the teachings of Krishnamurti and that they try to incorporate these teachings into their daily lives and relationships. Finally, it is stressed that the Students of Brockwood may look to the Mature Students as role models of sorts; Students may come and seek advice or help in personal matters. Mature Students fill the age gap that normally exists in traditional schools where perhaps the oldest student is 18 and the youngest teacher is in their mid to late 20s. Thus Brockwood exhibits a natural age range within its confines. Additionally, most Mature Students are not in an authority role over the Students which may make it easier for the two groups to form connections. Mature Students are therefore encouraged to develop healthy interpersonal relationships with Students provided the relations do not turn romantic in nature. Mature Students are then accepted or denied enrollment in the school on the grounds of their willingness and ability to work at and for the school, their interest in Krishnamurti, and on their ability to form and keep healthy relationships with all other members of the school. Besides these three points, after acceptance into the school, Mature Students are left to do what they please with their free time provided they do so within the boundaries of the law and the guidelines of Brockwood.

From a practical point of view, the Mature Students are essential to the operation of the school. Brockwood is always running under a very tight budget. There are jobs that need to get done and if there were no Mature Students to perform these jobs, it would mean paying someone to do it at the expense of the already heavily stretched school budget. So in this way, the Mature Students are needed by the school and are at times viewed simply as practical help by Staff and Students, and not much else. The typical Mature Student works five days a week for four hours at a time. This gives them plenty of time, even during their days of work, to do other activities of their choosing. They can opt to attend classes offered to Students provided the instructor allows them and it does not conflict with their work schedule. If a Mature Student is versed in an area or areas of study, they can choose to offer classes. Finding new staff to teach at Brockwood is a constant challenge. There are always new Staff coming and going and it is a welcome treat for the school if a Mature Student is willing and able to teach a class or two. Teaching will replace their normal work duty as long as it is under 20 weekly hours worth of work, however, preparation time for classes is not a factor in this calculation. Mature Students that do teach find themselves with much less free time compared to Mature Students that perform typical work duties for the school. So it should be clear now what the Mature Students are offering to the school. They have become essential and mandatory parts of the operation of the school. They fill the natural age gap which would exist if not for their presence which also adds a sense of completeness and wholeness to the family of Brockwood. They perform necessary tasks which the school has come to rely upon, including teaching. However, all this having been said, this does not explain why a Mature Student would come to Brockwood. Why have they chosen to attend Brockwood?

Every individual Mature Student has his/her personal reasons for choosing to come to Brockwood Park School. In general, however, I have personally observed that most Mature Students are in a search for something. What that particular something is may be different from individual to individual, but there does seem to exist a quality of trying to find answers to any number of life's questions. I do not wish to attempt to speak for all Mature Students and give a general, all-encompassing answer as to what we are all doing at Brockwood and why. I can only speak for myself.

When I am asked why I chose to come to Brockwood as a Mature Student, I tend to stare at the questioner with what I believe to be a confused face. It has been very difficult for me to convey my decision to come because no explanation could ever fully describe the reasons, feelings and intuition that accompanied this choice in my life. When I was about 13 years old, there began a feeling and sense of emptiness and incompleteness that existed in the fabric of my every day life and activity. I interpreted this feeling as a lack of happiness and satisfaction with life. Acting under this belief, I was forced to ask, if I am not happy what must I do to become happy? The next logical step after this thought was a move in the direction of pleasure. Pleasure and happiness seem to coincide together in the general thought of Western society. It seemed though that no matter what I did in this endless pursuit of pleasure, the feeling of emptiness persisted. This feeling did not change after I graduated from school and got a job. I was forced to ask myself, why? Why was I unhappy? I told myself that I had so many good things in my life; there are people that love me, I have a job that pays a lot of money, and I live in a country that allows me relative free movement and experience. The rest of the world should be so lucky, I thought, however I was still dissatisfied constantly. I quit my job and I left the country to travel the world thinking that if I leave everything I know and have grown secure in, then perhaps I will find something different and new...perhaps even something I was missing and failing to understand. I found that I did not leave my troubles behind when I left the country, rather I took them with me. I was forced to realize my troubles were within me and and not without me. It was during this period of travel that I was introduced to the writings and talks of Krishnamurti and to the existence of the Mature Student program at Brockwood. His words spoke about this feeling of emptiness and incompleteness. There seemed to be something of great value and importance in what Krishnamurti talked about. I arranged to have a perspective week at Brockwood. It was during this week that I had a moment in which I felt that it would be important in my life journey if I chose to come. If I had to give this feeling a name, I would call it a gut feeling or extra sensory perception. It was this feeling, much more so then any thought or idea, which persuaded me to come to Brockwood.

For me, Brockwood is a physical place where I am allowed the space and the time to explore myself fully, to be open and honest not only with those around me, but more importantly with myself. If I am to truly understand this feeling of emptiness it is essential that I explore myself without the need to change who I am in order to conform to what I believe others wish me to be. Brockwood is a place which tries to allow for this type of an environment to exist. I find myself surrounded by people who, at the very least, are receptive to the journey I am on if not able to completely understand and sympathise with my feelings and thoughts on the matter. Yet even with all of that said, I still have a feeling of emptiness and so I push on in my journey and continue my presence at Brockwood Park School.

Every Mature Student is present at Brockwood for their own personal reasons, but they are all gaining something from the school, be it simply practical experience from their work or something deeper and more difficult to explain. They provide an invaluable service and help to make Brockwood a complete and well-rounded institution. They are both teachers and students, but have the luxury of not being identified and categorized into either role. They are free to live life at Brockwood as please, only involving themselves in what personally interests them...as long as they have done their work.

Daniel Burgess
Mature Student '09-'10
Brockwood Park School

Cancer and Addiction

In our society we tend to get the impression that in order to be happy in one's life you must do certain things in order to attain such a state. You must get a good job, make a lot of money, have a family, etc. Once you do all of these things then somehow, magically, you will be fulfilled and that void in the center of your being will cease to exist.

It is apparent to me now, that our society as a whole has no clue how to live life in a healthy and meaningful manner. In life, it does not matter what you do, who you are with, where you live; in order to be fulfilled and close that void in the center, you must realize that there is nothing you can do to close the void. There is no action or inaction that you can take which will force yourself into a state of happiness. There is no use trying to avoid fear or any part of life that is distasteful, in fact this only makes things worse. It is only a matter of knowing that life is truly simple in its mass complexity. The moment; the here and the now is where the mind must be if we are to ever survive as a species.

As far as we know, we are the only animal on the planet that is consciously self aware. This is our blessing and our curse. It means that we have the ability to see how our actions will alter our reality and change our future. The only problem being that we are all out to make our own lives better. "I" come first and everything and everyone else comes later. If you look at the the earth you realize that everything that exists here lives in a simple balance of extreme complexity. The life of one species is mutually beneficial to others and vice-verse. This is true for all species, except for ours. If mother earth was a body and a life in of itself, humans would be the cancer of that body. We are the cells gone astray. We are not helping or being beneficial to the whole, we are simply there taking all the resources around us and using them to grow larger and larger. There are only two possible outcomes when it comes to cancer; either the cancer kills the host or the host kills the cancer. Unless we change, we are on a pathway to our own destruction. A path that we can all clearly see coming, yet cannot avoid. We would like to avoid it, but we do not understand why we are on this path in the first place or how we got there.

We are much to busy trying to control the future...trying to set things up so that we will be happy tomorrow or the next day or a year from now. We do not even know what this word happy means. It is just some vague idea of what life might be like if everything were perfect. Most of us have not ever experienced this happiness that we can remember. However, there was a time when all of us experienced that which we all seek. Memory cannot hold this experience which is exactly why an individual cannot think themselves into a state of happiness. Thought is all based on memory, knowledge and experience. As soon as we realize we are in a state of happiness and ask ourselves why, that state ceases to exist. Thought must be taken out of the equation.

There is a reason why in a state of economic depression, one of the industries that actually saw a gain in sales is the entertainment sector. When people feel down and out they look for something to distract them from how they are feeling. This is the true root of addiction. How can a person turn down the idea that they can do something here and now that will take their mind completely off of that which is troubling them? When the mind is completely focused on one specific thing, (be it video games, a movie, rock climbing, gardening, biking, sex or any action) the mind is then not focused on that which is unsettling. Of course, these actions are perceived to be relatively harmless and of course people would be right. The action is not harmless, but it is the reason that you are doing these things that are. If these actions are used as an escape from the thoughts that you are trying to run away from, then it is a huge problem...one that is not addressed or even understood in society as a whole. This is why the drug wars will go on forever. As long as we do not understand the root of our problems, they will never get solved.

Why is there such a dichotomy when it comes to Marijuana? There is a call by a growing group in America to legalize Marijuana because it is not harmful and actually helps people who have chronic pain. These people say that pot is non addictive, while others say it is. Scientifically we know that pot is not chemically addictive and mind altering like alcohol and harder drugs out there. Yet all of us at some time or another have met a person who seems to be addicted to it. Marijuana, like everything else, is not free from it's addictive capabilities. It all depends on why you are smoking it. Is a person using it to run away from the thoughts that plague them or are they using it for something else? Pot is just the lightning rod which blatantly demonstrates our societies misunderstanding with the true root of the problem. Anything can be addictive if it is used to run away from fear...and we are all running.