Ojai Winter Dialogue/Retreat
February 16 - 19, 2001
Oak Grove School, Ojai, California
Questioning Everyday Life: Can We Become Aware of our Conditioning?
Hosted by the Krishnamurti Foundation of America
http://kfa.org/upcoming_dialogue.htm
Event begins on Friday, February 16, 2001, with a buffet dinner in the
high school library (Oak Grove School) and ends on Monday 19th. around 3
p.m.
Our theme for the year 2001 is Living in a World of Change. We see change
all around us all the time: the prodigious advances in computer
technology, in genetic research, in our attempts to conquer space. There
is seemingly no end to what we can accomplish, outwardly. Yet all around
us, too, there is conflict, there is war: it has become a fact of daily
life. Wherever we look, wherever we are, we are surrounded by images &
descriptions of strife. And, whether we are directly involved in them or
not, political events have become our concern: the Middle East is in our
living room.
Rarely, however, do we make the connection between what is happening
outwardly and the inner domain of our own psyche. We don't seem to realize
that, in the total scheme of things, it is we who have brought about this
situation: it is our strong notions of separate identity, our labeling of
others as evil & wrong-headed, our inability to see ourselves clearly.
This, surely, is the starting-point. For, about other people I can do very
little, but I can do something about myself, since the conflict all around
me has been generated by the same division that exists within me.
Division is endemic to social living as we know it: there is a knower here
and a world out there. This division, useful in practical terms, becomes
deadly in the sphere of relationship, where the images we have built about
ourselves constantly clash with those of others. Perhaps because we have
lived with it so long, we treat the underlying process as "normal" and
content ourselves with dealing with symptoms. This can, at best, produce
temporary alleviation: the root of the problem lies much deeper.
The purpose of dialogue is to facilitate the process whereby we can come
to know ourselves. In coming together for a weekend of retreat, we take
the opportunity to refresh ourselves and to engage with others in a
friendly, serious way. We are again happy to be be hosting this Dialogue/
Retreat on the campus of the Oak Grove School. The event begins on Friday,
February 16, 2001, with a buffet dinner in the high school library and
ends on Monday 19th. around 3 p.m. We do hope you will be able to attend.
Registration commences on December 12, 2000.
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