A personal letter from the course presenter and facilitator

Dear Friends,

We are living through a trying historical period on account of the number and gravity of the global challenges we face. We got through the recent viral pandemic, but we are now feeling the worsening effects of climate change. While the pandemic might be considered an act of God, that cannot be said for climate change and certainly not for the ongoing tragedy of war. These are man-made. As a result, we have become aware, perhaps as never before, of our total involvement in the creation of the reality in which we live. In other words, that we are all in the same boat, that every one of us is the world and totally responsible for it.

We are in the same boat not only as regards the environmental crisis, the persistence of armed conflict and the usual plethora of political, socioeconomic and personal problems, but because these outward manifestations of disorder are a direct consequence of the confused state of human consciousness. We are at a veritable turning point in history and the perception that the crisis is not out there but in consciousness itself is a key factor in the needful transformation.  

The outer and inner dimensions exist in a close ebb and flow of co-creation and interdependence. Our culture and civilization have tended to put the emphasis on the outer pursuit of security, fulfilment and becoming, to the neglect of the inner qualities of freedom, wholeness and creativity. The pursuit of fulfilment through the acquisition of wealth, status and success has not managed to satisfy our abiding existential discontent. Nor do ideology, knowledge and belief provide a lasting answer. While the ordinary level of comparative discontent is forever fueling our ambition for the greater, the better and the more, the deeper discontent concerns the awakening to a wholesome and transcendental dimension of being, with its insight, compassion and creative happiness. But for this awakening to come about, we must first lay the ethical foundation of self-knowledge.

The intent of this course is to undertake an investigative journey into ourselves through a study of J. Krishnamurti’s teachings. These teachings represent, in Krishnamurti’s own words, a reading of the book of yourself, from which metaphor we get the title of the course. The challenge of such reading is to see what we actually are and whether, through self-awareness and understanding, we can put our house in order so that living becomes a creative art.

This journey into the heart of our shared humanity will take us through an exploration of conflict and disorder in our relationships, into an examination of the content and structure of consciousness and the emergence of a meditative quality of mind-heart that signals the opening to a timeless dimension and its holistic qualities of intelligence, beauty and love. 

As this is a reading of the book of our lives, it is at once universal and deeply personal. So we will endeavour to relate every subject to the actuality of our daily existence, which is the mirror in which we find ourselves reflected. This inquiry involves no authority but a joint commitment to share and learn together in our common intent to wholeness and creativity.

May this journey prove inspiring and liberating for all,

Javier Gómez Rodríguez