Since my teens I’ve had a passion for thinking together with others on the basic questions of life. I recall going to the film “2001, A Space Odyssey” in the 9th grade with my friend Mike, and spending weeks questioning its meaning.
Aided by a book that came out after the movie was released, we finally understood the ambiguities and underlying meanings in the film by Arthur C. Clark and Stanley Kubrick. I recall Mike and I delving into questions about the emergence of humans and our place in the universe, which of course is what “2001” is about.
I credit those talks with awakening my philosophical vocation. Early on I diverged from 2001’s externalized premises about humankind’s emergence to internal processes in the evolution of intelligent life.
The question that took hold within me at 18 was: “How did nature, which unfolds in seamless wholeness, evolve a creature that is fragmenting the Earth all to hell?”
It took 15 years of sustained questioning, research, and talking with every philosopher west and east that would engage with me to reach a few new insights. Forty years later, they still hold up, and are more relevant than ever. They may still be ahead of their time, however.
But it wasn’t until I flew out to southern California in my 20’s from my native Michigan to attend two weeks of talks by the religious philosopher J. Krishnamurti that my passion for dialogue was ignited.
The talks and dialogues took place every other day outdoors, amidst a magnificent grove of oaks in beautiful Ojai Valley. Younger people with lesser means like myself camped at nearby Lake Casitas. We were almost entirely young men, with a smattering of young women, who wisely mostly kept to themselves.
On the last night, a group of us sat around a fire, as we usually did, and desultorily talked about the serious topics Krishnamurti spoke to during his talks. Rather than give our individual opinions however, I suggested that we see if we could truly think together.
There were 15-20 of us, and to get the ball rolling, I proposed that we agree on a question that we were all interested in to explore. I don’t recall the question, but the group quickly agreed on one, and we began to inquire together.
What was immediately remarkable is that though the group was composed of mostly young men, there was no sense of domination or competition. Indeed, we had set our egos aside, and began to listen to each other.
Opinions were seen as superficial, and beliefs as inimical to inquiry. Questions were responded to with further questions, in order to uncover assumptions, clarify premises, elucidate meanings, and expand and deepen the mutual inquiry.
Soon, we were thinking together as one mind. Each person asked a question or responded with a proposed insight, which was in turn taken up and held by the group as a whole. There was that rare thing in a group — pauses, and silences.
I vividly recall that the entire experience had an organic quality to it — it began spontaneously, proceeded in an arc of questioning and shared insight without conflict, and ended naturally after about two hours.
None of the questions, clarifications of meaning, or insights were individually elicited or solicited. For two hours we ceased being separate individuals, with idiosyncratic beliefs, worldviews and opinions.
The almost inescapable tendency in group dynamics to politely include each person’s perspectives was wholly absent. So there was none of the usual bullshit surrounding questions like, “What do you think?” or “How does that make you feel?”
Nor was there the pejorative implication of “group mind,” since we retained and immediately returned to our individuality after the phenomenon of thinking together as one mind ended.
As is always the case in a group, some spoke more, and some spoke less. But there was one fellow who never said a word. His quality of listening was palpable however, and deeply contributed to our shared insight that night.
With an urge to check that feeling, I approached him after the dialogue was over. I have a question, I said. “Be honest, I’m not trying to flatter or include you after the fact.”
“I noticed you didn’t say a single word, yet I felt you were a full participant in what happened here tonight, not an observer in the least. In fact, your listening contributed significantly to the dialogue. Is that how you see it?”
“That’s exactly how I felt,” he said. “I didn’t feel the need to say anything, yet at the same time was completely part of the inquiry as it unfolded. It was a tremendous thing that occurred here tonight.”
“Yes it was,” I replied, adding something that has turned out to be true for me in the decades since: I think it will affect each of us in our own ways for the rest of our lives.
Without doubt we were influenced by listening to Krishnamurti, a luminous human being of tremendous insight. Just as we were drawn there by a shared intent to listen to him over those two weeks.
But something other than influence was operating that night around the fire. It remains an untapped social potential for meeting the intensifying crisis of human consciousness.
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