How do you personally go about exploring the Krishnamurti's teachings (through personal study, dialogues, dvds)?

The assumption in this question is that I personally go about exploring K's teachings. For me, life is exploration, discovery.

Has coming into contact with Krishnamurti and his teachings had any perceptible effect on your life and/or relationships?

The assumption in this question is that there is validity in evaluating one's life and that there is growth. If you really understand K's teachings, doesn't all that end?

How do you strike a balance between healthy doubt and ready acceptance in investigating Krishnamurti's proposals?

Doubt is essential. Doubt is, in no way, negative. It seems like it is negative because we think that doubt is an attack on a belief. But actually, any belief is an attack on reality. To question, is to engage reality full on. It means you are really serious about looking into things for yourself.

There is no need to balance doubt with anything. However, it is important to respect people. This means that, although people may have certain beliefs that invite questioning, you still treat them with respect, caring, affection. Then maybe, there can be questioning together.

Does the phrase "living the teachings" have any meaning to you?

If there is real understanding, then living is and the teachings are pretty much dropped, except in so far as they might be of help to someone interested in them.

Do you think it is possible to make Krishnamurti more "practicable" than what he himself seems to have allowed for?

Meditation, in the sense of sitting quietly, is vital. If the teachings are merely intellectual for you, not actual in daily life, I urge you to explore quiet sitting. The teaching of sitting meditation is in K teachings. It's just that he warned so much about narrowing techniques of meditation, like mantra meditation, that many who are interested in K have thrown away all quiet sitting. K sat alone with his back straight each morning beginning before the sun rose. If you read K carefully, you see that sitting quietly is in his teaching. Real meditation.

K teaching is "practicable" when carefully looked into. Especially with respect to meditation.

Do you ever feel that you have been conditioned by Krishnamurti's teachings?

Probably most who have studied K teachings are conditioned by them. That is they are just integrated into the pre-existing stack of memories. A little bit of understanding may arise and then a falling back into the rut of conditioned existence.

However, if there is real understanding, then moment by moment conditioning is shattered. Awareness shines a light on any conflict that arises, conflict being indicative of conditioning. In the light of awareness, conditioning cannot hold. The conditioned self dissolves. Caring is. Spontaneous responsiveness. Love.

How important do you consider group dialogue to be in understanding the more subtle points of Krishnamurti's message?

When I have participated in live group dialogue, as opposed to online, I have noticed that it is usually difficult to go into much depth. Typically there are many people, at least ten, and often forty or more. If you are polite, you won't get more than a few sentences out. Often, those most set in their views, which are often quite askew from K teaching, dominate the discussion.

K himself dialogued most successfully with one other person or with a handful of people at a time. Organized K dialogues seem to have too many participants.

What future do you foresee for Krishnamurti's works? Do you think they will grow in importance or will they just gradually die away?

I have no idea about the future.

What does "grow in importance" mean? Does it mean, will more and more people discover K teaching? Or fewer and fewer? I would say that is not important.

What is important is that someone, maybe you, really, really investigates life. K teaching may be an important launching point. But life itself is discovery.

Do you think it advisable to introduce Krishnamurti to people you know? Have you ever done it and if yes, what are your experiences?

I've given K books. They got thrown out.

Do you think Krishnamurti was exceptional, or is the transformation he spoke of universally accessible?

If K was exceptional and there is no way you can open to what he was talking about, then why should he have talked about it at all?

Nearly everyone can understand K to some degree.

But who completely casts away self?

K, a human being, fell short sometimes.

Each moment is opportunity, new.

Transformation is not a fixed point in time. Not the mirage you think you see up ahead. Not an attainment in your rear view mirror. Transformation is moment to moment. Listening quietly, the heart opens up.

Are there any aspects of Krishnamurti's teaching that you find implausible or difficult to accept?

Sure. Those things that are not true.

One example is when he did not unequivocally repudiate the Masters. He hedged.

I'm in agreement with him that spiritual authority limits freedom of investigation and therefore you should be free of all spiritual authority. Naturally this would include the Masters of Theosophy. I am in disagreement with him that he does not deny the existence of the Masters of Theosophy unambiguously.

In fact, in a 1972 interview with Alain Naudé, Krishnamurti basically says that for him, the Master is real, is connected with vast emptiness, and is outside of the opposites of good and evil. Later in the interview he says that "it’s a very dangerous thing even to talk about it. You follow? And one has to kind of hedge round it."

To me, the Master is not real. I do not accept the existence of the Theosophical masters in any way, other than as figments of imagination.

Can dialogue - in the sense of sincere inquiry - be organized or can it only come about spontaneously, unprompted?

Having participated in many, many dialogues, I have noticed that people often are unsatisfied with them. They certainly don't seem to go the way the recorded dialogues that K had went. And so people start to want to offer guidelines; they want to try to shape the dialogue in a certain direction. In short, people have a preconceived idea of ideal dialogue, are unhappy when a real dialogue falls short, and they want to move things toward their preconception. You can see how much this goes against K teaching. But you can also see how unsatisfying a dialogue often is, with minds locked into their own patterns, no real change, and no real hearing.

So I must look closely and carefully at my reaction in relationship, in dialogue. I must observe my dissatisfaction and then begin to see how such conflict can only arise against my own preconception. I look at my reaction: Am I angry, nervous, distancing myself, cynical or mocking in my mind?

When reaction is clearly seen and therefore ends, then truthful, loving communication is. This doesn't come about through guidelines, which merely try to corral a self. It comes about through awareness, shared insight and transformation.

If you had to sum up what Krishnamurti is all about in just a few words of your own, what would they be?

People asked K to sum up his teaching in a few words. If you want concise K teaching, look at what K said in response. How someone else sums him up will be slanted by that person, won't it?

Please take a moment to quietly look around where you are. Please listen to what you hear right now. Really silently look and listen this very moment.

Thank you. Please consider that something so totally simple is the absolute, most important, transformative foundation. Could it be? Could it really be? Please consider.