Our Centre was delighted to invite Michael Mendizza for an online program on zoom on Sunday 20 October. Mendizza, producer, director, writer and educator, gave an interesting talk and it was followed by an interaction with the audience. He spoke on the theme ‘The flowering of goodness’ but also covered a lot of ground related to the challenges which confront humanity.
In his talk, Mendizza suggested that flowering of goodness cannot be a goal, a path. The flowering of goodness can only be spontaneous; the consequence of freedom from everything that corrupts; freedom from everything that distorts the ability to see things as they are, to see what is. Perhaps, humanity’s big mistake has been the misuse of memory and the misuse of thought. Humans have lost the ability to think with freedom. Instead, they think only as a reaction to the storehouse of memory.
To add to the woes, artificial intelligence has created an additional layer of endless illusions thus blocking all possibilities of freedom. Humanity has itself blocked access to the freedom and space so necessary for perception, insight, for silence, emptiness.
Krishnamurti all along talked of only one thing in so many different ways. Thought is forever limited. Freedom from the limitations of thought can open the doors to perception and to infinite potential. Conditioning, the misuse of memory, the misuse of thought and the self are not different from each other. Freedom from this is essential for perception.
Mendizza suggested that living the teachings makes them redundant as they then become part of one’s being. No longer separate. Food for thought.
Overall, a very intense program which left us with a lot to reflect on. For the information of readers, Mendizza’s book ‘Unconditionally Free’ is a 347 page exploration of J Krishnamurti’s life and insights. It was published in 2020 by the Krishnamurti Foundation of America (KFA).
