Sonya comes in:
“I have heard of this event. It must be something special. Young men and women at this time in their life and attending a lovely college must be totally enthralled with the singing across the ravine.”
Katherine responds:
“Yeh, this is one of the wonderful things about experience at college for our students. This is one of the special things we do at our college—and have been providing this Springtime experience for many years.
Well, anyway. I walked down to the bottom of the ravine. We provide a lovely set of stairs down to the stream that runs through and forms the ravine. I sat on an old stone bench beside the stream. I viewed a lovely old Willow Tree that is being nurtured by the stream. Several birds were sipping water from an eddy in the stream located near the tree. And then they lifted off the water and sours around my head. This was pure bliss for me. Everything was beautiful and serene. I felt deep contentment.
You asked about how I was viewing myself. While sitting on this stone bench, viewing the beauty swirling all around me, I felt like I was in some other reality. At the bottom of the ravine, there was no strategic plan of the future for my college. There was only the reality of this stream, this tree, these birds, and the memory of the two chorale groups singing to one another at the top of the ravine. There were no budgets or numbers; there were only songs, sounds, and memories of past beauty.”
Sonya gently asks:
“And were you alone?”
Katherine responds with considerable emotion:
“Yes, I was alone. Thankfully alone.”
Sonya:
“And did you feel lonely?”
Katherine:
“Yes, in some ways I did feel lonely. But it was an enriching loneliness, if you know what I mean. For some reason, I enjoyed feeling a bit lonely.”
Sonya offers a couple of reflections:
“Krishnamurti suggests that this loneliness concerns being estranged from ourself. We are lonely for our own company. You found time and a lovely place to sit down on the stone bench with yourself. The world around you provided you with information about yourself. There is the gently moving stream that flows through your being. This stream nurtures your trees—the things you value that provide stability and continuity to match the dynamics of your stream. And there are the brief beautiful glimpses of special places in your heart and soul that are represented in the birds flying around you. All of this was accompanied by the love that was conveyed by your memory of the chorale singing.
I refer once again to the insight offered by Krishnamurti. He suggests that love and beauty are not something to be thought of or even contemplated. They are to be experienced and elude all rational consideration. It is through our experiences of love and beauty that we gain some sense of our true being. We “know” at some deep level who we are at this specific moment in time. There is no past (though there are memories) and there is no future (though there are emerging aspirations about our life to be led).”
