After spending the last three days at the Oak Grove retreat, home of the Krishnamutri Library, Study Center and Archives, I am much more certain of our need to protect conserve spiritual and cultural sites around the world. Spending time in this remarkable place energizes one and brings values into sharp focus. Krishnamurti is renowned for his direct and challenging talks about the need for individuals to change their lives before society’s ills can be solved. Lesser known or acclaimed are his ideas about place and meaning. While I was here, Krishnamurti Foundation of America Executive Director Mark Lee recounted a story where K was holding forth with 5 well-known architects who he had invited to discuss plans for his school in Ojai. Krishnamurti proceeded for over an hour to talk about sacred places such as Delphi and the Parthenon and expound the importance of place making and creating settings conducive to human transformation.
Our cities and suburbs world-wide have become polluted, not only in the environmental sense but in a spiritual and philosophical sense. We obscure the elements of nature and human interaction that encourage relationship, selflessness and community. Much of our architecture today speaks to greed, power and violence to the human spirit. It is created to aggrandize corporations, governments and institutions aimed at making individuals subservient to ideas, dogmas, rituals and authorities.
Krishnamurti reveled in nature and his writings frequently included lucid and poetic descriptions of his surroundings:
“Yesterday we were walking along the favorite road beside the noisy stream, in the narrow valley of the dark pine trees, fields covered with flowers and in the distance the massive snow-covered mountain and waterfall. There, while walking, the sacred blessing came, a thing that one could almost touch, and deep within, there were movements of change.” K Notebook, page 33.
And
“It was that little opening in the casuarina grove that held the evening, and as one walked past it, one was aware of its extraordinary stillness; all the lights and glare of the day had been forgotten…Now it was quiet, enclosed by dark trees and fast fading light. All time ceased and the next moment had no beginning.” Notebook page 203
Our lives have become inured to beauty for its own sake and to places of timeless quality that can make us aware of our humanity and move us to transform ourselves. Sadly, our society demands that a price be put on anything to be protected or preserved, since our values are warped by envy, acquisitiveness and ambition. While we can hope that individuals may be inspired to rethink their lives along the lines of Krishnamurti’s teachings, we must redouble our efforts to promote the protection and awareness of cultural sites and places of lasting value. These are not just the places of World Heritage worthiness, but the special grove, the wooded path, the rocky overlook and the village green. The sacred, special and transformational places that we need in every community on earth to help us as human beings be in touch with the vastness, the unknown, the benediction.
Oak Grove, Ojai
For information about Krishnamurti, see the Krishnamurti Foundation of America website:
http://www.kfa.org/
Our cities and suburbs world-wide have become polluted, not only in the environmental sense but in a spiritual and philosophical sense. We obscure the elements of nature and human interaction that encourage relationship, selflessness and community. Much of our architecture today speaks to greed, power and violence to the human spirit. It is created to aggrandize corporations, governments and institutions aimed at making individuals subservient to ideas, dogmas, rituals and authorities.
Krishnamurti reveled in nature and his writings frequently included lucid and poetic descriptions of his surroundings:
“Yesterday we were walking along the favorite road beside the noisy stream, in the narrow valley of the dark pine trees, fields covered with flowers and in the distance the massive snow-covered mountain and waterfall. There, while walking, the sacred blessing came, a thing that one could almost touch, and deep within, there were movements of change.” K Notebook, page 33.
And
“It was that little opening in the casuarina grove that held the evening, and as one walked past it, one was aware of its extraordinary stillness; all the lights and glare of the day had been forgotten…Now it was quiet, enclosed by dark trees and fast fading light. All time ceased and the next moment had no beginning.” Notebook page 203
Our lives have become inured to beauty for its own sake and to places of timeless quality that can make us aware of our humanity and move us to transform ourselves. Sadly, our society demands that a price be put on anything to be protected or preserved, since our values are warped by envy, acquisitiveness and ambition. While we can hope that individuals may be inspired to rethink their lives along the lines of Krishnamurti’s teachings, we must redouble our efforts to promote the protection and awareness of cultural sites and places of lasting value. These are not just the places of World Heritage worthiness, but the special grove, the wooded path, the rocky overlook and the village green. The sacred, special and transformational places that we need in every community on earth to help us as human beings be in touch with the vastness, the unknown, the benediction.
Oak Grove, Ojai
For information about Krishnamurti, see the Krishnamurti Foundation of America website:
http://www.kfa.org/
