SILENT RETREAT: The Past, the Present, & the Future Are Now
Krishnamurti Sonoma Center | One-day program
Sunday, July 27, 2025
Learn more:
https://krishnamurticenter.org/all-time-is-now/
“The past, the present and the future are now. If there is no mutation now, you’ll be exactly the same as you’ve been before.”
— J. Krishnamurti
This retreat is an invitation to be with what is without distraction, without effort, and without trying to become anything. We’ll spend the day mostly in silence at the Sonoma Center in Occidental, CA. The retreat begins with a short orientation and shared reading, followed by a spacious schedule free from speaking, reading, or writing. The rest of the day unfolds in simplicity: sitting, walking, eating, and being together in stillness.
This is not about escape or self-improvement. It is about stopping long enough to see what’s actually here, now. What happens when the grip of thought and time naturally begins to dissolve, even briefly?
We’ll gather at intervals throughout the day to sit silently as a group. There’s no technique to follow. The structure is simple and intentional, supporting attention without expectation. You are invited to be with yourself, whatever that reveals.
“What is beauty? . . . What are you? What is the nature and the structure of you, apart from the biological factor. What are you? Pass some exams, get a degree, a job, a physicist, a scientist, a treasurer for a government: what are you? That is very closely related to what is beauty.
When you look at a mountain, snow-capped, deep valleys, blue deep hills, what do you feel, what’s your real response to all that? Aren’t you for a second or a few minutes absolutely shocked by it? The greatness, the immensity, the blue valley, the extraordinary light, and the blue sky against the snow-clad mountains. What happens to you at that moment when you look at that: the grandeur, the majesty of those mountains – what do you feel? Do you for the moment, or for a few minutes, exist at all? . . .
At that moment when you look at something grand, immense, majestic, you for a second don’t exist; you’ve forgotten your worries, and your wife, and your children, your job, all the messiness of one’s life. At that moment you say you are stunned by it, which is that for that second the grandeur has wiped all your memory, for a second, then you come back. What happens during that second? What happens when you are not there? That is beauty. When you are not there. . . .”
—J. Krishnamurti
Register now:
https://krishnamurticenter.org/all-time-is-now/
You may also like the following events from Krishnamurti Foundation of America:
- This Saturday, 2nd August, 09:00 am, The Nature of the Mind 4 in Sebastopol
- Next Monday, 4th August, 09:30 pm, The Anatomy of Insight in Ojai, California
- Next month, 16th August, 09:00 am, Choiceless Awareness: To observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence in Sebastopol
