The Culture of Dialogue

 

 

What does group dialogue look like since Krishnamurti’s death? How has dialogue developed? Is there a form of “dialogue culture” showing up and if so, what is the nature of that culture? Is dialogue an environment that fosters real inquiry and leads to fundamental change; or does it incubate and reinforce existing conditioning and constraints?

 

 

Culture by its very nature usually hides a collective mental programming built up over time, history and circumstance. Culture shapes thoughts, perceptions and behaviours without our explicit awareness. Our cultural lens influences how we interpret events, behaviours and even our own emotional reactions. By extension in dialogue groups, are there shared inner agendas “hiding in plain sight” and generating a group culture, implicit in the whole dialogue tradition?

 

 

As a participant in dialogue, I probably have underlying desires about how I want the world, myself, or others to be. Do these unacknowledged wishes and motivations, determine my level of enthusiasm or disappointment in the dialogue forum? When the outcome does not measure up to an anticipated fulfilment of some kind, is there frustration or disturbance? 

 

 

In other words: is dialogue disappointing, or are we unaware of our mind’s unseen or unresolved expectations, and the implications that this generates? During the exchanges and interactions, I might be irritated by a fellow participant in the group, yet completely ignorant of the severance being created in the space between us. The irritation that is attributed to you, might in fact be inattention to the same, generating within me. Do I give attention to these reactions being set in motion, or do I not realise the impact of not giving attention? Lack of awareness and the false assumptions that ensue, may be cultivating a whole field of conflict in dialogue that I do not see that I am directly participating in. 

 

 

On the other hand, one may react to this disappointment and frustration in dialogue by erecting an ideal version of it, in its place. Do I organise another kind of dialogue forum where spiritual ideals of love and positivity are well-meaningly cultivated for personal fulfilment? Does this version of dialogue propose itself as the enlightened guide to a better, more advised life – whilst failing perhaps to uncover what we actually are, and face the seriousness of that?

 

 

We are like actors of a conditioned script written by the history of all humanity. Will our past, program the very content of our dialogue groups; or can dialogue attempt to uncover this collective conditioning?  Clearly, without realising the significance of this script operating within us, dialogue and inquiry will unfortunately hide a culture of perpetually unseen projections. A space where the very “atoms” of relationship divide and blow apart any potential unity or real inquiry.

 

 

In my view, the difficulty and the beauty of dialogue is in its direct mirroring of our shared, collective human ignorance. Some will see the intrinsic value in looking into that which ordinarily seeks to remain hidden. Others will always seek beyond – for a more spiritually fulfilling way of being – and ignore that which remains hidden.

 

 

If there were a more sustained interest in the process of dialogue – learning the art of letting go and listening to the assumptions enacting inside each one of us – we wouldn’t need dialogue to be a safe, entertaining or spiritually rewarding place. We would dare to discover the limitations we share, rather than disengage and be divided by the expectations we hold so dear.

 

 

We would not go to dialogue with a stubborn agenda that desires more for my already limited self: we would go and give absolutely everything we have, to partake in the uncovering of it all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 David Bohm – Interview on the dialogue process.

 

 

Jackie Mc Inley

Revised London December 2025