The Gathering
Day two, Saturday, 15th August 2026
In the morning, we watched the ‘First Public Talk at Brockwood Park, 25th August 1979’.
In rereading the transcript, there are many subjects covered. What was the central message? What comes is a question asked within the talk, ‘Can the mind be free of that image?’ He is speaking of the image we have created that we hold of who we think we are. It could be thought that an image is a good thing, and indeed we talk about having a good self-image. But what is being asked here would life be better without an image?
In the talk, he speaks of how with an image we get hurt, and we hold that hurt for a long time. Of course, with an image we will get hurt, as people say and do things that offend the image we hold. Equally, the image can be built up when people praise it and like it.
If we get rid of the image, do we live more freely? This could mean living more spontaneously. We will only know if we disregard the image and see.
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Later in the dialogue group, we brought questions and responses to the talk.
Afterwards I wrote,
The idea that who I am is projected out there. I objectify a self; I make whoever I am into an object that I look at, and the world also looks at. And whatever creates it is also one with it.
There is something in this about when we hold trauma. We hold trauma and much of everything else, it seems, outside ourselves like an image, maybe better to say like a photo. For as long as we hold it out there, it can never be healed. If we absorb it into ourselves, we can be done with it.
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