A System in the Conversations?

An important issue was raised by Gitalover recently, and I think it's worth examining. This is part of a comment on the "In response to Gitalover" post:

I recently embarked on an exercise of trying to discover traces of Shankara's system in the Conversations and was surprised to find little systematic unfoldment. (Mrs Jaiswal made the identical observation last week, adding that LM kept hopping from topic to topic without following through. She then threw down the challenge to find the System reflected in the Conversations and draw the threads together. My study so far (up to 1980) not much luck - apart from a rich vein on the steps of knowledge and devotion in 1974, and valuable nuggets about the 4-fold sadhana in 1980).

Two other senior men have also embarked on this task which I believe is key to freeing the Teaching. It is a valuable exercise. I recommend it.

If the aim, however, is to 'free the teaching' whilst preserving the SES as the future channel for it, then I may have misunderstood the motive for this blog. I accept the SES as a great prep school, but have come to see that whilst it maintains it current social agenda as the driving mission, then it is unlikely to be more than that. If, however, a systematic teaching in the Conversations can be uncovered, and the school re-connects with a realised teacher that can guide it practically, then who knows what's possible...

I'm not going to attempt to answer the questions raised here fully, because I don't really have an answer at the moment. Some personal reflections would be useful, however, at least to me.

Whether or not there is a system within the Conversations, I don't know. However, when I'm reading them what engages me seems to be something different to Gitalover. My assumption about His Holiness is that he is part of a tradition - according to Mr Jaiswal recently, "a very orthodox tradition". So, when he is explaining about the nine elements, or the stages to realization, or about sanskara, prarabdha, kriyamana etc, I am not uninterested but I think that this is very much "lower knowledge". These questions are explored systematically in other texts.

Here we have - it seems to me - an enlightened being. To listen to him recite the various aspects of vedantic orthodoxy is a bit like having an audience with Nelson Mandela and asking him to explain the technicalities of South African traffic law. I'm sure he could do it very well - maybe better than anyone else - but what I would really like to know about is his unique experience. We might cavil about the questions that were put to His Holiness, but the real point is to look at what we have.

What I have found in studying the Conversations is a connection with His Holiness' voice and message. To find that connection it's been necessary to remove from my perception so far as I can certain false assumptions that I already had, many of them picked up in School. Examples would be:

- self-realisation is a kind of competition that only the elite who follow millions of disciplines perfectly can hope to win
- obedience is the highest virtue to which I can aspire
- 'the world' is an evil place
- the School offers protection
- philosophy is about believing certain things to be true
- "I'm not good enough"
- If it hurts it me it must be because my ahankara is hurting
- If it's not working, it's because I'm not working
- Feelings are irrelevant
- Thoughts are useless

Whether the School has to be preserved as a channel, I haven't got that far. What I've found is that hearing the words of His Holiness without these kind of ideas playing in the subsconscious has been totally transformative. Personal study has been useful, but what really makes the difference is weekly Conversations sessions with a little group of like-minded people.

I can't go very far with this on my own. I don't know how far it does go, because I haven't had the opportunity to find out. The hope in setting up "Free the Teaching" was that I could get the message out that we don't have to keep kow-towing to ideas like those I've listed. My view of the School right now is that it's mired in tamas - either the tamas of students who suffer silently without realising why, or that of senior people who keep on with something they don't believe in, hoping that somehow it's going to work out all right, while looking around for an exit door. Where's the love, guys? I think the energy of MacLaren kept a lot going, and that energy had both positive and negative aspects. The danger now is that the School collapses out of a sheer lack of vision - just folds under the weight of its own inertia. Who knows - maybe that would be a good thing - but so far as I'm concerned it's unlikely.

What I've found since starting this is that there are people out there who have somehow preserved their purity, despite the mixture of good and bad influences about. It's been a joy to connect with these people. But I would never condemn anyone, or give up on anyone. My assumption is that everyone is naturally free, and that these tamasic shackles can just fall away if they get enough good influences.

Here's a quotation from my study today: "character building concerns parents and teachers much more than it concerns children. So the elders must behave in exactly the same way as they expect their children to behave." This is typical HH ... he throws the responsibility on the teacher. The School, as you may have noticed, throws the responsibility on the student: "if there's a problem, that's your ahankara, you must practice more".

When are we going to stop telling people lies such as that? When are we going to listen to the truth?