Creating the Container for Satsanga

Following on from V's 'Upanishad' post:

The Upanishads begin with an invocation. What is the purpose of the invocation? Presumably to prepare heart and mind so that it is receptive to what is to come? But also, using the definition of upanishad as 'sit near' this implies an intimate gathering, like Jesus sitting with his disciples rather than speaking to the masses. I find myself returning quite regularly to "saha naavavatu" from the Katha. The more I look at it the more it implies to me a preparation, creating the conditions for satsanga to take place. It could be useful to look at it as a guide to 'preparing the ground' for a true meeting. Some reflections:

1) may we be protected
- the satsanga is a safe environment where we can open our hearts and trust that we will be met from this place
- confidentiality is understood

The umbrella of protection is a propitious environment whereby:

2/3) may we be nourished / may we create strength
- the satsanga provides spiritual food whereby the being is nourished and strengthened
- from this it is possible to re-engage with the world on leaving the satsanga with greater detachment, purpose and natural discipline
- there is strength to resist the negative / various pulls of the world etc through the force of being

4) may our studies be illumined
- may the reason / intellect be lit up with clarity
- may the light of intelligence shine without hindrance
- may there be true understanding

5) may we not oppose one another
- no envy or competition
- drop any past disagreement, conflict etc that puts up a barrier to meeting NOW

I'm sure this is not exhaustive. Just some of the things that are evoked. Any other pertinent suggestions welcome.

I have used this prayer with some regularity before attending group. It does seem that the intent and the effect is to prepare oneself better for what is to take place, also (for the devotionally inclined amongst us) to ask the Absolute for help in this matter.

"For wherever two or three are gathered in My name, there I AM in the midst of them."
~ Matthew 18:20

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Tighten or Loosen?

I recently read a great book by American psychologist Jonathan Haidt, called The Happiness Hypothesis: Putting Ancient Wisdom and Philosophy to the Test of Science. Haidt draws on the great teachings and asks whether what they say is supported fully, partly or not at all by science so far.

One paragraph has kept coming back to me, because it contains a simple fact that challenges my own thinking about the benefits of philosophy. Here it is:

Clinical psychologists sometimes say that two kinds of people seek therapy: those who need tightening, and those who need loosening. But for every patient seeking help in becoming more organized, self-controlled and responsible about her future, there is a waiting room full of people hoping to loosen up, lighten up, and worry less about the stupid things they said about yesterday's staff meeting or about the rejection they are sure will follow tomorrow's lunch date. For most people, ... [the instinctive self] ... sees too many things as bad and not enough as good.

Instinct is a pessimist, because that's how you survive in the jungle. The consequence of missing an opportunity for a meal is relatively minor, compared with the consequence of becoming a meal for something else. That also applies to things like prestige: the Alpha Male is only as good as his last scrap. Win a hundred battles, all you get is another day in power. Lose one, and you're out. We are pre-programmed to be more fearful than hopeful.

But the observation of the psychologists troubles me, and I wonder if it does you.

The School has always advertised itself as offering ways to become "more organized, self-controlled and responsible", and only secondarily aimed to help people to loosen up. We lighten up, according to the School, only when we become disciplined. To be disciplined is, as His Holiness famously said, to "flow freely". What we do with this is to re-frame "lightening up" as being no more than a side-effect of adding discipline to life. The world is sliding into disorder, anarchy, atheism and immorality, and we have the answer - more discipline. Stop whinging and get back in that trench, you idle, complacent layabout!

Even more troubling than the thought that we might be losing customers by our approach, appealing to the odd one out rather than responding to the needs of most people, is the implication that we are perhaps siding with the instinctive, habitual nature against reason. That's to say, if basic instinct makes me worry too much, and I fill my conscious mind with worry as well, then I am going to become more repressed, more neurotic, more miserable. And in some sense, this seems to fit the stereotype, if not the inner reality - enthusiastic, cheering crowds in part 1; grey suits and silence later.

It may be that the world is getting too free-and-easy. Let's grant that it is, for the moment. Does that necessarily mean that a corrective prescription of heavy discipline and hard work should be administered? Have we the responsibility to weigh in the scale of discipline?

I don't have the answer to this, but one begins to suggest itself. I believe that HH is right about discipline and free flow, of course, but I also believe that we've interpreted him wrongly somewhere along the line. We must have done. I would come back to his classic formulation, "tender advice, showers of love, or a little hard discipline". It seems that His Holiness wants us to be careful about how we use the negative, but to pour on the positive without any limit. If human beings really are saddled with a base nature that makes them worry too much, then it must be so that encouragement, enthusiasm and hope are what they need. When we have reassured people that they don't face a threat, then perhaps we can employ a little hard discipline, but with the lightest of touches.

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Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva

Much of the discussion on this blog has centred around structure and how that relates to freedom of expression or freedom of enquiry. The thought arose a while ago as to whether 'preservation' can or should exist in isolation from creation and dissolution? Is Vishnu 'preserver' or does he use all three aspects of creation, preservation and dissolution in order to 'preserve' ?

The Shankaracarya gives the analogy of the Ganges flowing down through the Himalayas towards the sea. The mountains are said to be the religions. How do they become mountains? By preserving themselves and not flowing? How do we become rigid? How do we dissolve and become creative again?

Gita, Ch4, V8 is really intriguing with regard to this question, containing all three aspects:

'To protect (preserve) the righteous, to destroy (dissolve) the wicked, and to establish (preserve) the kingdom of God, I am reborn (create) from age to age.'

(look up the sanskrit if you're so inclined!)

So the question is:

- are creation, preservation and dissolution three separate things or
- is the true 'preservation' the interaction of these three forces?

The latter definition allows for a tradition to:

a) be revitalised, re-invigorated, re-energised, re-formed (creation)
b) throw away what has become habitual, mechanical etc (dissolution)
c) protect what is 'established wisdom' (the usual definition of preservation)

and then the true 'preservation' results from all three, wisely used.

(In fact in writing the above three 'categories' it becomes difficult to separate them – dissolving and revitalising are the same thing in the same way as cleaning a window involves removing the dirt. And is preservation something separate from these apparent two? If so, what?)

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Changing the Name

It's become clear to me that we need a new title.

When I started "Free the Teaching!" it perhaps reflected accurately my feelings at the time, following the Inquiry Report and the Channel 4 news piece. On the one hand, the leadership was advocating change, reflection and progress; on the other, there was the sense that some were more concerned with damage limitation. The aggression of our opponents was being returned tit for tat. I was frustrated with this, and I had lost much of my respect for the reactionaries. In short, I wanted to have a go.

Of course, that was not my only motivation. I had also come to believe that our problems were not the result of malignant outside forces, or (even worse) of any shortcomings in the Teaching as we have received it, but of a failure to fully understand that Teaching or put it into practice. So "Free the Teaching" also represents a call for all of us to stop limiting the Teaching with our ideas about it. This was not a woolly or sentimental view - I had some clear ideas about what we had got wrong, and about what needed to be done to put it right. I wanted to test those ideas on others.

Maybe the most important point I wanted to make was that it is time for all of us to take a stand and stop relying on something external to us called "the Teaching". We need to recognise that ahankara is not original sin, but an illusion. There is something called the self, which is what we really are - not just in samadhi or when we reach an imagined Himalaya of the spirit, but what we are here and now, whether or not we know it. The ego distorts things, of course; but its effect is entirely peripheral to the self, and to our essential nature, which is particular to us, but also pure. Our talents, our affections, our deeper impulses and emotions are all routes towards the self (or, if you must, the Self). I'm OK, and you're OK as well. That is what His Holiness is telling us.

What worried me most was to see that there was so much despondency around. Some people were furiously hanging on to their old view of the School; those that had dropped that were, on the whole, losing their faith in it. If we were to procure a Guna-Meter from somewhere (can you get them on mail-order?) I think that the needle would have been pointing towards T and dropping. In order to get back to the S, we had to have some R.

Anyway, maybe that has been done enough. I'd like this blog to retain its edge and bite, where necessary - those are aspects of reason, after all; it has to be a forum for open discussion, where people can express their views freely; but perhaps with a little less heat, and a little more light.

So - we need a new name ... click "comments" below and have a go.

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Upanishad

Question: Is it right to assume that the words of those we believe to be wise are true?

It might seem as if the answer is self-evident to any right-thinking philosopher. But something in me keeps saying "no". It seems to be an argument that I have been having for many years. I remember someone once saying to me with some annoyance, "your group doesn't seem to be able to accept that the Teaching is true". That man has long since left the School; practically all of my group are still around. There is something that we seem to have been hanging onto, no matter what people have tried to tell us. I woke up very early this morning, with the tail end of Hurricane Gordon battering rain onto the Velux windows, and it gradually came to me what it might be.

The problem I have is that I believe it contradicts the Upanishads to say that their words are true, and it contradicts His Holiness to say that his words are true. And although I can see that we need to treat these sources with reverence, in the end I do not believe that we should contradict the Upanishads or His Holiness, even if it seems to be in support of them. I will explain what I mean.

The word "Upanishad" means literally "to sit near", but in the Upanishads it is usually used with a different sense, that of "secret knowledge" or "hidden teaching". Another word used to say the same thing is rahasya. What is the secret knowledge? It is the knowledge of satyasya satyam, "the Truth of truth". Truth is prana, the life force; and the Truth of truth is that which cannot be defined: the consciousness of the Atman. It is wrong to say that the Upanishads are true, because they offer not truth, but the hidden knowledge of that which is true.

What is said about knowledge is that it is of two kinds, higher and lower. There seems to have been a view in the early Upanishads that lower knowledge was the ritual knowledge of the Brahman priests, which was intended to get a result. The Upanishads themselves were "higher knowledge" because they aimed at no result. Possibly later, or perhaps together with this, a second view emerged, which is if I may say a more refined concept, that the lower knowledge includes everything that can be expressed in words. The higher knowledge cannot be expressed: it is not in speech, but in that by which speech is known.

His Holiness says the same thing, when he says that knowledge of the Absolute and the Self is just ordinary information. It has to be transformed into understanding. This was why he told the translator of the Conversations, "don't listen to my words - listen to my meaning, and translate that". This might seem to represent a slippery slope. The Conversations are supposed to be "unalterable", and if we take that away, the reasoning goes, what do we have? What is the School?

The courageous answer to this, I would suggest, is that if the School is nothing without having a claim to "unalterable" texts, then it is indeed nothing. Only Fundamentalists have unalterable texts, and the reason for that is that they are too poorly educated and led to penetrate to the meaning. But the School is not and never has been about such a claim. A spurious claim on the truth cannot lead to truth.

People don't need the words: they need the meaning. And we come back again to the literal meaning of the word Upanishad: "to sit near". It presents an image of the teacher and the student, sitting together. In one of the Vedic invocations that opens an Upanishad we find the moving prayer, "may we not cavil at each other". Why? Because if we are to be united by truth, there is no room for petty emotions.

And that is what Shantananda meant when he spoke of higher knowledge (and here, he exceeded what is to be found elsewhere in the tradition) as the understanding that arises at the meeting of chittani ("hearts and minds") joined by love or common purpose. The same, he said, may not arise again away from such a meeting.

Those we love are those to whom we can tell the truth. All we need to do to benefit the world is to tell the truth.

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Don't Mention the Camel

One thing that comes across forcefully from the study of the Indian tradition of philosophy is its simplicity.

It's easy to miss this if one's knowledge of it is entirely mediated through a group. If a term is spent studying five verses, it is likely that most of us have forgotten verse 1 by the end. It can become a bit like studying a flower by training a powerful microscope on it - one loses the sense of a beautiful object that can be appreciated immediately and in its totality, without a lot of thought.

Not that Advaita Vedanta is "philosophy for dummies" - not at all. But it can seem as though we can't see the bigger picture because of our love of close analysis. And then, when someone asks us what 'philosophy' means, we are stuck for an answer. It's a bit like the old story of the seven blind men describing an elephant. I'm sure that a blind man could tell me amazing things about an elephant's knee - its texture, its smell, its bulk - but I would not for that reason wish to be blind. We privilege the fine detail at the expense of the eye's ability to take all in at a glance. Both are needed.

The antidote to this is to read the Upanishads or the Gita oneself - not taking years over it, but reading 20 pages at a time. Read an Upanishad at a sitting, or even two Upanishads. If you find a bit that's obscure, don't fret about it, just skip on and come back to it later. Dip into the Vedas. Or read a modern Advaitin such as Nisargadatta, Ramakrishna or Vivekananda.

Another valuable approach is to read a good Western account of Indian philosophy (I'm currently reading Paul Deussen's The Philosophy of the Upanishads). Why? Because some things are too obvious for an Indian to mention. It's the same reason why there are no camels in the Koran - they were so common that there was no need for an Arab to go on about them. So if we want to get the Upanishadic spirit, we need to understand not only the words on the page, but also those that are present but not on the page.

Or, you could go along to a class offered by one of the many Indian centres of learning. I understand from more than one friend that the Chinmaya organization has some superb teachers. Apparently it's an excellent complement to School study.

When I was a child I had a board game that said, "A minute to learn - A lifetime to master". It might take more than a minute to learn Advaita Vedanta, but it doesn't take a lifetime. Get the basics under your belt, in whatever way you can, and devote your life to mastery.

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The Good, The True and the Beautiful

Traditional Western philosophy has proposed three objectives: the Good, the True and the Beautiful.

In the modern world, it has been noted by a number of commentators that we have emphasised the True at the expense of the other two. Science acknowledges only the standard of truth - speak to a scientist and ask whether he would allow ethical or aesthetic considerations to intrude on his experiments. Ethics are of course used to regulate science, but these are established from outside - by government, for example. Aesthetics are the realm of artists, and are even less important to the scientist, at least while he is being a scientist.

It should also be noted, however, that there is a secondary aspect to our tradition, which we derive from the Romantic era, that emphasises beauty and also truth. Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn makes the classic statement:

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

The first problem with this is that it leaves out the Good - the moral or ethical. The second is that in practice beauty is well on top in the Romantic spirit. It is the personal response that matters - ie 'feelings' - and so we lose sight of Truth that may not accord with our personal feelings. In extreme cases, all that matters is what I feel; if you feel something different then you must be wrong, because the Beauty I experience is Truth. This is why art is greatly fragmented - standards are determined independently by the aesthetic responses of each artist or by each viewer of art, and not by reference to something outside of the individual.

What we seem to leave out, then, is the Good. Our society has things that it values as absolute ethical standards - universal equality, compassion, tolerance, charity, etc - but where do these standards come from? What inspires us? The answer still seems to be religion. Despite all that has happened over the past couple of centuries, we still do not have the Atheist Cross or the Secular Army rushing out to help people in need when disaster strikes.

This is why we need philosophy - some means to find inspiration that is not tied to faith - and yet we should also ask ourselves whether the School is not as culpable as anyone else in our neglect of the Good. We have upheld the True, and the Beautiful (not so much in our art, but in our emphasis on meditation, the exercise and similar practices that create an aesthetic or devotional experience) but have we done as much for the Good? We uphold principles and ethical standards, but how far? How real is our Good? Do we do good in society, or only in School?

Leaving aside issues such as charitable work, we might also ask whether kindness and compassion have not been neglected, in our efforts to exalt Truth. The Good is not in conflict with Truth, or with Beauty. We have perhaps more to discover about the harmony of all three.

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Sanscrit - grrh .... or wonderful!

I have problems with Sanscrit grammar in a similar way to some people with meditation. I can't really see the point of it. Whereas with meditation the result is - or should be - a matter of indifference, with Sanscrit grammar there's a definite aim: to learn the language.

Why do we have to do this? What has Sanscrit got that can't be found in English? There are words, it is true, to describe states or conditions that can't readily be expressed in English, but the grammar itself is said to yield a mysterious knowledge, along with its cohort - the sounds themselves.

Mysterious certainly for me, obscure, floundering and the light never seems to dawn. It's a long hard path, a puzzle, more like a maze. And I never remember how I got there or where I'm supposed to be going. All the usual signposts have been turned around. Nothing very useful is retained.

I have asked others if they have experienced knowledge simply in the sound of Sanscrit. One said he did once but was not able to describe it.

HH has said we need to study Sanscrit - do we all have to do it? If we do, what do we need to do to make it comprehensible to those like me? If we don't all have to do it - are there other ways to bring the benefit?

And if the sound of Sanscrit alone brings knowledge it should be possible to demonstrate this. Now that would really make the point.

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What Happens Backstage, Again?

There seems to have been a recognition recently that meditation needs to be reconsidered. We’ve had new meditation material on a regular basis, and been offered meditation retreats, which have been, by all accounts, successful.

Probably this needs to go further. There’s no doubt that meditation is a powerful aid on a spiritual path. Even had the Shankaracharya not recommended it, scientific research has found it to be one of the few activities that make a measurable difference to one’s life. Buddhists do it, even educated fleas do it. When the then Tory party leader William Hague said that he repeated a mantra for an hour daily, it was a bit of a surprise, but it still didn’t make him interesting.

How odd then that, as a body, we seem to have learned so little about it in 40 years.

We ‘know’ what His Holiness has to say about meditation, but our tutors often give the impression that they have never actually meditated themselves. If a History teacher taught exclusively by reading from a textbook, a child might quickly conclude that the teacher knew no history. A tutor who reads and re-reads the words of His Holiness to his group is just like that teacher – living off the words of the wise, but not living them. (Possibly this is one reason why I have quoted His Holiness so infrequently on this blog – it seems necessary to make the point that we can all make our own words. If we can’t, we haven’t listened). I long for the day when my tutor can just tell me what he knows about meditation, from experience. Even if it’s just a little piece of knowledge - his own knowledge - I will receive it gratefully. It's occasionally happened.

I’ve spoken to quite a few people recently about meditation, and I must say that the impression one often gets – from those who meditate regularly – is of someone who twice daily disappears behind a rich, black velvet curtain. What was it like? It was still, calm, ‘and one comes out refreshed’. Wow …

Such descriptions are neither like what His Holiness says about meditation, nor I must say very much like what I experience myself. One thing that rings true in his descriptions is the sense of meditation as a dynamic event. His Holiness says that a point of vibration begins behind the lips … that the mantra harmonizes with the prana – the life-force within the body … that one dips into stillness and then rises again, several times perhaps. No velvet curtains, no non-specific generalizations. He’s telling us about something he actually experiences.

And let me say here, I don't think that alone makes him a wise man. We all experience meditation - or used to - all we need do is admit it. And if we can admit it, and look at what actually happens, the funny thing is that it seems to tell us a lot about ourselves. It turns out that meditation helps with self-realization, not always mystically, but often in very simple ways. We need to have the courage to accept what it is telling us.

Perhaps this post might be a place for people to record the experiences - good, bad or appalling - that they are having in meditation.

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Does the right answer help?

"There have been people who have told, in this country particularly, that the whole world is illusory, maya, it does not exist, but has it helped India in any way? The true test is there: whether it has helped, whether it has made people more authentic, more real. It has not helped at all. It has made people more deeply cunning, split, schizophrenic; it has made them hypocrites.

All the religions have done this, because they don't consider you. And you are far more important than the ultimate truth, because the ultimate truth has nothing to do with you right now. You are living in a dreamworld; some device is needed which can help you come out of it. The moment you are out of it, you will know it was a dream – but a person who is dreaming, to tell him that it is all a dream is meaningless...

And that's what has happened in India: people are living in maya, deeply in it, and still talking that "This is all maya." And this talk too is part of their dream; it does not destroy the dream. In fact it makes the dream more deeply rooted in them, because now there is no need to get rid of it – because it is a dream! So why get rid of it? It does not matter.

In a subtle way all the religions have done this: they have talked from the highest peak to the people for whom that peak does not exist yet."

~ Osho

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Order and Hierarchy

In the spirit of enquiry, this is Shakespeare's argument for hierarchy ('degree').

Take but degree away, untune that string
And hark what discord follows

- Ulysses in Troilus & Cressida Act I Sc 3

Of course, he lived in a very different age: in Shakespeare ordinary people ("rude mechanicals")are there for comic relief, while the kings and princes play out the real drama. The word "freedom" is never used positively anywhere in his work - preservation of the larger order is the key virtue.

Even so, I'm sure we can all feel the force of what Ulysses is saying here. Comments, anyone?

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