A Forum For Dialogue

A number of people recently have noted that the School lacks a genuine forum to discuss how the School ought to be. Among this number is included its leader, and so we can bypass lengthy analysis of the Executive/Fellowship.

What I would like to propose is that we draft a proposal to set up a forum of this kind. We could take as a starting point the words of Mr Jaiswal, "It is the duty of every School member to imagine how the School should be". Would you support such a thing? Would you be prepared to give your time and effort to it? Comments please.

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The Way Forward

There is a verse in one of the scriptures. The gist of it is that a good man who wants to go on the spiritual path says what he feels, and does what he says. That is, he speaks from pure feeling. When he has impure feelings, he tries not to speak or rush into action or express them. A bad man does the reverse: he feels one thing and says something else; he says something but does something else.

If one really did speak what one felt, and did exactly what one said, then this would build up the inner strength of the man and, because of this clarity and unity of his mind and sincerity of his heart, the way would be fairly clear for him.

- Shantananda Sarasvati

In another place he said something similar, if anything with a stronger emphasis on straightforward speech. He said not to worry too much about getting it wrong, because if you did someone else would correct you.

For me this blog has been a real practice in speaking what's in the heart. That's the reason I have so much to say: this is what I have been thinking for 20 years, but because no-one ever asked it stayed inside. Well, mostly! Obviously one recognises that this is an unhealthy situation, but until people can speak from the heart spiritual development will be difficult.

It still feels unhealthy, because speaking is just the first step. The words have to be enacted. It may be objected that it's up to me to enact them ... but it's not so. If speaking out has not been our habit, even less has acting without instruction been practiced. We are rusty.

Speaking out doesn't mean talking out of the corner of your mouth in the pub after group, or thinking internally that you're above what you outwardly assent to. It means speaking what you feel, and then, of course, doing what you say.

This is the instruction of the Shankaracharya ... and so it is your duty, not only to the School but to yourself.

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Below the parapet - words

One phrase I keep on hearing in the School is, 'Times have changed ...,' to explain why there isn't the commitment, or the numbers, or whatever it is. Anything unsatisfactory in School - to which there appears to be no answer - is laid at the door of Times Have Changed.

So common is this phrase that it is never challenged. At the turn of the 20th century Beatrice Webb (of the social reforming duo Sidney and Beatrice Webb) used to declaim to visitors that 'Marriage is the wastepaper basket of the emotions.'

Whether or not that is the case, Times Have Changed is certainly the wastepaper basket of the School. If you don't like something - you know in which direction to throw it.

Now Times Have Changed, although I'm not revealing any secret by saying that is nothing new.

But that poor old wastepaper basket is a dull sapper of energy. It shouldn't go unchallenged.

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Principles

When I met with Mr Lambie a few weeks ago to discuss this web site I said that I would establish some guiding principles. Here are some, along the lines of Socrates' Daemon which told him what not to do.

1. Don't Break Confidentiality
One of the dangers of the medium is that people become more prone to gossip than they would otherwise be. People need to feel able to speak in School gatherings without fear of it being repeated elsewhere. Having said that, there are many cases where someone will say something that sparks off a thought that needs to be pursued. There's no reason that this can't be done without a traceable direct quote. We do need to be able to speak about a principle.

2. Don't Violate Anonymity
If we know or can guess at someone's identity this information should not be shared around. It is no business of anyone else if someone wants to participate anonymously.

3. Don't Infringe Copyright Without Permision
This would include course material and private communications.

4. Don't Criticise
Another principle of the School is that one should not criticise others. If people want to give vent to their feelings, they probably know where to do it. We can still have a clear sense of what's right and we don't need to accept wrongs, no matter how old or practiced they are within the organisation.

Apart from this I think that people can use their own common sense when taking part in the web log. If you have any comments, please let me know. Or if you would like to make suggestions, please do.

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RIP Vayukesha

It is with great regret that I must announce the departure of Vayukesha, my former alter-ego. One ego per body, altered or not, is more than enough.

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Reminder

"It is the duty of every member of the School to imagine how the School should be".
- Mr Jaiswal, Language Lecture 2005.

"And stop asking the Indians!"
- Ditto.

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The Three Questions

Many years ago my father went on a management course and he told me about the 3 sentences all managers need to learn to say:

"You did a great job there."

"I'm sorry, I made a mistake."

"What do you think?"

What strikes me now about these sentences is that they are double-edged. On the one hand, they're intended to liberate the employee; on the other, they're intended to create humility in the manager.

The first seems the easiest and maybe the least interesting. Praise can be either genuine and deserved, or it can be fake and a way of asserting one's authority: I am the person who pats you on the head. Maybe it would be better to enthuse.

The second is crucial. Earlier this year the leader of the School took this step for the first time. We used to say, "being a tutor is never having to say you're sorry" (that's the kind of group we are, I'm afraid!) ... but it seems that the School can now learn to say that sentence.

It prepares the way for the third sentence, which is the most important of all. It's easy to express appreciation and retain one's power; it's even possible to apologise, and still avoid real humility. But to ask people their opinion - really ask them, as in wanting to hear what they think and being prepared for their answer to make a difference - is surrender. It is the spiritual question.

Many years ago, the Economics faculty was deader than Henry George's dog. Occasionally there seemed to be a twitch of activity, but it might only have been a trick of the light. Hard to be sure. Then one day they did something extraordinary. A survey was sent round to every young member of the School, asking what our economic concerns were. I completed it as best I could, and at the bottom of the form remarked, "This is the first time in all my years in the School that I have been asked a non-rhetorical question."

Since then the Economics faculty has staged a revival: it started to study economists other than the Blessed Henry ... made connections with other organizations ... begun to address the needs of the world in which we actually live. All of this has nothing to do, of course, with what I wrote on that form, or in all likelihood with what anyone else wrote. It was a change of heart. For some reason the faculty had stopped thinking it had the answers already, and asked a question to which it did not know the answer.

It's probably fair to say that the School as a whole is now at the point that Economics was a decade ago. Every week brings news of the departure of a philosopher, and the deaths of two more. Soon there will not be enough students left to complete the daily rearrangement of deckchairs on the HMS Titanic. The organization as presently configured doesn't know what to do next.

How bad do things have to get before we ask the question?

So, what do you think?

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Reduce the Damage, Not the Student

The following might relate to some of the recent discussions on how to effect change.

I recently spoke to a lady – let’s says she’s in the London School – who has a great problem when she goes on residentials. She’s an environmentalist, and she’s horrified by what she sees at School properties. Minimal recycling, widespread and indiscriminate use of chemical sprays and fluids, low-energy light bulbs nowhere to be seen, coal-burning fires blazing on a warm day … she says “it hits me in the solar plexus”. She can hardly bear to be on a weekend, let alone a week, because it conflicts so much with her way of life and her ideals.

She has been told repeatedly that she has to surrender this agitation. In a sense, this is merely the traditional School view. If there is agitation, it must be coming from ahankara: therefore surrender. Unfortunately, this tradition contradicts the Shankaracharya as well as reason. His Holiness does indeed recommend surrender if there is agitation, but he also says that having surrendered the agitation we should do something about what caused it. To use an extreme example, I might feel agitated if I saw a man about to murder a child; I have to collect myself, and then act to stop him.

I said to this lady that she must write to the authorities within the School and explain her views. She will never find peace until she does so, because to do nothing is to condone a wrong. Environmental concern is not only in accord with the principles of our philosophy and economics; it is central to it. Within the Indian tradition, the spiritual journey corresponds to a lessening of environmental damage as life proceeds. Eventually the forest-dweller and the sannyasin reduce desire to the point where the consequence of his existence is almost nil. Our present practices ignore this aspect of the teaching, and so this is an opportunity to evolve the School.

'Surrender the agitation' is partial truth, a dangerous thing. “One cannot simply put a stop to the stream of life”, says His Holiness. The way forward for the individual as well as for all, is to direct the stream into its rightful channel. We need to learn the importance of speaking up for what's right.

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Deep Thought

"The Indians have had mantra for quite a long time. If you look at the state of India, you have to say that mantra cannot be the answer to everything". - Language lecture 2006

This seems logical and reasonable, but for many years we've had a faith in meditation as the answer to everything (along with satsanga, which the Indians have also had for a while). Is it the answer?

If so, to what? In part or full? And how?

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Elderly Germans In Action

Recently James posted a comment about Pope Benedict XVI's controversial speech. A while back I mentioned that the Pope had been in dialogue with a modern left-wing philosopher called Jurgen Habermas (left). It turns out to be fascinating.

Anyone who is interested in the meeting point between the paths of faith and reason should read this excellent article from Prospect magazine.

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Names

After considering the many suggestions put forward, I've decided to change the name of this weblog to "At the Crossroads".

It suggests the importance of sometimes stopping to re-assess, and an informal meeting place where important matters can be considered. It suggests a place from which to view options. It says something about the significance of this moment in the history of the School, almost 70 years on.

Maybe (although I didn't think of it at first) it might remind you of the new premises of the London School in Mandeville Place.

Thanks to everyone who offered their suggestions.

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Two Cheers For The Uncharismatic Leaders!

Following on from some of the conversations in recent posts, I'd like to show how a principle can and should be examined in practice. This isn't contradicting what anyone else is saying, but clarifying my own view.

Let's consider the idea that a principle is "a thorn to remove a thorn; when you have made use of it, you throw both away".

It's not a difficult concept in theory, but in practice it seems to cause people all kinds of problems. Let's assume that this idea is true. It describes a finite process. But how long should it take? Either (a) until full self-realization; (b) until a stage of understanding is reached beyond which the individual is capable of independent reason; or (c) until the Teaching has been heard in full and is intellectually known about.

We can dismiss (c) because we know that intellectual appreciation is not enough. We have to make use of the Teaching to remove the thorn of ignorance. We can also dismiss (a). It would be unreasonable to say that the Teaching should be carried about with us forever like a crutch. Not only that, it conflicts with the tradition of the teacher giving the student rahasya and sankalpa - the secret knowledge, and the ability to decide things independently. At this point, the student is no longer a student, but an independent seeker. So if we believe in the tradition we have to accept that at some point between the extremes of total ignorance and total enlightenment, we make use of a thorn, remove a thorn, and then throw both away. There may be more thorns of ignorance and therefore more thorns of knowledge needed. It's a matter of little steps in knowledge, but little forward steps.

If we look at how things are in the School, it might seem as though almost no-one has achieved such a thing. The tutor reads something to the group. The student asks a question. The tutor re-reads the passage. Another question. Another re-reading. How many tutors can hear what is being said and understand it? How many are clear enough about what is being said to explain it in their own words? His Holiness said, "no-one needs to bind himself to a word". How many of us have transcended the word by finding its meaning?

The only way to come at this is to look at examples of apparent transcendence. We are not talking about full self-realization, but about where someone seems to know something independently. There are a few candidates - I've mentioned Mr Jaiswal before; I might also mention Shane Mulhall, whose talks I've been listening to recently. It's a funny thing, but he stands out in that he doesn't really stand out. He's kind of ... uncharismatic. He has a sad, sonorous voice, and a strange gasping laugh when he tells a joke. From his descriptions of his life (most frequent word used "pathetic") he spends time watching football on the TV, he worries about what suit to wear, and loses arguments with his wife and children. In short, he's an accountant.

Why, then, is he so universally loved and respected? It's obvious. He knows what he's talking about; he speaks from the heart; and he lives by his words. Cut him any way you like: you can read the principles of the teaching there like Brighton rock. You might not agree with everything he says, but he doesn't mind that; nor does he imagine that he's got all the answers because he has the books on his shelf. He quotes His Holiness liberally and faithfully, but with a light touch that only comes from knowing the truth of it for yourself. The result? Someone told me the other day that there are 14,000 students in the Irish School. I've no idea whether that's true, but if so it's a great testament to what can be done.

The problem with charismatic leaders is that you can't do without them. We have a few of these types knocking around - masters of the world etc etc - and the problem is that once you accept their help they make you dependent. In the end, it's not very attractive. The real teacher doesn't make you feel how wise they are, but gives you a glimpse of your own native wisdom. The real teacher sets out to make you equal to himself.

But to come back to thorns - how many of us have forgotten that the Teaching itself is a thorn, and that life is not about the Teaching? How many of us have neglected our Self, in our anxiousness to praise the Teaching about the Self? How many of us have bound ourselves to a word? The Great Men who trumpet their virtues don't do that. Neither do the wise. It's the rest of us, rubbing along together in the lowing herd. That's how we keep ourselves the same.

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Change

“Great minds discuss ideas;
Average minds discuss events;
Small minds discuss people”

~ Eleanor Roosvelt


Much to my surprise I recently heard a someone in the school use the 'L' word; logic that is. The point was that it is a basic premise of logic that you cannot go from the particular to the general. The above quote came to mind and the thought arose that if we start to generalise from the basis of particular people or events then want to create change on that basis then that is a shaky foundation to start from.

If there are problems at the level of people and events (I come across loads including experiencing myself on an average day) then the question must be, "How do we get back to a true understanding of the IDEA, the principle?". This may or may not involve change.

What concerned me about V's last post was the possibility that too many people focussed too much on change means taking your eye off the changeless. I don't aim this coment at V personally, just something that concerns me generally. I also relate this to the notion of the name for the blog being, "A School for Today and Tomorrow". The effect it creates here is to think that the blog is some kind of think tank that is going to suggest what the school should be. That may not be the intention but that is how I hear it.

From a more practical point of view when I first started going on residentials, I was asked to wear a suit and tie. Initially, I never gave it a thought as to whether this was good or bad. Just accepted it. Now, my preference would be not to. But to get caught up in arguing about whether it's good or bad is perhaps not a very good use of the mind? It's fairly superficial one way or the other. And the more the mind gets caught up in the details, the arguments, and remains focussed on this then does the changeless get forgotten?

Some might say here that I am advocating doing nothing. Well I am well practised at doing nothing but that's another matter. I feel and it is the experience that a principle deeply understood leads to inevitable change (or inevitable confirmation that what you are already doing is correct). This cannot be a purely theoretical/intellectual grasp of a principle but something that has penetrated into the being, the 'emotional truth' spoken of elsewhere. For example, I became vegetarian on the basis of health and of minimising harm to other beings. The principle was felt as well as thought, then the change was inevitable from this. It has never really been a practise or a discipline, more like a change of behaviour that results from something understood. The converse side of this is to make change without having deeply understood. Maybe it is the correct principle but the results are temporary or shallow or maybe even detrimental.

I just want to make it clear that I am not personally calling for any particular change, nor do I feel qualified to do so. But I do want to question. I want to question because I want to understand. I want to get back to the true idea, the true principle. And I am sure that there are others in the school who already understand the principles better than I do. But as has been said elsewhere, being told the 'right' answer is of only partial use and can even result in unhealthy passivity or 'shallow' change as described above. So I want to question, not to change things. But this also does not deny the possibility or change arising naturally from understanding.

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Today and Tomorrow

I don't know if Art in A. has ever been 'cutting edge', but it has always seemed special. Are we in danger of losing that? It's all very well to faithfully carry on the work of the past, but the real task of youth is to renew, refresh and sharpen. That means a clean slate on which to re-imagine the event. We've got to 30 years, and if we're to last the next 30 we need a new, inspiring plan. We need to consider 'AinA 2036'.

There's no lack of talent or intelligence to do this, but there is a question mark about the will. Are we prepared to think boldly, to set a new agenda for the future? Are we prepared to do things differently?

There are a lot of suggestions I could make as to what we could do, but the real need is for someone in authority to ask the question - what do you think? - of all of the new generation of staff, and be prepared to take the answer seriously.

The same could be said of the School as a whole, of course. Maybe the title of this blog could be "A School for Today and Tomorrow". Hmm ... I think I'll live with that for a few days.

What do you think?

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