A little while ago I heard the transcript of a momentous meeting addressed by Dr Roles on his return from his first trip to India. He described how he had been put under pressure by the Maharishi to change his flight back to England, because he would not get the chance to see Shantananda that week. His response was to refuse, on the grounds that he had said he would be back on that date and "a promise kept is worth any amount of spiritual experiences".
When I mentioned this before someone took this to mean "a promise kept is worth more than the self", but that isn't the point at all.
Last night I watched again the documentary Riding Giants, which is about the big-wave surfers of California and Hawaii. It's a terrific film and I found myself moved and uplifted by their passion for the biggest, most awesome, gnarliest wave imaginable. In the closing credits one of the surfers says something to the effect that, "if someone put this much energy and devotion into a religion, no-one would call them a religion bum; and I think this is a religion. There are no surf bums". It was hard not to believe him.
But what Dr Roles is saying adds a bit more. There's no doubt that a lot of people pursue a lot of different kinds of spiritual experiences, and that this transforms their lives and gives them meaning. But the really enduring traditions are not about spiritual experiences. Aim for "peak experiences" and you will get them, but that has never been the purpose of a real spiritual path. The experience is not the aim, but the by-product of the aim. And if the experience is won while neglecting some responsibility, then how pure was the motive?
Friday, December 01, 2006
Dude ...
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8 comments:
"Aim for "peak experiences" and you will get them...if the experience is won while neglecting some responsibility, then how pure was the motive?"
The motive may be to gain real experience so that one can speak from real experience?
Seems to me this is only one side of the polarity. Which Upanishad is it that says (I paraphrase):
"Those that seek the worldly fall into deep darkness. Those that seek the other-worldly fall into deeper darkness..."
(goes on to say we need both)
The opposite polarity is to always be interpreting the "other-worldly" in extremely mundane, utilitarian terms. The view through these particular glasses is that the pendulum is further in this direction than it should be and a bit of mystical insight might not go amiss... might just give context to the worldly activities...
"There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all"
~ Peter Drucker (1909 - 2005)
It's the Isa Upanishad. I agree with your interpretation, broadly speaking, but ...
The Indian tradition assumes that when a householder withdraws from the world, he or she has discharged all responsibilities - the next generation are ready to take this up. The more mundane aspects of discipline are not an alternative to the higher or more esoteric - they are its foundation.
Dr Roles did, as it happened, get to meet His Holiness. But he had refused to compromise his integrity to do it.
So when someone offers you a choice between spiritual advancement and your responsibilities, go with the responsibilities. Then you can have the spiritual advancement.
Speaking from .... experience, if I have neglected a duty, or a promise, in order to gain something else, especially if this is a personal gain (although really it doesn't seem to make much difference what kind of gain it is) then there's a shadow.
It's not immediately obvious what kind of shadow it is. But it always has the same sound to it - regret and unease.
Everybody seems to suffer the same shadow in this situation.
So Dr Roles was actually looking after his own best interests.
But he was also ensuring, by keeping his appointment back in London, that everyone else was looked after.
I can only think of a couple of occasions in School life when I should have dumped the duty and gone for what I wanted.
Maybe though it would be better to detach this from "School duty". We are all big enough to know for ourselves what duty is. A lot of problems in the past have come from that being ignored.
That is so. Conflicts have come not so much from duty being opposed by 'something for me', but rather by 'School duty' being seen as always taking precedence. We've been over this ground before but it's worth another look from time to time as it's more subtle than is at first obvious.
I just watched the 'making of' film last night, and the director was delighted to say that the word "dude" was not spoken anywhere in the film. I stand corrected.
It really is one of the best things I've seen. Highly recommended.
Also recommended is Miss Garnet's Angel by Salley Vickers. Been out six years now but I've only just read it. Miss Garnet - newly retired from teaching - has a long holiday in Venice. During this sojourn her carapace of thoughts, ideas and identity begins to dissolve. A parallel story from the Apocrypha mirrors her own. Illuminating, insightful, delightful and beautifully written.
Salley Vickers's more recent novel, Mr Golightly's Holiday, promises well. Already a gorse bush has told one of the characters, 'I am love', sending her into a spin of depression as the gorse bush then enjoined her to tell it.
No, it's not whimsical, the author's gift is an imaginative spaciousness. she touches the ground but very lightly.
Mr Golightly gets better and better... it almost becomes a detective story as Mr G reveals all(and not lightly said either).
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