We've covered much ground in the last nine months on this blog but I wondered today why we're doing this? It's interesting, it's alive, it's often clarifying and educating - but what's it for, other than for our own edification? Do we need an aim or is the blog sufficient unto itself? It could be that, each in our hearts, we hold a desire for the outcome of the blog about which we haven't yet spoken.
All new projects need space to find a voice - is it now time to gather ourselves together to put forward a programme? Or, if that's too definite an article, then to explore themes of renewal and recovery within the applied context of the School? We've asked many questions (there will be more to come)but are we ready to come up with some answers? These may be provisional - this is, after all, a work in progress. But at the moment our ideas and observations are scattered in various sections of the blog and have no real force.
We would need to specify the foundation stone of the work - this could be HH's words. Then the task would be to construct on that foundation.
Much as I value the blog (and its creator)I do also seek an outcome for it.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Better to travel hopefully...?
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13 comments:
Dear Laura,
These are good points but, speaking for myself, I think any ‘programme’ should develop in response to events, through a process of natural evolution and converging agreement.
I would not rule out, however, a meeting of fellow bloggers to this site, at a pub maybe, or at someone’s house. I would be pleased to offer my own tiny cottage for such a purpose, and would love to put faces to the voices I so regularly hear these days.
This site is indeed a revolutionary development in the School, thanks to Kevin, and the only forum remotely likely to trigger the necessary jump forward that the School needs to bring it to life and confirm its survival.
But how many people actually read it? Whenever I mention it to my many School friends and acquaintances very little interest is shown and the subject is quickly changed. They neither know nor wish to know about it. It is as though they had already made their choices.
I am driven to the conclusion that they don’t want to think for themselves. The School authorities of the day will do their thinking for them and all that is necessary is to stay on the bus.
Thus there are few independent thinkers left. Either their powers of thought have atrophied through lack of use, or they have left, saddened at not being listened to. After all, weren’t the orders of procedure established and carved in stone by the previous Leader all those many years ago? And he, as we remember so well, could abide no open discussion or deviation from his divinely inspired directives.
We fellow heretics get used to finding each other and sitting in dark corners so that our mumblings of dissatisfaction are not heard. Such general complacency proves the ancient adage, ‘A School gets the progress it is willing to work for’.
The old-guard who retain such a tight hold on things probably tell themselves that they slogged away at Stanhill Court in their youth, and now that they have custody of ‘the Truth’ all they have to do is keep things in the old order and fawn when the present Leader comes in.
As for the rest, they should please sit down and not disturb the bus, which will safely deposit them at the Promised Land when we arrive. There’s a funny thing though, has anyone heard the sound of an engine recently?
For my part, I don't feel any great impetus to do anything extra right now. This might be because I've got so much on my plate right now - mainly writing and delivering talks - that I don't have much extra energy.
Giving to the School is different from receiving from it, in that one has a lot more freedom to do things as one sees fit. Group evenings are not my favourite activity, but apart from that the organization is providing a lot of opportunities at the moment for me personally.
What I would wish is for everyone to have that same experience. There is a long way to go before that happens, but there is a great deal of experimentation going on at the moment - at least in the I and M streams, which mainly represent the younger element in London. We had a study day yesterday which consisted of talks presented by students in those streams. People could choose two of six.
What was so exciting, I think, was that people were given the choice of what to attend (acknowledging their individual autonomy); the speakers were free to choose what to speak on, and how (ditto); that we got to meet people from a different stream; and that some of the ideas that came out were fresh, and different to what would have been heard from those who fought their internal philosophical battles 25 years ago.
It felt like a living example of the "surrender to reason" that Mr MacLaren spoke about as the next stage of the School (the first is "surrender to the Absolute").
I was pretty nervous about having to present one of the sessions, which I decided to do on Teilhard de Chardin and the Evolution of Consciousness, but it went very well. I felt that the conversation got right down into the roots of our most cherished ideas about change and eternity, and held it all up to question.
What I was thinking is that the time and energy spent on discussions about, for example, science and creation, might be diverted into moving a 'programme' into being. Nothing overly definitive, exploratory still, the map might only stretch to the next stage.
K - your description of your study day yesterday is most encouraging.
We shouldn't think that because so few people take any interest in this blog it has no effect. I wouldn't want to give ourselves airs and graces, but I'm of the view that no attention, energy or intelligence is ever wasted.
Laura
I think I would tend to agree with you, although I notice that even the bloggers do tend to get wobbly when a practical programme is proposed!
For everyone's information, January has had more visits than any other month so far - over 600. Many of those are of course the main contributors, but there are a lot of people looking on.
I am happy to explore and question. I don't make any claims to know how things should move forward. If there's anything good that arises from these conversations then I hope it is taken up and used. But I think the means are the end in this instance. It is more the 'process' of questioning and exploration that has the potential to bring the study to life. This isn't an answer or an outcome, unless the outcome is to encourage a bit more freedom to explore.
I think it would be unfair if recent changes in the organisation were not recognised (eg, M & I study day as mentioned by Kevin). And I for one don't want to present something that might look like a list of trade union demands.
Over time here, I have been increasingly reluctant to make specific reference to the school. I appreciate this may be seen as diverting from the blog's purpose. But I find it increasingly difficult to say 'the school is like this', 'the school is like that'. For every observation that would appear 'accurate' I can see many exceptions. There is a danger of becoming fixated with a particular selection of observations and generalising from this. I suspect it is 'freedom' for all of us to step out of these generalising tendencies and despite what has gone before, come back to trying to meet individuals and the school "as if for the first time". Isn't it through this that the creative intelligence will arise? In the particulars of the situation?
Kapila,
I agree with you about the questioning being important. That is a skill we all need to develop.
As for 'how the School is', I personally don't see it as an ever-shifting kaleidoscope preventing us from meaningful comment.
I would say that 'living in the present' and meeting people and situations for the first time is not necessarily exclusive of clear-eyed analysis.
The reason this blog was started was a frustration that it was not possible to talk constructively or at any length about the School and its relation to the truth and the tradition. Part of that is understanding the School, part staying in the present and being aware, and the largest part is probably understanding the tradition itself.
I think that the biggest barrier we face is the emotional load of fear that comes up when one wants to question anything about how things are. We are well accustomed to obedience and it might seem as if we are chucking out junior with the bathwater. Even if we're not.
That's why - I think - so few people feel brave enough to participate.
I would reiterate something I said before (and which you've recently mentioned again) about the importance of courage to spiritual work. It is the first virtue.
That reminds me of JFK saying we have nothing to fear but fear itself. Ole!
In the early parts of the School students have been recently asked to say what they've found most important in the last year. Entirely voluntary - they can write it down, if they wish, and hand it in.
One lady handed me a closely typed page this evening. She's a returnee so is perhaps labouring in the shadow of past experiences but, nevertheless, I understood what she meant when she said that both Church and School require a 'correctness'.
Obstacles may, of course, be manufactured by the individual like shadow boxing, but is it too much to say that, if the individual experiences a School limitation, that is unhelpful?
So, yes, we do need to look at it. The School has a culture, a social structure, norms and practices which, as a package, are substantial. The trick is to keep confidence in the teaching while, at the same time, offering a freedom rarely found elsewhere.
And, yes, the great bug-a-boo is fear. Love is the best remedy for fear so perhaps we might show more love.
Dear Kevin, regarding the 600 visitors per month estimate (I know its not quite the end of the month, but anyway): I visit this site two or three times a day which makes about eighty times a month, so it only takes about about ten like me to make up your present total. Maybe there are not many people who use the net as often as I do, but...
Son of Moses,
I realise that, and probably half of the visits are from what we might tongue in cheek designate the "Big Four". Still, 300 a month from others (most of whom are not chance discoveries) is significant. I do know of several senior people who read it.
Kevin said:
"I think that the biggest barrier we face is the emotional load of fear that comes up when one wants to question anything about how things are."
I think the issues that make me reluctant to comment on some things are:
- not wanting to criticise individuals. This makes it difficult to talk about some issues, as actual observations cannot be used. There was a recent issue regarding nit-picking advice that I’d like to explore as it seems to be quite commonplace. But it’s difficult to give details without pointing the finger. Broadly, this relates to when tutors feel they need to intervene in the most trivial decisions and details of your life with an undercurrent of ‘you’re wrong’. And this when you’ve just come to a solution that appears to work. Then the ‘advice’ just throws everything back into doubt again. These interventions feel rather like the Maharishi’s metaphor of watering the leaves rather than the root. Leave the leaves alone. Too much tampering is likely to result in a straggly, lop-sided plant if it isn’t killed completely. The plant needs light, water, nutrients – not constant nit-picking intervention.
- sifting ‘pure’ observation from my own projections. There is an excerpt by SRM where he says (I paraphrase), "(A particular saint) went to the temple and saw everyone there as an embodiment of Shiva because he himself was so...Duryodhana could not see one single good man in the whole world. Each sees the world only according to his own self". I believe there is a real danger here and it is a constant process of untangling my own projections. Also seeing how we appear to attract certain situations to ourselves. I relate this to the first example. Do I attract this? Why do I tolerate it? Is it just cowardice that makes me bring it up here rather than confront the individual? All this biases what we might think is objectivity.
It's not necessary to know everything before making a step. Like the analogy of the man with a lamp, it's enough to have a little light.
Criticism of individuals isn't on my menu. We can say what we are for, and what we find liberating and fulfilling, without pointing a finger. Take the bigger picture as it were.
Kapila,
I can really recognise what you are saying about tutorial interference. Maybe one way around the criticism issue is to note that this is something most tutors do too much of. Why? Not because they are bad people, but because the culture encourages them to believe that this is how it is done.
Or put another way, we don't quite have good company. This of course afflicts all of us - I am not making a separation between "them" and "us". It's just that the tutor is the agent in this scenario.
I believe that part of the Ouspensky tradition was that the tutor's job is to identify the student's particular problem which is holding them back, and draw it out to the light. The problem with this in practice is that few enough tutors have the wisdom to spot this unerringly, the skill to draw it out without unnecessary pain, or the strength of character not to be corrupted by such a position of power.
I am trying to adopt an attitude of "this too shall pass", when I'm a student.
I can feel a Jaiswal quote coming on: "You don't have any doubt. People give you doubt. If you don't have the real good company, then you will have doubt. Doubt is one question, two answers."
Kevin quotes Mr.J:
"Doubt is one question, two answers."
Yes, brilliant....and humorous.
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