This was sent to me by a former member, and I quote it with permission. The correspondent notes that since departing the School some of the items have been 'ticked'. What do you think of these suggestions? Do you have any of your own?
1. Groups meet less often - say, once a month. This makes them better valued, less taken for granted.
2. All attendance voluntary, with the proviso that if a commitment has been made to perform a service, it must be kept, for an agreed limited period which can be renewed as necessary.
3. Groups sit in a circle, with 'tutor' not set apart.
4. Students take it in turns to occupy the tutor position.
5. Abolish dress code!
6. Everyone to be thanked regularly and sincerely for a) attending the group, b) serving, c) anything else that seems appropriate.
7. De-segregate men and women. (Perhaps have occasional separate meetings to talk about boy things/girly things.) Appoint at least some female stream-heads!
8. Weekends. Each group to have one per year. For the second one, a list of weekend dates to be published, so that people could sign up for the one they would like to attend. Possibly the weekends could have a pre-arranged theme, so people could choose. Also publish the name of the person (stream-head) who would be conducting the weekend. Early birds get the popular weekends.
9. As a consequence of 8, everyone gets a chance to sample different stream-heads. They could then be given the opportunity to opt to become a student in a particular stream (subject to numbers not getting too great). (Rationale: it is normal for people to find a teacher, then decide if that teacher is the right one for them. The School just tells you: this is your tutor, this is your stream, these are your duties. This does not respect people's integrity and equality.)
10. Donald Lambie and the stream heads visit other teachers, not to become students or followers, but to learn from their methods and styles of presenting, and possibly to get fresh inspiration.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
A Personal Wish-List for the School
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12 comments:
I should add that point 3 - sitting in a circle - is meant to apply to senior groups only. This came out in subsequent discussion. I suppose this might apply to point 4 as well.
There's a large plug of resentment here which can't be tackled by limiting this or that.
It's inspiration which needs to be addressed, rather than locking in limits.
So I would turn the question round and ask, 'What needs to be offered so that people feel willing - indeed, enthusiastic - about engaging in this work?'
En route, the difficulties may be more easily dissolved. The suggestions given here - and the tone in which they are given -would only harden positions. Having said that, there are some useful pointers in the post.
What comes across in the post is a sense of being put upon, a feeling that 'they' are making 'us' do something we don't want to do. In those circumstances, if no light dawns, an individual will only put up with so much before leaving a situation which appears narrow and circumscribed.
The leadership may well feel that the individual is at fault here and has allowed the ahankara to blot out their true purpose.
However, there is much that the School can do to dissolve restrictions without diminishing the force of the teaching. There is no absolute rule, for example, that says that weekly group meetings are the best way to follow the path or to become liberated.
So each School practice could be looked at to see if it was 'fit for purpose'.
Does it do the job? Does it give scope for a broader field of vision? Or do we do it this way because we always have? Is there a quicker way? Do we give the individual a regular shot of bliss?
In a wider sense it might be valuable to assess where the School is strongest and where weakest? This will require a degree of detachment which isn't always evident.
We all want more and better - but what are we prepared to give?
Laura said:
So I would turn the question round and ask, 'What needs to be offered so that people feel willing - indeed, enthusiastic - about engaging in this work?'
I agree with much of what you say in this post Laura but I’m not sure what you’re suggesting above? There is plenty of work that goes in to trying to inspire people, certainly in the level I attend. But doesn’t ‘inspire’ imply coming from within? I think ‘they ought to inspire us’ is an extension of the same kind of thinking as ‘they’re making us do something we don’t want to’. At bottom line, do we not all need to take responsibility? Waiting upon someone else to inspire us might increase the passivity even further.
I just think we each need to follow the advice of Mr. Einstein (posted below as requested) and enquire. We need to discover what our real question is and follow it. Ask our tutors, read the books, watch out in our lives and don’t accept any partial answers.
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvellous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity."
Laura asks, 'Do we give the individual a regular shot of bliss?' Isn't bliss supposed to be the final obstacle - anandamaya kosha? I'd suggest what is needed is a regular experience of silence - or total stillness - which may indeed be blissful, but it goes deeper than that. So I would add to the list of suggestions - "More silence". And possibly "less talk".
Laura,
I'm not sure I agree with your analysis of the 'bhavana' or emotional tone of the wish-list. I would say that if you consider each of these suggestions, you will find that it represents a practical action reflecting the removal of obstacles.
EG - dress code has been abolished, removing the obstacle of 'cult-like' appearance and softening the emphasis on obedience (especially for women), clearing the way for more reasonable conversation.
Personally I would give my vote to most of these suggestions, at least for senior people - after 3 years. Earlier on, I think people do need regular weekly classes and close attention.
I wasn't clear enough. (Isn't it difficult to give a full, rather than a partial, answer?)
I do actually believe that we are given bliss - as a gift. Yes, we may earn it but it's not a wage packet. The most we can do is to create propitious conditions to receive it. It may be the final obstacle but we can't, I'd suggest, do without it at this stage.
A little bliss every day Keeps us on the narrow way.
So that, instead of School work becoming an imposition, it is gratefully received. And available to everyone. May all be happy....
All our discussions have been of this nature, have tended towards this end. Is the School, in its current form and with its current practices, the best vehicle? What obstacles - within reason - may be examined and then dissolved?
I don't regard the wish-list - as it stands - as a list I'd want to pursue because, being limited, it will only generate further limitations.
I could add my own - a bit more sleep, please, on residentials. Really, I can't do with less than six hours, and neither can others if the nodding heads in meditation are anything to go by. Mr Maclaren apparently asked HH why people fell asleep in meditation. 'Perhaps they are tired,' came the helpful answer, but this insight has not been drawn to its logical conclusion, presumably because another idea has precedence.
However, in looking at this obstacle, I have to ask the question: 'What is most conducive to a good experience?' If I have five hours' sleep I spend much time when awake in fending off sleep. Is this the nature of the exercise? If not, then we need to look at it again, and not because it's inconvenient for me.
That's what I mean by turning the question round.
To give a parallel experience which shed a little light. Last weekend I spent two days singing Gregorian chant in Cambridge. I started by feeling I didn't want to be there (although I'd volunteered, not a whisper of coercion), worked through that, and on into a sense of unity and, yes, a little bliss.
So the process of dissolving resistance isn't particular to the School.
Incidentally, a week later the cadences, music, sound of the voice and words are still rising unbidden in mind. This leads me to suspect that, if you want knowledge to penetrate, you may have to chant it. There's a long tradition behind this.
We had a similar discussion once before and this same suggestion fell at the fence of religion. Well, now I would say that 'chant' is the key to certain kinds of knowledge such as are contained in the sutras. By singing, the knowledge penetrates in a way it wouldn't otherwise. And that means singing for hour on hour, not a miserly little snatch now and again. It has to be given a chance to work.
So, if we feel hemmed in by School practices, we have to look at how we can expand into this work rather than contract. That's why we need to turn the question round.
Laura said:
This leads me to suspect that, if you want knowledge to penetrate, you may have to chant it. There's a long tradition behind this...And that means singing for hour on hour, not a miserly little snatch now and again.
Completely agree. This and anonymous' suggestion for more silence. Allow deep penetration of the knowledge into the being. I sometimes feel we avoid 'devotional' practices in order to keep the 'rational businessman' types happy? I can appreciate that people arriving at the school for the first time could be 'freaked out' by chanting, but why not on residentials in the way you suggest?
For clarification, the call for enquiry from my earlier post does not imply argumentativeness but the pursuit of the REAL question.
What I found with the chant is that the practice of it eventually floods the being, albeit within a precise and well-formulated system of divine tamas. So there is no room for anything else.
In effect, the silences are short and also very measured. This is brilliant because it allows no hospitality for wandering thoughts. The attention simply cannot wander otherwise the next thing will be a clatter of wrong notes.
There's also a sweep and shape to the whole chant. No concessions are made to ignorance. If you get it wrong during practice at any point you don't bother to go back - unless it's a major fault. The chant goes on, quickly and steadily. This is very refreshing.
I thought I'd spend a few minutes actually addressing the various points raised in the original post - but with the proviso that, whatever changes are suggested, they should tend towards expansion of the consciousness, rather than introduce new limits.
The only one that evokes an immediate 'yes' is the last. Where would we be if Dr Roles had not come across a merry-faced, twinkly-eyed Indian with long hair and a hippy following in the 1960s? Yes, the Maharishi, no less, and a contact with Sri Santananda Saraswati. Tell that to the men in suits. It was very cutting edge at the time.
We could probably all benefit by hearing as many live teachers as we can - with a view to bringing their honey back to the hive rather than by setting up a swarm away from it. By the nature of things the School leadership would probably have the most effect by exploring these avenues.
The other suggestions have in common a release from 'coercion'. Whether it's true or false, this has to be examined, not least because it's a widespread perception. In my experience, at any rate, coercion is the flip side of the commitment coin.
What bugs you? Does the School have an ahankara? If so, how could that be changed to give a freer experience without imperilling the necessary order of any organisation?
Do we need yet another meeting?
It's not so much whether or not these questions can be satisfactorily answered straight off, it's more a matter of looking at everything to see if it can be done better. Why assume that group night, study days, residential weekends and weeks away are a given? They don't have to be. Neither does the programme on offer.
Nobody wants to throw out the baby with the bathwater but the bathwater gets cold from time to time and needs to be reinvigorated. This is not a criticism, it's just a natural process.
There are some interesting approaches and techniques being developed for the first year. Intelligence and creativity is going into making a fresher, more engaging and worthwhile offering.
If the first year are worth it - why not us?
There are different issues for the first year, for the years immediately following that, and for established senior people, and I agree that the senior people deserve this kind of consideration.
To continue with the wish-list...
Some of the most interesting learning and exploratory and expanding techniques may be found in the business or psychological world or its offshoots - such as Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. We could look at the best that the management colleges offer - they really know, for example, how to challenge existing perceptions in ways which people find liberating.
The School has taught in more or less the same way for the last fifty years. It must be time to open the door to fresher methods. Much has been discovered since that time - let's make use of it.
In Part 1 a few terms ago the tutor asked everyone to introduce themselves to their neighbour and then take a couple of minutes telling him or her what had been observed during the week. Revolutionary! A simple technique but effective.
On occasions - when it comes to method - it's a matter of ringing the changes. Keep the continuity but change the clothes from time to time. That's what I would like to see.
As I mentioned in an earlier comment on this post, let's look at all School practices - from first year to senior levels - and all assumptions. Are the practices fit for purpose?
What are they for? Are they effective? If they're lacking or have become anaemic over the years what else would be better?
What could be learnt from other organisations? For example, the Gurdjieff Society teaches the Movements. So did the Study Society at one time. Why not the School? As an exercise in one-pointed attention it's unparallelled. Get everyone off their chairs of an evening and we've got a hall big enough for it.
We shouldn't be afraid to experiment.
In refernce to the original posting it always puzzles me as to where the resistance comes from in regards to the dress code. However the idea of only one weekend per year does sound attractive.
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