I heard recently about a new initiative, which is for the School, in co-operation with a number of similar organizations, to promote meditation as a part of daily life.
When I heard about this my immediate response was not "wow, that's fantastic" but "OK, now we're doing what we should". We are not going to transform the School by action, but since we are all bound to act, it makes a great difference what actions we engage in. Would others agree with me that this is the kind of thing we should be doing?
For me, an important issue is that we ought to be capable of giving more than people who are not actively involved in spiritual work.
Development, according to His Holiness, depends upon having more energy available than we need to live our lives. If our lives (including duties) are so exhausting, then we really aren't living properly. If we have nothing to spare for others outside School, we've forgotten the point. Do we expend all our efforts on School duties and on raising the funds to send our children to The Right School? Or is the School the "backstage" that enables us to perform our parts much more brilliantly than we might otherwise do?
There is no possible contradiction between philosophy and an expansive life that is of service to the entire community. Or is there?
Incidentally, if there are many more initiatives such as this (AND if the results are not claimed by the School, as so often) will we need this blog?
Monday, February 26, 2007
Developments
Friday, February 23, 2007
Service?
As usual, this is posed as a question for discussion, not a conclusion:
I remember several years ago a lady in the group I was in at the time speak about her plans for the Xmas break. She was intending, for the first time, to go away and leave the husband and ‘kids’ (I think they were fairly grown up) to fend for themselves. The tutor questioned this line of action, whether it was for ‘me’ or whether it was service. The argument of the lady in question was, ‘Well they’re going to have to learn to look after themselves sometime’.
So… is there a danger of weakening someone else through ‘service’? If a mother always does everything for her children will they grow up unable to cook or tie their own shoelaces? Or perhaps worse, grow up with no inclination to learn how to cook or tie their own shoelaces? Is there another kind of service that may not necessarily respond to the immediate need but has in mind the long term need for independence? ... click "Read more"
To step away from the metaphor and speak more directly about tutors and students (both on the giving and receiving end): I question whether there are two kinds of help:
- that which confirms and supports the inner knowledge
- someone ‘trying’ to help
The former is experienced as freeing and strengthens trust in oneself. The latter is an identity, and ahankara is hiding within it, protecting itself. Therefore it’s raison d’etre will presumably involve keeping someone else dependant so that it can maintain this? And presumably maximise the acquisition of it’s punya points?
To paraphrase an old college teacher of mine:
“The goal of a teacher is to make himself redundant.” or
"The true Guru …knows you need nothing, not even him, and is never tired of reminding you."
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
Saturday, February 17, 2007
The Lost SES Tenet...
Had to laugh. I bought some green tea from Sainsburys today and there is a quote on the side of the packet:
"A man without tea in him is incapable of understanding truth and beauty."
~ Japanese Proverb
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Falling sand and the yugas
The Oldie (the acme of life from the cradle to the grave, 'buy it before you snuff it'), anyway, where was I? Yes, the Oldie emailed me with the falling sand game. It seems that in Oldie Towers business was well interrupted by this interactive game of life and, yes, death.... The sands of time ....
http://fallingsandgame.com/sand/index.html.
Why include it here, what's it got to do with philosophy? Well, play it and see. One tip is to start by using the 'wall' (all options are displayed at the bottom). If you're like me you'll want to 'save' the elements, then mould them and then, when the screen resembles a Jackson Pollock painting, you'll want out, and that's when the wheel of life and death starts turning....
There's a hell option in case you haven't had enough.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Response Ability
When I first started in the school x years ago I understood the practises as they were explained to me and as I connected with them as follows:
In the midst of our everyday lives, practise being present, listening, being honest, unselfish etc: and this practise will transform the immediate situation, for ourselves and for others we are in contact with. It was experienced and known to be true. There was no requirement to change your job or get involved in politics, social reform etc. But as time has passed there seems to be a continuing 'pressure' towards 'involvement' in these areas. I am not a lawyer, or a politician, or an economist. I have written to my MP three times. The response to the last of these made it clear to me that I didn’t sufficiently understand the issues involved and was beginning to dabble, through a misplaced sense of duty in areas I should keep out of. Does not the Gita say:
“Better by far to do your own duty, however bereft of merit, than another's duty well performed; better is death in the discharge of one's duty, another's duty is fraught with danger." [Ch3, V35]
It is known, that as far as various forms of activism are concerned, I should act when I feel genuinely moved to do so and I am sufficiently informed. Not act because I feel the weight of a continual overt or covert accusation that I am “doing nothing”. ... click "Read more"
When I understand that my responsibility is to practise within the midst of my everyday life, not try to change anything but just be present and honest; things are considerably simpler. As Jesus said in the Gospel of Thomas:
"When two make peace with each other in the same house, they will say to the mountain, 'Move !' and it will move."
I have seen situations transform through this: with 'decades old' feuds within my family; with getting to a point of mutual cooperation with a previously difficult individual at work; with getting beyond frustration with a member of my group to experiencing some genuine affection. This is the work, as far as I’m concerned and it may just 'move mountains' in a way that misinformed activism wont. The constant covert accusation of "doing nothing" coming from some directions is false and unjust. It’s result is perpetual stress between the ‘as is’ and ‘the ideal’ and magnification of the 'doer'.
I am not cynical or indifferent to the more practically inclined amongst us. I wish you every success in your endeavours. I support this in various ways, when I am moved to do so. Quite often, believe it or not, without any impulse from the school. But this comes back to ‘dignity of difference’. With reference to the group member alluded to above I can see that someone else has a different inclination to myself. They are devoted to practical action, I feel I am naturally more contemplative. If we can begin to see this and allow the other the space to be themselves, to be of service according to their temperament without saying "you are wrong, I am right”, then I think we can move together in our various ways. We are of optimum service when allowing our natural tendencies towards good to flow unhindered. Conversely, interference is ‘fraught with danger’. It causes people to forget who they are.
'The roads are different, the goal is one ... When people come there, all quarrels or differences or disputes that happen along the road are resolved. Those who shouted at each other along the road "You are wrong" or "You are an unbeliever" forget their differences when they come there because there, all hearts are in unison.' ~ Rumi
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Nothing
I had a strange dream just before waking this morning.
I was at a School function of some kind, and I met someone I know - let's call him M. (He is, I think, the happiest person I've ever met. He's always full of energy and enthusiasm; he's always delighted to meet you; I think his experience of the world is what my own might be one day, if the medicine works. He's not in School. It seems to be just the way he is.)
In my dream, however, I could hardly recognise him. He was wearing a conservative dark blue suit and tie, he looked frightened, and uncertain of what to do. What I knew, as I woke, was that M had forgotten himself because he had spent time in School.
Well, it was just a dream. Even so, I think it reflects something that I've felt for a long time. The School as it is raises some people up, because it's relatively better than what they know. There are others, however, who already know something better, and for them the School is relatively bad company. What we do is teach people about duty and obedience. This is helpful to many, but there are others for whom duty is the bedrock of their existence - but far from the whole of it. For them, "there is no time to attend a School, or to do duties" (Conversations, 1965).
This is not to say we are all wasting our time: not at all; but it is time we made an honest, unsentimental assessment of how far we need to go. We're not going to improve things by magic; nor are we going to do it by effort. We need to start being intelligent. Not intellectual, just reasonable. We need to start giving something better, so that the best people are attracted. This isn't a marketing issue: we need them.
There's another man I know who has something of M's quality - again, not in the School, as it happens. He's been fairly successful in life. I heard a story about how he was accosted by a mean old lady, who spat at him, "I knew you when you were nothing!"
He paused for a moment, and said to her quite calmly, "And I knew you before you were nothing".
Friday, February 09, 2007
Noticeboard
Members - please edit this post to add new events and announcements at the top of the page. Please date your entries and make sure to include all details. K.
1st May
Why We All Have a Novel In Us (And What To Do About It). Talk by Kevin Burns at the Catalyst Club in Brighton, Thursday May 10th.
Two further talks in the series "A History of Me" will be held on 9th and 30th June in Brighton.
-K.
The Trap- What Happened to our Dream of Freedom? is a 3-part documentary by Adam Curtis. The first episode (summarised in the Wikipedia entry linked here) was on Sunday 11th March. The others will be broadcast at 9PM on the coming Sundays. I think the next episode is going to be about Clinton, Blair and Focus Groups. - K.
The Ramayana opens at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith from this evening until 10 March. I'll be in a position to give a review tomorrow, if anyone wishes.
The Mahabharata is playing at 3.00pm on Sunday afternoons on Radio 4. The 2nd part is this coming Sunday.
I had a lively start to this morning with the weekly Ancient Greek Club at Godolphin and Latymer Girls School. Starting at 8.a.m with a continental breakfast (£1) in the staff-room, we quickly moved on to Oedipus, the Riddle of the Sphinx and the measure between human action and the will of the gods. A tragedy, as we all know. Next week it's Frederic Raphael on Democracy and Drama. No charge.
If anyone is free next Friday in Hammersmith, and would like to attend, just send me an email. The classics teacher also teaches ancient Greek before school on three mornings a week but the Friday cultural session is in English.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
What is the project of our society? Has it one? Does it need one? If so, from where would it come?
Ours used to be a Christian society. As such its ultimate aim was to serve God and follow the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Many, perhaps most, people nowadays have abandoned such an understanding of life’s purpose, and indeed in former ages it was often followed in rigid and limited ways. As a society we nowadays tend to concern ourselves instead with the pursuit of such secondary aims as technological advance, material prosperity and (generally) low level entertainment. With the general mind thus pre-occupied the very question of an ultimate aim is often forgotten.
There is no space here to trace the process by which this change has taken place. I believe this is part of what Kevin has been lecturing on, and I hope that in due course he might share his discoveries with those of us who live far from Brighton (in fact, I wonder if this blog could have a facility whereby fuller submissions might be filed, such as his talks. This would not be too difficult to rig up, would it?).
Over the last three or four centuries ‘Enlightenment’ values have removed religion from its central place in society’s agenda, and replaced it with such endeavours as a quest for secular knowledge as revealed by science. ... click "Read more"
Under the heady influence of this new knowledge, men began to dream of an earthly paradise to be attained through the destruction of inhibiting tradition and by political revolution. The obvious failure of this project, however, by the end of the twentieth century, has left the West somewhat demoralized and uncertain as to how to proceed.
Now before Laura berates me further, I know there have been incredible advances over the last few centuries in areas such as free enquiry etc., without which we would never have been able to hear the teachings of the East etc. So I am not just looking back to a rose-tinted past, but just as much towards a fresh and exciting future.
All this is by way of prelude to a question which I believe avoids the dismal view of history so irritating to K and L, and can therefore be addressed by all of us.
Is it possible for our ‘liberated’ age, or for that matter any other age, to find stability and direction in any other way than through reference to a ‘sacred order’ of some sort?
And, necessarily following on from this: if it is not possible so to find stability, and I think we would probably all agree to some version of such a view, from where would such a vision of ‘sacred order’ come, and, having ascertained such a vision, how could people be enticed to entrust their faith and hope in it?
I only add a few notes on the wording of the main question.
Liberated: this has its positive and negative aspects. We have indeed been liberated from stifling dogma, but also liberated to some degree into a state of rootless individuality.
Stability: traditional forms are rapidly dissolving. Pertinent to the above question, I believe, is an examination into what new social forms can be found that would offer such social goods as; 1) continuity, 2) freedom for personal development and self-discovery, 3) protection for the deprived and ‘challenged', 4) mitigation of crime, 5) protection from malevolent foes, 6) a suitable education (geared among other things to the preservation of the new values), and 7) a measure of prosperity.
Sacred order: this would be a vision having the authority that can only be invested by a higher source, whether this be a faculty of reason in each of us, an embodiment in spiritual teachers, or, as has so often been the case throughout history, a form of sacred words revered and accepted by all.
What are your thoughts on all this?
Read more
School Confidential
A recent conversation among four students, average years in School 20-ish, revealed that none of them were aware of the School's confidentiality policy.
Message to Fellow "Old Bloggers"
You may have noticed that our list of members on the right has shrunk! 
Google has taken over Blogger.com, which means that all blog members will have to create a Google account, replacing the old sign-in. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause. I've put it off as long as possible, but they forced my hand. I've just done this and it was very straightforward.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
A mounting threat to those who would think for themselves (and not just within the School!)
We live at present in a mix of cultures. Perhaps, for the sake of discussion, I could sketch out some of these and see if there could be any possible resolution of views or a unifying principle among them, or whether, as seems the case to me, it must eventually come to a fight to the death.
I identify the following main divisions in our society:
1) The Quiet-Lifers (QLs). They live shallow lives. They go along with whatever the media and changing social norms direct, perhaps gently complaining, but docile and happy as long as they are left alone to waste their lives in trivia and comfortable enjoyment. Perhaps these are the majority. If extremists take over they will comply.
If they are English natives they will be happy as long as they have casinos, Big Brother, YouTube, and Macdonalds’ fries. If they are of a higher social band they have cricket, Big Brother, serial marriage, and Ciabatta.
If they are Muslim they will adopt the Jihadist approach if that’s the way the wind begins to blow and the direction the majority of their fellow religionists is apparently moving.
Such were Hitler’s willing executioners.
The question arises as to how you educate people not to think in this way.
2) The Rampant Cultural Corrupters (RCCs). We saw them at work last week, trying, successfully it seems, to force the Roman Catholic church to deliver children into the hands of same-sex couples. These are the aspiring thought-police. Trained in the methods of Gramschi as promulgated nowadays by cultural study and political correctness induction courses at every institute of further education (this term is beginning to look sinister) in the land, they see it as their moral duty to bring our errant thoughts into line... click "Read more"
As the views of Dawkins and the militant atheists take hold, such people will wish to close down the School and all other such avenues of spiritual and religious thought. Well, not immediately, but Dawkins is publicly expressing horror at the fact that parents are still able to indoctrinate their children with the God meme. And his book is selling like wildfire.
The RCC lobby is serious. They hunt in packs and have begun to scent blood. Once they get into full frontal power, they will have at their disposal CCTV cameras and personal files on each of us. An ID card system is being set up even as we speak.
If you think I am off my head and lost in conspiracy theories, ask yourself whether even five years ago you could have imagined the state trying to tell the church what it must believe.
These people are on a mission, and things are definitely going their way. Decades ago they established the infrastructure with which to institute their aims, and they set it up efficiently and successfully.
Compared with these people, the School, which has had some inkling of the threat since the sixties, has slept.
2) Devout Christians, Jews etc. (DCJs). Sincere and concerned, these are the only people with sufficient conviction to stand up to the RCC lobby. As always they are in a small minority. Even in its heyday the Church was mainly comprised of QLs since that was the way the wind was blowing just then.
3) New Spiritual Seekers (NSSs). There are many, many such movements, but all separate. We are one of them. I believe that such people have the potential to formulate a new way of life based on spiritual truth and leading to true and substantial happiness and social stability. Nonetheless, as we see with our own institution, such people tend to be complacent and incapable of showing solidarity with other such movements so as to stand united against a common foe.
4) Islam. Demographically the fastest growing segment of European society. These are spiritually committed people (albeit often holding to primitive and crude versions of their creed) with all that that means in terms of power and persistence. Eventually, it seems to me, it will come down to a battle between them and the RCCs. I believe that Islam will win, but either way, this will mark the end of independent thought in Europe.
Have I missed any major sector of society out? No doubt you think I am way over-larding. Say why, but note that if I am even half right, the future of independent thought is at real risk.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
A Jeremiad prompted by the ideas of Philip Rieff
NOTE: This post is being written prior to delivery of the new and posthumous ‘My Life Among the Deathworks’. See review by Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn.
What I here report offers a contrasting view to the Teilhardian. Personally, I take no sides, seeing the possible validity of both views and believing in a benign destiny for all, though how soon this is arrived at must depend on our own efforts and use of reason.
Rieff calls our times the age of therapeutic man.
The two previous ages have been the age of fate and, following this, the age of faith. In the former, man’s actions were governed by the mythic whims of the gods, in the latter by the moral code of Judeo-Christianity. In each case these views were the common backdrop of human life rather than the conscious decision of any single person.
In this third age we have been released by Freud and his followers from all superstition and are now well into an era which seeks only personal happiness. This unfettered pursuit, as we see, can lead only to a descent into barren nihilism. Our backdrop is now ‘I will do as I please’. ... click "Read More"
If we recognize any veracity in Rieff's views and are serious, really serious, about the signs of the times we live in and the direction in which they are taking us, we would stop for a few moments, take careful stock, and seek to map out the steps that must be taken to halt the drift, fast becoming a race, towards cultural annihilation.
Long ago we deserted any sense of common purpose, and yet we continue to act as though we can just move along our disparate roads without this ending, sooner or later, in the dispersal of our society.
We bow to no commonly respected authority. We adhere to no commonly agreed moral code. We agree on no common aim beyond individual happiness and mere survival. In short, we no longer have what Reiff called ‘a sense of the sacred’ and, due to this, no acceptance of any mutual interdictory restraints. This is by no means freedom but the ultimate license and the final step of a journey into chaos. ‘We now make art’ says Rieff, by way of example, ‘not to contact the transcendent, but to alleviate boredom’.
Rieff, insofar as I have understood him, and I have only just met his ideas, advocates no solution to the (more than just academic) problem we face, certainly not a return to previous beliefs - he apparently hated nostalgia. Myself, I can vaguely visualize a new path which would at least recognize a ‘sacred framework’ for society. How to ensure its take up is another subject for discussion.
I wish I could see the School acting with any firm conviction in this area.
Read more
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Whole Men Move Together
This quote from Mr MacLaren arose in the mind today which people may recognise from the early material:
“In truth, each is made whole, in truth all are united. No happiness is like to that in which the reasoning powers, the feeling powers and the active powers move together, manifesting the truth in man. No happiness is like to that in which whole men move together, manifesting the truth in all of them, showing unity in diversity and permanence in change.”
We could take the second sentence to be applicable to many situations but it can be quite obviously applied to the school itself. The phrase that sticks out here, and hence the title of this post, is ‘whole men’. It is interesting to watch those who appear to have found their niche. There is an integrity, autonomy and independence. They appear to be allowing the seeds of their own nature to come to fruition. And the fruition is not egotistical and separatist but the expression of who they are in service of something greater. This is perhaps an aspect of sva-dharma, one’s own duty? Each needs to become himself and manifest this. Not become someone else who he ‘should’ be. There is a quote from the Buddhist tradition:
‘What are you so feverishly running after? Putting a head on top of your own head, you blind idiots! Your head is right where it should be. Your trouble lies in your not believing in yourselves enough. Because you don’t believe in yourselves you are knocked here and there by all the conditions in which you find yourselves. Being enslaved and turned around by objective situations, you have no freedom whatever, you are not masters of yourselves.”
~ Lin Chi (Rinzai) ... click "Read more"
So perhaps it is necessary that we believe in ourselves, or ‘become ourselves’ before we can come into right relationship with another or become ‘one’ as a body of people? This can’t happen as long as we don’t trust ourselves. We are pulled here and there by various advice and opinions of varying degrees of insight. We can try to deny ourselves to ‘fit in’ but this ultimately fails. We cannot be true to someone else if we aren’t being true to ourselves. “Above all else to thine own self be true…” as the saying goes.
Related to this is the basic premise of Jonathan Sacks’ book, “Dignity of Difference” which I would summarise as follows:
If we are firm in our beliefs and we know what we stand for then if the person next to us believes something radically different then it ‘phases’ us not in the slightest. If however our beliefs are secretly quite shaky and superficial then we either:
- become defensive or
- preach / convert others to remove disagreement so that we feel 'safe'
If one begins to see through this and the underlying bhavanaa, then surely it becomes impotent? Do we then begin to develop a kind of ‘psychological kevala’ an autonomy based upon a refusal to be pushed around by others’ ideas? This is not a rejection of principle or tradition, rightly understood. Nor is it advocating individual desire being placed higher than discipline. Autonomy means self-governance. Perhaps something that this individual has some work to do to achieve. But the ideal is recognised - become whole, allow others to do so according to their temperament, and 'move together'.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Charting the Blog
There have been some questions recently about the blog usage. This chart shows that in January we had 675 separate visits, the most in any month. Other stats show that the 'average' visitor looks at three pages and stays for 8 minutes.
Probably about half of the visits are from regular contributors, but there are a growing number of other people who read the blog without taking part.
I hope more of you will feel able to participate. Someone who is a former member of a similar organization has just told me that this type of site would not have been tolerated there. That it is tolerated in the School is a considerable sign of hope.
It's your freedom - use it or lose it!