The other day I saw some results of a survey of early-part philosophy students. Without revealing anything confidential, it was pleasing to see how positive people are about the course and the tutors.
I reflected that I would have wholeheartedly agreed with them when I was at that stage in the School - for example, that the tutoring was inspirational; sadly however, I can't say that I feel that way now. I would now be far more likely to agree with the very few negative comments.
This is not a comment on any one tutor, but on my own needs as a student. What was once compelling is no longer so, not because the tutors have got worse but because the group set-up no longer addresses what I need. It has done its job, I believe, and moved me on to a stage where I can and do decide things for myself. If being tutored is a "thorn to remove a thorn", I have been saying for quite a few years "honestly, the thorn is out - can I please not be poked any more?" I am not, of course, saying that I have reached any pinnacle of enlightenment; just that no-one else can take me any further. Unfortunately the School has no way of dealing with this eventuality.
The problem that now faces the School is not getting new students in, but revitalizing the existing ones. When the senior people in the School get their 'zing' back, we won't have any problem with recruitment. No matter how much variety is introduced into study days and weekends and group nights, it won't ultimately help. People are bored not by what is being given to them, but by being given things.
This is why I stay: because it has become once again a place where I can do spiritual work. I am responsible for a group of students, and also engage in a number of other activities that are challenging, rewarding and (I believe) of use to others. I don't have to pretend to be someone else, or kowtow to anyone: it is a place where I can discover myself, and be myself, and be connected to the self in others.
It would not be difficult to bring about a change so that others could find the same benefit, if only the nature of the ailment were understood.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Zing
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Eco... er... balls...
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Modern Art I Can Appreciate
A bit of enlightened grafitti in response to Kevin's "Respecting Gaia" thread.
Respecting Gaia
I've just finished reading James Lovelock's Revenge of Gaia, and it was a hair-raising experience.
We hear this or that theory in the press, or watch documentaries such as Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth or the recent Global Warming Swindle on Channel 4, and in general the lay person is at a loss to know what to believe. Maybe this is a case where we have to rely on the testimony of those that know - the scientists.
The problem that I have now is that I believe in James Lovelock. He's the last great independent scientist, and it appears now that his Gaia-theory has gained general acceptance among the scientific community. So far as I can understand, it says that the earth (or at least the living part of it, and its environment) is best understood as a single self-regulating organism. Until recently Lovelock believed that Gaia was much stronger than man's ability to harm it, but in the last few years he has changed his mind ... click Read more
Although the sun is now considerably hotter than it was when life began, Gaia has maintained temperatures at more or less the same level through a set of negative feedback mechanisms. For example, warmth causes evaporation from the oceans, which causes clouds, which cool Gaia. The overall temperature of the globe does vary over time, oscillating between ice-age and "interglacial" period. We have been in an interglacial for thousands of years, but according to Lovelock this is not the optimum state: Gaia likes it cold.
Look at a picture of a sun-kissed Caribbean beach, with its pellucid blue waters and white sands. What you are looking at is a sterile environment. I was in Cuba last year and tried to go snorkelling: the sea is empty. By contrast, the murky slate-coloured seas off our own coasts look like that because they are teeming with life. 80% of the surface of the world's oceans is essentially empty, which is not good news for Gaia because its regulatory systems rely on things like algae (such as seaweed), which weirdly but wonderfully help to create the clouds. So, according to the latest science Gaia is not ideally prepared for global warming generated by mankind. Gaia would much rather be in an ice age, with 3 km of ice covering Britain and most of Europe.
Lovelock now believes that there are a number of positive feedback mechanisms that are getting under way, including: the melting of the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica; the progressive death of the algae; and the defrosting of the Siberian tundra, which threatens to release vast quantities of methane into the atmosphere (24 times worse than CO2). He says that we may well have passed the point of no return.
The worst-case scenario is probably not the death of Gaia, nor the destruction of life or of human life, but the end of civilization. Gaia will give up the effort to maintain temperatures at the present level, and the temperature will leap to a new level at which Gaia can again find equilibrium. Impossible to predict what temperature this would be, but we could see a return to the hot desert world of the Eocene period, which lasted 200,000 years. In that event, the seas would rise to their maximum level, 80 metres above where they are now, leaving most of the population of the world to fight for the remaining highlands.
Lovelock is not some crank, but possibly the greatest scientist of our times. His view is now pretty much supported by the science community. He believes that this nightmare scenario is not just possible, but probable.
We may have already gone too far to reverse the process, but we may not. What Lovelock is saying is that we need to immediately retreat from our present way of life. "Sustainable devlopment" is a lie, and "saving the planet" hopelessly arrogant. He says we need to convert our civilization to nuclear power (he kindly offers to store one year's nuclear waste from a power station in his garden, to show how convinced he is of its safety) to buy ourselves some time.
All of this might appear to be off-topic, but this is at least in part a personal blog. Also, the School is supposed to be about practical philosophy and economic science. If civiliation survives, it will no doubt look back with the brutal clarity of hindsight and judge those that preached complacency, with no more mercy than we now afford to Neville Chamberlain or to the bureaucrats of Nazism.
What will WE have done in the face of danger? What will the School have done?
Lovelock blames our problem in part on the scientific philosophy created by Descartes, which takes everything apart and then reassembles it: a philosophy that cannot understand complex systems in action. This is the philosophy of modernity, and there is a need for a better philosophy for our time. The Upanishads were not written by people who lived today, and if they were more concerned about chariots and cows than we are, it's because of that. The perennial philosophy needs to be rewritten in every age, and for modernity. Are we going to rise to that challenge, or will we, like Arjuna in his despondency, put down our weapons and renounce the painful actions we see ahead of us? Will we leave the work to others, and order in new carpets for Mandeville?
I strongly recommend that you read this book. An article about it was recently published in The Independent.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Bananas: His Holiness’ Words as a Tutors’ Capping Kit.
Have you noticed how His Holiness’ conversations can be used as a tool for making the world narrower, rather than what they were intended for, namely to break open our narrow vision to reveal the infinite spaces of the universal reality?
What do I mean? Let’s take a hypothetical example: bananas. In the conversations, His Holiness might have said something about bananas, perhaps as a diversion from the main thread of conversation, or to illustrate something else, or as part of a story, or whatever. It will rarely be a definition or an attempt to say the ultimate and last word on the subject.
Unfortunately, however, in the mind of the unimaginative tutor - unrefreshed by study of the conversations as a whole, or of the other works of the Vedic canon, or of the history of thought, or the lively global conversation of the early twenty-first century - this statement on bananas from then on becomes the entire truth about the subject ... click "Read More"
And so, if the student should say something about bananas that does not quite resonate with the context and content of His Holiness’ offhand remark, then the student’s comment will be ‘capped’ by the jubilant tutor: ‘You’ve got it wrong, lad. Let’s stick to the teaching. His Holiness says this, that, or the other.’
In this way the tutor retains the upper hand and the conversation is stymied. It may be that Shankara says the very opposite somewhere, or Plato, or Vasishtha, or Alasdair McIntyre. It is not well understood in the School that the Vedic tradition allows for many views and does not append the labels ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ to ideas as we tend to do in the West, and as our founder was wont to do.
This crass illustration, of course, is just an imaginary example of a general trend. The remedy, however, is not obvious. It would involve widening the education and cultural outlook of the average tutor. It might involve the unthinkable decision to choose tutors who, rather than being ‘safe pairs of hands’, would be ‘loose canons’. It might involve having a rotating tutorship each week within each senior group.
It would certainly involve moving outside of the comfortable, endlessly-repeated habits of group practice and settled dogma, and letting into the School the fresh air and unlimited possibilities of the present.
Can you see this happening?
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Who Is The Teacher?
The following gem might just possibly free up considerable 'baggage' for both teacher and student. What do you think?
The work of the spiritual teacher is like the
work of Cupid. The work of Cupid is to bring
two souls together; and so is the work of the
spiritual teacher: to bring together the soul and
God. But what is taught to the one who seeks
after truth? Nothing is taught. He is only shown
how he should learn from God. For no man
can ever teach spirituality; it is God alone who
teaches it.
-Hazrat Inayat Khan
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Kindness
If there is one thing we need to learn as a School, it is how to be kind and compassionate to each other.
Fortunately, things have improved a lot over the past 15 years or so, at least negatively: there is less of the cruelty that used to characterise the organisation:
- a member of the Foundation ladies who experienced responses to questions that were 'like being thrown up against a wall and having rifles pointed at me ... eventually I learned to stop asking. I thought "whatever you want me to say, I'll say it" '
- an Irish student who was asked by a Senior member if his toolbox was "a bomb to blow us all up"
- the custom of the "exocet", a response to a question so devastating that it leaves nothing but scorch-marks on the ballroom floor
- a student who was forced to confess to his homosexuality by a tutor, who within minutes passed this information on as gossip to some of the students' fellow group members
Thank goodness such incidents are now very rare. But it was once the opposite.
I remember many years ago being shocked to hear of how a senior tutor criticised an i/c for taunting one of the students working under him ... shocked because the senior tutor actually believed that it was wrong to taunt people for their apparent weaknesses. When that shock had worn off I was still more shocked by the implications of my being surprised at this. How had I become so accustomed to unkindness that it came to seem normal?
That kind and intelligent tutor has since left the School. The perpetrators of the other examples are mostly still with us. I do not say this because I believe they should be called to account. That would be vindictive. I say it to illustrate just how far we have to go to create the atmosphere of love, discipline and care that is the Satsanga.
Samson dreamt of a dead lion with a beehive in its open belly (commemorated in the beautiful picture on the tin of Lyle's Golden Syrup!) Motto: "Out of the strength came forth sweetness". Let's hope so.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Founding Principles
"to promote the study of the natural laws governing relations in human society, and the study of the laws, customs and practices by which communities are governed."
What do you understand by this? Does it provide guidance for you in your work in the School (group, duties, etc)? Does it accurately represent your own motivations for membership?
Letter from the leader
This letter from Mr Lambie has just been posted on the London site - I think that it's a good step towards a more open approach. What do you think about this, and about the content? - K
Welcome to what is intended to be the first of a series of letters to share some thoughts and reflections about the School and its work. I hope that members of the Schools both in the UK and around the world will find it of interest.
Aims
The principal aim of the School is complete liberation – or, to put it another way, the realisation of Man’s full potential. Together with that there is the secondary purpose of seeking to live and work in such a way as to serve and enrich society and the world in which we live.
Voyage of discovery
As far as the first of these aims is concerned, it is important to make the point that this is very much a voyage of discovery. What may have been understood or experienced in the past should not be taken as final and complete. Rather, it can serve as the foundation for something greater and finer to emerge. Every day provides opportunities for this to happen.
Although the great teachers set out their wisdom fully and generously, it is up to every individual to discover the real meaning and import of that for him or herself. Working together in a School does however mean that one person’s discovery can become everyone’s discovery, and in this way the process is enhanced.
Freedom is an inner state of being and as such it is difficult if not impossible for it to be quantified. Advaita philosophy does however give certain indicators. Where a person has greater energy, steadfastness, reason, love and happiness, and where there is a coherence between thoughts and actions, these do demonstrate a growth of freedom. Advaita philosophy also speaks of universal freedom and the complete elimination of misery. It provides the knowledge which, taken together with meditation, makes this possible. This remains the goal.
Spiritual and cultural heritage
As far as the second of these aims is concerned, the School, in addition to studying and teaching Philosophy, also aims to explore such subjects as art, music, law, economics, science, language, dance, renaissance studies, medicine and education in the light of Philosophy.
Recently, for example in Ireland, we spent a week considering the practical application of Platonic dialectic. London has just seen the book launch of a new translation by a School member of the Asclepius by Hermes Trismegistus. The teachings of such figures as Plato and Hermes Trismegistus may seem arcane but, when really connected with, they can provide invaluable and inspiring insights into present day life. A series of lectures entitled “The Philosophical Garden” on some of these subjects can be downloaded from this web-site.
The full list of all the School’s activities is long. In forthcoming letters I will say something more about these.
Liberation and service
The aims of liberation and seeking to serve society are not unrelated. Where there is a real sense of freedom, any service will carry something of that quality. It will be open, intelligent, creative and full of love. Likewise, in facing the challenges of the world, people often have to transcend their own, self imposed, limits. In rising to the occasion in this way, something of the true nature of the Self is experienced.
I believe the work of the School is of utmost importance. The philosophic teaching that has come from Shri Shantananda Sarasvati is capable of meeting the needs both of individuals and the world in a marvellous way. We do however need to continue with the process of discovery and give great care and attention to all that takes place. In this way we can best seek to fulfil our aims.