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 10, 2007
Kindness
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14 comments:
There may be two approaches to this, it seems to me, as follows:
1. Kindness and compassion as a moral virtue, as a reflection of truth, and therefore worthy in itself. This has value not only to the one who may otherwise be the object of unkindness, but also to the perpetrator of an unkindness. Who has not committed an unkindness and not subsequently felt remorse?
2. Kindness and compassion as a tool, being more effective in dissolving obstacles than any amount of righteous harshness.
We may come on to occasions, when kindness is not necessarily the best first response, in later comments.
Kindness as a reflection of unity has to carry all the way through. For example, the crass remark about the toolbox may only have shown a fear, possibly quite understandable at the time.
In those circumstances a little deflecting wit may have been the kindest response.
There's also the kind of 'question' which is really an accusation in disguise. "So you think such and such then?" The accusation is usually false as the accuser hasn't even understood the point being raised. The student is expected to justify him/herself. Playing along with this will very soon suck you dry of any remaining life-force. But then, isn't this the work? To remain un-phased by this kind of thing? It's being seen with increasing clarity. It is only a matter of time to reach enough self-control to be totally indifferent to it. Let's work for, and look forward to that kind of freedom.
Sure, adversity can lead to a strength. 'That which doesn't break me, makes me.'
Gardening metaphors come to mind.
Trees which are tied to sticks can never properly develop a strong trunk. Being battered by the wind, a tree will strengthen up. But a sapling needs the (caring) protection of a stake.
Plants living in harsh conditions will grow small although they may flower profusely. Plants which grow and flower all the time will exhaust themselves. There has to be a happy medium (according to the plant and the season).
Plants growing in 'ideal' conditions of warm dampness grow enormous and often very strongly, e.g., mahogany. They have to be suited to those conditions, otherwise they become lax.
In this respect, human nature is not so very different. Doesn't everyone act according to their nature? So what is the use of compulsion?
Laura,
I wasn't saying (as I think you well understand) that kindness or soft treatment is always the best policy.
All I would ask is that we conform ourselves not to custom, but to His Holiness' prescription "tender advice, showers of love, and sometimes a little hard discipline". The relative importance of advice, love and discipline should, I think, be noted carefully.
There's been a lot of brainy conversation on the "Letter" post about doctrine, and while I wouldn't discount the value of that, I feel that the principal need of the School is to address the lack of actual love and kindness (as opposed to theoretical "Love"). We do need more "headroom" in the School, which is to say space of real intellectual work; but more urgently (and more universally) we need a bigger heart.
Laura, I think I would not quite go along 100% with the idea of "kindness as a tool" - and it may be that it's just a question of language here - because somehow that makes kindness sound like a scalpel, the recipient as a passive patient, and the practitioner as the Messiah. We all need love and kindness, all the time, unless we are fully realised. I'm not sure that we can be really kind when we are thinking of using instruments on each other. Maybe your two kindnessess are the same thing?
I agree with you, Kapila, that it would be good for us to develop immunity to this kind of low behaviour. Part of that is speaking out against it, though, because it goes on unchallenged. OK, maybe I can get to a stage of being unmoved when someone treats me in such a way; but what if my brother is treated that way in my hearing? Can I stand by and do nothing? So there is a job to do.
I read news reports of how one of the Shankaracharyas was accused of murder (I assume it was a typical Indian put-up job) ... eventually when he was being banged up, he snapped at the police, "Do you think I am [Indian equivalent of Al Capone]?!" If we can get to the level of a Shankaracharya and still be provokable, then maybe Stoic calm is not the only tactic necessary.
I read the other day, too, about a Buddhist teacher called Samten who was being deliberately provoked by someone who wanted to see whether he could annoy him. Eventually he turned to the man (who was physically poking him!) and said calmly, "I think you should know that I am a very violent man. And I have a short fuse". This had the desired effect.
Another part of it is to recognise that whoever perpetrates such things is clearly having a bad moment (or life)!
Kevin - you're right, I re-read my remarks about 'kindness being a tool' and felt 'How could I'? No good, any more than 'love as a tool'.
At the time, if I recall correctly, I had in mind that kindness was an application of love, a willingness to 'let be' and therefore loving without being love. But I suspect I've confused action (tool) with love, made a false distinction, and am glad you've drawn my attention to it.
This may belong on another post but in all the discussions about the future direction of the School and self-realisation and obstacles and the rest, may I mention that, so far as I know, understanding does not change (unless temporarily)except through love.
It may be that my reasoning powers are deficient but I have not been able to hold up an obstacle to reason and reason it away. There's always that 'yes, but...' in the background. The emotional attachment can only be dissolved by love.
Or, as Rudi might possibly say, let the obstacle be, acknowledge it, don't seek any outcome for it. There was quite a relief on reading your post at that point, Rudi, so you may be onto something there.
Kevin said:
"OK, maybe I can get to a stage of being unmoved when someone treats me in such a way; but what if my brother is treated that way in my hearing? Can I stand by and do nothing?"
Maybe, and I emphasise maybe. I certainly don't advocate deliberate unkindness and we should respond as the situation demands. But this comes back to an earlier post about 'what is service?'. I'm beginning to think many of these obstacles are like initiations or rites of passage. Is 'standing up for someone else' service? Or do they have to find their own way through it?
I've noticed this at work. Many of the chaps I work with have a rather cutting sense of humour. Could very often take it personally as it's often meant personally! However, there was a realisation of the ground rules of my temporary co-habitation with this particular tribe. If you give back as good as you receive, not out of spite or revenge, but in the spirit of a satirical 'trial of strength', then you are 'accepted' into the tribe. Can be quite entertaining actually. This seems less complicated than in the school, probably because we have expectations of people being more enlightened than they are? I don't have this expectation at work, therefore the mind is (ironically) more accepting about it all.
Laura said...
"It may be that my reasoning powers are deficient but I have not been able to hold up an obstacle to reason and reason it away. There's always that 'yes, but...' in the background. The emotional attachment can only be dissolved by love."
Your reasoning works very well indeed. The discovery that "reasoning obstacles away" doesn't work is reasoning in action, revealing that this must be the wrong interpretation of the teaching. It takes courage to acknowledge this 'yes, but ...' doubt, and not 'reason it away' as well! Once you allow your doubts to arise freely, it is not a huge step to discovering that all the other supposedly teaching-based, but ultimately ego-generated practices are equally ineffective.
Yes, they can create anything from a temporary change of your state of mind to fundamental shifts in your attitude; and if that is what you are after, fine.
But this has nothing to do with liberation, which is the discovery of who you are already, always have been and never will not be. 'States of mind' and 'shifts in attitude' are induced changes and as such neither a help nor a hindrance to liberation - they are irrelevant to it.
But this is what happens when ego gets hold of this wonderful teaching of openness, willingness, love and pure reason - it subtly reduces it to a set of 'what to do' / 'how to do' instructions, effectively turning it into a (non-existing) spiritual path.
"Or, as Rudi might possibly say ..."
... he might indeed ... :-)
"... let the obstacle be, acknowledge it, don't seek any outcome for it. There was quite a relief on reading your post at that point, Rudi, so you may be onto something there."
Once the full implications of this have sunk in, EVERYTHING is treated as an ally, instead of an obstacle. Nobody has expressed this more beautifully than Rumi, in his 'The Guesthouse' poem:
This being human is a guesthouse
every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
Still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Brutalising your guests violates all the rules of spiritual hospitality. Treating them as friends turns them into allies, and feeling deeply into them reveals their secrets and connects you to the Beyond.
Kapila,
Interesting question about when one is obliged to intervene.
Let's say that an old granny is being beaten up by a yob. Presumably none of us would justify standing by on grounds that she should "find her own way through it". Similarly with a child. These are extreme examples to establish a starting point.
At what point do we decide that we should not step in to help? I suppose the answer is that when it's a case of adults dealing with adults of equal strength. Is that ($64,000 question) what we have always in the group scenario?
Kevin
I don't think it's possible to generalise. As was said earlier, respond as the situation demands.
There was a situation at work recently. One of my managers launched off into a 'blame' speech which then turned into a 'but you're doing a good job really' speech. Both the praise and blame were 'observed' and known to be utterly substanceless. The freedom of this was experienced and my relationship with this individual has changed.
Perhaps this is a 'steep and thorny' path to arrive at the realisation that someone else's praise or blame is irrelevant? I'm not knocking or dismissing kindness, if it's genuine. But who's to say what's necessary... shouldn't we just trust the Absolute?
That's fair comment, but there are situations that require action or speech, as well as the inner renunciation.
Like for example when that tutor intervened to tell the i/c that it was wrong to bully the other student. That perhaps helped the student who was having a hard time, I can't be sure; but what I am certain of is that even although I wasn't there and just heard about it, it helped me.
HH says we should speak from the pure impulses of the heart, and act on what we say. That's a tough discipline, and not one I've observed being followed often.
As well as that, there is a passage where he speaks about the three surrenders in the Gita.
The first (which you mention) is to the absolute. The second is the surrender to reason. The third is to the Atman. He suggests that only when the first two have been made is the final surrender possible.
Some may say that this is not supposed to be sequential, or taken too rigidly, and I would agree with that. But what is useful, I think, is that the surrender to reason (say) is as valid as the surrender to the Absolute, and in fact depends upon it and builds upon it. When you have accepted the existence of an absolute reality, reason comes into view.
So while I take your point that no-one can set rules about this or that necessary action, there is a danger (not that I suggest you're falling into it) that people become overly fatalistic. Their response to everything is "fall still and surrender to the Absolute" - which is valid in itself, but not the whole story at all.
I think that the extraordinary difficulties St J has had stem in large part from stopping at the surrender to the Absolute, and refusing to take the next step into reason. It gave some people extraordinary powers of self-delusion: "we have the Teaching; we surrender to the Absolute; therefore what we do is right; therefore whoever opposes (or questions) us is wrong". So even when they were being totally unreasonable, and others were speaking nothing but sweet reason, they had no way of conceiving of that possibility.
Religions have always had a tendency to do this - Martin Luther called reason "that whore" - and it stops them from progressing beyond unreasoning worship.
The Pope's recent lecture which caused all the kerfuffle in the Muslim world was trying to make this point - that religion should be consonant with reason, and not in contradiction to it. Unfortunately he used Islam as a straw man, which was hardly fair.
All of which is a way of saying that although we do have the teaching, I seriously question whether our customs reflect it accurately. Some of our ways appear even to oppose reason, but until people can be brought to engage with reason we cannot decide whether or not that is right.
This blog is an attempt to bring people to the conversation that needs to happen in order to get the School out of its rut - to remove tamas.
The usual response is of course to preserve a 'dignified' silence, one that nonetheless communicates scorn of such rajasic behaviour. But I would say that if one is in tamas, then rajas is needed; and also that one who is caught in tamas is by definition unable to see that he is. So maybe the apparently rajasic people are the ones who have some kind of vision of truth.
Hi Kevin
I take the point about the tutor's intervention and that his example was helpful.
I suppose what I'm with, and I'm reflecting on this as I go along, is the difference between awareness and change of behaviour. I think this distinction has emerged a number of times on this blog in different guises. What was seen in the example of the manager at work was that simple awareness was not only inner freedom for myself but a more powerful catalyst for real change than a change of behaviour (either in myself or expecting it of the other).
In the case of the manager again, we had a late meeting at work. He was trying to push through his agenda (and he's quite intimidating. You can't get a word in edgeways). So I just waited & listened & rested in the present, then when he'd finished I spoke the truth of the situation. This was recognised by the other parties. Not that I wanted to get MY way, but I feel the right way forward arose.
I think we need to distinguish between a passive (tamasic) acceptance and an 'active' awareness. The latter isn't impotent. Also, I feel rajas in itself can be impotent. Arguing with the manager wouldn't have got us anywhere. Shouldn't we put awareness first, then trust the appropriate response will arise?
I used to know this & it got covered up somewhere along the line...for various reasons.
Yes, I definitely agree with what you're saying.
It's also a question of bringing our actions into accordance with our speech. If there was no difference between speech and action, it would be of great assistance to unity of being.
Where speech leads action may follow.
If it really did follow, we would learn rather more about the springs of action and the consequences of action than is sometimes observed.
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