Creating the Container for Satsanga

Following on from V's 'Upanishad' post:

The Upanishads begin with an invocation. What is the purpose of the invocation? Presumably to prepare heart and mind so that it is receptive to what is to come? But also, using the definition of upanishad as 'sit near' this implies an intimate gathering, like Jesus sitting with his disciples rather than speaking to the masses. I find myself returning quite regularly to "saha naavavatu" from the Katha. The more I look at it the more it implies to me a preparation, creating the conditions for satsanga to take place. It could be useful to look at it as a guide to 'preparing the ground' for a true meeting. Some reflections:

1) may we be protected
- the satsanga is a safe environment where we can open our hearts and trust that we will be met from this place
- confidentiality is understood

The umbrella of protection is a propitious environment whereby:

2/3) may we be nourished / may we create strength
- the satsanga provides spiritual food whereby the being is nourished and strengthened
- from this it is possible to re-engage with the world on leaving the satsanga with greater detachment, purpose and natural discipline
- there is strength to resist the negative / various pulls of the world etc through the force of being

4) may our studies be illumined
- may the reason / intellect be lit up with clarity
- may the light of intelligence shine without hindrance
- may there be true understanding

5) may we not oppose one another
- no envy or competition
- drop any past disagreement, conflict etc that puts up a barrier to meeting NOW

I'm sure this is not exhaustive. Just some of the things that are evoked. Any other pertinent suggestions welcome.

I have used this prayer with some regularity before attending group. It does seem that the intent and the effect is to prepare oneself better for what is to take place, also (for the devotionally inclined amongst us) to ask the Absolute for help in this matter.

"For wherever two or three are gathered in My name, there I AM in the midst of them."
~ Matthew 18:20

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Tighten or Loosen?

I recently read a great book by American psychologist Jonathan Haidt, called The Happiness Hypothesis: Putting Ancient Wisdom and Philosophy to the Test of Science. Haidt draws on the great teachings and asks whether what they say is supported fully, partly or not at all by science so far.

One paragraph has kept coming back to me, because it contains a simple fact that challenges my own thinking about the benefits of philosophy. Here it is:

Clinical psychologists sometimes say that two kinds of people seek therapy: those who need tightening, and those who need loosening. But for every patient seeking help in becoming more organized, self-controlled and responsible about her future, there is a waiting room full of people hoping to loosen up, lighten up, and worry less about the stupid things they said about yesterday's staff meeting or about the rejection they are sure will follow tomorrow's lunch date. For most people, ... [the instinctive self] ... sees too many things as bad and not enough as good.

Instinct is a pessimist, because that's how you survive in the jungle. The consequence of missing an opportunity for a meal is relatively minor, compared with the consequence of becoming a meal for something else. That also applies to things like prestige: the Alpha Male is only as good as his last scrap. Win a hundred battles, all you get is another day in power. Lose one, and you're out. We are pre-programmed to be more fearful than hopeful.

But the observation of the psychologists troubles me, and I wonder if it does you.

The School has always advertised itself as offering ways to become "more organized, self-controlled and responsible", and only secondarily aimed to help people to loosen up. We lighten up, according to the School, only when we become disciplined. To be disciplined is, as His Holiness famously said, to "flow freely". What we do with this is to re-frame "lightening up" as being no more than a side-effect of adding discipline to life. The world is sliding into disorder, anarchy, atheism and immorality, and we have the answer - more discipline. Stop whinging and get back in that trench, you idle, complacent layabout!

Even more troubling than the thought that we might be losing customers by our approach, appealing to the odd one out rather than responding to the needs of most people, is the implication that we are perhaps siding with the instinctive, habitual nature against reason. That's to say, if basic instinct makes me worry too much, and I fill my conscious mind with worry as well, then I am going to become more repressed, more neurotic, more miserable. And in some sense, this seems to fit the stereotype, if not the inner reality - enthusiastic, cheering crowds in part 1; grey suits and silence later.

It may be that the world is getting too free-and-easy. Let's grant that it is, for the moment. Does that necessarily mean that a corrective prescription of heavy discipline and hard work should be administered? Have we the responsibility to weigh in the scale of discipline?

I don't have the answer to this, but one begins to suggest itself. I believe that HH is right about discipline and free flow, of course, but I also believe that we've interpreted him wrongly somewhere along the line. We must have done. I would come back to his classic formulation, "tender advice, showers of love, or a little hard discipline". It seems that His Holiness wants us to be careful about how we use the negative, but to pour on the positive without any limit. If human beings really are saddled with a base nature that makes them worry too much, then it must be so that encouragement, enthusiasm and hope are what they need. When we have reassured people that they don't face a threat, then perhaps we can employ a little hard discipline, but with the lightest of touches.

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Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva

Much of the discussion on this blog has centred around structure and how that relates to freedom of expression or freedom of enquiry. The thought arose a while ago as to whether 'preservation' can or should exist in isolation from creation and dissolution? Is Vishnu 'preserver' or does he use all three aspects of creation, preservation and dissolution in order to 'preserve' ?

The Shankaracarya gives the analogy of the Ganges flowing down through the Himalayas towards the sea. The mountains are said to be the religions. How do they become mountains? By preserving themselves and not flowing? How do we become rigid? How do we dissolve and become creative again?

Gita, Ch4, V8 is really intriguing with regard to this question, containing all three aspects:

'To protect (preserve) the righteous, to destroy (dissolve) the wicked, and to establish (preserve) the kingdom of God, I am reborn (create) from age to age.'

(look up the sanskrit if you're so inclined!)

So the question is:

- are creation, preservation and dissolution three separate things or
- is the true 'preservation' the interaction of these three forces?

The latter definition allows for a tradition to:

a) be revitalised, re-invigorated, re-energised, re-formed (creation)
b) throw away what has become habitual, mechanical etc (dissolution)
c) protect what is 'established wisdom' (the usual definition of preservation)

and then the true 'preservation' results from all three, wisely used.

(In fact in writing the above three 'categories' it becomes difficult to separate them – dissolving and revitalising are the same thing in the same way as cleaning a window involves removing the dirt. And is preservation something separate from these apparent two? If so, what?)

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Changing the Name

It's become clear to me that we need a new title.

When I started "Free the Teaching!" it perhaps reflected accurately my feelings at the time, following the Inquiry Report and the Channel 4 news piece. On the one hand, the leadership was advocating change, reflection and progress; on the other, there was the sense that some were more concerned with damage limitation. The aggression of our opponents was being returned tit for tat. I was frustrated with this, and I had lost much of my respect for the reactionaries. In short, I wanted to have a go.

Of course, that was not my only motivation. I had also come to believe that our problems were not the result of malignant outside forces, or (even worse) of any shortcomings in the Teaching as we have received it, but of a failure to fully understand that Teaching or put it into practice. So "Free the Teaching" also represents a call for all of us to stop limiting the Teaching with our ideas about it. This was not a woolly or sentimental view - I had some clear ideas about what we had got wrong, and about what needed to be done to put it right. I wanted to test those ideas on others.

Maybe the most important point I wanted to make was that it is time for all of us to take a stand and stop relying on something external to us called "the Teaching". We need to recognise that ahankara is not original sin, but an illusion. There is something called the self, which is what we really are - not just in samadhi or when we reach an imagined Himalaya of the spirit, but what we are here and now, whether or not we know it. The ego distorts things, of course; but its effect is entirely peripheral to the self, and to our essential nature, which is particular to us, but also pure. Our talents, our affections, our deeper impulses and emotions are all routes towards the self (or, if you must, the Self). I'm OK, and you're OK as well. That is what His Holiness is telling us.

What worried me most was to see that there was so much despondency around. Some people were furiously hanging on to their old view of the School; those that had dropped that were, on the whole, losing their faith in it. If we were to procure a Guna-Meter from somewhere (can you get them on mail-order?) I think that the needle would have been pointing towards T and dropping. In order to get back to the S, we had to have some R.

Anyway, maybe that has been done enough. I'd like this blog to retain its edge and bite, where necessary - those are aspects of reason, after all; it has to be a forum for open discussion, where people can express their views freely; but perhaps with a little less heat, and a little more light.

So - we need a new name ... click "comments" below and have a go.

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Upanishad

Question: Is it right to assume that the words of those we believe to be wise are true?

It might seem as if the answer is self-evident to any right-thinking philosopher. But something in me keeps saying "no". It seems to be an argument that I have been having for many years. I remember someone once saying to me with some annoyance, "your group doesn't seem to be able to accept that the Teaching is true". That man has long since left the School; practically all of my group are still around. There is something that we seem to have been hanging onto, no matter what people have tried to tell us. I woke up very early this morning, with the tail end of Hurricane Gordon battering rain onto the Velux windows, and it gradually came to me what it might be.

The problem I have is that I believe it contradicts the Upanishads to say that their words are true, and it contradicts His Holiness to say that his words are true. And although I can see that we need to treat these sources with reverence, in the end I do not believe that we should contradict the Upanishads or His Holiness, even if it seems to be in support of them. I will explain what I mean.

The word "Upanishad" means literally "to sit near", but in the Upanishads it is usually used with a different sense, that of "secret knowledge" or "hidden teaching". Another word used to say the same thing is rahasya. What is the secret knowledge? It is the knowledge of satyasya satyam, "the Truth of truth". Truth is prana, the life force; and the Truth of truth is that which cannot be defined: the consciousness of the Atman. It is wrong to say that the Upanishads are true, because they offer not truth, but the hidden knowledge of that which is true.

What is said about knowledge is that it is of two kinds, higher and lower. There seems to have been a view in the early Upanishads that lower knowledge was the ritual knowledge of the Brahman priests, which was intended to get a result. The Upanishads themselves were "higher knowledge" because they aimed at no result. Possibly later, or perhaps together with this, a second view emerged, which is if I may say a more refined concept, that the lower knowledge includes everything that can be expressed in words. The higher knowledge cannot be expressed: it is not in speech, but in that by which speech is known.

His Holiness says the same thing, when he says that knowledge of the Absolute and the Self is just ordinary information. It has to be transformed into understanding. This was why he told the translator of the Conversations, "don't listen to my words - listen to my meaning, and translate that". This might seem to represent a slippery slope. The Conversations are supposed to be "unalterable", and if we take that away, the reasoning goes, what do we have? What is the School?

The courageous answer to this, I would suggest, is that if the School is nothing without having a claim to "unalterable" texts, then it is indeed nothing. Only Fundamentalists have unalterable texts, and the reason for that is that they are too poorly educated and led to penetrate to the meaning. But the School is not and never has been about such a claim. A spurious claim on the truth cannot lead to truth.

People don't need the words: they need the meaning. And we come back again to the literal meaning of the word Upanishad: "to sit near". It presents an image of the teacher and the student, sitting together. In one of the Vedic invocations that opens an Upanishad we find the moving prayer, "may we not cavil at each other". Why? Because if we are to be united by truth, there is no room for petty emotions.

And that is what Shantananda meant when he spoke of higher knowledge (and here, he exceeded what is to be found elsewhere in the tradition) as the understanding that arises at the meeting of chittani ("hearts and minds") joined by love or common purpose. The same, he said, may not arise again away from such a meeting.

Those we love are those to whom we can tell the truth. All we need to do to benefit the world is to tell the truth.

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Don't Mention the Camel

One thing that comes across forcefully from the study of the Indian tradition of philosophy is its simplicity.

It's easy to miss this if one's knowledge of it is entirely mediated through a group. If a term is spent studying five verses, it is likely that most of us have forgotten verse 1 by the end. It can become a bit like studying a flower by training a powerful microscope on it - one loses the sense of a beautiful object that can be appreciated immediately and in its totality, without a lot of thought.

Not that Advaita Vedanta is "philosophy for dummies" - not at all. But it can seem as though we can't see the bigger picture because of our love of close analysis. And then, when someone asks us what 'philosophy' means, we are stuck for an answer. It's a bit like the old story of the seven blind men describing an elephant. I'm sure that a blind man could tell me amazing things about an elephant's knee - its texture, its smell, its bulk - but I would not for that reason wish to be blind. We privilege the fine detail at the expense of the eye's ability to take all in at a glance. Both are needed.

The antidote to this is to read the Upanishads or the Gita oneself - not taking years over it, but reading 20 pages at a time. Read an Upanishad at a sitting, or even two Upanishads. If you find a bit that's obscure, don't fret about it, just skip on and come back to it later. Dip into the Vedas. Or read a modern Advaitin such as Nisargadatta, Ramakrishna or Vivekananda.

Another valuable approach is to read a good Western account of Indian philosophy (I'm currently reading Paul Deussen's The Philosophy of the Upanishads). Why? Because some things are too obvious for an Indian to mention. It's the same reason why there are no camels in the Koran - they were so common that there was no need for an Arab to go on about them. So if we want to get the Upanishadic spirit, we need to understand not only the words on the page, but also those that are present but not on the page.

Or, you could go along to a class offered by one of the many Indian centres of learning. I understand from more than one friend that the Chinmaya organization has some superb teachers. Apparently it's an excellent complement to School study.

When I was a child I had a board game that said, "A minute to learn - A lifetime to master". It might take more than a minute to learn Advaita Vedanta, but it doesn't take a lifetime. Get the basics under your belt, in whatever way you can, and devote your life to mastery.

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The Good, The True and the Beautiful

Traditional Western philosophy has proposed three objectives: the Good, the True and the Beautiful.

In the modern world, it has been noted by a number of commentators that we have emphasised the True at the expense of the other two. Science acknowledges only the standard of truth - speak to a scientist and ask whether he would allow ethical or aesthetic considerations to intrude on his experiments. Ethics are of course used to regulate science, but these are established from outside - by government, for example. Aesthetics are the realm of artists, and are even less important to the scientist, at least while he is being a scientist.

It should also be noted, however, that there is a secondary aspect to our tradition, which we derive from the Romantic era, that emphasises beauty and also truth. Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn makes the classic statement:

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

The first problem with this is that it leaves out the Good - the moral or ethical. The second is that in practice beauty is well on top in the Romantic spirit. It is the personal response that matters - ie 'feelings' - and so we lose sight of Truth that may not accord with our personal feelings. In extreme cases, all that matters is what I feel; if you feel something different then you must be wrong, because the Beauty I experience is Truth. This is why art is greatly fragmented - standards are determined independently by the aesthetic responses of each artist or by each viewer of art, and not by reference to something outside of the individual.

What we seem to leave out, then, is the Good. Our society has things that it values as absolute ethical standards - universal equality, compassion, tolerance, charity, etc - but where do these standards come from? What inspires us? The answer still seems to be religion. Despite all that has happened over the past couple of centuries, we still do not have the Atheist Cross or the Secular Army rushing out to help people in need when disaster strikes.

This is why we need philosophy - some means to find inspiration that is not tied to faith - and yet we should also ask ourselves whether the School is not as culpable as anyone else in our neglect of the Good. We have upheld the True, and the Beautiful (not so much in our art, but in our emphasis on meditation, the exercise and similar practices that create an aesthetic or devotional experience) but have we done as much for the Good? We uphold principles and ethical standards, but how far? How real is our Good? Do we do good in society, or only in School?

Leaving aside issues such as charitable work, we might also ask whether kindness and compassion have not been neglected, in our efforts to exalt Truth. The Good is not in conflict with Truth, or with Beauty. We have perhaps more to discover about the harmony of all three.

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Sanscrit - grrh .... or wonderful!

I have problems with Sanscrit grammar in a similar way to some people with meditation. I can't really see the point of it. Whereas with meditation the result is - or should be - a matter of indifference, with Sanscrit grammar there's a definite aim: to learn the language.

Why do we have to do this? What has Sanscrit got that can't be found in English? There are words, it is true, to describe states or conditions that can't readily be expressed in English, but the grammar itself is said to yield a mysterious knowledge, along with its cohort - the sounds themselves.

Mysterious certainly for me, obscure, floundering and the light never seems to dawn. It's a long hard path, a puzzle, more like a maze. And I never remember how I got there or where I'm supposed to be going. All the usual signposts have been turned around. Nothing very useful is retained.

I have asked others if they have experienced knowledge simply in the sound of Sanscrit. One said he did once but was not able to describe it.

HH has said we need to study Sanscrit - do we all have to do it? If we do, what do we need to do to make it comprehensible to those like me? If we don't all have to do it - are there other ways to bring the benefit?

And if the sound of Sanscrit alone brings knowledge it should be possible to demonstrate this. Now that would really make the point.

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What Happens Backstage, Again?

There seems to have been a recognition recently that meditation needs to be reconsidered. We’ve had new meditation material on a regular basis, and been offered meditation retreats, which have been, by all accounts, successful.

Probably this needs to go further. There’s no doubt that meditation is a powerful aid on a spiritual path. Even had the Shankaracharya not recommended it, scientific research has found it to be one of the few activities that make a measurable difference to one’s life. Buddhists do it, even educated fleas do it. When the then Tory party leader William Hague said that he repeated a mantra for an hour daily, it was a bit of a surprise, but it still didn’t make him interesting.

How odd then that, as a body, we seem to have learned so little about it in 40 years.

We ‘know’ what His Holiness has to say about meditation, but our tutors often give the impression that they have never actually meditated themselves. If a History teacher taught exclusively by reading from a textbook, a child might quickly conclude that the teacher knew no history. A tutor who reads and re-reads the words of His Holiness to his group is just like that teacher – living off the words of the wise, but not living them. (Possibly this is one reason why I have quoted His Holiness so infrequently on this blog – it seems necessary to make the point that we can all make our own words. If we can’t, we haven’t listened). I long for the day when my tutor can just tell me what he knows about meditation, from experience. Even if it’s just a little piece of knowledge - his own knowledge - I will receive it gratefully. It's occasionally happened.

I’ve spoken to quite a few people recently about meditation, and I must say that the impression one often gets – from those who meditate regularly – is of someone who twice daily disappears behind a rich, black velvet curtain. What was it like? It was still, calm, ‘and one comes out refreshed’. Wow …

Such descriptions are neither like what His Holiness says about meditation, nor I must say very much like what I experience myself. One thing that rings true in his descriptions is the sense of meditation as a dynamic event. His Holiness says that a point of vibration begins behind the lips … that the mantra harmonizes with the prana – the life-force within the body … that one dips into stillness and then rises again, several times perhaps. No velvet curtains, no non-specific generalizations. He’s telling us about something he actually experiences.

And let me say here, I don't think that alone makes him a wise man. We all experience meditation - or used to - all we need do is admit it. And if we can admit it, and look at what actually happens, the funny thing is that it seems to tell us a lot about ourselves. It turns out that meditation helps with self-realization, not always mystically, but often in very simple ways. We need to have the courage to accept what it is telling us.

Perhaps this post might be a place for people to record the experiences - good, bad or appalling - that they are having in meditation.

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Does the right answer help?

"There have been people who have told, in this country particularly, that the whole world is illusory, maya, it does not exist, but has it helped India in any way? The true test is there: whether it has helped, whether it has made people more authentic, more real. It has not helped at all. It has made people more deeply cunning, split, schizophrenic; it has made them hypocrites.

All the religions have done this, because they don't consider you. And you are far more important than the ultimate truth, because the ultimate truth has nothing to do with you right now. You are living in a dreamworld; some device is needed which can help you come out of it. The moment you are out of it, you will know it was a dream – but a person who is dreaming, to tell him that it is all a dream is meaningless...

And that's what has happened in India: people are living in maya, deeply in it, and still talking that "This is all maya." And this talk too is part of their dream; it does not destroy the dream. In fact it makes the dream more deeply rooted in them, because now there is no need to get rid of it – because it is a dream! So why get rid of it? It does not matter.

In a subtle way all the religions have done this: they have talked from the highest peak to the people for whom that peak does not exist yet."

~ Osho

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Order and Hierarchy

In the spirit of enquiry, this is Shakespeare's argument for hierarchy ('degree').

Take but degree away, untune that string
And hark what discord follows

- Ulysses in Troilus & Cressida Act I Sc 3

Of course, he lived in a very different age: in Shakespeare ordinary people ("rude mechanicals")are there for comic relief, while the kings and princes play out the real drama. The word "freedom" is never used positively anywhere in his work - preservation of the larger order is the key virtue.

Even so, I'm sure we can all feel the force of what Ulysses is saying here. Comments, anyone?

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Is Knowledge Asserting or Negating?

The question arises with some regularity, "What is the Path of Knowledge?". I often hear it spoken of as implying that someone who enjoys study, acquiring various degrees etc is following the path of knowledge. Also, it is often rejected by those of a more practical persuasion as being mere 'information'. I feel that this is a misunderstanding as to what the path of knowledge actually is. Sure, study is an aid for all of us, but what is the actual practice of the path of knowledge?

The following excerpts are from "Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna". I find this helpful in being reminded what kind of 'knowledge' we are actually talking about. The second excerpt, though Sri Ramakrishna uses a physical analogy, I find similar to the "Catching the Chameleon" method. i.e, the observation and dropping of assumed identities. Would it then be necessary to assert anything? Seems that we are often subject to a whole lot more assertion than negation? 'Assertion' leads to accumulated conclusions, 'negation' to deeper consciousness as the identifications are let go. If the ahankara has adopted various accumulated conclusions or beliefs then, because of identification, it feels threatened when the beliefs are threatened. Ever seen this? What kind of behaviour does this lead to?



What is Jnana Yoga?

Jnana Yoga is communion with God by means of knowledge. The Jnani's objective is to realise Brahman, the Absolute. He says "Not this," "Not this" and thus leaves out of account one unreal thing after another until he gets to a point where all Vichara (discrimination) between the real and the unreal ceases, and Brahman is realised in Samadhi.

***

If a man knows his own self, he knows other beings and God. What is my ego? Is it my hand or foot, flesh or blood, muscle or tendon? Ponder deeply, and you will know that there is no such thing as 'I'. As you peel off the skin of an onion, you find it consists only of skin; you cannot find any kernel in it. So too on analysing the ego, you will find that there is no real entity that you can call 'I'. Such an analysis of the ego convinces one that the ultimate substance is God alone. When egotism drops away, Divinity manifests itself.

***

...if, on the other hand, the Truth is heard and understood intellectually but no attempt is made to renounce the unreal, of what use is that knowledge? Such knowldege is like that of the men of the world, and does not help one to attain the Truth. Or else a person may profess in mere words that the world is unreal and non-existant; but the moment sense-objects – colour, taste and the rest appear before him, he takes them to be real and gets entangled just like a man who verbally asserts that there are no thorns, but bursts out screaming as soon as his hand comes in contact with a thorn and gets pricked.

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Control and The Will Of The Absolute

When I visited Cuba recently, it was brought home to me why Communism cannot work. Not for philosophical reasons, but because it gets in the way of people's natural creative impulses. A friend of mine had asked me to bring her some examples of Cuban graphic art, and I searched everywhere for postcards, posters, books - nothing. Eventually I met a man who worked for the Ministry of Tourism and asked him about it. He said, "Unfortunately, the Ministry is too busy running 280 hotels and so it cannot take care of details like this".

In a capitalist economy, some little guy would long ago have translated his enthusiasm for graphic art into a thriving business - supplying us all with its benefits, without any need for government to interfere. And indeed, as a 30-second search on the internet revealed, you can easily get the art of Cuba in a capitalist state. But not in Cuba. You can see why their favourite phrase is No es facile ... "it's not easy". They blame the blockade of the US for their problems, but I regret to say that the real blockade is Comrade Fidel.

Like the Cuban People's Revolution, the School cannot quite bring itself to trust people. Nobody actually says, "Whatever is not expressly permitted is forbidden", but the tradition of "Ask your tutor about any important decision" is a subtle version of the same thing - command and control. The assumption is that without tutorial supervision, people automatically descend to the lowest level. This may seem antiquated, but if anyone wishes I can cite many recent examples to show that tutorial control is alive and well in the School.

The problem with it from a spiritual point of view - and I do appreciate the value of a watchful tutor - is that there are many good things that one can't really explain or justify in words. That's the nature of creativity - you follow a quiet hunch, playfully almost. You don't really want to ask someone about it, or explain why you do it, because you don't know yet what it is. Oddly enough, this is the way the will of the Absolute happens: the will of the Absolute is in the avyakta, the unmanifested. By the time it's obvious, it's manifested. If you want to know the will of the Absolute, you need to take a step in the dark. You need to trust the self - your own self - and not someone else.

If you trust someone else instead of yourself, then you cannot realise the self. You cannot be creative. You cannot be artistic.

I have a question for the readers of this blog who are members of the School. I think it might bring up some very interesting avenues of enquiry:

Is there anything that you do or have done or would like to do that is 'spiritual', but for which you would not ask permission?

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Not Blogging

It's been interesting to have a break from all of this for a week - firstly because very little seems to have happened, and secondly because I've found it something of a relief.

The blog has been getting fairly popular ... it's all relative I suppose but 700 visitors in July means "Free the Teaching" is, oh let's see, only about 500 times less popular than the one by that woman who details her sex life. But then I suppose the potential readership of School members is dwarfed by people who are interested in sex. There may even be some crossover there, who knows?

There have been far fewer people who have been prepared to participate - but my thanks so far to Na, Geedash, Gitalover, Son of Moses, Minerva, Kapila, Laura, and of course the ever-charming Anonymous -as well as to more occasional contributors.

My point of view has by now been fairly extensively published, and I'm not sure what else I have to offer. Perhaps it might be useful to outline the essential points. These are my personal beliefs and not intended to be authoritative statements of truth:

1. The School has not listened to His Holiness
This is the root of all our problems. We've listened to the words, but ignored the message, which is one of compassion and intelligence. This is because we wanted to hang on to our old Gurdjieffian habits - which are highly disciplined, but neither compassionate nor intelligent - instead of learning from a wiser and more venerable tradition.

2. We need to discriminate between what is customary, and what is essential
There are a lot of things about the School that do not make sense. They persist because we are sentimental about "our" way of doing things and refuse to examine it rationally.

3. We need to evolve a vision for the future
We need to do this together. In the days of Mr MacLaren it was done for us; but it no longer can or should be thus. The challenge is to dissolve the hierarchy so that we can speak as equals. Some people will mistake this for mob rule, but I would ask: is the School a mob? Or has it achieved something?

4. We have many natural friends in the world
There are many people 'out there' who are desperate for the benefits of philosophy. There are others who have significant wisdom and understanding and who could and would help the School in its endeavours. The general lack of interest in the School is not, on the whole, due to the shortcomings of others, but to our own.

5. The School is potentially the best thing in the world
I don't have any arguments to back that up, but that's what I believe and intuitively feel. Rationally speaking, there is a lot of work to do.

It would be good to hear what others think about these matters, and if anyone has other suggestions they should put them forward. This blog has always been a means to an end, and at some point it will cease to exist. Whether that's now or later depends on you.

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Ways and means?

'For everything to stay the same, everything must change.'

Guiseppe di Lampedusa: The Leopard

Also away for a few days. Love to all.

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We have all the knowledge we need

And what is good, Phaedrus? And what is not good?
Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?

- Plato, Symposium

I'm off for a week ... enjoy.

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Catching the Chameleon

From Surging Joy
By Dr Sarada Nataragan

The mind, or the root of the mind, the "I"-thought, is as adaptable, as malleable to protect its own existence as any specimen of the physical universe. One could even say that the mind is more flexible. The chameleon only changes color, a horse its coat of hair, but the mind is capable, in time of need, to change its entire identity, name, form and all. The mind has the great advantage over the natural world of having no fixed shape to call its own, thus, it can take on any shape. There is no limit to its techniques of camouflage, no ceiling on its defence equipment...

The "I"-thought hides itself in numerous guises. It may appear as the subtle ego of achievement, the satisfaction of self-control, the ego of intellect, the pride of devotion, the complacency at progress, even the pride of humility. The ego is adept at assuming the form of every activity and every non-activity. When "active" it attaches itself to the spirit of activity, it revels in being quick, efficient. The danger is greater, not less, when the activity is rendered as service to the Lord, for, then the ego could take the subtle aspect of being His servant, there could even arise an ego of selflessness. If there is non-activity, the ego wallows in its sense of detachment, in its ability to stay without activity.

..there is one weapon the ego dreads...the weapon of self-enquiry. And, surely though perhaps gradually, it retracts, retreats inward towards its source. It does not suffice, therefore, to use this weapon of self-enquiry once in a blue moon. At every turn the ego must be pursued with self-enquiry, relentlessly. Its every posture, every mask, must be stripped off by constantly questioning it. Who is it that is serving? Who is it that is active? Who humble? Who detached? Who efficient? Who creative? Who is this I? For every identity that the "I"-thought assumes it must be countered with the attack, "Is not this also an identity? Then who is the "I" at the root of this identity? Who am I?" Attention must be constantly focused on the root of the "I"-thought, attempt ever be made to isolate it and turn it back to its source. All its disguises must be unearthed, ferreted out, smoked out as bees from a hive until it remains absolutely alone, and unable to withstand the scrutiny, falls headlong back into its source, the Self.

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HM Loyal Opposition

One of the issues that is bedevilling my own participation in this blog - and I'm sure I'm not exceptional in this - is that the School's culture does not include the idea of a useful opposition.

If we are to have evolution not revolution, there needs to be proper and equal space given to the voices of opposition. At the moment, any expression of opposition is the same as calling for revolution, which I for one would be horrified at.

All we have now are questions. The student can ask a question, and then "press the question", supposedly all the way to the Shankaracharya. In practice, this means little if the recipient of the question is not interested. I've watched people in my own group "press a question" for several years, but the decision as to whether to take it further is not based on the satisfaction of the student - as perhaps it should be - but with the satisfaction of the tutor. If the tutor believes that the student's question is "not useful", or "coming from ahankara", then even to allow it airtime is wrong. Eventually the student gives up.

The announcement recently about dress code was greeted by one member of my group with te words, "What took it so long?" The tutor's answer was that some other younger groups had "pressed the question" - in other words, it was our fault for not doing so. Doh! When the School eventually reforms itself, you can tell that the very people who dug their heels in for years will be blaming the students for their tamasic failure to press hard enough.

So, given that this mechanism of asking questions doesn't work very well, I would propose that we adopt a system similar to our Parliamentary democracy (that should keep the traditionalist wing happy), whereby the Head of State (the Queen) is symbolically served by her government and by her loyal opposition. I'm not sure who the Queen is in this set-up - maybe the Shankaracharya, or perhaps the Teaching itself. Or maybe it's the School leader. It would be nice to think of the leader as being an impartial figure, not defending or opposing anything.

There is a certain amount of pain associated with posting on this blog, probably because one occupies a position that many will regard as treasonous, and yet almost every day there seems to be something that needs to be said. I wish there was another way to do it, but for now there isn't.

This blog is, so far as I can see, the least bad way to practically explore the issues that face the School with a wide group of people; but it would be better if we had democracy. If we did, we could take the conversation off-line.

The problem with democracy is of course that "the people" are ignorant and led by their whims; at what point does the School decide that it's done its job of education and forming character, and give its members the respect and responsibility of having a voice?

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A System in the Conversations?

An important issue was raised by Gitalover recently, and I think it's worth examining. This is part of a comment on the "In response to Gitalover" post:

I recently embarked on an exercise of trying to discover traces of Shankara's system in the Conversations and was surprised to find little systematic unfoldment. (Mrs Jaiswal made the identical observation last week, adding that LM kept hopping from topic to topic without following through. She then threw down the challenge to find the System reflected in the Conversations and draw the threads together. My study so far (up to 1980) not much luck - apart from a rich vein on the steps of knowledge and devotion in 1974, and valuable nuggets about the 4-fold sadhana in 1980).

Two other senior men have also embarked on this task which I believe is key to freeing the Teaching. It is a valuable exercise. I recommend it.

If the aim, however, is to 'free the teaching' whilst preserving the SES as the future channel for it, then I may have misunderstood the motive for this blog. I accept the SES as a great prep school, but have come to see that whilst it maintains it current social agenda as the driving mission, then it is unlikely to be more than that. If, however, a systematic teaching in the Conversations can be uncovered, and the school re-connects with a realised teacher that can guide it practically, then who knows what's possible...

I'm not going to attempt to answer the questions raised here fully, because I don't really have an answer at the moment. Some personal reflections would be useful, however, at least to me.

Whether or not there is a system within the Conversations, I don't know. However, when I'm reading them what engages me seems to be something different to Gitalover. My assumption about His Holiness is that he is part of a tradition - according to Mr Jaiswal recently, "a very orthodox tradition". So, when he is explaining about the nine elements, or the stages to realization, or about sanskara, prarabdha, kriyamana etc, I am not uninterested but I think that this is very much "lower knowledge". These questions are explored systematically in other texts.

Here we have - it seems to me - an enlightened being. To listen to him recite the various aspects of vedantic orthodoxy is a bit like having an audience with Nelson Mandela and asking him to explain the technicalities of South African traffic law. I'm sure he could do it very well - maybe better than anyone else - but what I would really like to know about is his unique experience. We might cavil about the questions that were put to His Holiness, but the real point is to look at what we have.

What I have found in studying the Conversations is a connection with His Holiness' voice and message. To find that connection it's been necessary to remove from my perception so far as I can certain false assumptions that I already had, many of them picked up in School. Examples would be:

- self-realisation is a kind of competition that only the elite who follow millions of disciplines perfectly can hope to win
- obedience is the highest virtue to which I can aspire
- 'the world' is an evil place
- the School offers protection
- philosophy is about believing certain things to be true
- "I'm not good enough"
- If it hurts it me it must be because my ahankara is hurting
- If it's not working, it's because I'm not working
- Feelings are irrelevant
- Thoughts are useless

Whether the School has to be preserved as a channel, I haven't got that far. What I've found is that hearing the words of His Holiness without these kind of ideas playing in the subsconscious has been totally transformative. Personal study has been useful, but what really makes the difference is weekly Conversations sessions with a little group of like-minded people.

I can't go very far with this on my own. I don't know how far it does go, because I haven't had the opportunity to find out. The hope in setting up "Free the Teaching" was that I could get the message out that we don't have to keep kow-towing to ideas like those I've listed. My view of the School right now is that it's mired in tamas - either the tamas of students who suffer silently without realising why, or that of senior people who keep on with something they don't believe in, hoping that somehow it's going to work out all right, while looking around for an exit door. Where's the love, guys? I think the energy of MacLaren kept a lot going, and that energy had both positive and negative aspects. The danger now is that the School collapses out of a sheer lack of vision - just folds under the weight of its own inertia. Who knows - maybe that would be a good thing - but so far as I'm concerned it's unlikely.

What I've found since starting this is that there are people out there who have somehow preserved their purity, despite the mixture of good and bad influences about. It's been a joy to connect with these people. But I would never condemn anyone, or give up on anyone. My assumption is that everyone is naturally free, and that these tamasic shackles can just fall away if they get enough good influences.

Here's a quotation from my study today: "character building concerns parents and teachers much more than it concerns children. So the elders must behave in exactly the same way as they expect their children to behave." This is typical HH ... he throws the responsibility on the teacher. The School, as you may have noticed, throws the responsibility on the student: "if there's a problem, that's your ahankara, you must practice more".

When are we going to stop telling people lies such as that? When are we going to listen to the truth?

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Psychology

Listening Orientation

In reflective listening, the listener (i.e. tutor -k) adopts what Rogers called "the therapist's hypothesis". This is the belief that the capacity for self-insight, problem-solving, and growth resides primarily in the speaker (i.e. student -k). This means that the central questions for the listener are not 'What can I do for this person? or even "How do I see this person" but rather "How does this person see themselves and their situation?"

Rogers and others have made the underlying orientation of the listener more specific by noting that it contains four components: empathy, acceptance, congruence, and concreteness.

Empathy is the listener’s desire and effort to understand the recipient of help from the recipient's internal frame of reference rather than from some external point of view, such as a theory; a set of standards, or the listener's preferences…

… empathy is the listener's effort to hear the other person deeply, accurately, and non-judgmentally. A person who sees that a listener is really trying to understand his or her meanings will be willing to explore his or her problems and self more deeply.

Empathy is surprisingly difficult to achieve. We all have a strong tendency to advise, tell, agree, or disagree from our own point of view.

Acceptance is closely related to empathy. Acceptance means having respect for a person for simply being a person. Acceptance should be as unconditional as possible. This means that the listener should avoid expressing agreement or disagreement with what the other person says. This attitude encourages the other person to be less defensive and to explore aspects of self and the situation that they might otherwise keep hidden.

Congruence refers to openness, frankness, and genuineness on the part of the listener. The congruent listener is in touch with themselves. If angry or irritated, for example, the congruent person admits to having this feeling rather than pretending not to have it (perhaps because they are trying to be accepting). They communicate what they feel and know, rather than hiding behind a mask. Candor on the part of the listener tends to evoke candor in the speaker. When one person comes out from behind a facade, the other is more likely to as well…

Concreteness refers to focusing on specifics rather than vague generalities. Often, a person who has a problem will avoid painful feelings by being abstract or impersonal, using expressions like "sometimes there are situations that are difficult" (which is vague and abstract), or "most people want…" (which substitutes others for oneself). The listener can encourage concreteness by asking the speaker to be more specific. For example, instead of a agreeing with a statement like "You just can’t trust a manager. They care about themselves first and you second", you can ask what specific incident the speaker is referring to.

In active listening, it is important not only that the listener have an orientation with the four qualities of empathy, acceptance, congruence and concreteness, but that the speaker feel that listener has this orientation. Consequently, a good listener tries to understand how the other is experiencing the interaction and to shape their responses so that the other person understands where they are coming from….

(edited - see link for full excerpt)
http://www.analytictech.com/mb119/reflecti.htm

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