Too many notes, Mr Thrush

From Son of Moses:

More on the theory of evolution.

I am helping a new friend write a book about the possible resolution between modern science and theology.

He begins with an account of conventional evolutionary theory, explaining that when we hear a bird sing we would be mistaken if we assumed that this is some kind of joyful or magnificent occurrence. No, it is merely an assertion of territorial rights, or maybe an attempt to attract a female for the propagation of selfish genes.

So, please comment on the following.

a) A bird utters sounds (interpreted by ourselves in our sentimental ignorance as beautiful, divine etc.) merely so as to let other birds know that they should not intrude on its territory.

b) Mozart writes a mass merely to earn cash.

Yes, I am not denying that on one level this is true. But is there any difference between these two acts?

Yes, you say (possibly), there is a difference. It is this: unlike Herr Mozart, the bird is not able consciously to express anything (which leads to interesting speculations about the special nature of the human being, but let’s leave that till later).

But I say that the joy of the Creator is expressing itself through the bird just the same, and through everything else too. That is what creation is for. It is a vast song of praise.

If this, or something like it, is so, are not the territorial and survival issues necessary only so that the play may be kept on the road so that its message may be heard by those with ears to hear?

To try to lead others into the barren and joyless outlook of evolutionary reductionism is, I believe, a spiritual crime.

Yet I do not see how this is to be avoided if the conventional evolutional doctrine is propagated.

Discuss.

Read more

A Gospel Principle

It is infinitely more worth while to present, for the time being, a mixture of truth and error, than to mutilate reality by trying prematurely to separate the wheat from the tares. I have followed this Gospel principle without hesitation, since it is the principle of all research and scientific progress.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, letter 1917.

I just discovered this today, and to me it articulates the right approach to enquiry of any kind. When people violate it - either by self-censoring and refusing to speak while they are uncertain, or by pretending that they understand something they don't - they distort not only their own minds, but those of others.

Read more

The Twelve Days of Christmas

OK, guys, I think we could lighten up just for one day here!

This is a recording by Frank Kelly, otherwise known as Fr. Jack from Father Ted - a classic now available once again due to the miracle of the internet. The letters of Gubnait O'Lunasa to his beloved Nuala.

Click here.

Merry Christmas to one and all!

Read more

Intellect

Personally I think it would be a good use of this blog to examine our use of certain words and phrases. It's clear that when one man uses a word, another man 'hears' something else (there is no personal comment implied to anyone here). So we endeavour to communicate but we filter words though our own associations and hence live in our own universe.

I recently read about Buddha. Buddha was described by the author as the embodiment of bodha. Bodha was defined as 'pure intelligence'. As we know, the words Buddha, bodha and buddhi all trace back to the same sanskrit root, 'budh' to do with being awake. This definition of 'pure intelligence' rang a bell here. So...

What is intelligence? What is intellect? Are they different? It seems to me that our habitual associations with these words are very different. Intellect, in common parlance, seems to be referring to analytical mind, manas. The word intellectual has come to be used (particularly in the school) as a derogatory term. ‘Someone who hasn't gone beyond book knowledge’ or something similar.

As I'm sure most are aware the Sri Purohit Swami translation of the Gita uses ‘intellect’ for buddhi. And I suspect the average reader would hear fairly un-buddhi-like connotations on reading it. But even in the english, getting back to ‘pure’ conception, devoid of associations:

Intellect:
1 a : the power of knowing as distinguished from the power to feel and to will : the capacity for knowledge
[Merriam-Webster Dictionary]

‘The power of knowing’ is an interesting notion. Depends on what sort of ‘knowledge’ we’re talking about as to how we think of this? Our current intellectual climate would probably associate ‘capacity for knowledge’ as ‘ability to absorb and order lots of facts’ ? i.e, manas.

What about the word intelligence? The modern connotations are perhaps to do with IQ or something similar. Despite the limitations of IQ, I suggest there is an important characteristic contained in those kinds of tests. The idea is that the ability to solve the test is not related to prior knowledge. All the information should be in the question. Of course it doesn’t quite work like this when confronted with 5 anagrams and asked, ‘which of the following is not a poet?’. Is this testing the ability to solve anagrams or testing 'information about poets which I have committed to memory' ?

To me, the ‘pure intelligence’ is that faculty of mind that operates in the present, ‘awake’ without reference to prior constructs, systems etc. It ‘sees’ directly what is true or false and it can only operate when ‘awake’. Intellect in its ‘pure conception’ as ‘power of knowing’ must amount to the same thing. I wouldn’t consider this to be a denial of analysis, systems etc. The buddhi is the overseer that can pick up or put down a number of conceptual tools. It doesn’t have to be bound by any of them. It knows that none of them are ‘the whole truth’.

“Words stand between silence and silence: between the silence of things and the silence of our own being. Between the silence of the world and the silence of God. When we have really met and known the world in silence, words do not separate us from the world nor from other men, nor from God, nor from ourselves because we no longer trust entirely in language to contain reality.”

~ Thomas Merton

Read more

Science - the lowest common denominator?

Son of Moses suggests a new thread following on from the one about evolution, which is as he says getting long. He writes:

Science, its validity, its limitations: a real subject for discussion, and at the root of so many of the concerns expressed in this blog ... Perhaps I could kick off the subject by being deliberately provocative and saying that the only way that Advaita manages to include all views is by a system of relative validity. On that scale, science is only one up from the evidence of the senses. It is a very culture-bound view of things and is given far too much credence by our contemporary world. It only manages to be ‘a public and shared endeavour’, as you put it, by inhabiting the lowest common denominator of understanding. A truer science would accept other modes of knowing, and yes we are debating the wonderful subject of epistemology, the science concerning the valid ways of knowing, a subject the Tradition takes very seriously but which is seldom debated within the School, surely a sign of the latter's limitations.

Read more

The real unanimity

What we need for the future of the School is, I believe, a different kind of unanimity. Thus far we have had a unanimity not only of action, but of thought. In other words, as members of the School we assent to certain ideas which are held to be part of "The Truth" or "The Teaching", and are thus beyond question.

The yugas, the five elements, the four aspects of the antahkarana, the three gunas, the division between purusha and prakriti, the unity of atman and brahman (that all organised itself very nicely, didn't it?) ... we could go on.

The point of calling into question the yugas is not to bring the whole edifice of The Teaching down about our ears, but to say that they are just ideas. Ideas are provisional mental constructions, and are therefore fully open to question by mental means, such as reason (of which science is an aspect).

What I would like to propose is that the unanimity we require is emotional. That's to say - we can be united in our hearts, while holding different theories or opinions about the world. Indeed, if we are going to have a real conversation, we need to be strongly united if we are not to be driven apart by our ideas into factions.

We cannot limit the operation of reason; but we need faith if we are to venture along the path of reason - faith that there is something to find; faith that we can live without dogma or concepts; faith that if we disagree then we can push on further, and not fall back on a facile conceptual unity.

It is not enough to say "all concepts are just concepts" and give up on thought. We are "man" - "the being who thinks" - and until we have the answers, we must question.

Read more

Evolution and the Yugas

We now know, as certainly as we can, that the species of the present day evolved from lower animals. Perhaps 100,000 years ago Neanderthals developed; then around 60,000 years ago homo sapiens.

Can we agree then that any idea of a descending series of yugas is untenable? That the Kaliyuga (literally "The Historical Period") is in fact all we know of our history, and that the other three yugas are imaginative fictions?


Come on, you know you want to disagree ... bring it on!

Illustration shows new Judaeo-Christian theory of synthetic evolution. Finally we know where the second and third 'women' came from. Thank you, Charles Darwin!

Read more

Dare to peace

At this time of the year when we traditionally wish each other both a merry Christmas and a peaceful New Year, I was interested in the following from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian and pastor who was executed in 1945 for his opposition to the Nazi regime:

'There is no way to peace along the path of safety, for peace must be dared. It is in itself a great venture and can never be safe. Peace is the opposite of security. To demand guarantees is to mistrust, and this mistrust in turn brings forth war. To look for guarantees is to want to protect oneself. Peace means giving yourself completely to God's commandment.'

For me, every word sounds a bell, every sentence is profound though simple, and the whole is a proclamation of the ideal Christian life. Not only Christian, there are peacemakers in every religion and in every generation. But Bonhoeffer was a Christian, living in extraordinarily difficult times, and his willingness and courage to bear witness and to lead the best Christian life led also to his execution. As has occurred before, his death did not seal him from the living. Rather, it opened the door so that his words and example spread forth.

'Peace is the opposite of security' carves a path right through the fuzzy undergrowth littering my emotional ground. Understand that, my heart tells me, and you may begin to understand God's commandment.

Read more

Does Not Compute

"Mechanical" is a word often used to describe any habitual action, thought or word. I think it's probably a Gurdjieff-Ouspensky term, but it occurs to me to ask how useful it is as a way of describing a conscious, living organism.

I do recognise what it's saying, but ought we to speak of ourselves, even in our worst moments, as if we were machines? If a machine goes wrong, it blows up, or just stops; but if a person goes wrong, they usually keep going pretty well. I can live 'mechanically' for a whole day or a week and at the end of it I probably haven't walked off any cliffs, forgotten to eat, or accidentally stopped breathing. Maybe it could be said that I'm living "vegetatively" or "animalistically"?

And even when I am relatively unaware at one level, at another, I am witnessing all: there is the possibility of learning, even in the most unpromising circumstances. There's a chance that I might 'wake up' into consciousness.

It's all too delicate and mysterious to attribute to cogs churning round. Scientists, until recently, were very enamoured of machine metaphors, but they seem to be getting over it. Maybe it's time we did too.

I don't believe people are ever like machines. What about you?

Read more

My Name is Tony, and I am an Advaitin

A couple of years ago an email was sent to most of the UK branches of the School from "Advaita The Source". It came from an anonymous email account and turned out to be an essay by Tony Parsons, possibly written by him, or just lifted from his web site. It said "please disseminate to all students". Here's a sample:

In reality, what we all long for is absence . . . limited ideas of becoming, destiny and personal attainment the absence of the "me" that seeks and feels separate. This is pure Advaita, which is totally beyond the, limited ideas of becoming, destiny and personal attainment, which are simply products of the mind.

Hmm. Not sure that I do long for absence, Tony. Except yours, obviously.

I had a correspondence with him which I think we both found mutually unenlightening.

It turns out that there is a big fashion in spiritual circles for what is called "Neo-Advaita", of which TP is a leading light. Other teachers such as Gangaji, Wayne Liquorman, Esther Veltheim, etc have remarkably similar things to say. According to Neo-Advaita, there is no need to follow a path, undergo discipline, work to help others, or to do anything at all that orthodox Advaita Vedanta, in common with most of the other philosophical and religious traditions, recommends to those in search of liberation. All that is necessary is to give up, accept that the script is already written, and stop worrying!

No wonder disenchanted members of the School are attracted.

Something about it seems to me a bit fishy. Some of these teachers do seem to have wisdom (see, for example, some quotations by Gangaji that are cited elsewhere on this blog by others) but is it really of a kind that can help others? There are some who believe that Neo-Advaita is a dangerous fad - that it absolves comfortable Westerners of concern about moral issues, that it attempts to short-circuit the process of spiritual growth, and that it is a nihilistic, empty philosophy or faith. What is Enlightenment? magazine has published a satire on Neo-Advaita, which you can read here, along with an account of a self-confessed former addict of what he calls 'spiritual heroin'.

As members of an organization that promotes a traditional, though also Westernized form of Advaita, I think we ought to be aware of the issues opened up in this article. Plus which, it's a giggle.

Read more

What's the Sanskrit for "Basic Instinct"?

I've been reading The Language Instinct, by Stephen Pinker (left) which is the standard popular work on modern linguistics. Fascinating stuff.

For example, it has been shown that any devoted mothers who read to their unborn children, or attempt to 'hothouse' their newborns by teaching them language are wasting their time. Young children have a far higher ability to acquire language than their parents. This is proved by the example of those who speak 'pidgin' dialects - languages created among a disparate group of adults who do not share a language, such as prisoners in island colonies. Pidgin dialects generally have very basic grammatical forms, and they are easy to misunderstand as a result.

But the children of pidgin-speakers make this right, by instinctively creating from nothing a far more complex version of the pidgin, with a firm but supple grammatical structure. The result of this second generation is a new language, called a creole. A creole is not in any way inferior to one of the parent languages, such as English or French. Even a single child, with pidgin-speaking parents, will develop a creole of his own.

From such evidence, Pinker and others, notably Noam Chomsky, suppose that there is an instinctive grammar built in to the human mind. They call it 'mentalese', and all languages are a translation from mentalese into the spoken word.

(I read a chapter before going to sleep the other night, and just as I was dropping off I had a remarkable experience. My mind seemed to slip into a realm of meaning without words, and I watched, at it were, random phrases and sentences forming themselves without any effort from out of this curious space. This seems to explain how we can have long conversations in dreams that are apparently full of meaning - but a meaning that is forever just out of reach. What is happening in dreams - it now seems to me - is that our unconscious mind is playing with its easy, instinctive ability to construct sentences. Whether or not there is sometimes a higher import in the dreams, I don't know. But what I caught sight of, I think, was the mechanism of language. Thank you, Mr Pinker ...)

Now, I would be unwilling to say that "mentalese" is, exactly. But it seems to me that anyone who wants to make special claims for Sanskrit as being close to some kind of "unknown tongue", the natural language of meaning, ought to be familiar with the research of Chomsky and others (I've just checked the index, and Sanskrit is not mentioned once, although Indo-European gets five references).

I'm not trying to 'have a go' here - but although Chomsky is the single most academically-cited living author, I have never heard any of this in the School. Maybe it doesn't help that he is a political dissident. I would suggest that if we are to have a Language faculty, rather than just a Sanskrit one, then we need to be abreast of the latest research, and respond to it. It would be interesting to hear whether anyone has studied modern linguistics, and if so what views have been formed.

Read more

Dude ...

A little while ago I heard the transcript of a momentous meeting addressed by Dr Roles on his return from his first trip to India. He described how he had been put under pressure by the Maharishi to change his flight back to England, because he would not get the chance to see Shantananda that week. His response was to refuse, on the grounds that he had said he would be back on that date and "a promise kept is worth any amount of spiritual experiences".

When I mentioned this before someone took this to mean "a promise kept is worth more than the self", but that isn't the point at all.

Last night I watched again the documentary Riding Giants, which is about the big-wave surfers of California and Hawaii. It's a terrific film and I found myself moved and uplifted by their passion for the biggest, most awesome, gnarliest wave imaginable. In the closing credits one of the surfers says something to the effect that, "if someone put this much energy and devotion into a religion, no-one would call them a religion bum; and I think this is a religion. There are no surf bums". It was hard not to believe him.

But what Dr Roles is saying adds a bit more. There's no doubt that a lot of people pursue a lot of different kinds of spiritual experiences, and that this transforms their lives and gives them meaning. But the really enduring traditions are not about spiritual experiences. Aim for "peak experiences" and you will get them, but that has never been the purpose of a real spiritual path. The experience is not the aim, but the by-product of the aim. And if the experience is won while neglecting some responsibility, then how pure was the motive?

Read more

New Media, New Paradigm

There are two ways to bring about a change - either by conversation or by action. Conversation is in many ways preferable, but often the arguments people offer are not close to their real reasons. If someone is afraid of change, there is no point in speaking to them about it, because they will hide the fear behind all kinds of rationalizations. Defeat one argument and, like the hydra, two more spring up in its place. What the other person needs is not reason, but a sense of security.

Sometimes, then, the best way forward is to take a different tack. Give people a different experience; give them an experience that they enjoy and like; and then, when they're happy, explain why it is they feel good about it.

That, I suppose, is the possibility offered to the School by the internet - blogging, online communities, podcasting, downloads. The old paradigm is where the wisdom comes down out of a cloud, in little drops, to the waiting faithful. The traffic is one direction only. If we take up the opportunity offered by the internet, we will suddenly have a different paradigm - in which we create a worldwide online community of philosophy, where every voice is equal in status. And why not, indeed? Socrates went around Greece asking people questions - from slaves to statesmen. What mattered was not who they were, but their wisdom.

Of course, it should never be a substitute for real conversation ... but what do you think? This is a chance to take part in the experiment.

Read more

Zen and the Art of Non-Duality

by Sengstan (Third Zen Patriarch)


The great way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.
If you wish to see the Truth
Then hold no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
Is the disease of the mind.
When the deep meaning of things is not understood
the Mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail.

The way is perfect; like vast space
where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess.
Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject
that we do not see the true nature of things.
Live neither in the entanglements of outer things,
nor in inner feelings of emptiness.
Be serene in the oneness of things
and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves.
When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity
your effort fills you with activity.
As long as you remain in one extreme or the other
you will never know Oneness.

(cont...)

Read more

Nowhere Man

This was sparked off by Laura's story, which I quote here.

I heard a story today: 'A teacher was supervising her young pupils during class. As she walked round she noticed that one little girl was very intent on her drawing.

'What are you drawing?' asked the teacher.

'God,' said the child.

'But no one knows what God looks like,' said the teacher.

'They will soon,' said the child as she continued her drawing.

A few of us met with Mr Jaiswal at the weekend to talk about art - everyone there was either an artist of some kind or a writer - and he said "the artist is the soul of the school". He added that while the rationalist understands the past very well, he has no vision of the future; but the artist sees the future.

This phrase, "the future" is particularly odd. We are accustomed in our tradition to think of the present as the only reality, yet Mr Jaiswal in another talk spoke about "the absolute of the past", "the absolute of the present" and "the absolute of the future". Creativity is "the absolute of the future". What does this mean?

Maybe the key is the Sanskrit word sat, which means "real", "good" and "manifest". To connect with the present is to connect with sat. Then we have the word asat which has some negative connotations, but also carries the sense of "unmanifest". In one of the Upanishads (sorry, can't remember where) the asat is higher than the sat. This makes sense, of course, because the unmanifest is closer to the absolute.

The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.

- A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act V Sc i.

So the artist, it seems, discovers the asat, that which will be, while the practical man connects only with the sat, that which is.

When we met the Indian tradition at the start of the 1960s, we brought with us a tradition that connected strongly with the sat of the present moment. Accordingly, there was a strong mistrust of anything that smacked of asat: imagination, dream, thinking are all words we learned to disparage. They were associated with delusion, sickness and psychosis - which, of course, has some truth. Shakespeare in the same passage says "The lunatic, the lover and the poet / Are of imagination all compact". If we tread in the unmanifest, we may stray into the unreal, that which has no possiblity of manifestation.

The Indian tradition is rather different. It does talk about the value of the present, but it gives it far less emphasis than one would think from second-hand accounts. There is much more to the tradition than sat. To give one example, there is meditation: a practice that is a retreat from the waking consciousness of sat. Which probably explains why we have never made much progress with meditation, and why even our leaders can tell us so little about it.

By the way, you know about meditation. You've just learned to despise that part of you that knows it.

How best to serve the School? Is it by stopping on the path, asserting that we have already arrived, and protecting its heritage? Or is it by continuing along the path, doing what we can to build upon and exceed what has already been done?

We are like tourists who have two maps. The first one is commercially produced by a roadside inn, showing how to get there, but nothing else. The other is a real map, which shows not only the inn but the terrain and the way ahead to a site of pilgrimage, which is the historical reason for the road's existence. Both maps are true, but unless we put away the first and start to follow the second, we will stay where we are. The inn is getting older and a bit run-down, because fewer people pass along that way.

The way to help the inn recover its health is not by fixing up the sign or replacing the tables or advertising it, but to make the pilgrimage. When people are reminded of that, then they will need the School to help them on the way. But they don't need the School in itself, any more than we need an inn on a road to nowhere.

Only the artist - the real philosopher - can see that 'nowhere' is really where it's at. The challenge is to make that obvious, even to someone as dense as a practical man.

Read more

Whispering to the Elephant

We've started getting email reminders of our practice for the week. This week it said: "the disciplined mind is very peaceful". As great philosophical statements go, this probably does not rank up there with "do unto others", but a couple of times I recalled it today, and it made a difference.

It this Philosophy for Dummies TM ?

Why is it that even the most bland or mundane utterance of the wise can take us from darkness towards light? I suppose that maybe the word "wise" is the key there - the respect that it implies makes us pause, and that pause allows our native intelligence to function over our native ignorance. So maybe we don't need much.

Recent scientific research suggests another answer. The psychologist Jonathan Haidt borrows the Buddha's analogy for the human being of a rider on an elephant. The rider is our conscious, verbal mind; the elephant is the rest of us. The thing is, of course, the rider is a recent invention - in evolutionary terms it was dreamed up yesterday - whereas the elephant has been tested and perfected over literally millions of years. Haidt says that in effect we have "Rider 1.0" trying to control Elephant 1 million.

The rider might have his own ideas about where they are going, but if the elephant sees something it wants - or something it wants to avoid - then we go where the elephant chooses. That's why I am unable to live a measured life, even though I know all about its benefits in both theory and practice. The elephant has different priorities.

Many techniques have been developed, especially in recent times, that attempt to solve our problems by addressing the rider. Psychoanalysis, for example - if only I could understand what it was that happened with that dog when I was 2, I'd be much better able to deal with my boss. The only thing is though, psychoanalysis has never been proven to work - it might bring understanding to the rider, but he still does pretty much everything the elephant wants. When the elephant says, "Want Buns", the rider says, "how many?" (of course the elephant can't count ... this is part of the problem).

So we come back to the ancient solutions. Instead of trying to explain everything at the beginning, the traditional remedies or paths start with simple, repetitive exercises. Some are designed to give small, regular rewards for good behaviour. Others are designed to punish wrong-doing. Others, like meditation, bypass the thought process altogether. These things have to be repeated every day, because elephants don't, contrary to popular belief, have long memories. This process, if followed faithfully, builds up strength and capacity. It is compared to churning milk to make butter - there needs to be a transformation first, and then understanding. Until the disciple has gone through all of this, he or she isn't ready for philosophy.

The point is not for the rider to gain control, but for the two to learn to talk to each other, to become integrated. The elephant doesn't know what's good for it, so it desires status and power; the rider has to teach it to pursue the things that will lead to happiness. The elephant is a pessimist, and its fears dominate its thinking - it has learned over aeons that the consequences of missing a meal are far less severe than those of becoming a meal. The elephant is partial to its own interests, so it has to be taught the value of impartiality. It can't be taught all of this in one go, and it doesn't understand English or Sanskrit. It's hard to imagine that any lesson could be repeated too often, or spelled out too much.

That's why a few simple words from the wise help.

Read more

Why are we dying?

As yet another friend dies from cancer this week, I do wonder if School deaths accord with the general pattern of deaths in the UK?

As a group we are not particularly long-lived - worn out from too much activity? Or maybe it's something completely different? I haven't done a head-count over the last few years, but I can think of only one fatal heart attack but numbers of deaths from cancer.

This line of thought is not particularly helpful - except that it might point to areas of imbalance amongst the still living which could then be addressed. It would certainly repay study, to cut through any disabling myths about the health of the human body which are still lurking around the School.

If anyone is reading this who is a doctor, or similar, would you care to look at School members in this respect?

Our health may depend on it.

Read more

Can you move a little faster, said the whiting to the snail.

Recently our stream was addressed by Bill Whiting, head of the School of Meditation. For this listener, he exemplified how to teach the subject: he not only knows what His Holiness says on the subject, but also tells you what it is like to meditate, for him. I asked him about whether we should talk about meditation and he said that we certainly should.

Although I appreciate, and feel, the concern that people have about speaking of meditation, I think the value of this has been very exaggerated in the School. Why? Because there are very few people in the School - very few tutors - that feel confident to talk about it. Their reticence has led their students to follow suit. This means that the problems never get addressed or resolved. I recently spoke to someone who said that she had recently 'fessed up' to her tutor - in 25 years she'd never really got what meditation is about, and in fact she didn't meditate on her own time. I don't think that's uncommon among senior people. It's time to be honest with ourselves, and others.

I think what we should also consider is the growing scientific evidence about meditation. Firstly, it suggests that it's 'a good thing', and secondly it specifies why it's a good thing.

One thing I've noticed about meditation is that it has definite effects on the body. This morning I sat down to meditate and I noticed that I felt tense - my shoulders were gripped with tension and stiffness. There's not much you can do about this kind of tension. A massage helps a bit, or exercise, but really you're only addressing the symptoms. But after 30 minutes of meditation (no fireworks, lot of thinking) the physical problem is gone. It works by itself, despite my own worst efforts. It's kind of miraculous, and it's a daily contradiction of what I normally believe about cause and effect.

One of my students gave me printouts of two medical abstracts about meditation. The first one concludes that "the practice of meditation activates neural structures involved in attention and control of the autonomic nervous system". The second one says meditation changes the physical structure of the brain. It thickens the brain cortex, an effect especially notable in older people: "suggesting that meditation might offset age-related cortical thinning". This means that meditation might be a safeguard against senility or diseases like Huntingdon's. Another book I read recently summarised the research that showed that meditation was the only thing, other than prozac or cognitive therapy, that you can do to make your outlook on life sunnier. Psychoanalysis, and all the panoply of therapies and spiritual practices, do not have a reliable effect on your level of inner happiness, but meditation does.

I suppose I mention all of this because I think a lot of people don't really believe in meditation. They don't believe because their tutors don't believe. This is not to blame the tutors, but to note an area that needs some honest self-assessment by individuals and the organisation. In the previous post I noted one reason why this might be: the School is strongly oriented towards 'the way of action', and meditation is not an activity. Meditation contradicts many of the things we believe in.

This leaves us in a bit of a quandary. In one of the Marx Brothers films, a lady says to Chico Marx that she had seen him cheating at cards "with my own eyes". Chico retorts: "Who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?" Until we start believing our own eyes, our own perceptions, our own insights and intelligence, our beliefs are no better than hearsay. Until we get used to speaking about what we find, and acting on what we say, we're not really philosophers.

Read more

There is another way ... or maybe two

According to His Holiness, there are three principal 'ways' to self-realization: knowledge, devotion, action. Then there is the 'fourth way', which is the way of the householder. Sometimes Shantananda seems to favour the way of devotion, perhaps as the most direct of the three; at other times he expresses a distinct preference for the fourth way, as being less extreme and more natural than the others. The School is supposed to be for people on the fourth way, but at the same time it's clear that individuals will by their own nature be drawn to one or more of knowledge, devotion or action. All three must be accommodated.

That gives us a framework, a guiding principle. How do we measure up in practice?

My own theory - and as someone said, there's nothing so practical as a good theory - is that the School has a strong preference for the way of action. This will come as a surprise to many people - I think the general view is that the School has a predilection, if anything, for knowledge. But what I note is that the people who are most contented and at home in the School are, almost invariably, lovers of action.

Show me an entirely happy long-term School student, and I will show you a man of action. It's what we do well.

I recently listened to one of Shane Mulhall's CDs, in which he spoke at some length on the three types of people, with respect to career. According to Mr Mulhall, the devotional person is mainly interested in "relationships" - his example was a restaurateur who asks, "How was your food?", but who in reality doesn't care what sort of rubbish he serves. He's only interested in having a friendly relationship. According to Mr Mulhall, the intellectual person is not interested in people, or in being effective, but only in knowing. His example of this was a doctor 'who would be more interested in the disease than the patient'. Neither of these are, I think, people one would necessarily want to be. By contrast, his portrait of the man of action was fulsome and almost without negativity.

Now, Mr Mulhall is someone who normally sticks very closely to Shantananda's words, but here he veers dramatically away from the view presented in the Conversations. He's a thoroughly even-handed and clear-sighted individual, to judge by his lectures; and for this reason it's all the more surprising that on this topic he resembles a cyclops who's just been chopping onions. It appears that the preference for the way of action is tremendously strong in the School.

The rule holds true in almost every case. The man of action is happy in the School, because we love karma yoga - duties, action, physical work, vigour. The man of knowledge is a bit less happy, because when it comes to enquiry after truth we have a rather weaker tradition. We're not quite sure in the School whether we are really seeking truth, or whether we've already found it and, if it wasn't for that goldarned ahankara, then by golly we'd all be realised. Speaking as someone who has a bit of an affiliation to this way, I can assure you that we have a lot to learn about how to foster knowledge. We have cut "knowledge" down to our own size - a manageable size - instead of enlarging our minds. Even the phrase "practical philosophy" has a flavour of utilitarianism about it - as if the purpose of knowledge is to serve action. "Wisdom Works", according to one slogan. Does it? According to Plato, wisdom is the state of soul when it becomes unchanging. Not much work needed there.

But if you want to see someone who is really unhappy in the School, look at the man of devotion. If you hang around the School long enough you might think the word 'devoted' means 'loyal, faithful, always ready to make the tea ... maybe a bit thick, bless 'em'. In other words, the devotional person is someone who can't cut the mustard intellectually, but who is useful for practical tasks. According to this view, the purpose of devotion is to serve action. This is not devotion. In fact, it's just old-fashioned English class prejudice.

This explains why we're so bad, so throroughly and unspeakably bad, at meditation. Meditation takes you beyond doing, into being. Meditation is what the way of action knows nothing about. It is a devotional practice, and it develops the intellect by freeing us from attachment. It's really simple - at least if you're not trying to make it into something it's not. Meditation points one way; School tradition points the other. It's a wonder we've kept it going. Obviously someone up there likes us.

Fortunately, His Holiness is rather detailed in his remarks on this subject. According to him, devotion or love is the Royal Way, quicker and more direct than the others. The man of devotion has no time to attend a School or to do duties. He wakes up in the morning praising God, and there's really no need to get out of bed. He's already there. This has been ignored or rationalised away, with words such as "sentimental" or "idle".

But why take my word for it? I would recommend anyone who is interested in knowledge or devotion to read the Conversations - 1965 and 1967 for a start. But read them without your Old-School glasses on, if you can. You might find you can see more clearly.

Read more

A Forum For Dialogue

A number of people recently have noted that the School lacks a genuine forum to discuss how the School ought to be. Among this number is included its leader, and so we can bypass lengthy analysis of the Executive/Fellowship.

What I would like to propose is that we draft a proposal to set up a forum of this kind. We could take as a starting point the words of Mr Jaiswal, "It is the duty of every School member to imagine how the School should be". Would you support such a thing? Would you be prepared to give your time and effort to it? Comments please.

Read more