Theosophical Digest No. 129

Books by Mail

The Divine Plan by

Geoffrey Barborka

A commentary on HPB’ s The Secret Doctrine

Softcover, 185 pages 8” x 5”, P250.00

Esoteric Christianity

by Annie Besant

In this book, religious historian Annie Besant offers a new take on standard Christian doctrine and practice.

Softcover, 302 pages 6.1” x 8.9”, P275.00

Pilgrimage:

Twenty

to Inspire the Soul by David Souden

Journeys

Traces 20 great, age-old journeys to sites all over the world Hardcover, 142 pages 8” x 9.5”, P350.00

Beyond

Violence by J. Krishnamurti

A book about the roots of violence in our society and how to live positively Softcover, 186 page 4.5” x 7”, P150.00

Prices (in Philippine peso) include postage and handling.

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Theosophical Digest

Vol. 33, No.1 No. 129

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Consult the Oracle

from QUEST GREVEL LINDOP

MY grandfather, I’ve been told, was something of a magician. At any rate, he left behind him a substantial collection of occult books. Unfortunately, I never saw this collection: when he died, my parents (not from any disapproval, but simply because they had had enough of dealing with his possessions) disposed of the whole lot to a bookseller.

Or almost the whole lot. Because, as in all the best fairy tales, one book survived. When I was about 10 years old, I found it, hidden among clutter in a kind of attic, the room next to my bedroom. It’s on the desk in front of me as I write, a battered old volume called Consult the Oracle, or “How to Readthe Future.”

Could there possibly be a more alluring title for a child to discover? I still feel a certain thrill as I look at it now, despite its desperate physical condition. The spine, which time has darkened almost to black, has split and nearly fallen off. The hard front cover is a shiny, grubby brown, darkened at the edges with finger marks. It shows an amateurish drawing of a priestess swathed in voluminous robes, perched atop a three-legged chair — no doubt the famous tripod of the Delphic Oracle. She raises one crudely drawn hand, while the other clutches a branch of some shrub: perhaps meant for laurel or olive, though it looks nothing like either. From a hole in the dais under her chair ema-

Condensed

“There is indeed another world — but it is in this one”

— Paul Eluard

As in all the best fairy tales, one book survived. When I was about 10 years old, I found it, hidden among clutter in a kind of attic, the room next to my bedroom.

nate curly wreaths of smoke: vapors from the depths of the earth which were supposed to inspire the oracle’s prophecies.

Alongside her, to remind us of practicalities, is the book’s price: one shilling. In March 1901, when Grandfather bought the book, that would have been cheap, but not dirt cheap. I know when he bought it, incidentally, because there’s the date, under pencilled initials, on a flyleaf which has now completely detached itself and lies loose inside the cover.

Consult the Oracle was first published in 1899 by C. Arthur Pearson, one of Britain’s leading book publishers. Written by the no doubt pseudonymous Gabriel Nostradamus, it became a best seller.

The title page enlarges on what’s to be found within. “A GUIDE TO THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS,” it promises, “AND TO OTHER MATTERS MAGICAL AND MYSTERIOUS: BEING THE WISDOM

OF PAST TIMES AND PRESENT TIMES AS TO WHAT WILL SURELY COME TO PASS.” Who could resist that? As a 10-year-old, I certainly couldn’t. When you’re a child, the future is everything, a box of delights. Now, in my 71st year, I have a different idea of what will surely come to pass, and it’s not all good. Never mind. The contents page listed possibilities beyond my wildest dreams.

Indeed, dreams were where the book began. The first chapter was “We Tell the Meaning of Your Dreams,” and it started with some basic tips: for example, a warning that “the gift of dreaming with truth is withdrawn from those who either tell as dreams what they never dreamt, or refuse to tell their dreams at all.” That was worth remembering. Also, “Morning dreams are more reliable than those of any other time.” Certainly, I’ve often found those the most vivid, though “the most important dream of the week” is, apparently, the one you dream on Friday night. Above all, “dreams are interpreted by symbolism. The most earnest and best-informed student of the symbolical will be the most reliable interpreter of dreams.”

There followed an alphabetical list of dream images, with interpretations, some of them surprising. If you dream of an anchor, for example, then “one of

whose affections you are doubtful really cares for you,” and to dream of riding a bicycle “means that for some years you will have constant change.” A stopped clock means a dangerous illness, and “should you dream of catching fish it is a sure sign of bad luck.” More predictably, “to hear whispering in a dream means that many people are talking ill of you.” Some of the topics seemed a little outre; would I ever dream, for example, of a tortoise (“You will by plodding on reach a high position in life”)? Or of watching a woman make pies (“Your experience in love is likely to prove disastrous”)? Six decades later, I’m not sure either of these has yet cropped up. But the details didn’t really matter. What counted was the sense that dreams were worth attention, that they had meaning. I began to recall my dreams purposefully, and to reflect on them. A few years later, in a local library, I found a book called The Interpretation of Dreams and borrowed it, expecting a more reliable guide to prophecy. It turned out to be by Sigmund Freud; it introduced me to psychoanalysis, which has played a valuable part in my life. But there was much more to Consult the Oracle than dreams. Among the other chapters were “Lucky and Unlucky Numbers”; “Fortunes Told by Cards”; “Character Shown by Handwriting”;

and many more. Almost everything, it seemed, could have hidden meanings. The chapter on cartomancy offered what was probably a very old system for reading fortunes with ordinary playing cards; in 1901, few people outside esoteric organizations had ever heard of Tarot cards. I didn’t get far with it: memorizing the meanings of 52 cards, many of them apparently quite arbitrary, was too difficult (“Five of Hearts: Unexpected news, generally of a good kind; Four of Hearts: An unfaithful friend. A secret betrayed”). But it aroused my curiosity, and when I was 16, I finally got a Tarot deck — which I’ve used ever since. More immediately valuable were the chapters called “We May Judge Character by the Hands and Fingers” and “Fortune Read in the Palm of the Hand.” I studied my own hands closely. Easy enough to find the life line and even the lines of head and heart. But where was “the Plain or Triangle of Mars”? And what about the “Mount of Luna, or the Moon”? Not too worried about such minutiae, I scrutinized other people’s hands as

“Dreams are interpreted by symbolism.”

well. Somehow, without ever quite disentangling all the details, I began to develop a sense of how the hand, taken as a whole, with its fingers and wrist, as well as the maze of lines on the palm, spoke of a whole person. A few years later, at teenage parties, what an asset palmistry turned out to be! What better passport could there be to sitting with a girl in a quiet corner, or halfway up the stairs, holding her hand and solemnly discussing her character, ambitions, and dreams?

The chapter on “Fairy Folk” explained that:

The Land of Faerie is situated somewhere underground, and there the royal fairies hold their court. In their palaces all is beauty and splendor. Their pageants and processions are far more magnificent than any that Eastern sovereigns could get up or poets devise. They ride upon milk-white steeds. Their dresses, of brilliant green, are rich beyond conception; and when they mingle in the dance, or move in procession among the shady groves, or over the verdant lawns of the earth, they are entertained with delicious music, such as mortal lips or hands never could emit or produce.

Apparently, fairies would only be found where the grass grew “undisturbed by man.” “Once it is ploughed, the spell is gone and they change their abode.” An old Scottish proverb was quoted: “Where the scythe cuts, and the sock [plowshare] rives, hae done wi’ fairies and bee bykes!”

Bee bykes, it seemed, were nests of wild bees. Indeed, Consult the Oracle had a whole chapter on bees: it was called “Bees Know More Than People Think,” a suggestion I still find very plausible. “Bees,” the Oracle explained, “are lovers of peace and will not thrive with a quarrelsome family.” It also warned that “if there is a death in the family,” the bees must be told, or they would leave: the correct formula was said to be “Little brownie, little brownie, [such a person] is dead.” Once this was properly done, “the bees begin to hum by way of showing their consent to remain.” It was also wise to “put a little sugar at the hive’s entrance on Christmas Eve.” “At the stroke of midnight” the bees would come out to eat it. By contrast, some passages showed the casual cruelty of the Victorians: “Not to catch and kill the first butterfly seen in spring is unlucky.” That reads shockingly now and is surely the exact opposite of the truth.

The Oracle had a good deal to say about animals generally. Cats born in the month of May, it

(The book) showed that there was meaning and mystery in everything.

warned, “are good for catching neither mice nor rats.” On the other hand, “the best mousers are cats that have been stolen.” Did anyone truly ever steal a cat to improve its talents at pest control? It seemed unlikely. More plausible were the notions that “horses are able to see spirits” and that it is lucky for a horse to have a white star onits forehead.

It would take too long even to hint at all the wonders the Oracle had to offer. There was “Character Shown by Handwriting” as well as “The Mysteries of Spiritualism,” “Taking a Hand at Table-Turning,” and even an introduction to astrology: “There is Much to Be Learned from the Heavenly Bodies.”

I could go on, but this is enough. Foolish and simple-minded much of the book certainly is, as I gradually realized. But it told me something important: that the world round me was not just a world of material objects, nor a world merely governed by meaningless chance and physical laws. It showed that there was meaning and mystery in everything; and that on the margins of mainstream thought — the kind of thinking we were taught at school — there were intuitions, dreams, visions of other and deeper things. Consult the Oracle showed me that, as the poet Paul Eluard neatly put it, “There

is indeed another world — but it is in this one.”

The Oracle helped me make the transition from the fluid, metamorphic, non-rational world of childhood, into the partially rational and informed grown-up world — that world in which so many people are encouraged to close down their intuitive, psychic and imaginative faculties without losing the sense of wonder and mystery. Some people — the naturally spiritual ones may not need such support, but I did, and I was lucky to find it. Having inherited Consult the Oracle accidentally from my grandfather, it would be good to report that I am passing it on to one of my own grandchildren. But that’s impossible. For — again as in a fairy tale — now that its work is done, the book is crumbling to dust. In writing this essay, I have turned many of the pages, and each as I turned it has broken away from the binding. So acidic is the paper that the leaves are brown and brittle at the margins. The edges of the pages flake off as they are touched. Soon, the book will be nothing but a heap of fragments. Everything has its season, and this book’s season has passed. But it came to me at the right time, and I’m grateful. I consulted the oracle, and it spoke.

QUEST MAGAZINE, WINTER 2020.. PUBLISHED BY THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN AMERICA, PO BOX 270, WHEATON, IL 60187-0270 USA

The aftermath of mystical experience

Everything’s Connected

Condensed from THEOSOPHIA PAMELA ZANE KEYS

ONE morning in 1991, I woke to a realization. Everything’s connected!

Recovering from surgery and radiotherapy, I woke that day suddenly knowing that everything’s connected. Sitting up in bed, I was nonplussed.

My partner came into the room, gulped and asked: “What is it? What’s happened?” Slowly, I moved my focus onto him and said in awe:

Everything’s connected!

Every human, every animal, every plant, mountain, river, ocean, cloud, raindrop, star, moon, sun, the whole universe –even man-made things: this

house, that garden, those buildings, every single thing, except they are not single things, we are all One! We are all expressions of The One.

Everything’s connected!

Later, I would appreciate the Hindu belief: “All is Brahman” and Western Sufi Hazrat Inayat Khan’s: “I have seen all souls as my soul, and realized my soul as the soul of all.” But in 1991, I was stunned into amazed silence. Eastern beliefs and philosophies were unknown to me. Theosophy, unheard of. Astonishingly, awareness of sub-atomic universal connections that unite everything and all had come right into

Everything’s Connected

my being – unsought and unheralded – and lodged there. I now knew, deep in my very essence. Everything’s connected!

“You’ve accidentally become a Buddhist!” he gasped, fetching me Buddhism , written by Christmas Humphreys (19011983), a British judge and – unknown to me then – theosophist, who helped bring Buddhism to the West.

Once grasped that everything’s connected, unity becomes an inevitable goal along with concern for others, animals and the environment. Famed Theosophist Annie Besant’s “Hidden Life in every atom” expresses the One-

ness I had unexpectedly realized. Everything’s connected!

THEOSOPHIA, JUNE 2019. PUBLISHED BY THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN NEW ZEALAND INC. 18 BELVEDERE ST, EPSOM, AUCKLAND 1051, NZ

The total number of minds in the universe is one.

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. JOHN

All things share the same breath – the beast, the tree, the man . . . the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports. CHIEF SEATTLE

We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.

THICH NHAT HANH

We are all one: the web of life.

JONATHAN LOCKWOOD HUIE

God is in, through, around and for us. ERNEST

Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Once grasped that everything’s connected, unity becomes an inevitable goal along with concern for others, animals and the environment.

ERWIN SCHRODINGER

MUIR

HOLMES

To deal with this problem effectively, we need to deal with the problem at its root: humans are destroying the natural world

This Pandemic is About Animals

from COMPASSIONATE SPIRIT KEITH AKERS

PANDEMIC is a popular board game. If our current situation were replicated in game terms, we would have lost already, because more than seven outbreaks have occurred.

This pandemic is a pivotal event, not just for vegans, but for almost everyone on the planet. There’s a lot that we still don’t know. But there can be no doubt that this pandemic is a consequence of our treatment of animals.

Despite this obvious animal connection, the coronavirus (Covid-19) doesn’t fit the standard vegan narrative about our treatment of animals. That narrative emphasizes our harsh

treatment of domesticated animals such as cows, pigs, and chickens. There are anti-hunting campaigns, but even here, the emphasis is on the suffering of the hunted animals, not the consequences for wild animals more generally, nor the health effects on humans. The sheer numbers of domesticated land animals dwarf the numbers of hunted land animals by several orders of magnitude, so, we vegans tend to worry less about them than about factory farmed animals. Sorry, wild animals. We don’t know the precise animal link in this case. Covid-19 could have originated in bats and was spread from a “wet market”

Condensed

(an open-air meat market) in China. It’s theoretically possible that humans first contracted Covid-19 from eating bats, but this seems unlikely.

More likely is that they may have picked it up from humans eating snakes, since snakes can eat bats. Snakes were being sold in the Huanan market, and there are such things as snake farms. According to the Global Times, one enterprising snake farmer now known as the “snake king” started out by catching wild snakes, but then in the 1980’s switched to raising and breeding snakes, and is now quite wealthy. Covid-19, in this scenario, would have come from a wild species only recently domesticated.

Covid-19 is one of a class of emerging infectious diseases. These diseases include AIDS, Ebola, swine flu, MERS, and SARS (which Covid-19 closely resembles). Most of these diseases were almost completely unknown in human populations until about 30 to 50 years ago. The link between these emerging infectious diseases and animals is fairly well known. Dr. Michael Greger wrote a book (Bird Flu) and spoke about this in an hour-long lecture on “Pandemic Prevention” which is available on NutritionFacts.org. An earlier paper described these new emerging infectious dis-

eases as part of a great shift in patterns of human diseases.

Emerging infectious diseases are part of a more general human problem, of progressive human encroachment on the natural world. Disease does not even have to have to be a consequence of eating infected animals. Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever, both of which are carried by ticks, have been around for thousands of years. But in recent decades the incidence of both diseases has exploded due to human encroachment on wild habitat. The incidence ofRocky Mountain spotted fever was between 2 and 5 per million for decades, but beginning in about 2000, it increased to 20 to 25 per million. Lyme disease was practically unknown before 1980, but since then it has soared by a factor of 25.

In case you haven’t noticed, there’s an extinction crisis! Insects, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals are dying out. Species are going extinct at a faster rate than any time since the extinc-

Most of these diseases were almost completely unknown in human populations until about 30 to 50 years ago.

tion of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. Humans, their livestock, and their pets now constitute over 95% of the large animal biomass on the planet! But of course, we don’t notice anything wrong until we are affected.

Well, guess what: now we are affected. Now it’s something that

is changing every facet of our existence. We can’t go to public meetings, we’re afraid to go to grocery stores, and we’re stuck in our homes, some of us alone. If the hospitals are swamped with coronavirus patients, any disease that requires immediate hospitalization could be fatal.

To deal with this problem effectively, we need to deal with the problem at its root: humans are destroying the natural world. Emerging infectious disease is just one of the manifestations of this. If we ignore these realities, we are just kicking the can down the road until the next pandemic.

HTTPS://WWW.COMPASSIONATESPIRIT.COM/WPB LOG/2020/03/26/THIS-PANDEMIC-IS-ABOUT- ANIMALS

Pandemics almost always begin with the transmission of an animal microbe to a human. NATHAN

WOLFE

We throw money at an outbreak, and when it's over, we forget about it and do nothing to prevent the next one. This is dangerously short-sighted, and frankly difficult ot understand.

TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS

The emergence and spread of Covid-19 was not only predictable, it was predicted (in the sense that) there would be another vital emergence from wildlife that would be a public health threat.

ANDREW CUNNINGHAM

We have a chance to do something

JOHNNY CORN

extraordinary. As we head out of this pandemic we can change the world. Create a world of love. A world were we are kind no matter what class, race, sexual orientation, what religion or lack of or what job we have. A world we dont judge those at the food bank because that may be us if things were just slightly different. Let love and kindness be our roadmap.

Emerging infectious diseases are part of a more general human problem, of progressive human encroachment on the natural world.

No Humor Please, We’re Esotericists

Condensed from THEOSOPHY FORWARD TIM WYATT

CURIOUSL Y , one thing unites totalitarianism and traditional spirituality, especially when dished up as religion. This is a complete and total lack of humor. Dictators and the religiously fundamental absolutely hate levity. They don’t like jokes or the joie de vivre they bring. They don’t like comedy in any form. And they don’t like laughter. Humor in general poses a grave threat to the authoritarian mind-set and always has done.

Apart from being generally subversive, humor is infectious, constantly replicating and re-inventing itself like this canny virus itself. Get one person laugh-

ing and everyone else follows suit. As well as a potential act of liberation, it’s also a key evolutionary tool.

The towering tyrants of the 20th century will not be remembered for their love or use of humor – apart from the dark genocidal variety. Chairman Mao didn’t do one-liners. Pol Pot didn’t visit comedy clubs. Stalin usually killed those who jibed about him. And neither Adolf Hitler nor his sinister mouthpiece Josef Goebbels ever cracked jokes. It’s clear that the deeply anti-individualistic Nazis in particular held humor in especially low regard as a particularly virulent form of human pol-

Apart from being generally subversive, humor is infectious, constantly replicating and re-inventing itself like this canny virus itself.

lution along with Jews and Cubism.

Humor is a funny old beast. It doesn’t always travel well across continents or decades. And alongside strict temporal and geographical borders, it also slams into hard cultural backstops.

Americans, for example, find the self-deprecating humor of the British largely incomprehensible, especially when decked out with subtlety or irony. The Germans don’t really do humor but they do have a worldwide reputation for their deep love of Schadenfreude (the love of other people’s misfortunes) as evidenced by their abiding appreciation of slapstick comedy.

What amuses a Mongolian yak herder may not have the same side-splitting appeal to a Harvard professor. And vice versa. The Mongolian can still get away with making jokes about his mother-in-law. The Ivy League professor knows that this and indeed any even off-the-cuff re-

mark with any reference to sex, gender, ethnicity, sexuality and an extensive check-list of other prohibited topics, can get him thrown out of his job and deprived of his six-figure salary and academic standing.

Time also takes its toll. The jokes I told as a teenager could now get me locked up by the increasingly powerful Thought Police who now strictly enforce the kind of humorous remarks you and I are now allowed to make. The Harvard professor is deeply aware of this. The yak herder is probably entirely ignorant of the fact. Masquerading as the Knights Templar of Political Correctness these language-targeting storm troopers of the neo-liberal elite have almost succeeded in creating a ubiquitous, anodyne, non-threatening, one-size-fits-all humor which is acceptable to all minorities however small or whacky. But not quite. Not everyone has yet been cudgelled into submission. A few resistors remain.

Mirth also bypasses many socalled spiritual people altogether. When humor arises –and if they actually recognize it when it does – they prefer to remain inertly and moralistically po-faced. Amusement is an unwelcome visitor to many grimly worthy gatherings bloated with good intent. Laughter suggests to them that they aren’t taking their own personal psycho-spiri-

tual development seriously enough. Those clinging to the tattered remnants of threadbare religions seem to experience the same collective hallucination that God doesn’t want you to laugh.

Academic research backs this up with the not very surprising discovery that people with high moral standards are generally less likeable because they don’t make jokes or laugh at other people’s attempts at humor. That’s the conclusion of researchers at the National University of Singapore, who found recently that the more moralistic are viewed as sanctimonious or prudish because of their inability to see the funny side of things. The researchers discovered there was upside to this. They found that the more straitlaced you are, the more trustworthy you appear to be.

My own long experience as a lecturer on occult topics leads me to draw many of the same conclusions. I’ve come to fully appreciate the incipient lurking dangers of introducing even low-grade humor into certain esoteric circles. It can get quite embarrassing. Some years ago – in a vain attempt to loosen up what looked like a particularly ossified and obdurate audience – I introduced what I thought would be a fairly innocuous joke and not really even a typical example of good

old-fashioned British “smut” which I admire so much.

“I farted in a lift,” I ventured, allowing a pause of a heartbeat or two for effect. “It was wrong on so many levels.”

Either this roomful of supposedly spiritual seekers didn’t get it or they decided to collectively ignore it altogether. Telling this joke seemed to have evoked the same kind of grim-faced denial as actually committing such an act of deep social ineptitude in a confined space itself. They sat there as immobile as permafrost. Not a smirk. Not a snigger. Not even the slightest flicker of a twitching lip. Nothing. Nada. Zero. It was as if I’d decided to try and explain Renaissance Art to a fish.

I’ve often pondered deeply as to why humor is entirely absent from the great religious works of history. It’s a sad truth but nowhere in the Bible, the Koran, the Torah or the Bhagavad Gita do you find a single, solitary joke – not even a bad one. This, I believe, is a highly significant illus-

“I farted in a lift,” I ventured, allowing a pause of a heartbeat or two for effect. “It was wrong on so many levels.”

Cardinal Richelieu was to rock music. But it doesn’t need

of karma and reincarnation alone it’s bound to be replete in irony, perceived unfairness and a host of other inequities which are always a solid source of amusement.

tration of how the ecclesiastical authorities down the ages and across the continents know that supressing humor is as effective a form of control as suppressing sex.

This tradition has continued into the modern age although the so-called Godmother of the New Age, H. P. Blavatsky and her inspirers, the Mahatmas Morya and Koot Hoomi all showed occasional incisive flashes of clever (though subtle) humour and laconic irony in their writings. Later, neither Alice A. Bailey nor Rudolf Steiner ever managed to raise much of a smile. Krishnamurti and Eckhart Tolle fared a little better. But let’s face it: esotericism is to humor what Cardinal Richelieu was to rock music. But it doesn’t need to be this way. I’m not saying we should all adopt a permanent blissed-out smile or rictus grin but as occultists trying to tease out the secrets of the universe we should accept the fact that it’s a riotously funny place. With the twin cosmic laws

I’m not alone in perceiving or commenting on the fact that we appear to be plunging into an increasingly arid and joyless void. This is an ice-world where all forms of mirth are being diluted into a weak anesthetized swill which neither upsets nor entertains. The Thought Police in their rush to exterminate something they call “hate speech” (i.e., something they disagree with) have decided in their sublime wisdom that we must live in a world where no one is allowed to be offended. By anything. Anywhere. Ever. Insults, however mild and good-humored, are to be outlawed. Fragile “snowflakes” in universities must be protected from all harsh realities by “safe spaces.” Men are largely to blame for the need for these air-raid shelters from ideas. Older white men in particular. Men like me. In fact, older white men, global warming and smoking are responsible for nearly all the world’s ills. (That’s a joke, by the way. Sorry, I forgot you were an esotericist.)

Humor, of course, depends more than insulting someone or something, although a pithy detrimental comment is always a safe starting point. Amusement

Let’s face it: esotericism is to humor what

to be this way.

can arise from irony, absurdity, exaggeration, witty description and countless other sources.

The big problem arises when we so lack humor of any kind that we can no longer laugh at ourselves. This is potentially fatal and not at all funny. It’s the fate of dictators and religious bigots who are so stupid, venal and paranoid they think any joke must be about bad-mouthing them.

Being both an evolutionary and a survival tool, humor safeguards our sanity. It’s been proven to be especially vital during times of war, disaster and conflict.

Deprive people of humor and they become abusive instead. Look at the miles high piles of twisted sentiments on social media which spawn tsunamis of depression and self-harm.

Humor like so much else faces grave peril from those ascendant anti-life forces of mind control and conformity which are always

trying to engulf this planet. Humor is innate to human beings. Without it we wouldn’t be blessed with the capacities to laugh and smile. Humor is a central strand of the human spirit and needs to be protected along with all other vital bodies, temporary and permanent. Those trying to regulate or annihilate humor are killers of the human spirit itself. Eventually, they will reap the karmic consequences of that. And that will be a laugh . . .

THE OS O PHY FOR W ARD, NO VEM BER 2020 (HTTPS://WWW.THEOSOPHYFORWARD.COM/MIXE D-BAG/MED LEY/2908-NO-HU MOUR-PLEASEWE-RE-ESOTERIST

There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.

But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

CARL SAGAN

An infinite question is often destroyed by finite answers. To define everything is to annihilate much that gives us laughter and joy.

MADELEINE L’ENGLE

CHARLES DICKENS

Being both an evolutionary and a survival tool, humor safeguards our sanity.

Was Jesus in Kashmir, India?

Condensed from THEOSOPHY DOWNUNDER NICK KRAVARITIS

THE Bible does not tell us what Jesus was doing between the ages of 12 and 30. But in India, Kashmir and Tibet, there is a long-standing tradition that Jesus was in India during his teens and 20s. An ancient Tibetan manuscript tells the story. It says that Jesus went with a caravan of merchants along the Silk Road to India, where he studied Hinduism and Buddhism, came into conflict with Hindu and Zoroastrian priests and was revered by the people as Saint Issa.

This idea of Jesus going to India is not as implausible as it might sound. Merchants regularly made the journey in those times. A biography of the 1st -cen-

tury Greek sage and miracle worker, Apollonius of Tyana, tells us that he went to India to study with the Brahmins. The biography records a lengthy discussion between Apollonius and a Hindu sage about transmigration of souls. If Jesus did visit India, he would have been exposed to ideas about reincarnation. In fact, a passage in one version of the manuscript implies that Jesus taught reincarnation.

The text was discovered in 1887 by a Russian writer named Nicholas Notovitch. Later, two other men made the same discovery –Swami Abhedananda, a Hindu teacher, in 1922, and Nicholas Roerich, a Russian anthropologist and famous artist, in 1925. Each of

Having a picture of what Jesus did in his youth can give us purpose and direction today: of beginning the process of progressing toward Godhood just as he did

Was Jesus in Kashmir, India?

these men brought back an independent translation of the text. Notovitch found the manuscript in Hemis, the largest and bestknown monastery in Ladakh. The Chief Lama read to him in Tibetan “two large bound volumes with leaves yellowed by time.” The lama said that his copy of the text was written in Tibetan but had been translated from Pali, the language in which Buddhist scriptures were composed, starting in the 5th century BC. He told Notovitch that the Pali manuscript had come from India by way of Nepal and that it was in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.

This account fits in with what we know about Buddhist history. After Gautama Buddha died in the 5th century BC, his teachings spread north into Nepal, Tibet, China and Japan where original Buddhist texts were preserved. When Muslims invaded India in the 12th century, they destroyed many ancient Buddhist manuscripts. But Tibet has saved many of the teachings that were lost to the rest of the Buddhist world. The Tibetan manuscript at Hemis, therefore, could be a legitimate Buddhist text, preserved in Tibet while forgotten in its native country. Notovitch copied portion of the books as the lama read them aloud and the interpreter translated. Notovitch says the text had been written by “Buddhistic historians.” The text

In India, Kashmir and Tibet, there is a long-standing tradition that Jesus was in India during his teens and 20s.

itself claims to be partially based on accounts of “merchants from Israel.” Although the three independent translations suggest that the Tibetan manuscript existed at one time, scholars are reluctant to analyze the text without seeing the manuscript. But so far, no one has been able to produce it. Over a year after his discovery, Notovitch visited Rome, where he showed his manuscript to an unnamed cardinal. The cardinal told him that the text was “no novelty to the Roman Church” and that the Vatican Library possessed “63 complete or incomplete” documents brought back by Christian missionaries concerning Jesus’ activities in the East. These came “from India, China, Egypt, and Arabia,” he said. Since 1984, several scholars and interested persons have tried to get copies of the manuscript, even asking for help from the Dalai Lama at his headquarters-in-exile at Dharmsala, India. So far, no other Westerners have reported seeing the manuscript. If copies were at Lhasa, they may have

According to the text, he mastered the Pali language and became “an expositor of the sacred writings” of Buddhism.

been destroyed when the Chinese invaded in 1950 and suppressed Buddhism. Let us take a closer look at what it says Jesus did and what he learned.

Here is a chronology of Jesus’ travels, according to the Hemis manuscript. At the age of 13, he set out toward the Sind — a region in present-day southeast Pakistan in the lower Indus River Valley — with “the object of perfecting himself in the Divine word and of studying the laws of the great Buddhas.” His Spiritual power was already apparent, for his “fame spread” throughout North Sind. He went to Jagannath, where “the white priests of Brahma made him a joyous welcome.” From the Hindu priests he learned “to read and understand the Vedas,” the ancient scriptures of the East, and to teach them to people. He also learned to work miracles: “to cure by aid of prayer, and to drive out evil spirits from the bodies of men.”

Jesus spent six years between the ages of 14 and 20 traveling to

Jagannath, Rajagriha, Benares and other holy cities, the text tells us. Not unexpectedly, Jesus became embroiled in controversy. When he insisted on teaching the scriptures to the lower castes — the Vaisyas (farmers and merchants) and Sudras (peasants and laborers) — the priests decided to kill him. Jesus was warned of their evil intentions, and so he fled into the foothills of the Himalayas to the birthplace of Gautama Buddha who had founded Buddhism more than five hundred years earlier. Jesus spent the next six years in Nepal,

Acording to the text, he mastered the Pali language and became “an expositor of the sacred writings” of Buddhism.

Sometime between the ages of 27 and 29, he left the Himalayas and journeyed west, preaching along the way. The text says that Jesus returned to Palestine at the age of 29 and gives a brief description of his three-year ministry. Unlike the four Gospels, however, the manuscript blames the Romans rather than the Jews for Jesus’ crucifixion.

Scholars today think that this is a more accurate version of events. The Romans were almost certainly the ones who made the decision to execute Jesus as crucifixion was the standard punishment for insurrectionists in the Roman world. This suggests that the writers of the Hemis

Was Jesus in Kashmir, India?

manuscript may have had access to a tradition about Jesus’ life that was independent of the Gospels. But who were these writers? Were the authors really Buddhist historians who interviewed eyewitnesses to the crucifixion? It is difficult to say. The text seems to have been written from a Buddhist standpoint, especially since it criticizes Hinduism in several places.

The manuscript tells us that Jesus spent 12 years studying both Hinduism and Buddhism and suggests that he learned to perform miracles at the feet of Hindu sages. If this is so, he would undoubtedly have been familiar with reincarnation, which is at the heart of both religions. The Hemis manuscript itself does not say anything about reincarnation. But Nicholas Roerich, the Russian artist and anthropologist who published a manuscript strikingly similar to the Hemis manuscript, also quotesfrom another manuscript. One passage in it tells us that Jesus taught reincarnation. It treats reincarnation in relation to the question of why people are born different. The context is similar to the story in the Gospel of John about the man born blind. In John, the disciples ask what the man had done in the past to deserve to be born blind.

In Roerich’s manuscript, Jesus asks why some people are born with talent as singers. Here is

The text says that Jesus returned to Palestine at the age of 29 and gives a brief description of his three-year ministry.

the passage as it appeared in Roerich’s travel diary Himalaya: Said Jesus of skilled singers: “Whence is their talent and their power? For in one short life, they could not possibly accumulate a quality of voice and the knowledge of harmony and of tone. Are these miracles? No, because all things take place as a result of natural laws. Many thousands of years ago, these people already molded their harmony and their qualities. And they come again to learn still more from varied manifestations.” The text is unmistakably confirming reincarnation: “They come again.” Even if the passage doesn’t represent Jesus’ authentic words, it represents the spirit of his teaching. And this spirit is what comes out in the Hemis manuscript as well. The picture that we get of Jesus from all these texts is of a man who is learning, receiving spiritual training and thereby progressing toward Godhood. By portraying him as both student and Teacher, these texts suggest that Jesus wanted us to follow in

his footsteps and become Sons of God like him. Perhaps the Vatican really does possess a copy of the Hemis manuscript or other manuscripts that tell the same story. If so, why has it not released the material? The text may give us a hint.

It tells us that Jesus was not born fully divine but that he was an extraordinary human being who worked to accumulate knowledge and progress spiritually, just as we may aspire to do. If he went through a process of learning and growing, that leaves open the door for us to fol-

low him. Now we can approach him and identify with him as our brother. Accepting that Jesus needed to study and learn does not diminish his greatness. But it does enhance our understanding of a spiritual path that we can make our own. Having a picture of what Jesus did in his youth can give us purpose and direction today. We can all begin the process of progressing toward Godhood just as Jesus did.

This is the most important message we can derive from the traditions of Jesus in India. We find it reinforced in another passage from the manuscript quoted by Roerich. While it may not record Jesus’ exact words, it was certainly inspired by him: “Jesus said to them, ‘I came to show human possibilities. What has been created by me, all men can create. And that which I am, all men will be. These gifts belong to all nations and all lands – For this is the bread and water of life.”

THEOSOPHY DOWNUNDER, DECEMBER 2020. THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY (PASADENA) LIBRARY CENTER, 664 GLENHUNTLY RD, SOUTH CAULFIELD, MELBOURNE VICTORIA 3162, AUSTRALIA

Our challenge as Christians is not to try to convert people around us to our way of belief but to love them,to be ourselvesliving incarnations of whatwe believe, to live what we believe andto love what we believe.

JOHN MAIN

God had brought me to my knees and made me acknowledge my own nothingness, and out of that knowledge I had been reborn. I was no longer the center of my life andtherefore I could see God in everything.

BEDE GRIFFITHS

It tells us that Jesus was not born fully divine but that he was an extraordinary human being who worked to accumulate knowledge and progress spiritually.

Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365-page book. Write a good one. BRAD PAISLEY

I’m here to tell you that the path to peace is right there, when you want to get away.

PEMA CHODRON

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.

EPICTETUS

My experience is that the teachers we need most are the people we’re living with right now.

BYRON KATIE

The flower doesn’t dream of the bee. It blossoms and the bee comes.

MARK NEPO

It will never rain roses; when we want to have roses, we must plant more roses.

GEORGE ELLIOT

While God waits for his temple to be built of love, men bring stones. RABINDRANATH TAGORE

The only thing that is ultimately real about your journey is the step that you are taking at

this moment. That’s all there ever is. ECKHART

TOLLE

Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow.

MARY ANNE RADMACHER

If you miss the present moment, you miss your appointment with life. That is very serious! THICH

NHAT HANH

The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land. ABRAHAM

LINCOLN

If you want to change the world, start with the next person who comes to you in need.

B.D. SCHIERS

Things derive their being and nature by mutual dependence and are nothing in themselves.

NAGARJUNA

.

Our suffering is caused by holding on to how things might have been, should have been, could have been.

STEPHEN LEVINE

Life Before Life

from THEOSOPHY DOWNUNDER

ANDREW ROOKE

WHAT is a Family? An advertisement for a new family car flashed across the screen of my TV one evening recently. It featured an adaptable seating design for as few as two, and as many as seven people, recognizing that families these days can be anything from the traditional parents with two children, through multiple combinations of partners and their children, to single parents with children and/or “furs” (domestic animals)!

Beyond advertising opportunities, families are always big news. Look in the paper any day of the week and you’ll see aspects

of family life featured by news writers, politicians and community opinion leaders of all kinds. Most often, the media feature the distressing aspects of family changes due to the pressure of economic circumstances, or the stresses of modern life leading to the disintegration of cherished notions of what family relationships should be.

Are the newspapers right? What is the inner nature of this most fundamental human relationship from the perspective of the Ancient Wisdom?

Statistics of Australian Family Life. Australian society is typical of most Western coun-

Condensed

tries. The 2016 Australian Census indicates that contrary to popular belief, couple families with children remained the most common type of Australian family in 2016. However, the proportion of Australian families they make up has decreased over time. In 1991, 54% of families were couples with children, dropping to 45% in 2016.

The proportion of couple families without children and single parent families has increased since 1991. In 1991, 32% of Australian families were couple families without children, increasing to 38% in 2016.

The fastest growing family type is sole parent families as a consequence of increases in divorce in the past 40 years. Single-parent families have increased from 13% of families in 1991 to 16% in 2016.

The other major trend is to “de facto” relationships with people being understandably more cautious about committing to marriage. More women are delaying having families until later in life and better educated women had fewer children and were more likely to remain childless.

So much for the raw statistics which give us a very limited idea of the human side of marriage and the family in the early 21st century. The figures and trends don’t tell us much about the day-to-day realities of family life today. Parents trying to balance

the competing demands of jobs and education with their responsibilities. Children often being left on their own or in the care of others for long periods outside the immediate family circle while parents work long hours for the increasing complex “necessities of life.”

Families are ‘Learning Laboratories.’ What then of the inner aspects of family, especially the possible practical application of this knowledge to help uplift the quality of family life. Teachers of the Ancient Wisdom tell us that families are no mere chance association of individuals. Rather families are “learning laboratories” for individuals who share destiny and a long association over many past lives. When a reincarnating soul returns earthward after its period of rest in the heaven worlds, it is attracted to parents and family who can provide the appropriate lessons for the learning required for that life. The basis of this attraction may be love and similar-

Families are “learning laboratories” for individuals who share destiny and a long association over many past lives.

ity of traits and abilities. It can also be hatred and the need to reconcile disharmonious relationships of other lives thus explaining the pathetic situation of parent and child who repel each other.

Life Before Life – LBL(Interlife) Research. Since the 1960s, Dr. Michael Newton and his Newton Institute of 210 researchers across 40 countries, in 27 languages, with 55,000 LBL sessions done to the end of 2019, and many other inter-life therapists using Hypnotic Regression Therapy have found similar realities during their researches of the after-death experience. One of the world’s leading authorities on LBL research, England’s Ian Lawton,saysof all these reports:

. . . The underlying consistency of the interlife testimony from thousands of disparate subjects working with a variety of independently

operating pioneers would seem to give it a great deal of credibility. Indeed, it is arguably one of the most profound sources of spiritual wisdom that has ever been made available to humanity. Its strength lies in its very derivation from countless ordinary men and women, with no fixed preconceptions, no pretensions as spiritual gurus, and no axe to grind. . . . –(The Big Book of the Soul)

LBL researchers have discovered some remarkably similar features of the after-death states as described by Theosophy; in the religious traditions such as the Bardo states (or “in between” lives experience of the soul) of Tibetan Buddhism; and the after-death journey of the soul in ancient Egyptian religion. As described by Ian Lawton, they have found that all of us have a group of soulmates that we work with in varied relationships over many lives. Our time with this group is characterized by discussion about what we have shared, our reactions to each other, what we handled well, what we could have done better – we often replay and role play in this process of soul learning. We sporadically move to a different soul group to work on new lessons. “SoulLearning” means in the first place seeing both sides of “emotional lessons.” Feeling joyous and, especially, painful experiences ourselves, but also to feel what it is like having them directed against us by others.

When a reincarnating soul returns earthward after its period of rest in the heaven worlds, it is attracted to parents and family who can provide the appropriate lessons for the learning required for that life.

LBL Research: Soul Groups.

Soul learning in earth life can become repetitive as we literally “bash our heads against a brick wall” learning emotional lessons over and over until we start to move into more progressive patterns of behavior characterized by “altruistic” attitudes.

Especially, we start to learn “altruistic skills” such as healing, teaching, guiding and so on –which can be used in the world and the interlife as part of a soul group which shares the same skill set. Such altruistic souls as they progress increasingly choose to take lives which are more for the benefit and learning of others.

LBL Research: Soul Group Planning for the Next Life. LBL research indicates that before our return, we usually engage in some sort of self-conscious planning for our next life. At the very least, this will involve an awareness of who our parents might be, where they live, their circumstances, and what sex we will be.

LBL Research: Returning to Life and Joining a Family: Returning once again into incarnation, we must make the decision of how much “soul energy” to bring back. We may wish to leave as much as we can in the Light Realms, but we need plenty here in the world if we are to see through our life’s plan, especially if we have a difficult life.

We make decisions about what proportions of specific emotions to bring back and continue working with, and even of past life strengths that we may need to help us through difficult patches.

The reason for not remembering the details of our previous lives self-consciously is twofold:

1. If we knew all about our life plans in advance, it would be like knowing the answers to an examination before we sit the test and we would learn nothing;

2. If we remembered too much about the bliss of the Light Realms, we would be constantly homesick and longing to return thus interfering with our duties and struggles of this life.

Karma and families are inextricably linked. This cosmic law of action and results brings people together again and again to work out the results of previous interactions. The experience of parenthood provides an environ-

Soul learning in earth life can become repetitive . . . learning emotional lessons over and over until we start to move into more progressive patterns of behavior characterized by “altruistic” attitudes.

ment for learning basic lessons about life, like love and tolerance, much more rapidly than other relationships allow.

Family Karma. We all know of the quiet heroism of many people when illness or some other tragedy strikes a member of the family and spouses or relatives rally round to help out as much as this is possible in these dark days of Covid-19.

Conversely, many marriages and family break-ups occur because one or both partners fail to show tolerance or understanding towards others in the family, perhaps over seemingly minor matters. Sometimes, marriage partners reach a parting of the ways in their evolutionary journeying – painful though this may be to realize at the time. It is up to us to flow with the opportunities towards positive attitudes and unconditional love in marriage and the family, or perhaps learn it later in future lives in even less desirable circumstances.

There are so many aspects to family karma such as the relationship of an individual’s destiny and those of the family, family and national karma, the disciplinary aspects of family life, the convergent karma of marriage partners, the natural ending of long-time relationships over many lives in divorce or family separation when it is necessary for the “soul-learning” experience of the individuals involved. My concern particularly is with the impact of modern family patterns on the developing potentials of children. These days with the increase in single parent families and with both parents working in most families, many children are being raised in an atmosphere where the parents are too tired or have little opportunity to spend “quality time” with their children. Or, strangely in these days of the global pandemic, the strain of the opposite situation with lockdowns artificially forcing families together in an intense emotional atmosphere aggravated by high unemployment, financial uncertainty, and extra responsibilities such as homeschooling unfortunately producing many cases of family disruption and even violence.

Leading authorities on childrearing, such as Penelope Leach in her book, Children First, make an eloquent appeal for parents, especially mothers, to stay

The pervasive power of a loving environment built on mutual respect between parents and children . . . , is needed in our society.

at home during their children’s early and crucially important development years. As Penelope Leach says to her huge readership: “If you give even five to ten years to this child-centered way of life, there is still an awful lot of time for you to be you.”

The trends are alarming. They point to the importance of nurturing love and respect within individuals, toward family members of our immediate family, and outwards to the community – no matter how hard this may be, given today’s social problems.

Such positive attitudes should be built upon and proper acknowledgement given, that there are greater dimensions and responsibilities in life than the material values of our popular culture.

Our churches, mosques, and temples used to provide the needed balance between the demands of the inner and the outer life and to provide simple and commonly accepted rules for social behavior. This is no longer the case for many people as they reach, often blindly, towards new explanations for ancient questions or simply ignore the fact that human beings have one foot in the subconscious realm, and go on living absorbed in the values of the outer world.

Laws of Life. Theosophical teachers have always taught the

practical value of the Ancient Wisdom in all aspects of human life. An appreciation of the fundamental truths of brotherhood, karma and reincarnation, is basic to the structure of the longest-lived societies such as the Australian Aboriginal culture. They have helped to build the great civilizations of the past, and must do so again in the future. Today, especially with the Covid-19 health emergency, there is a great need for practical help for families in emotional and economic crisis. We all owe a great debt of gratitude to the courageous individuals of many philanthropic organizations who provide such help unrelentingly.

Beyond these physical measures, the pervasive power of a loving environment built on mutual respect between parents and children and ultimately upon knowledge of the responsibilities of the different stages and stations of life based upon Universal Law, is needed in our society.

Those who have some knowledge of the Ancient Wisdom seem to me to carry an extra burden of responsibility to cast forth these powerful seed ideas at appropriate times into the consciousness of the nations.

THEOSOPHY DOWNUNDER, SEPTEMBER 2020. THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY (PASADENA) LIBRARY CENTER, 664 GLENHUNTLY RD, SOUTH CAULFIELD, MELBOURNE VICTORIA 3162, AUSTRALIA

The Honesty Store

Condensed from INSIGHTS ON LIFE VICENTE HAO CHIN JR.

AN honesty shop. Would you believe that it exists? A store with no store keeper, where you just pay in a box for whatever you buy?

There is one in Batanes, the northernmost province in the Philippines. Prior to my trip to Batanes, I had heard about it, but I thought that the store was just a marketing gimmick for tourism. When I visited it, then I realized that it was a real business venture. It was started in 1995 by Elena Castano-Gabilo, a retired teacher. This year, 2017, 22 years later, it is still existing. She opened the store to serve the needs of fishermen who would

normally leave very early in the morning before dawn. And since she could not wake up that early, she simply depended on the honesty of those who buy food and drink. And it worked. Today, the store earns enough to sustain herself and her husband’s needs now that they are retired and elderly.

One wonders why it only exists in Batanes Island. Why can’t we have it in Manila, in Cebu, in Davao?

I guess the non-competitive culture and atmosphere in Batanes make the Honesty Shop possible. Batanes has a small population — just about 17,000

The social conditions that make an honesty store possible

in the three inhabited islands. There are no beggars. Neither are there super-rich people so far as I know. People live simple lives despite the exposure to television and internet culture. There is no rat race. There seems very little motive for greed and acquisitiveness. The crime rate is very, very low. This is I believe due to the cultural traditions of the Ivatans, the indigenous people of Batanes. I hope that tourism doesn’t spoil the culture of the Ivatans, which I think is in many ways superior to our regular society, especially our urban population. This makes the Honesty Shop doable.

I have travelled to almost all the provinces of the Philippines. It is only in Batanes where people on the road looked at me, sometimes with a shy but kind smile, and nodded their heads, and greeted me. Not just one person but many of them. It is as if it was a neighborhood, not a town or a city. My thoughts went to the towns or cities or countries that are wracked with violence, crime, corruption, competition, stress, insecurity, hatred and unhappiness. The complex commercial and technological world is trying to achieve a state of simplicity, peacefulness and harmony but is not getting anywhere near it. The 20th-century was the most advanced but the most bloody and murderous century in history. And there in

Batanes, we have the simple comforts of modernity — television, cellphone, computers, internet, and yet without the insecurity, crime, violence and unhappiness of the most of the rest of the world.

Looking at our own urban life, what can we do so that our societies can continue to advance in technology, convenience and comfort, but without the accompanying insecurities, violence and stress?

Society is but a mirror of individuals taken collectively. Individuals are also molded by society. It’s a circular process that perpetuates itself. Thus, the culture and individuals carry forward for generations and centuries what are wholesome and unwholesome in society. How do we interrupt the perpetuation of the unwholesome values and practices? How can we break the patternof toxic customsand values?

There is practically only one way to do so: through education. Adultshave immense difficulties in changing their habits, values,

I guess the non-competitive culture and atmosphere in Batanes make the Honesty shop possible.

. . .

attitudes and even their belief systems that have been embedded in them for 20 or 50 years. They may agree with new values

but may find themselves unable to change.

Young people, on the other hand, are malleable. Their habits are still soft and pliable. With the right influence and information through a well-planned and well-carried out educational system, they can individually and collectively change and break pernicious habits of the past. This I believe is what Singapore did that enabled them to transform their society from a backward nation to a prosperous, safe and self-disciplined nation.

HTTPS://INSIGHTSONLIFE.NET/CATEGORY/ SOCIETY

Change isthe end result of all true learning.

LEO BUSCAGLIA

Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire. W.B.

The real source of inner joy is being truthful and honest.

YEATS

DALAI LAMA

Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.

Upon the subject of education. . . . I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people may be engaged in.

Before you can lie to another, you must first lie to yourself.

NAVAL RAVIKANT

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper oryour self-confidence.

ROBERT FROST

KOFI ANNAN

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

How do we interrupt the perpetuation of the unwholesome values and practices?

There is practically only one way to do so: through education.

Joy, purpose, service, good health, prosperity, and peace are the outcomes of intentional mindful actions: the mundane becomes sacred

The Call to Ritual: Quieting the Mind and Calming the Heart

Condensed from QUEST CHRISTINA PATEROS

AS I step out of the tub at the foot of the mesa, sun waning and air chilled and frozen, I realize I am partaking in what has been a healing ritual of the ancients for centuries. There is a comfort here in the healing properties of the hot, earthborn mineral waters, and in knowing that natives before me have soaked in these stone baths as a practice rooted in the bounty of Mother Earth.

Rituals can provide us with purpose, familiarity, meaning, and structure in our lives, which often yearn for these elements. Ritual practices can offer

grounding, peace, joy, abundance, and good health. They can also return us to the sacred and to living from the heart. But perhaps their deepest and most meaningful raison d’etre is connection with honor and respect for ourselves and others.

Purpose, Meaning, and Intention. Energy follows intention, say the pacos, the medicine men and women who are descendants of the Inca. An intentional mindset, applied to even the most mundane practices, like gathering branches from the sidewalk after a windstorm, can transform simple chores into cer-

emony. In this case, the intention can be to honor the resident treesfor the shade, forsheltering four-leggeds and winged ones, and for providing beauty throughout the seasons. One can also focus on service to neighbors.

With clear intent and presence, this simple ritual can provide joy and a heartfelt sense of gratitude. Suddenly, the mundane becomes sacred.

When there is mindset, there is awareness. With awareness, there is intention. When there is intention, there is presence. They can transform any daily act from chore to a ritual with meaning. It is that simple and powerful. The twice daily ritual of brushing teeth can simply be fulfilling a requirement for healthy teeth, mouth, and gums. But adding presence and intention to this everyday action, perhaps by adding gratitude for health, creates a solo ceremony.

Preparation and Setting. Structure, frequency, and scope inform the depth of ritual prac-

tices. Content informs the order of action, movement, gestures, and even words. Setting the tone within a space can transform a trite series of actions into a meaningful and even magical experience.

Imagine an event. The simple requirements are met — chairs, tables, food are provided — yet it might feel flat. But if creativity, presence, and intention enter the space, with every detail carefully attended to, the same event can be powerful and transformative. Purpose — even a simple one, such as sharing beauty or spreading love — can be infused into even a typical training. The learning objectives are still met, but intention, attention to detail, and accoutrements, like art on the walls, can transform the event into a meaningful experience. One can even speak the goals and intention of the event into the room beforehand, honoring the space and the land it stands on.

Invitation. Ritual involving others can compound their meaning. Extending invitations to participate can deepen the experience at hand. A birthday party with a guest list of one is nothing compared to a celebration including people who are meaningful in the celebrant’s life.

When I hold sacred despacho ceremonies, with intentions such as ayni, (reciprocity with all

With clear intent and presence, this simple ritual can provide joy and a heartfelt sense of gratitude.

The Call to Ritual: Quieting the Mind and Calming the Heart

of life) or honoring a loved one who has died, the invitation to honor, grieve, be in quiet, and be connected with like-minded ones can be a transformational experience.

Community in ritual brings people together through purposeful practices. Collective energy and action toward a goal or purpose can be exponentially powerful. The gifts of empowerment for those attending, as well as those honored in the ritual, cannot be overstated.

Action and Gratitude. Action is the pièce de résistance in ritual. When we show up with intention and presence, magic can happen beyond what our minds can know. Action with gratitude is precious and palpable. The simple ritual of thanking our food can transform the energy of the simple process of eating.

Sacred ritual can root us, ground us, and take us from our busy thinking minds to our compassionate, feeling hearts. When we lose our minds and come to our senses, intuition and inner

knowing show up with their own voice. Sacred ritual and ceremony in our daily routines can shift our lives from stress-filled, anxiety-prone days to peaceful, manifesting moments. When we bring these practices into the world through our work, the possibilities are infinite.

Joy, purpose, service, good health, prosperity, and peace are the outcomes of intentional mindful actions: the mundane becomes sacred.

QUEST, SUMMER 2020. PUBLISHED BY THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN AMERICA, PO BOX 270, WHEATON, IL 60187-0270 USA

A ritual is the enactment of a myth. And, by participating in the ritual, you are participating in the myth. And since myth is a projection of the depth wisdom of the psyche, by participating in a ritual, participating in the myth, you are being, as it were, put in accord with that wisdom, which is the wisdom that is inherent within you anyhow. Your consciousness is being re-minded of the wisdom of your own life. I thinkritual is terribly important.

In this moment, everything is sacred.

ARIEL

JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Sacred ritual and ceremony in our daily routines can shift our lives from stress-filled, anxiety-prone days to peaceful, manifesting moments.

Befriending the Coronavirus

Condensed from THE THEOSOPHIST JOSELITO BELMONTE CENDAÑA

MODERN-DAY spiritual teacher and best-selling author Eckhart Tolle nicely echoed a fundamental Ageless Wisdom teaching nicely when he wrote: “Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness.” Indeed, even unpleasant karma and suffering have such great educative value that our difficulties are really steppingstones in our spiritual journey. Nothing manifests from the Absolute — as the sourceless Source of all life (in as far as everything is alive and sacred) — that is not designed to ultimately benefit all of us, for we are nothing less than that one same transcendent Reality itself at the core of our being! It just takes

time for some blessings to be recognized as such.

This timeless spiritual principle is one we might manage to embrace, but may be really difficult to act upon by force of, our ego habit of resisting life’s flow when we feel things are not “going our way.” For example, it is unnatural for us humans to respond from a place of gratitude to disease and dis-ease. Or to maintain a stoic calm in the face of misfortune and loss. Hence, a global health crisis as grave as the current coronavirus pandemic — together with all the lockdowns the world over it necessitates — is not exactly the kind of occurrence that we would easily appreciate as a blessing. After all, the SARS-CoV-2 virus

We humans tend to treat the virus too much as “the enemy” when the truth is that everything is really inside us and an expression of our True Self

the Coronavirus

— as the deadly pathogen that is causing the COVID-19 pandemic is officially called — has already infected over 41 million people, and taken the lives of over 1.1 million worldwide and counting, as of this writing. As if this were not enough, the pandemic is wreaking such great havoc on our global economy that economists are already certain it won’t recover fully for many years to come.

The Blessings. But consider this: The mother of all blessings is the glorious reality that the timeless realm of Heaven is not separate from our world of time, space, and form. But even in our unenlightened state, certain blessings are coming to light as this crisis unfolds.

For one, the coronavirus pandemic is teaching us humans many precious lessons — the folly of overconsumption, and the folly of indifference to the pain and suffering of other sentient beings among them.

We are learning that human overconsumption is not wise because our insatiable desire for material things and consumer goods has a direct hand on why killer viruses are on the rise. The worst viral outbreaks of late — SARS, MERS, Ebola, and by all probability, the SARS-CoV-2 (or Wuhan corona) virus — originated in bats and other wildlife whose fierce immune systems drive viruses to mutate and be-

come deadlier in humans. As we increasingly intrude into their homes, destroying rainforests for logging, mining, animal farming, and so on, the more forest animals become refugees and come nearer our places, enabling their viruses to infect us.

And surely, over the past century, the number of new infectious diseases that emerge each year has nearly quadrupled, while the number of outbreaks per year has more than tripled. All this means the writing has long been on the wall for a viral pandemic of this magnitude to occur due to our overconsumption, but we simply ignored it.

We are also learning that human indifference to the pain and suffering of other sentient beings is not wise because animal agriculture — also the leading cause of climate change, species extinction, water pollution, habitat destruction, and ocean dead zones — is the biggest driver of deforestation. For example, roughly 70% percent of the Amazon

The mother of all blessings is the glorious reality that the timeless realm of Heaven is not separate from our world of time, space, and form.

Rainforest — “the lungs of the Earth” — has already been destroyed and converted to animal-farmlands. And of course, it does not help that wild-animal trading in China and other countries are also spawning outbreaks. Another blessing brought about by the pandemic and lockdowns is that we humans are generally being forced to focus more on our inner, spiritual life while we stay at home. Incidentally, we are being shown how important it is to slow down and want less of things of this world, as our planet is actually mending in proportion to our shifting from unwise human “doing” (or “having”) to mindful human “being” involving deeper connection to our true self, to life, our loved ones and others, our world, our true purpose, to meaningful work, and so on.

Another blessing still is that the pandemic is bringing out the best in many among us humans — health workers, volunteers, donors, and others of us who help

in whatever way we can — in terms of altruism and universal responsibility.

Indeed, life keeps giving us the experiences we need to help us evolve — perhaps even more so today in the midst of this global crisis as we are being made more aware of our deeper interconnectedness with each other, and the natural world. Yes, as mystic saints would say, “Everything is a blessing! Everything is sacred! Everything is God!”

Of course, it hurts us terribly that many are suffering and dying from COVID-19. Even we might be counted soon among the infected, or even the dead, for all we know — which means our family and loved ones may follow too. But we must not forget also that only life is; birth and death are just its doors. Suffering is karma’s loving tool for teaching us to grow in wisdom and love from lifetime to lifetime. Disease and dis-ease might be causing us much pain, but humanity is healing in a deeper and more important way.

Being raised as a Christian, this all makes me think how helpful and timely the revival of Jesus’ original teachings would have been today, finding further confirmation of this thought from Keith Akers’ book, The Lost Religion of Jesus, where Akers says that the great religious founder required the practices of simple, austere living, as well as

Yes, as mystic saints would say, “Everything is a blessing! Everything is sacred! Everything is God!”

the Coronavirus

utter non-violence and vegetarianism (not to mention meditation and loving service) in his disciples for their spiritual development and for the benefit of all beings.

Imagine how of immense benefit to our world it would be if all 2.6 billion Christians in our world today can be re-educated about the Master from Galilee’s true teachings, realize their wisdom, and act accordingly! At any rate, Nature is somehow helping make this materialize through the way she seems to be defending herself, as the world’s remaining rainforests had dwindled down to just 15% percent before the pandemic was unleashed.

Befriending the Virus. Inner guidance often comes during our deepest moments of meditation. But before we can settle into the depths of our inner silence, random, surely “non-guiding,” thoughts first keep arising while our monkey mind holds sway. So I was not quite sure what to make of it when the whisper “Befriend the virus” arose halfway between breathing “healing our world” intentions and descending into greater mental stillness during one recent meditation sit. Then it all dawned upon me later.

Not that we should not try to contain the coronavirus, but perhaps we humans tend to treat it too much as “the enemy,” when

the truth is that everything — perceived foe or otherwise — is really inside us and part of our True Self. As long as we feed the illusion of separation that ails us and is the root of all our social and ecological problems, we cannot hope for a lasting remedy for the worsening ills in our world. After all, bats and viruses have been around for tens of millions of years and Nature had flourished along the way — until, that is, we humans came along. Karma is such that every action we perform generates energy that returns to us, and one purpose of this divine process is to help us realize and understand the unitive nature of all things. If we are honest with ourselves, we humans haven’t been treating Nature kindly at all, and it is only fair that we are suffering from our own unwise actions.

So to “befriend the virus” means to approach the problem

The more we let go of what we take as our separate self, not ony do we suffer less but the more we see the Whole in every being, and know that each is sacred and worthy of our love.

of this pandemic from a place of love and compassion for all — understanding that the coronavirus is only doing its sacred work. As the Buddha once preached, everything is empty of inherent, independent existence; we are all one “inter-being”. Hence, if we look deeply into all this, we can recognize the coronavirus as our friend, our teacher, our ally, reminding us that the healing of our world must start within ourselves, for the world we see around us is but a mirror reflection of our own state of consciousness.

Because no true separation exists between us and our world, no matter how our senses and dividing mind tell us otherwise, it is of paramount importance that we exert our best efforts to wake up to the living reality of our essential Oneness by direct experience, so we can embody divine

love fully for the welfare of our world and all beings.

In the meantime that we are asleep, we just have to do what is necessary to help alleviate and prevent suffering in our lockeddowned world — keeping distance, wearing mask, washing hands, disinfecting things, helping others, and so on — but in a way of accepting life as it comes, just emptying the self, for it is from this place of non-resistance, non-duality, equanimity, and peace that we can best act wisely and compassionately, as well as awaken to our True Self.

The more we let go of what we take as our separate self, not only do we suffer less but the more we see the Whole in every being, and know that each is sacred and worthy of our love. Clinging less to fleeting form for the eternal divinity in all that is and widening our circle of love to include all beings, we do Nature a favor and lessen her need to defend herself. If we humans can do this, then perhaps, the experiences we need in our forthcoming years to evolve in consciousnesswill no longer include too severe a pandemic, if any at all. And many of our world’s ills will heal as well, while we keep advancing in our journey of awakening.

THE THEOSOPHIST, DECEMBER 2020. . PUBLISHED BY THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING HOUSE, ADYAR, CHENNAI 600 020, INDIA

Clinging less to fleeting form for the eternal divinity in all that is and widening our circle of love to include all beings, we do Nature a favor and lessen her need to defend herself.

Peace comes from a quiet being, a silent and grateful heart that can exist amid the sounds of life

FINDING silence nowadays has become difficult. Our world has moved on leaving peacefulness behind. Even in our personal lives, most of us can recall when peace and quiet were easier to find than theyare now.

Growing up as I did in Africa, peace seemed a natural asset. We could decide how much silence we wanted. Going back to England some years later, I found I had left peace behind as I returned to a recovering nation in a post-war world where constant noise was becoming normal.

Silence, I discovered, has to be earned, appreciated, understood before it becomes a part of one’s being and practce. We each need a filter which helps us to recall

The Joy of Silence

Condensed from THEOSOPHIA VICKY WESTON

peaceful places even when surrounded by the city and its sounds.

Our ancestors needed to be alert to sounds which could indicate dangers that could threaten their peace. Such acute awareness is seldom needed now but the memory of it should still be guarded and valued. The things that has changed is what we listen for.

Many of today’s sounds can offend our ears. We have to build new reference systems. Here in New Zealand, we are very blessed as we can still find places and spaces where true silence still holds sway; sometimes, even places that resonate softly to the sounds of the earth and cosmos. However, it can be hard

Our

to touch upon our own “inner sound” – the deep link with our Source. We need to remember” and re-join the whole in silence.

We can do this by standing back from identifying with every sound we hear and beginning to treat sounds as part of a great wholeness with each sound having its place. This allows us to be open to hearing other deeper sounds.

We can discover this in nature; sitting by the seashore and the thunder of waves, we can also meld with the base of our own inner sound. As with the sacred “Om,” we resonate on a level which omits negative sound allowing us to be part of the underlying foundation of sound.

Sit in a field with the wind around you. The bleating of sheep, the bird calls, wind in the grasses and allow them to be part of the moment – not identifying, just listening and beoming part of them. In this way, begin to hear and experience the sound of the divine. Sound can raise in

us a depth of awareness, a race memory, a recalling of some past life, of sacredness experienced and still treasured even now.

I was reminded powerfully of this on a recent trip to Canada where I touched upon a First Nation ceremony of harvest and purification. Drums throbbed along the river, echoing among the rain sparkling, wind-tossed pines and maples, distant yet compelling evolving vibrant awareness that this sound was deeply part of us and as the cadences rose and fell on the wind, we touched upon yet more: that the earth needed this sound, the wind carried it skywards to the great V-shaped skeins of migrating geese flying above and who added their own voices to this music of life and the canyon's sacredness.

Gregorian chants, the pure sweet voices of a young choir, the sound of the Great Aum, the beat of Balinese drums; all these draw out memories and lift us high on harmonic wings to levels of happiness we seldom achieve normally. Then we can have insights. Healers across the world use sound to transform their experiences, open doors into the spiritiual realm linking them to ancestors, forming a bridge.

Sound can create vortices, ripples, spirals which, conjoined or opposed, have the potential to gather ethers, condense them and create a release of heat thus

world is filled with beauty and learning to be silent within oursleves means we hear sounds barely heard amid the clamor of life.

The Joy of Silence

changing their compositions. From sound proceeds movement, heat and its creative energies and influences toward creation.

Our world is filled with beauty and learning to be silent within ourselves means we hear sounds barely heard amid the clamor of life. As with sacredness, we carry peace with us. We do not have to nurture it inany special location. I learned this from a life of upheaval. a swami said: “You can be alone in the marketplace.” Peace accompanies us if we so will it. It lies in our intent, not our surroundings. However, many pepole are uncomfortable keeping the mind still. One of our great challenges is discovering ourselves by overcoming the habit of mind of always looking for something to do – scared of silence. As we chatter, we miss so much allowing trivia to dominate our lives. A wise saying goes: Say nothing unless what you have to say is worth more thank the silence you break. For me, walking around a lake, amid beauty and silence, is to understand what we are missing when we allow the chatter of inconsequential talk to dominate.

Peace comes from a quiet being, a silent and grateful heart that can exist amid the sounds of life, always aware of the underlying

being, resting content in itself. Statues of the Buddha often reflect this state, filled with inner tranquility. Such peace comes from the very soul, free from all lesser influences. We can touch something very special – meld with riotous humanity, become one with etheral rhythms and cycles of existence and we need neither special interaction nor invocation as it becomes part of ourselves in time.

Life does often require us to have an impact, to rill our days with the sounds of living but let us remember the values of silence and its healing power amid busy lives. Remember peace and the blessings it can bring when we can live around peace and when it lives within us.

THEOSOPHIA, MARCH 2019. PUBLISHED BY THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN NEW ZEALAND INC. 18 BELVEDERE, EPSOM, AUCKLAND 1051, NZ

As with sacredness, we carry peace with us. We do not have to nurture it in any special location. . . . . Peace accompanies us if we so will it. It lies in our intent, not our surroundings.

Wisdom Overheard

The truth is that there isn’t nothing. Even “There’s nothing” is the story of something. Reality is prior to that. I am prior to that, prior to nothing. It’s unsayable. Even to speak of it is to move away from it. I quickly realized that none of the things I understood could be put into words. And yet, they seemed so simple and obvious to me. They sounded like this: Time and space don’t really exist. Unknowing is everything. There’s only love. But these truths couldn’t be heard.

BYRON KATIE

Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring

about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run — in the long-run, I say! — success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it.

VICTOR E. FRANKL

There is no change that doesn’t begin in the darkness of the human soul. We first have to discover an entrance into the darkness, then we have to light a tiny candle in the dark so that we can search for our future self, and finally we have to join with it. And that takes resourcefulness, and patience, and most of all courage. But if we have the courage to go into the darkness and face our shadow, we gain a great deal, for the shadow is a paradox. While it initially appears to us as loathsome and despicable, it actually contains all our future potentialities for development.

ROBIN ROBERTSON

Exclusivity heads the list of problems that keep us apart. I believe that the claim that Christianity is the only way to healing, to salvation,is notonly incorrect, it is the cause of much of the suffering in the world and certainly lies behind the problems with the other three categories we identify: violence, the inequality of men and women, and homophobia. The verse most often cited to support the exclusive claims of Christianity is John 14:6: “Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to God except by me. ” Since “I Am” is the name of God announced to Moses at the Burning Bush, it makes sense to me that what Jesus might have said was, “I am is the way, the truth and the life.” In Hebrew and Aramaic, the present tense of the verb “to be” is frequently understood but not spoken or written. No spiritual teacher would be likely to speak from that narrow place of the ego.

PASTOR DON MACKENZIE

Oftentimes, children and adolescents who act and look aggressive, anxious or withdrawn show up in our homes, classrooms and communities with behaviors and labels such as the bully, the oppositional ring leader, or the apathetic trouble maker. What looks intentional and outwardly

defiant are actually children and teens who feel “much pain and sadness” beneath these superficial layers and labels. Our children and adolescents come into this world curious, wondering, optimistic and asking questions, but they tend to leave secondary school with hearts and minds closed off, forgetting their innate creativity and passions as the questions slowly fade away.

LORI DESAUTELS, MD

As Jung said, psyche and matter are complementary aspects of the same thing and I believe they can only communicate through images. Just as animal intuitives can communicate with our bodies and the unconscious. The real question we must ask ourselves is how does the invisible become visible?

BERNIE SIEGEL, MD

That night when I realize consciousness is the Ground of Being, I also realized if that is so, then of course material possibilities, these quantum possibilities, are all within consciousness; they are part of consciousness. so when consciousness chooses, consciousness chooses from itself. If you choose from yourself, you don’t need a signal. If you choose from yourself, you can choose without any interaction.

DR. AMIT GOSWAMI

Looking at the New Year

Condensed from THEOSOPHY NORTHWEST VIEW

SALLY DOUGHERTY

WHERE I live, it looks to be a challenging year ahead: the independent grocery near my house is shutting, businesses downtown are laying people off, job listings for recent graduates have fallen to almost nothing. As the trickle-down from bad policy and personal decisions becomes a flood, it’s good to remind ourselves that we are one human family and that each of us has something important to contribute to the whole, wherever we may be and whatever our circumstances.

I’ve been reading the short essays in This I Believe II, sponsored by National Public Radio. Sharing the honest, thoughtful reflections of a wide variety of people helps keep life in perspective. One idea that struck me was voiced by Sister Helen Prejean: “I watch what I do to see what I really believe.” Certainly, our acts embody our convictions much more than do the words or ideals we profess. It is worth reflecting on what our day-to-day actions and the overall shape of our lives say about what is important to us, what we believe in enough to make it real. The

same holds for groups and organizations, businesses and governments. It’s easy to be distracted by words and images, but let’s examine what we’re doing collectively. What do these actions – the way our families, businesses, and society are constituted and function – say about our actual motives and beliefs?

Thankfully, even long-held beliefs can change. But first we need to become aware that our beliefs need an overhaul. Most of us suffer from a form of self-hypnosis that renders us unaware, particularly of what we’d rather not know. That’s one advantage of harder times: we get used to running into hard realities. It’s as if life snaps its fingers and we are released from a trance, whether we’ve put ourselves under or let others mesmerize us with denial, fear, greed, or good intentions. Blame isn’t useful, though perhaps accountability is; but pulling together with others while pulling ourselves together allows us to make a real difference in human life.

Sometimes we need to admit that what we’ve accepted or relied on isn’t working. Perhaps, our world view just needs to be tweaked, but once in a while we may discover that fundamental convictions now seem misguided or not what we thought they were. This can be very uncomfortable. Like gravity, our beliefs and opinions seem to hold

our world together, keeping everything from flying apart into chaos. Without them we experience internal zero-gravity at first, floating about clumsily. We’re back to square one in some area – which isn’t always a bad place to be.

The unknown permeates our lives. As another essayist, Fr. Richard Rohr, writes: “It’s people who don’t know who pretend that they do. People who’ve had any genuine spiritual experience always know that they don’t know. They are utterly humbled before mystery. They are in awe before the abyss of it all, in wonder at eternity and depth, and a Love, which is incomprehensible to the mind.”

It takes confidence to acknowledge that our beliefs are mostly opinions, their roots all too often not very thoroughly or dispassionately examined, and that even experience represents only our limited perception and interpretation of it. To admit we don’t know is to admit we’re not in complete control. But as the ancient Stoics taught, even at the best of times we can control only ourselves and our reactions, never others or our circumstances. Fortunately for us, happiness rests almost entirely on our reactions to life, not on anyone or anything outside of us.

THEOSOPHY NORTHWEST VIEW, DECEMBER 2000. PUBLISHED BY THE NORTHWEST BRANCH OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, PO BOX 904, BELLEVUE, WA 98009-0904

4 Proven Ways a Simple Lifestyle Reduces Stress

Condensed from WISDOM PILLS

AMANDA LUMLEY

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life. – HENRY DAVID THOREAU

THOREAU extolled the virtues of a simple lifestyle, and his impassioned plea to “simplify, simplify” in Walden, is echoed by many other proponents of the simple life. Leo Tolstoy’s vision of a self-sustaining, simple lifestyle after a life of indulgence and decadence in turn influenced Gandhi’s teachings of spiritual and material austerity. Buddha taught the importance of the “Middle Way,” a life of moderation and meditation, and Francis of Assisi, patron saint of

animals and the environment, loved spending time in nature and lived an extreme version of a simplified life. Confucius believed that “life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”

A quick internet search throws up a plethora of books and blogs with “how to” suggestions on “decluttering your life,” “simplifying your life,” or reducing stress through “frugality.” There’s a Tiny House Movement, an International Downshifting Week, and the Voluntary Simplicity Collective.

A simple lifestyle can be different for everyone in its details:

4 Proven Ways a Simple Lifestyle Reduces Stress

perhaps it is going “to the woods” or maybe it brings up visions of relaxing in front of a fire with a glass of wine, running by the beach, digging in the garden, spending time with loved ones, or cooking and eating a good meal. And if you turn the focus of your attention onto a balanced, simple lifestyle, it may well lead you away from unnecessary stress, and onto the path of an overall healthier life.

To get a better sense of what a simple lifestyle denotes, I questioned a diverse group of friends on their interpretation of a simplified lifestyle. Interestingly, varied responses came back: one questioned the veracity of the causal effects of a simple lifestyle being healthier in the first place. In his words, he prefers “more Ritz than Ritz crackers.”

Another maintained that everything was “as it should be,” which precluded any need to simplify. Others variously welcomed the “opportunity to seize the moment,” “to live and play in nature,” to “have as much fun as I can,” to have a “life free from clutter,” “freedom from technology and consumerism” and something I could well relate to: to pare it down to “a tent, bike, panniers, baguette and a glass of rosé.”

Throughout it all, what overwhelmingly bubbled to the surface was the yearning for that most precious of commodities:

time. Time to eat well, to exercise, to enjoy nature; less time spent working and more time spent with others; the chance to pursue a life free of debilitating and stressful debt.

In other words, time to take care of ourselves and others. While it does seem there’s a real yearning to live simply, the question becomes: how real are those benefits? What are the potential pluses from instigating a few simple changes into your life?

Buy Less, Owe Less, Stress Less. At the very least, there is a proven moderate connection between decreased mental health and indebtedness, including anxiety and depression; common sense would seem to dictate the obvious link between overspending and stress. Just think of that last “had to have” purchase, the feeling of euphoria often followed by guilt, fear and panic.

Controlling that knee-jerk reaction to spend money we don’t

If you turn the focus of your attention onto a balanced, simple lifestyle, it may well lead you away from unnecessary stress, and onto the path of an overall healthier life.

have on stuff we don’t need is one way to tackle that stress. Making a genuine effort to take control of our spending whilst we’re climbing out of that debt hole can provide the added bonus of less extraneous stuff to clutter up our space.

Instead, we can now choose to spend some of our hard-earned cash not on objects but on experiences that bring us greater happiness, time spent with others watching a movie, or chatting over a coffee. Perhaps we don’t spend anything at all and instead go for a walk, pick up a pencil to draw, listen to music or read a great book.

“All who have lived much out of doors, whether Indian or otherwise, know that there is a magnetic and powerful force that accumulates in solitude but is quickly dissipated by life in a

crowd” (Ohiyesa, Charles Eastman).

Exercise Your Way to Health. Once we’re spending less time buying and maintaining our stuff, we can fit in more exercise instead of putting it off until we “have time.” We might go to the gym, take a bike ride, or go to a yoga class.

Once we start to exercise more, we start to feel healthier. It’s a fabulous feedback loop – stress decreases, blood pressure comes down, weight can shift – and exercise becomes easier. It can have positive effects not only on diabetes, osteoporosis and depression but also certain cancers.

It’s valuable time spent on yourself but also can be another wonderful way to connect with friends and family.

There’s a financial benefit to a simple lifestyle too; if we choose to jump on the bike, go for a run or swim or walk in the woods we avoid exorbitant gym fees. As our health improves as a community, the medical system becomes less overburdened — a win-win situation.

Whole Foods, Whole Health. Carefully choosing and preparing whole foods often leads to an increased appreciation of the quality of produce and how it nourishes us. As we edit overly processed and packaged food out of our lives we become more educated about nutrient-rich foods,

As we source whole foods, exercise more and have more time to spend with others, our appreciation of our surroundings exponentially grows. What is termed our “ecological literacy” . . . grows.

4 Proven Ways a Simple Lifestyle Reduces Stress

how they’re produced and where our fruit and veggiescome from.

We initiate a chain reaction of knowledge: we choose locally grown food as opposed to foods that have been flown in from thousands of miles away; how to source local farmers and how that can directly support the local economy.

Perhaps we now choose to grow some of our own food, with the inherent freshness and quality that implies. Eat whole food and the nutrition takes care of itself. Meals become more of a pleasure, an experience rather than a rushed and unconscious sidebar to our daily lives. And avoiding processed and packaged food saves an awful lot of time reading labels.

Nurturing Nature. A life made up of deliberate choices, of focusing on what’s important to us, can free up valuable time, time we might choose to spend outdoors – a free resource on our doorsteps. As we source whole foods, exercise more and have more time to spend with others, our appreciation exponentially grows for our surroundings.

What is termed our “ecological literacy,” or “ecological education” grows. We become more invested in our environment and

its protection. We notice which farms avoid fertilizers and pesticides; if the woods we walk in are slated for development; if the water on the beach looks clear.

We start to notice the inhabitants of the forests and mountains, if the birds are present, if we can hear frogs, if there’s evidence of that fox, deer or bear (depending on where you live). Our health is inextricably linked to the health of our environment and its biodiversity and now we perhaps have the time to notice the subtle interactions that we may have once ignored along the way.

As Thoreau so poetically wrote in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers: “There are moments when all anxiety and stated toil are becalmed in the infinite leisure and repose of nature.”

Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Our health is inextricably linked to the health of our environment and its biodiversity.

Teaching Children Responsibilityes

Condensed from AWAKE!

PEOPLE who are responsible are reliable. They follow through on assigned tasks and complete them on time. Even with their limited capabilities, very young children can start learning to be responsible. “A child’s capacity to cooperate begins by 15 months, and his desire to start willingly pitching in starts at around 18 months,” says the book, Parenting Without Borders. “In many cultures parents begin to hone their children’s helpfulness especially between the ages of five and seven, and children this young competently assist in many domestic tasks.”

Why is Teaching Responsibility Important? The term “boomerang generation” describes young adults who leave home and try to live on their own but fall on hard times and return to Mom and Dad. In some cases, this happens because the youth has never been taught to manage money, run a household, or live up to daily responsibilities.

Therefore, it is best if you train your children for the responsibilities of adulthood.

“You don’t want to keep them dependent upon you until they turn 18 and then dump them

It is best to train your children for the responsibilites of adulthood

out into the real world,” says the book, How to Raise an Adult.

How

to Teach Responsibility. Here are basic tips for teaching responsibility to children.

1. Assign chores. Young children are eager to work alongside their parents. You can take advantage of this natural inclination by assigning your children chores around the home. Some parents are reluctant to do that. They reason that their schoolage children face a mountain of homework each day, so why add to their burden?

However, children who do chores are more likely to succeed at school, since chores teach them to accept assignments and complete tasks. Besides, notes the book Parenting Without Borders, “when we ignore our children’s eagerness to participate when they are younger, they internalize the idea that contributing is unimportant . . . They also begin to expect that things will be done for them.”

As that quote indicates, doing chores trains children to be contributors rather than consumers, givers rather than takers. Chores help children realize that they have a valued place in the family — and a responsibility toward it.

2. Help your children take responsibility for their mistakes. When your children make mistakes for example, if your son or daughter accidentally dam-

ages another person’s property — resist the urge to cover up what happened. Children can accept the consequences — in this case, apologizing and perhaps even making restitution.

Owning up to mistakes and failures will teach your children: to be honest and admit their errors to avoid blaming others to avoid making excuses to apologize, when appropriate

3. Train now. The earlier children are taught to be responsible, the better they will be able to manage their life effectively as adults.

4. Use natural consequences. Natural consequences is a way of being loving but firm in teaching responsibility and discipline to children.

“Children make mistakes, and when they do, it’s vital that parents remember that the educational benefits of consequences are a gift,” writes educator Jessica Lahey in the Atlantic magazine. “Year after year, my ‘best’ students — the ones who

Teach by example . . . Model responsibility to your children.

are happiest and successful in their lives — are the students who were allowed to fail, held re-

sponsible for missteps, and challenged to be the best people they could be in the face of their mistakes.”

5. Teach by example. As a parent, ask yourself these questions: Am I industrious, organized, and punctual? Do my children see me working around the home? Do I acknowledge my mistakes, even apologizing when necessary?

Model responsibility to your children.

AWAKE, NO. 2 2019. .PUBLISHED BY WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY OF THE PHILIPPINES, INC. PO BOX 2044, 1060 MANILA, PHILIPPINES

Children find everything in nothing; men find nothing in everything.

Children are theliving messageswe send to a time we will not see.

There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are sevenmillion. WALT STREIGHTIFF

The love of children inspires an interest inthe welfare of humaity.

JAMES LENDALL BASFORD

Children are one third of our population and all of our future.

SELECT PANEL FOR THE PROMOTION OF CHILD HEALTH

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance. FRANKLIN P.

JONES

Children make your life important. ERMA BOMBECK

“You don’t want to keep them dependent upon you until they turn 18 and then dump them out into the real world,” says the book, How to Raise an Adult.

GIACOMO LEOPARDI

NEIL POSTMAN

Fundamentalism: The Great Impediment to Science, Wisdom and Creativity

Condensed from QUEST PAMELA PETERSON

FUNDAMENTALISM is a concept that has intrigued me since childhood, when I could never understand why I was expected to change my way of doing things to fit into the so-called norm. Of course, at that stage of my life I was not acquainted with the term “fundamentalism.” As I ponder the concept yet again, the following questions spring to mind: What is fundamentalism?

Does it exist beyond the boundaries of religion?

What dangers are inherent in fundamentalism?

Are we biologically predisposed to be fundamentalist in our views?

Is there an antidote to the problem?

Not surprisingly, the word “fundamentalism” has strong religious connotations, having been originally coined by a group within the Protestant faiths which arose in America in the late 19th century. They rejected commonality with theologically related religious traditions, such as the grouping of Christianity, Judaism and Islam into one “Abrahamic” family, insisting instead on the “five fundamentals of Christianity.”

The Oxford Dictionary defines fundamentalism as: “Strict adherence to traditional orthodox tenets held to be fundamental to the Christian faith: opposed to liberalism and modernism.” The Oxford Complete Wordfinder adds: “Strict maintenance of an-

cient or fundamental doctrines of any religion.”

However, over the centuries fundamentalism has infiltrated a broad spectrum of attitudes and behaviors, spanning every aspect of our lives. Hence, my preferred personal definition:

Fundamentalism is the unwavering attachment to a set of petrified beliefs, be they religious, secular, scientific, medical, even skeptical, which threatens world peace, advances in science, the attaining of wisdom, the flourishing of creativity and the acknowledgement of imagination as the source of all invention.

Fundamentalism is a mindset that has impeded progress in many areas and been responsible throughout history for incredible suffering and bloodshed which we see escalating in current society. Fundamentalism is not limited to theologies. Any system of thought can become fundamentalist. Some of the most horrendous genocides and social persecutions have been

carried out by fundamentalist politicians and atheists. The human mind will make a religion of communism or free-market capitalism.

In the case of religion, it is characterized by a markedly strict literalism applied to specific scriptures, dogmas or ideologies, and a strong sense of the importance of maintaining ingroup and outgroup distinctions. Any questioning of established fundamentals and their accepted interpretation handed down by those in authority is rejected. None of the recognized religions, western or eastern, is exempt, and atheistic fundamentalism is alive and well.

Fundamentalism Abounds Throughout Society. After the great cultural Enlightenment of the 18th century, rational thought was supposed to replace religion and mark the end of fundamentalism. Sadly, it would seem that the human mind is so constructed that immediately the notion of anything supernatural is eliminated, it simply makes a “religion” of something else as a replacement. Many fundamentalisms are secular and materialistic. It is not the content so much as the absolutist style of conviction and expression that betrays their fundamentalist nature. Scientific fundamentalism, medical fundamentalism, skeptical fundamentalism, and New Age funda-

(On fundamentalism,) the Oxford Complete Wordfinder adds: “Strict maintenance of ancient or fundamental doctrines of any religion.”

mentalism, are but a few of those which abound in society.

Fundamentalism in Science. Scientific fundamentalism is known as scientism. Pure science makes no pretense of being a belief system or asking for any kind of faith, other than in the empirical process itself. On the other hand, the “religious” version of science, called scientism, claims to have an explanation of everything. Whereas the supreme realities in religion are spiritual, those in scientism are material. Scientism mocks anything that has not been validated by its own set of rituals or experiments or approved by its prelates and publications. Anything not directly observable is dismissed. Ideas are held with strong emotional conviction and offered as the only way to see the universe. Examples of this mindset have abounded throughout the centuries.

Specimens of meteorites collected by museums throughout the world prior to the late 18th century are virtually non-existent, having been thrown out because scientists of the great Enlightenment, even Lavoisier, derided the idea of stones falling out of the sky. This was disproved in 1790 when a meteorite shower dropped more than 2,000 rocks onto a village in France.

Michael Faraday, the “Father of Electricity,” was denounced as a charlatan. The Wright broth-

ers struggled to get the public to accept that they could fly craft heavier than air. The same brick wall encountered by Edison’s electric light, Joseph Niepce’s first photograph, and Marconi’s wireless are other examples of scientific fundamentalist dogma at work.

In medicine, there has been much fundamentalism along the long path from the prehistoric belief that illness is caused by evil spirits or magical objects implanted by sorcerers, to be sucked out by shamans, to our current medical practices which themselves do not escape the clutches of dogma.

In the 16th century, it was only with enormous difficulty that Paracelsus prevailed against the establishment to end the old and dangerous practice of bleeding patients to relieve toxic cardinal humors, as well as the longstanding Christian view of illness as a punishment for sin. His claim of remedies to be found in nature was the basis of modern

However, over the centuries fundamentalism has infiltrated a broad spectrum of attitudes and behaviors, spanning every aspect of our lives.

medicine’s use of synthesized chenmicals as medicines.

In the early 20th century, the American Medical Association, backed by the now flourishing pharmaceutical companies, declared all alternative, energy medicine to be unscientific quackery. Chiropractors, osteopaths and other alternative medical practitioners had difficulty fighting back against this orthodoxy to achieve legitimacy.

Many conventional doctors, stuck in their fundamentalist beliefs, still regard alternative medicine as heresy, and are particularly upset when their patients defect to another belief system. How more beneficial and rewarding it would be for all concerned if both approaches could be recognized and combined. In fact, some doctors and medical schools seem to be casting off the the fundamentalist straight-

jacket and moving in that direction.

However, the brick wall of convention, cemented by giant egos, is hard to dismantle. Think of the current example of Munjed Al Muderis, Iraqi asylum seeker and orthopedic surgeon, who has revolutionized the treatment and rehabilitation of amputees with his osteointegration technique. The initial efforts of many of his peers to discredit him are nothing short of despicable. Justice has now been served by his being named 2020 Australian of the Year for New South Wales. Skeptics are often so busy pointing out everyone else’s fundamentalist tendencies that they fail to see how fundamentalist they are themselves. Their basic premise is the scientistic dogma that there is nothing in the world that has not already been described and understood. Their prime targets are ESP, astrology, extraterrestrials, alternative medicine, thought-field therapy, acupuncture, the benefits of prayer. Positive results claimed from any of these practices are dismissed as either accidental or fraudulent.

Fundamentalism in Art.

Even talent and imagination have not escaped the clutches of fundamentalism, as evidenced by the barriers that have been placed by the Establishment on the path of innovation in the Arts, in literature, music, paint-

Fundamentalism is a mindset that has impeded progress in many areas and been responsible throughout history for incredible suffering and bloodshed which we see escalating in current society.

ing and other forms of artistic expression over the centuries. There is a sad irony in the old schoolboy essay howler: “XYZ was born in such and such a year, but was not recognized until he died.” Indeed life-long poverty and suffering seem to have been prerequisites for the posthumous appreciation of luminaries in the artistic field. Let’s not forget that every discovery, every great invention, began as a thought in someone’s imagination.

Fundamentalism and the Human Brain. If we really belong to the genus homo sapiens, how do we so often unknowingly find ourselves in the grip of fundamentalism of some sort? Is it a matter of nature or nurture? Are we biologically predisposed to be fundamentalist? Are our brains constructed to enable this? Consideration of interesting research done in this area could perhaps help us to avoid becoming a fundamentalist.

Let’s consider a quick overview of the brain. The bump at the top of the spine, or brain stem, is the “Reptile Brain” which we share with lizards and dinosaurs. It rules essential life functions, including movement, arousal, eating, sleeping. Sitting on top of this is the “Old Mammalian Brain ”or limbic system, the center for emotions, including affection, joy, jealousy, and shame, not easily controlled voluntarily,

materialistic. . . . Scientific fundamentalism,

as we probably all know. At the top is the outer part that makes us truly human, the cerebral cortex or gray matter. The cortex is the center for our ability to learn, to think, to imagine, to anticipate the future; but it is also vulnerable to lies, illusions and delusions. It receives the imprint of our complex family and original society backgrounds. Family and societal beliefs, values and attitudes are imprinted here at an early age. Our greatest glory, it is also the instigator of our greatest problems, especially when imprinted with insidious pathological family and cultural patterns.

In instances of heightened emotion, our later socially acquired rational, social and ethical principles are easily overridden by more biologically primitive states. The primitive centers in

Many fundamentalisms are secular and

medical fundamentalism, skeptical fundamentalism, and New Age fundamentalism, are but a few of those which abound in society.

the brain overwhelm the more complex thinking and control areas in the frontal lobes, and we engage in black and white thinking. Crisis, trauma and strong emotions trigger individuals into these rigid positions. When did you have your last fundamentalist thought?

Collective threats do the same to groups and cultures. This is why dominance and territoriality, probably originating in the reptile brain, are also found in the highest levels of human social interaction. Think of our politicians!

The great mythologist, Joseph Campbell, proposed the following “Campbell’s Law”: “It is our learning history, imprinted on neurology and physiology, that shapes our personality and beliefs.” As a Roman Catholic altar boy, he knew this firsthand. The sacred iconography and ritual imprinted since the earliest childhood have an emotional ef-

fect, no matter what the conscious mind intends.

J. Krishnamurti said:

From the moment we are born, the brain is being conditioned, shaped by tradition, by religion, by the literature you read, the newspapers, by parents. If you are conditioned, it means your being becomes mechanical, repeating the same thing over and over again.

What message is there here for parents and educators? Are we skirting the fringes of child abuse? How many people have beliefs or philosophies different from those imposed upon them as a child by parents and teachers? What about you?

Then there is the human nervous system collaborating in all our ideas and attitudes, loading them with powerful emotional charge. Implanted attitudes such as loyalty, veneration, obedience, submission to authority and hierarchy can expand any kind of belief or reality system into a kind of sacred modality. Remember too that these same attitudes are generally regarded as virtues to be encouraged and rewarded. Where does the fine line need to be drawn between loyalty and fundamentalism?

Is the need for something sacred wired into our psyche? Add to this the powerful, “feel-good” dopamine neurotransmitter system. When this becomes involved, the feeling of certitude is created, convincing the person

Let’s go on Aladdin’s magic carpet ride to discover “a whole new world, a new fantastic point of view, a dazzling place we never knew,” as the song, “A Whole New World,” suggests.

Fundamentalism: The Great Impediment to Science, Wisdom and .

that he not only knows everything worth knowing, but is also completely right in his perceptions, an attitude called “righteousness,” not the exclusive privilege of Old Testament prophets.

Psychologists Eric Fromm and Eric Hoffer suggested that humans have a perennial need to escape from freedom and the responsibility of choosing and possibly making the wrong choice. They prefer to find one emotionally attractive point of view and adhere to it – the safe option. People strive for an inner security by submitting to a single, superior power, the unquestionable, the sacred, resulting in what I term the “stuck brain syndrome.”

Is the fundamentalist mentality lurking within us all, preventing us from realizing our creative powers, from attaining wisdom, from realizing our full potential in all areas of life? Most importantly, is there an antidote that we could apply? To do so means breaking out of our concrete bunker of single unquestioning conviction, and opening our minds and hearts to the exciting inevitability of variety and

change. Remember that all progress in the world is due to the non-conformist.

Could we take off our blinkers, move out of our comfort zone, reassess our ideas, beliefs, philosophy, remove our labels which are exclusionist, divisive, discriminatory? Can we promote enquiry rather than dismissal, and understanding rather than judgment?

Let’s go on Aladdin’s magic carpet ride to discover “a whole new world, a new fantastic point of view, a dazzling place we never knew,” as the song, “A Whole New World,” suggests.

The final word I give to Helena Blavatsky who wrote in 1879 in the first issue of The Theosophist:

The very root idea of the Theosophical Society is free and fearless investigation. . . . Once a student abandons the old and trodden highway of routine, and enters upon the path of independent thought . . . he is a Theosophist, an original thinker, a seeker after the eternal truth, with an inspiration of his own to solve the universal problems.

THEOSOPHY IN AUSTRALIA. DECEMBER 2020. PUBLISHED BY THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN AUSTRALIA. LEVEL 2, 162 GOULBURN STREET, SURRY HILLS, NSW 2010, AUSTRALIA

People are never so completely and enthusiastically evil as when they act out of religious conviction. UMBERT ECO

You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that god hates all the same people you do. ANNE LAMOTT

Racism and Religion

Condensed from THEOSOPHY NORTHWEST VIEW

AMANDA LUMLEY VIEW

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all in-directly . . . We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood.

– MARTIN LUTHER KING JR

ON February 23, 2014, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community sponsored One Human Race, an interfaith event at Garfield Community Center

in Seattle. Speakers included Dr. Michael Trice of Seattle University, Congressman Adam Smith, the Rev. Aaron Williams of Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Seattle, Lama Tulku Yeshi of Seattle’s Azkya Monastery, Rabbi Jim Mirel of Temple B’nai Torah of Bellevue, Harjinder Sandhu of Gurudwara Singh Sabha of Washington, and Imam Azhar Hanif, National Vice-President of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. We only have space to share a few highlights. Rev Williams opened with words of W. E. B. Du Bois: “I believe in God who made of one blood all races that dwell on earth. I believe that all men . . .

A Muslim community sponsors an interfaith event that supports their creed of love for all, hatred to none

are brothers, varying, through Time and Opportunity, in form and gift and feature, but differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and in the possibility of infinite development.”

The Bible speaks of the human race coming from a single pair. As Clement of Alexandria wrote: “The same nature exists in every race, and the same virtue. As far as respects human nature, the woman does not possess one nature, and the man exhibit another, but the same: so also with virtue.” Human identity does not lie in superficial differences of language, color, ethnicity, or biology; its reality is identified by one love. Culture is often predicated on race, and children are socialized to treasure their differences as superiorities. Such teaching conflicts with one’s human identity. We need to be human first.

Rabbi Mirel referred to the January 14, 1963 gathering on Religion and Race, where Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said: “At the first conference on religion and race, the main participants were Pharaoh and Moses. Moses’ words were: ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, let My people go . . . While Pharaoh retorted: ‘Who is the Lord, that I should heed this voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover I will not let Israel go.’” The outcome of that summit meeting has not come to an end.

Pharaoh is not ready to capitulate. The exodus began, but is far from having been completed. . . . Let us yield no inch to bigotry, let us make no compromise with callousness . . . Perhaps this Conference should have been called ‘Religion or Race.’ You cannot worship God and at the same time look at man as if he were a horse.” The center of the Jewish religion is that we are the children of one God. Each person represents a unique genome, but race does not exist as a scientific construct today – earlier theories of race that sought to justify as biological and innate one group’s superiority or dominance over others have been thoroughly debunked – but racism is very real because we all do not live up to the ideals of our faiths. The Holocaust came because Nazis denied the humanity of Jews; today wearing a Sikh outfit can bring on violence and prejudice. The solution doesn’t lie in becoming the same but in

Rev Williams opened with words of W. E. B. Du Bois: “I believe in God who made of one blood all races that dwell on earth. I believe that all men . . . are brothers

Imam Hanif brought up the African concept of ubuntu, “I am because we are,” meaning we are all interconnected.

respecting differences of faith, color, and practice. As Jacob said to his brother and former enemy Esau, “When I see your face, it’s like seeing the face of God.” We each should say this to every other human being.

Mr. Sandhu pointed out that the unity of humankind is the core of the Sikh faith. Guru Nanak, Sikhism’s founder, confronted the racism of the Punjab of the 1400s: the caste system and the denigration of women. Caste is still influential in South Asia, though it is now illegal, and mistreatment of women, religious conflict, distrust, hatred, and violence exist around the world. Sikhs hold that there is one God who is not physical or a person, but formless, and who exists within every creature. Religion is a veil over our inner humanity. Asked who was better, Hindu or Muslim, Guru Nanak replied: those who do good, compassionate actions are greater. Superficial distinctions disappear at death, even religion is

washed away, and all that is left are our actions. The Sikh’s Golden Temple was build with doors facing the four directions to symbolize that it was open to all. Still today, no one can be turned away from Sikh worship or the following meal. To think we are special, focusing on our differences and setting ourselves apart, corrupts our humanity. We are each special only as a single piece in the mosaic of humanity. All have different practices but pursue one truth. Only those whose lives are filled with love are able to find God.

Imam Hanif brought up the African concept of ubuntu, “I am because we are,” meaning we are all interconnected. Studies show that all humans share more than 99% of their DNA, so the greatest differences are those in our minds. By being God-conscious, we can rise above superficial differences and realize we are one human family. Afterwards, there was conversation over refreshments. The Ahmadiyyas sponsor these events to support their creed of love for all, hatred to none. They reject terrorism and violent jihad, support the separation of mosque and state, work for universal human rights, and provide disaster relief around the globe.

THEOSOPHY NORTHWEST VIEW, MARCH 2014 VOL 17 ISSUE 1. PUBLISHED BY THE NORTHWEST BRANCH OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, PO BOX 904, BELLEVUE, WA 98009-0904 U

There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.

EMMA BOMBECK

It is truth that liberates, not your effort to be free.

JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI

Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered. JOSE SARAMAGO

Whatever opens us is not as important as what it opens, MARK NEPO

without apology, without excuses, without masks to cover the truth of who you are.

DEBBIE FORD

Nothing binds you except your thoughts; nothing limits you except your fear; and nothing controls you except your beliefs.

MARIANNE WILLIAMSON

There is no truth. There is only perception. GUSTAV FLAUBERT

No matter what is going on in your life today, remember, it is only preparation. People come and go; situations rise and fall; it's all preparation for better things.

IYANLA VANZANT

A bad day for the ego is a good day for the soul.

MICHAEL BECKWITH

The greatest act of courage is to be and to own all of who you are,

There is nothing in the world so monstrously vast as our indifference.

MACHADO DE ASSIS

Love is eternal for as long as it lasts. VINICIUS DE MORAES

Art exists because life is not enough. FERREIRA GULLAR

To think is an act. To feel is a fact. CLARICE LISPECTOR

If you're not busy living, you're doing.

VINCE FLYNN

MANY years ago, Harold Stewart, an Australian poet, in two beautiful volumes of haiku, A Net of Fireflies and A Chime of Windbells, marked the steps on his journey to find his essential self. (Haiku are unrhymed, 17-syllabled poems arranged in three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables.) These books revealed the poet’s love of Zen and other forms of Buddhism, of the ancestral Shinto religion, and Japanese culture generally. A new distillation of this heritage, By the Old Walls of Kyoto, comes to us in the form of 12 pieces that really compose one book-length poem; this together with prose commentaries conveys the tone of the Japanese

To Find the Self

Condensed from SUNRISE I.M. ODERBERG

spiritual tradition. The book imbodies also a sensitive tribute to Kyoto, a city founded in 794 by the Emperor Kwammu to be his capital and a center of Buddhism, and which became the cultural heart of the country, where literature and the arts reached their peak. It was known as the “City of Crystalline Streams” and the “City of Purple Hills.” Many temples and monasteries were built among the forest trees on the Hiei or “Mount of Wisdom,” while the “Mount of the Cave of Love” abounds with Shinto shrines.

Famous for its natural setting, temples, Zen-designed gardens, and pavilions, Kyoto has the Eastern kind of beauty that con-

Anyone who can respond to the music of words in poetry, to imagery, idea, and deeply felt experience, cannot help but be moved by his poetry

ceals rather than states its quality openly. Harold Stewart’s recent book, subtitled “A Year’s Cycle of Landscape Poems,” resembles a fugue in music, recording his search for the self hidden within his innermost essence. He states in the introduction that the “theme chose the author because he is convinced of the spiritual quest over all else as the true meaning and purpose of this life.”

There is poignancy in his use of Kyoto ascounterpoint to his spiritual search, for there is the fading away of the old splendor — the city is being eroded by the advance of the worst features of modern industrialization. Pollution of the air is accompanied by or arises from pollution of thought and aim growing out of a philosophy of materialism and hedonism. The country’s treasure as represented by Kyoto is being destroyed by technological man who is achieving in a generation or two what time has failed to do – the passage of centuries has added a patina of beauty rather than the pockmarks of decay.

This poetic record of an individual’s “spiritual awakening” rather than an exposition of Buddhism, as well as the paean to the past glory of a city’s “self,” will carry forward an ideal into the future. Having shed his Western prejudices and limitations to follow the Middle Way,

Stewart gives a “trustworthy account of the defeats and triumphs through which he has passed.” By the Old Walls of Kyoto may spark alight other lives perhaps yet unborn. So nothing will be wholly dead: and this is, perhaps, the poet’s hope if not intention.

The twelve poems that mark the passage of the months through the orbit of a single year show the changes in the city and in the man. The sequence begins with late spring and ends with early spring of the following year. It is the “holy year” of a man’s inner experience of spiritual growing pains, as well as a record of an old city’s seasonal beauties and historic associations. Kyoto’s variations of mood and appearance during the year match the changes in the heart and mind of the poet.

This poetic record of an individual’ s “spiritual awakening” rather than an exposition of Buddhism as well as the paean to the past glory of a city’ s “self,” will carry forward an ideal into the future.

The Pure Land is a condijtion of being, dwelling in the core of ourselves; it permeates the universe.

Harold Stewart has studied for years in the traditions of some of the many sects of Buddhism. The sudden leaps of Rinzai Zen over the slower approaches of the speculative Soto Zen and other philosophical schools such as Tendai, the rigidly mentalist methods of various Buddhist heritages and teachers, ultimately yield (for Stewart) to the yearning aspiration toward the heart of compassion as represented by Amida Buddha. The poet’s previous immersion in the various traditions before embracing Shin is the warp supporting the woof of his later experience, making the tapestry of his new outlook. His efforts in Japan culminated in his acceptance as a student by Bando Shojun, an eminent Jodo Shin scholar and priest, professor of Buddhism at Otani Daigaku, the Shin university in Kyoto.

The aim of devotees of Jodo Shin is to be born the “Pure Land” of Amida. Western scholars mistake the idea of the Pure Land for a “place” or something

similar to the Christian concept of heaven, but its meaning is quite different. It is not an ethereal paradise somewhere in space but, as Stewart’s poem suggests, the Pure Land is a condition of being, dwelling in the core of ourselves; it permeates the universe because the cosmic Buddha Amida renounced further advance that he might help suffering beings less than himself. (Amida as a term is derived from the Sanskrit Amitabha, boundless light and compassion.) The renowned Japanese Buddhist scholar, D. T. Suzuki, found within the traditions of Shin the means to satisfy the heart-craving of the simple and unlettered individual as well as a philosophy profound enough to engage the attention and commitment of scholars. All Shin devotees aspire towards experiencing Amida within and outside themselves.

The monk Shinran, a follower of Honen, founder of the Pure Land doctrine, started the Jodo Shin sect in the 13th century. Born of his spiritual and personal renewal, Shinran felt impelled to open the way to all people to realize that the paths of Amida are full of joy – the joy that is inherent in each individual. The active role that Amida could play in daily life was stressed. Of course, a transcendental experience cannot be conveyed by ordinary speech or writ-

ing, but poetry may succeed in stimulating understanding. Stewart’s effort is a noble one. It is a severe test for a reviewer to restrict the choice of passages to illustrate points when the whole book is so closely knit together, and abounds in richness of feeling, ideas, and sheer poetry. Therefore, if I choose the verse of Poem Eleven in which the poet meets death face to face during a severe attack of angina, it is because it forms a fitting symbol for much more than a devastating heart attack. He had been climbing the mountain in icy weather when the seizure took hold:

Oh fierce white agony of cold that sears / My treacherous breath, whenever I respire! / Oh ache that stabs with freezing spikes of fire / My mortal heart, / I call on Amida, again, again. . . .

My body tortures me to death, who still / Struggle to cling to life, however ill, / And hug my suffering with tenacious will. / And yet the closer that my nature nears / Through agonizing throes its final breath, / The richer grows this ecstasy of tears, / This joy too noble for my heart to bear! / Divine Compassion takes me in its care / And brings with quiet surprise, as I surrender, / The charismatic gentleness of death, / Whose uncreating touch is wise and tender. / At last my calm accep-

Self

tance looks to where / A dove, its head and shoulders heaped with white, / Froze in its sleep upon the bough last night. / But since I called the Name that can defeat / And drive assaulting demons in retreat, / Their gruesome ministrations die away, / Remission granted till my judgment day. / Heavily, step by step, I drag my feet / Back to the Hondo, where I find a seat. / Grateful for this relief and rest, I wait, / Gazing to where the dormant root-stocks freeze, / Buried in shrouds of snow within their tomb, / That bed with granite curb, whose peonies / Will be reborn next spring and bud and bloom.

The poem is titled “Waiting for Sunrise at the Silver Pavilion Under Snow” and opens with a motto from a sermon by Kobo Daishi: “If you do evil, the ox-headed and horse-headed lictors of Hell at once appear and

If you trace this “heresy” back to its origins, it becomes clear that it comes from Jesus himself, who was killed after entering the temple and disrupting the animal sacrifice business there.

punish you; if you do good, golden and silver pavilions immediately appear and you are offered immortal nectar. What is difficult is to change your heart. There are no fixed heavens or hells.”

The impact of the revelation of Amida on Stewart can only be suggested, and quotations taken out of context cannot do justice to his large themes and descriptive writing. The poem that climaxed with stabbing pain ends with an evocative picture of the sun rising behind Mount Daimonji, a stirring simile for his transfigurative experience of Amida.

After the ecstasy comes the return to daily life, the next poem being titled “Returning through the Old Graveyards of Shinnyodo and Kurodani,” which has been compared to the Bodhisattva’s renunciation of his liberation that he may turn back and help those still bound to the enticements of this world. The poem has a moving contrast between the poet’s unwillingness to return and the divinely compassionate act of Amida.

Many feel there is a disparity between Zen and Jodo Shin Buddhism. In conversation with Bernard Leach, the great English potter, Suzuki was asked why he had abandoned his earlier advocacy of Zen in favor of his later sympathy with Shin. He replied that it is a mistake to assume there is a wide difference between the two; they are intertwined. He further stated that in the Japanese tradition, there is no opposition between them: if Amida fills the cosmos with his boundless love and compassion, he also dwells within the heart of every human being.

The various historical and other allusions in the poems are explained in Stewart’s essays, and these are themselves of worth. But anyone who can respond to the music of words in poetry, to imagery, idea, and deeply felt experience, cannot help but be moved by his sharing of a poet’s supreme inspiration.

SUNRISE, DECEMBER 1983/JANUARY 1984. COPYRIGHT © 1984 BY THEOSOPHICAL UNIVERSITY PRESS. POST OFFICE BIN C, PASADENA, CALIFORNIA, 91109-7107 USA

The haiku that reveals 70 to 80 percent of its subject is good. Those that reveal 50 to 60 percent, we never tire of.

MATSUO BASHO

A haiku is the expression of a temporary enlightenment, in which we see into the life of things.

REGINALD HORACE BLYTH

Haiku is not a shriek, a howl, a sigh, or a yawn; rather, it is the deep breathof life. SANTOKA TANEDA

The waves of time are not able to destroy the beauty of our loving hearts and other lasting inner treasures – the sand castles stored within us

Sand Castles

Condensed from TOS-INTERNATIONAL NEWSLETTER

BETTY BLANDH

CHILDREN and adults can while away many hours, build sand castles, as they enjoy the lapping waves and warm sands on the seashore. A small child might begin, awkwardly, by filling up a bucket, packing the sand tightly, and then inverting it to create a magical, flat-topped volcano, standing prominently above the surrounding sand. Over time, the child begins to imagine more complex creations: mountains, castles, roads and tunnels. Sometimes interesting shells, toy cars and action figures are added to enhance the growing fortress.

But eventually, a stray animal or person comes running through, knocking the masterpiece helter-skelter, or the incoming tide overreaches the water’s former bounds and begins

Sand Castles

to dissolve it. At first, the child may be disturbed that anything might tamper with such a work of art, but soon must come to terms with its impermanence. As part of the learning process, and perhaps as an expression of frustration with a fickle universe, the child might begin tearing down the sand creations, even before they are finished.

Children grow through frustration, through creativity, and through the rebuilding process. Gradually they become better sand castle builders. It doesn’t matter if a wave washes everything away; it can always be rebuilt. Over time, the growing person incorporates the skills until the sand castle always exists within potentiality – just waiting for the right sunny day at the beach. In our daily lives, we are constantly encountering situations in which we must learn a new skill. As the skill develops, we create something – a house decorated, a picture

painted, a paper written, or computer software designed. Each thing we do, although it may begin falteringly, becomes a matter of pride and attachment, as we delve into the creative process. After investing so much in its formation, we slip easily into feelings of ownership and attachment to its permanence. As the Buddha said, clinging to the permanence of anything in this impermanent world causes a great deal of pain.

My work as a supervising systems analyst in state government with mainframe computer systems particularly brought this to my attention. Sometimes we would spend weeks or even months on a particular project, and just when it was really coming together, the entire definition of what we were trying to accomplish would change in the twinkling of an eye. This could happen for many reasons –changes in funding, in politics –but the fact was that a huge wave had washed over our machinations and we felt crushed. There were many things we could still be thankful for, of course – we still had our health, our pay cheques, our families –but, at that moment, those didn’t count. The team members were caught up in attachment to our investment in time, energy and creativity. At such times, it was helpful to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. I real-

If we apply ourselves to kindness and service, that too becomes a part of our inner tool chest. This is what Jesus meant when he said, “store up treasure in heaven

Sand Castles

ized that it was much like a sand castle at the beach. Everything will change, and the tighter we hold on, the faster it will crumble.

But something can always be gained in the process that can never be taken away: our own inner resources and strengths. We develop the ability to build better sand castles. Whenever we apply ourselves fully to a task, no matter how the end product may turn out, we will have gained powers of concentration and greater skills.

If we apply ourselves to kindness and service, that too becomes a part of our inner tool chest. This is what Jesus meant when he said, “store up treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust will destroy, nor thieves break in and steal.” The great treasures that we are storing are tendencies and qualities of being – built by the ordinary days of our lives well-lived.

Hindu philosophy calls these bundles of characteristics skandhas, those tendencies that

are carried over from lifetime to lifetime, and very much a part of the mechanism through which karmic predicaments are met. The skandhas become treasures, as they are gradually transformed through our efforts in conscientious living.

The waves of time are not able to destroy the beauty of skill in action, single-minded commitment to the betterment of humanity, and a loving heart. These will continue as lasting treasures – the sand castles stored within us.

The reason that you cannot feel any progress in yourself is that you cannot feel spiritual. There is no such thing as a person’s feeling spiritual. That is as impossible as feeling that you are honest or feeling that you are moral.

JOEL S. GOLDSMITH

Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.

MARK TWAIN

If we apply ourselves to kindness and service, that too becomes a part of our inner tool chest. This is what Jesus meant when he said, “store up treasure in heaven.”

Divorced from the wholeness of the universe we are nothing, but as vital members of inner as well as outer worlds, we have inestimable treasures to offer

Where Am I?

Condensed from SUNRISE ELSA-BRITA TITCHENELL

EXCEPT when we feel a sizable earthquake, this planet seems to be a stationary, dependable solid when in fact it is nothing of the kind: it is a porous conglomerate of particles floating in an immense seeming vacuum, held by invisible threads of attraction to the center or heart of the solar system. We too would be drifting around space, did not the soles of our feetadhere by magneticforce to one of the layers of the globe we live in. We walk on the lithosphere at the bottom of the atmosphere, which is surrounded by several greater spheres, the largest we know being an immense orb of magnetic plasma.

As for being stationary, Earth covers about 67,000 miles of its orbit in an hour not to mention its dizzy speed keeping up with the sun as it hurtles through the galaxy. In addition, people in the tropics are orbiting Earth’s center at close to a thousand miles an hour. And the atoms that compose us are also rushing about at incalculable speeds. Where in all this swift motion are we, and what is our purpose in being there? Poised between infinities, we human beings are compounded of atomic worlds and help to form an unimaginably vast cosmos, ranging over endless, beginningless space where universes come and go

Where Am I?

during endless, beginningless duration.

The 20th century has seen more breakthroughs of knowledge than any in recorded history – though it is salutary to bear in mind that recorded history goes back only a fragment of time compared to the unrecorded history that preceded it. No one can say with any certainty when the thinking kingdom of Earth — humanity — began its selfconscious career of discovery and self-governed evolution. Theories abound, more or less shortlived, and philosophies too, as well as numerous belief systems, but we should remember that

Any physical theory is always provisional in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it. . . . On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory. — Stephen W. Hawking, A Brief History of Time: from the Big Bang to Black Holes, p. 10

People today have outgrown last century’s attitude, when any new scientific hypothesis demanded and usually received unquestioning acceptance. We have all seen too many convictions overridden by new discoveries. Another popular scientific writer, Louise B. Young, agrees that “Scientific theories are working hypotheses rather than creeds.” On the subject of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle she states that scientists, while

paying lip service to the “order from disorder” principle, have continued to pursue their research on the assumption that nature is orderly. . . . What they say in words does not matter. And she expresses clearly what more and more scientists are concluding with increasing certainty:

The order that we find in nature is a characteristic of both nature and the human mind because man is an integral part of nature. – The Unfinished Universe, 1986, pp. 173, 180

When we start thinking about life and our reason for living, we are sooner or later forced to realize that beings and things do not just happen, they are caused. Nor are they altogether caused by environment. They follow the lead of an intangible inner self and they alter to fit its demands. One might begin by considering that humanity is as much a part of globe Earth as are the volcanoes, oceans, and atmosphere.

Poised between infinities, we human beings are compounded of atomic worlds and help to form an unimaginably vast cosmos

While people generally agree that human forms, marvelous organisms though they are, belong to the physical globe and remain there, biodegradable, when the consciousness departs, few stop to consider the waves of lives which surge round the planet as anything more than collections of biological organisms, born to procreate and then to die. Louise Young not only proposes an ongoing creation where humanity has its place but hints at life as something more than a singular occurrence ended by inescapable death:

Recycling is an important part of the evolution of Form; as long as creation is not complete, it provides the raw material needed to build the next phase and the next.

Death and dissolution are inevitable aspects of this process. If death did not occur the substance of life would have been frozen in the earliest simple stages of formation. . . . when death comes a well-filled life is rounded out in time — com-

pleted, not finished, because nothing that has been can be nullified. It remains an essential part of the tapestry that is being woven in the warp and woof of space and time. –pp. 134-5

This tapestry and its design were well known to the wise old myth-makers of prehistory whose task it was to devise stories that would guide future generations in their quest for meaning in existence. They were the graduates who had experienced human life in former eons. To them humanity was not just physically a part of nature; human consciousness too was part of the consciousness of our universe, human mind a member of its macromind, the human soul a fragment of the solar soul. We share the yearnings, the elation, and the sensibilities that cosmic nature holds, but scaled to human proportions. For instance, love is the human expression of the gravitation that in a cosmos binds heavenly bodies in rhythmic everlasting dance.

Not for nothing did the myths relate the human race with the gods. In Genesis, for instance, the elohim created mankind (male and female) in their image, and in the Norse myths we have a clear account of how Odin with his two brothers made humankind out of their own substance, Odin endowing man and woman with spirit, Lodur with vitality and will, and Honer with intelligence, faculties which are these

When we start thinking about life and our reason for living, we are sooner or later forced to realize that beings and things do not just happen, they are caused.

Where Am I?

gods’ own distinguishing characteristics.

One of the teachings in the Eddas tells of three “rivers of lives”: the first stream was of consciousnesses seeking experience, growth, wisdom; it sprang from the well of the past and may be equated with karma; the second was of different kinds of creatures — what we call the kingdoms of nature – species of life forms that provide suitable apparel for the consciousnesses; the third was matter – inchoate, undefined substance which assumed whatever shape was demanded of it. Together these rivers make up all the evolving beings that comprise a world and supply the principles commonly known as spirit, soul, and body.

All are as intrinsic in the natural world as the physical tangible bodies. Any thinker is aware that no biological organism alone can produce the grand ideas of a Plato, the vision of an Einstein, or the music of a Beethoven. Yet the true value of the human race lies in those intangible, indestructible attributes which cannot be measured or analyzed but which endure long after the generating causers have left the planet. We today still profit by the ideas of Plato, are uplifted by the music of Beethoven and set pondering the philosophic implications of relativity. Within the global ecosystem each of the kingdoms contributes

to the one that precedes it. Minerals, soil and water feed the vegetation; together the mineral and vegetable kingdoms nourish the animal; the animals in combinationwith minerals and vegetables supply the needs of the human species.

Is this the end of the road? Does not the human species have a contribution to make, a cosmic function to perform? Do not we serve some greater self? Knowing, as we do, that every least earthworm performs a service to the world it inhabits, filling its own niche in the symbiotic whole, would it not be the height of absurdity to deny a purpose and design to mankind, whose endowments are far greater? Surely it is our function to supply the “nectar” and “ambrosia” that nourish the divine beings that imbody in nature.

The true value of the human race lies in those intangible, indestructible attributes which cannot be measured or analyzed but which endure long after the generating causers have left the planet.

What are these needs of the gods and how are we to supply them? We are prevented from seeing this duty by our blindness to the inward worlds we live in. For we do inhabit intangible spheres of thought and feeling far more completely than the physical world wherein we eat, sleep, procreate, and die. We not only think and feel and dream incessantly; by our thoughts and feelings we affect others,many of them people and animals, gods and plants that we have no knowledge of. What we reflect on today will serve our own and others’ memory tomorrow, cause joys and sorrows to the yet unborn.

Once we recognize our place within the planet we help compose, we can see our relevance as components of the solar system and find, not surprisingly, that we are a certain portion of it. We represent in some degree its intelligence and will. It could be said that we are its self-consciousness – at least in its early stages. We are conscious of being

conscious, and we are able to guide our own growth and development, choosing healthful or hurtful ways of thinking, feeling, and behavior. When Louise Young says, “The universe is becoming conscious of itself” (p. 149), could she mean that the grand evolving cosmic soul is engaged in a pilgrimage much like our own, gaining experience and growing in ways we know nothing of? The instinctive human urge to sacrifice to the gods has validity. Devoid of ritualism it means to “make sacred” our lives in the service of those consciousnesses that infill the generous hosts of light that surround us in space, nor can we afford to neglect our role as guardians and custodians of the kingdoms which follow and look up to us, much as we follow and look up to the gods who with larger vision no doubt emulate their divine superiors.

We know so little of those glistening spheres, even physically. The most recent major discovery and one which has caused a great stir in astronomical circles is that of John P. Huchra and Margaret J. Geller of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts, who in a painstaking survey of fan-shaped slices of sky found that on a vast scale the universe appears to have a spongy texture. (“Astronomers Go Up Against the Great Wall,”

The more we ponder the relations of living things, the more we recognize that consciousness is central to existence.

and “Mapping the Universe,” Science, vol. 246, 17 November 1989, pp. 885 and 897-903.) The map of their observations “looked like a slice through soap suds”: huge voids surrounded by “a network of sheet-like structures,” some of them forming a “Great Wall” that runs across the entire survey. It is an immense coherent shape whose extent is limited only by the size of the survey. Is our cosmos perhaps a tiny part of a foamy wave crest on some celestial ocean?

There is no reason why we should assume that all of space contains only what we recognize as matter, or even a uniform distribution of star stuff. Could there not be as great a variety in cosmic space on a proportionately vast scale as there is in a human or other organism, which contains such diverse substances as delicate brain tissue and rock-hard tooth enamel, not to mention such properties as imagination, artistry, and joy?

If indeed our utmost vision extends only to what on cosmic levels would correspond to a finite object as these discoveries suggest, perhaps all visible worlds

comprise a mere organ in some titanic body, while planetary, solar, galactic intelligences of proportionately grander scope and sublimity occupy their respective forms, seen and unseen. To them we may be comparable to some degree of subquarks on an electronic earth. How can we then help or hinder the consciousnesses imbodied in those immensities by anything we think or do? A reasonable question if we forget how interrelated all things are. A virus can lay low the sturdiest athlete, and an inspiring thought can elate a nation and make history.

The more we ponder the relations of living things, the more we recognize that consciousness is central to existence. This applies not only to the human phase of evolution’s endless ladder; it is equally valid for galactic and molecular beings. Divorced from the wholeness of the universe we are nothing, but as vital members of inner as well as outer worlds, we have inestimable treasures to offer.

SUNRISE, APRIL/MAY 1990. PUBLISHED BY THE NORTHWEST BRANCH OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, PO BOX 904, BELLEVUE, WA 98009-0904 U

When we deny the evil within ourselves, we dehumanize ourselves, and we deprive ourselves not only of our own destiny but of any possibility of dealing with the evil of others, ROBERT OPPENJEIMER

Ignorance, the root and stemof every evil.

Consciousness and Modern Science

Condensed from EXPLORING THEOSOPHY DAVID PRATT

THE book, New Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science, published by the Institute of Noetic Sciences, is a significant contribution to the debate on the future of science. It constains essays by scientists and philosophers from a wide range of disciplines who all share the belief that science urgently needs to re-examine its implicit assumptions about the nature of reality, since these have led to important areas of human experience – especially consciousness-related phenomena – being neglected or denied.

The approaches of the 14 authors are very varied, but in his opening and closing chapters, Willis Harman, president of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), highlights some of the

common themes. He states that modern science is based on two main assumptions: a) separateness – of man from nature, mind from matter, organism from environment, and the separability of the parts of a system or organism to understand how it “really” works; and b) that the scientific picture of reality should be based solely on physical sense data. He calls for an “extended science” or “wholeness science,” based on two opposing assumptions: a) that everything is interconnected, that the physical universe and consciousness, mind and matter, form a fundamental oneness or wholeness; and b) that there are two windows for acquiring knowledge of reality: the objective, through the physical senses, and the subjective,

through the intuitive and aesthetic faculties. He writes:

Certain aspects of the unity that is the Whole will continue to be quite profitably studied by means of separateness science. That kind of science, however, would, as only part of a more extended science, no longer have the authority to insist that we are here, solely through random causes, in a meaningless universe; nor that our consciousness is “merely” the chemical and physical processes of the brain. (p. 383)

While all our observations depend on our conscious self, the science constructed from these observations seems to contain no place for a self. Scientific materialism has traditionally reduced the mind to a byproduct of the brain and denied it any causal role. One of the authors, the late neuroscientist and Nobel laureate Roger Sperry believes that science has already largely corrected this error. As a result of the “consciousness revolution” of the 1970s, in which he played an important part, the prevailing view today is that conscious mental states are “emergent properties” of brain processes, and are able to have causal effects, as in acts of free will; there is therefore “downward” causation from consciousness, in addition to “upward” causation described by reductionistic science. Sperry explains these “emergent properties” in purely physical terms; he says that they are as-

(IONS) . . . calls

sociated with “higher domains of brain processing” and “operate as functional wholes in neural network dynamics,” though he admits that science has as yet no understanding of how these higher-level processes might work. He calls this approach the “new mentalism,” but it would seem to be just a more sophisticated version of the “old physicalism.” He states that for a mentalist, phenomena such as telepathy, clairvoyance, channeling, reincarnation, and psychokinesis are “logical impossibilities,” and warns against opening the doors of science to “the supernatural, the mystical, the paranormal, the occult, the otherworldly.” Harman, on the other hand, says that most people who have taken the trouble to examine the subject have been impressed by the evidence in favor of psychic phenomena, survival after death, and reincarnation.

Another contributor, Richard Dixey, accepts the concept of “emergent properties,” but believes that they are more than

Willis Harman, president of the Institute of Noetic Sciences

for an “extended science” or “wholeness science.”

Everything is interconnected . . . the physical universe and consciousness, mind and matter, form a fundamental oneness or wholeness.

just the product of interactions between the parts of the system concerned. In his view, the extra ingredient is “information,” which he says is “potentially infinite” and “binds itself” to matter, giving rise to the law-like behavior of matter, and the new properties that emerge as matter is arranged in increasingly complex forms. He does not say anything about the nature of this information, where it comes from, or how it influences matter.

While Sperry maintains that consciousness can be understood without bringing in quantum physics, Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne argue that quantum mechanical concepts such as wave/particle complementarity, barrier penetration, and uncertainty provide “useful analogies” for understanding consciousness-related phenomena, both normal and paranormal. However, quantum physics takes us only one step beyond physical

matter and processes to the underlying quantum field, and still leaves us with a picture of the mind as inextricably bound up with the brain. This approach therefore does not seem to allow room for survival after death and reincarnation, since these are possible only if our conscious self is able to exist independently of the brain. Another contributor, physicist Arthur Zajonc, refers to Rudolf Steiner’s view that humans have not only a physical body but also three subtler bodies: an etheric body, responsible for form and life; an astral body, which gives rise to sentient consciousness; and a self-conscious ego.

Biologist and Nobel laureate George Wald argues that mind, rather than being a very late development in the evolution of living things, restricted to organisms with the most complex nervous systems, has always existed, and that the universe is life-breeding because the pervasive presence of mind has guided it to be so. Biologist Brian Goodwin, on the other hand, opposes the idea that vital or spiritual forces play any role in evolution. He also criticizes orthodox biology for trying to explain organisms solely in terms of their “genetic program.” He states:

A genetic program can define the molecular composition of the developing organism at any moment in its development, but this is insufficient to explain the processes

that lead to a heart, a nervous system, or other morphological features of the organism. (p. 223)

The new biology, he says, needs to recognize that organisms are “self-organizing wholes,” generated by “dynamic principles,” and intimately connected with their environment. The parts of an organism are ordered by a developmental field or morphogenetic field, which he describes as the “dynamic spatio-temporal organization” of an organism and which he understands in standard physical and chemical terms. Like Sperry’s “mentalism,” Goodwin’s “holistic science of qualities” is still essentially materialistic.

Harman claims that quantum theory has shown that the consciousness of the observer is essential to the existence of the thing being observed because only when an observation is made are the probability functions of quantum mechanics “collapsed” into actualities. Harman is here following a variant of the conventional interpretation of quantum physics, but fails to mention, let alone justify, the assumptions on which it is based, nor does he indicate that there are alternative interpretations.

A quantum system, such as a subatomic particle, is represented mathematically by an equation known as the wave function, which can be used to calculate the probability of finding a particle at any particular

point in space. When a measurement is made, the particle is of course found in only one place, but if the wave function is assumed to provide a complete description of a quantum system –as it is in the conventional interpretation – it would mean that in between measurements the particle dissolves into a “superposition of probability waves” and is potentially present in different places simultaneously. Then, when the next measurement is made, this wave packet is supposed instantaneously to “collapse,” in some random and unexplained manner, into a localized particle again.

Some physicists have gone even further and claim that a measurement alone is not enough; a wave function collapses only when the measurement is registered in the mind of a human observer. This appears to be the view favored by Harman. This position has recently been put forward by physicist Amit Gos-

There are two windows for acquiring knowledge of reality: the objective, through the physical senses, and the subjective, through the intuitive and aesthetic faculties.

wami, who states that physical objects, such as the moon, do not exist in space-time unless a conscious observer is looking at them, and that human beings are the center of the universe since they bring it into being and give it meaning. One can sympathize with Roger Sperry when he writes:

I take a realist position that assumes a world exists out there regardless of whether I or anyone else happens to perceive it. The laborious excavation of a giant ammonite or a large dinosaur femur from its cretaceous matrix leaves little patience with a philosophy that these and their world did not exist until our observation. (p. 113)

An alternative, more sensible interpretation of quantum theory has been developed by David Bohm and his associates, such as Basil Hiley, John Bell, and Jean-Pierre Vigier. Bohm takes the view that quantum theory in

its present form is incomplete; the wave function does not provide a complete description of quantum systems, and there is therefore no need to introduce the ill-defined notion of “wavefunction collapse” (and all the paradoxes that go with it). Instead, he proposes that although we cannot measure their exact motion, particles nevertheless follow causal trajectories, determined not only by conventional physical forces but also by a subtler force, the quantum potential, which operates from a deeper, implicate, more mindlike level of reality. Although he believes that human consciousness does not bring quantum systems into existence, and does not significantly affect the outcome of a measurement (except in the case of genuine psychokinesis), he argues that consciousness is not simply a byproduct of matter but is rooted deep in the implicate order, and is therefore present to some degree in all material forms. He suggests that there may be an infinite series of implicate orders, each having both a matter aspect and a consciousness aspect. In Bohm’s words, “everything material is also mental and everything mental is also material, but there are many more infinitely subtle levels of matter than we are aware of.”

An alternative view is that while all things are one in es-

In Bohm’s words, “everything material is also mental and everything mental is also material, but there are many more infinitely subtle levels of matter than we are aware of.”

sence, they nevertheless interact through an interplay of forces of many different kinds, nonphysical as well as physical. Bohm and Hiley have pointed out that future technology might make it possible to demonstrate experimentally that quantum nonlocal connections are not propagated instantaneously (infinitely fast) but merely faster than light, through a “quantum ether.” Theories which suggest that signals which travel faster than light would travel backwards in time obviously need some adjustment!

It might be objected that if the ether also consists of particles, the transmission of forces between them would still involve action at a distance. And even if we posit an infinite series of finer and finer ethers, since infinity is never actually reached, no particles ever come into contact and we are still left with the puzzle of action at a distance. This leads Harman to say: “In the broadest sense, there is no cause and effect; only a whole system evolving” (p. 377). But unless we suppose the parts of this “whole system” to be separated by gaps of absolute nothingness, it must really be a seamless plenitude, in which everything is interlinked by a continuum of energy-substance of endlessly varied grades – even though our finite minds can never hope to apprehend this limitless spectrum of energies in

all its richness and fullness. Causation is therefore ultimately unfathomable, but this is no reason to jump to the conclusion that, beyond the physical structures and causal factors currently measurable by science, there are no further levels of structure and causal agents, but only absolute oneness and instantaneous connectedness.

A more concrete framework for understanding mind-matter interaction, reincarnation, paranormal phenomena, and the purposeful nature of evolution is provided by the Ancient Wisdom, which teaches that the physical world is only one octave of an infinite spectrum of consciousness-substance, and is interpenetrated by innumerable other worlds, some denser and some more ethereal than our own, which are imperceptible to our physical senses. And just as the physical world is organized and coordinated by inner worlds – astral, mental, and spiritual –

While all things are one in essence, they nevertheless interact through an interplay of forces of many different kinds, nonphysical as well as physical.

so the physical body is animated and organized by inner energy-fields or souls. In this view, “self-organization” mainly operates from within outwards, and “holistic” or “emergent” properties arise from the fact that the more complex an organism’s outer structure, the greater its ability to receive and express influences (‘information’) from the inner levels of its constitution. The aim of New Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science is to open up a dialogue on the changing scientific worldview

both within the scientific community and among the public at large. Due to the academic style and rather technical nature of many of the essays, the general reader will find the book heavy going in places, but it provides interesting glimpses of the direction in which some scientists are moving. We are clearly witnessing a shift away from a fragmented, mechanical, non-purposive conception of the world toward a more holistic, organic, and purposive conception. However, the assumptions of the “new emergent science” naturally need to be scrutinized just as critically as those of the old science. The future direction of science is of great concern to us all for, as Willis Harman says, “the modern scientific worldview is inherently flawed and misleading in ways vital to the well-being of individuals and societies, and inimical to the future viability of human civilization” (p. 392). HTTPS://WWW.DAVIDPRATT.INFO/CON-SCI-HTM

Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.

ERWIN SCHRODINGER

Modern physics impresses us particularly with the truth of the old doctrine which teaches that there are realities existing apart from our sense perceptions, and that there are problems and conflicts where these realities are of greater value for us than the richest treasures of the world of experience. MAX PLANCK

We are clearly witnessing a shift away from a fragmented, mechanical, non-purposive conception of the world toward a more holistic, organic, and purposive conception.

Transforming the World

Condensed from THEOSOPHY FORWARD BARBARA HEBERT

WE want to transform the world. We want it to be a place of peace, acceptance, and compassion. We want to live in a world where there is no judgment based upon skin color, religious or spiritual tradition, belief system, way of self-identifying, and so on. In other words, we want to live in a world where everyone realizes the essential unity of all life and has a reverence and respect for that life.

We may talk about inclusion as a way to come together, but we are actually talking about moving beyond inclusion. Inclusion implies that someone or something must be excluded, and no one should be excluded. We are talking about a unity that is so profound that it extends far beyond the concept of

inclusion. We are talking about a unity and a respect for all life that goes beyond inclusion or even love in the way that most of us think about it; rather, we are talking about Love for all beings because nothing else is conceivable.

If we are all one — a unity of all life — then, what happens to one of us happens to all of us. This is the world in which many of us wish to live. The difficult question is: how do we get there? How do we transform the world?

One thing that many of us know is that we can’t change other people. We try to change our children, our partners, our families, but we quickly find that we can’t change another

In order to radically transform the world, we must radically transform ourselves

Pleasure and Happiness: Transforming the World

to transform themselves or to bring about a modified change through revolution, either of the left or of the right. It is important to understand that this is our responsibility, yours and mine. . . .

person. What, then, can we change? Ourselves.

Self-Transformation for Transforming the World. In order to radically transform the world, we must radically transform ourselves. Former International President of the Theosophical Society, Radha Burnier said, “The subject of human [transformation] is very important because a truly momentous change in the history of humanity will occur only when there is a revolutionary change in the human being. Probably a sufficient number of human beings must change to bring about a radical change in the course of human history.” So, what did she mean when she talked about a revolutionary or radical change in each of us? Maybe this quote from Krishnamurti will be helpful:

To transform the world, we must begin with ourselves; and what is important in beginning with ourselves is the intention. The intention must be to understand ourselves and not to leave it to others

Our responsibility, then, according to Krishnamurti is our intention to understand ourselves, and we can do this through objective self-observation. What are we thinking, feeling, saying, doing? What is the intention behind our thoughts, feelings, words, and actions?

Are we congruent? Do our thoughts, feelings, words, and actions match our belief system, match our desire for change in ourselves and thus in the world?

This sounds very simple, yet it is perhaps one of the most difficult undertakings any of us will ever experience. Self-transformation is a process that requires honesty and courage. How do we begin this process? Let’s begin on a very practical level.

In psychological circles, there are discussions about which comes first . . . thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. There is no need to get into that debate, but one thing is certain, our thoughts, feelings and behaviors are connected almost instantaneously.

Let’s talk first about our thoughts. Experts estimate that the mind thinks between 60,000 – 80,000 thoughts a day. That’s an average of 2,500–3,300 thoughts per hour. Other experts estimate a smaller number of

We want to live in a world where everyone realizes the essential unity of all life and has a reverence and respect for that life.

50,000 thoughts per day, which means about 2,100 thoughts per hour, or about 35 thoughts a minute or about .6 thoughts a second. So, in the time that it’s taken you to read this, you have probably had about 35-50 thoughts! What were they? Where did theycome from?

We are conditioned from the moment of our birth to have certain thoughts. We are conditioned by our family, our teachers, our culture, etc. Everything around us tells us what we should say, be, or do. Many of these messages are unconscious. We are not even aware that we have inculcated them.

Furthermore, we are conditioned by the illusion of the world in which we live. We see separation and division rather than unity and community, so we may believe this is the natural way of the world. From this perception of separation and division, we may feel lonely, isolated, and abandoned. At times, we may even feel angry or vulnerable due to this perception. It also impacts our language so that we fall into using words like “you” and “me,” “us” and “them.” Thus, the illusion of the world conditions our thoughts and thus impacts our feelings and even our choice of words.

Continuing along these same lines, our thoughts impact our behaviors. Many years ago as a high school teacher, one of my

students stated that another teacher was prejudiced against black people. I was very surprised by the statement and indicated that this teacher had never shown any evidence of bias. She told me that when this teacher distributed papers, he would never touch her hand like he did with the white students. She said that he always put her paper on her desk. After more conversation, the student said that she had seen this behavior consistently throughout the school year. After much thought, it occurred to me that this teacher had an unconscious conditioned thought (possibly something like, not touching people of another skin color) and it was impacting him without his awareness. However, the students were aware of it.

Taking all of these things together, when we come into contact with others who have different belief systems (religiously, politically, socially, etc.), we are

“To transform the world, we must begin with ourselves; and what is important in beginning with ourselves is the intention.”

—Jiddu Krishnamurti

likely to have conditioned thoughts about those other systems that can impact our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. We may perceive the person who holds those beliefs as frightening or dangerous. We react to them based on our unconscious conditioned thoughts.

These conditioned thoughts can be so deeply rooted that we have difficulty identifying them. Sometimes, we have even more difficulty “owning” those thoughts, especially assuming that we can separate from ourselves enough to identify what is happening.

How to identify those thoughts about which we may not be aware, or the thoughts that flit through so quickly that we are not aware of them?

Constant self-observation and awareness every minute of every day.

Be aware of others’ reactions to you and about what others say or don’t say to you.

Have open and honest communication with others, asking for feedback.

Listen to your intuition, to that still silent voice within.

Identification is the first step in transforming ourselves. Krishnamurti says that “Analysis does not transform consciousness.” We transform our consciousness by first identifying and then working to make changes: changes to our thoughts, our feelings, our behaviors — changing those aspects that are not congruent with our belief system. We must change our thoughts into ones that are congruent with our belief system.

As we all know, change does not happen overnight. That is why the transformation of our consciousness is a process. We have to practice. We will fail at times, and we will need to pick ourselves up and start over. Eventually, the new way of thinking, acting, talking, and doing will become a part of who we are.

Transformation is a process that will take us, as Radha Burnier says, “. . . from selfishness to unity . . . This change to realization of unity is revolutionary, fundamental.” “Fundamental change is . . . many things. It is change from selfishness to altruism; from strife, inside and outside, to peace; from ugliness –there is a lot of ugliness inside us – to beauty and harmony. It is a

We are conditioned by the illusion of the world in which we live. We see separation and division rather than unity and community.

change from a state of ignorance to wisdom.”

Therefore, if we want to change the world, and I believe we all do, then we must begin by changing ourselves.

You have probably heard the story of the 100th monkey, a story about social change shared by Ken Keyes, but it is probably worth reminding ourselves of it.

The Japanese monkey, Macaca Fuscata, had been observed in the wild for a period of over 30 years. In 1952, on the island of Koshima, scientists were providing monkeys with sweet potatoes dropped in the sand. The monkey liked the taste of the sweet potatoes, but they found the dirt unpleasant. An 18- month-old female named Imo found she could solve the problem by washing the potatoes in a nearby stream. She taught this trick to her mother. Her playmates also learned this new way and they taught their mothers too.

This cultural innovation was gradually picked up by various monkeys before the eyes of the scientists. Between 1952 and 1958 all the young monkeys learned to wash the sandy sweet potatoes to make them more palatable. Only the adults who imitated their children learned this social improvement. Other adults kept eating the dirty sweet potatoes..

Then it happened. By that evening almost everyone in the tribe

was washing sweet potatoes before eating them. The added energy of this hundredth monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough!

But notice: A most surprising thing observed by these scientists was that the habit of washing sweet potatoes then jumped to another island and all of the monkeys there began washing their sweet potatoes.

Thus, when a certain critical number achieves an awareness, this new awareness may be communicated from mind to mind. Although the exact number may vary, this Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon means that when only a limited number of people know of a new way, it may remain the conscious property of these people. But there is a point at which if only one more person tunes-in to a new awareness, a field is strengthened so that this awareness is picked up by almost everyone!

When enough of us transform, maybe we will reach that critical mass, and all of humanity will transform. As individuals change, so humanity changes. We are one and the same and can never be separated. Similar to the yin-yang symbol, we carry humanity within each of us. Each of us is carried within humanity. Together we are whole.

THE OS O PHY FOR W ARD, DE CEM BER 2020. (HTTPS://WWW.THEOSOPHYFORARD.COM/ARTICLES/THE OS O PHY /2925-TRANS FOR MING-THE-WORLD

No-Spank Countries Now 60 and Counting

To date, 60 countries have imposed a ban on corporal punishment for children due to the psychological and emotional damage, besides physical hurt, that spanking can cause on kids. 28 more countries have committed to reform their statutes to eventually achieve a complete ban. Sweden was the first country to abolish corporal punishment in 1979. Finland followed in 1983, Norway in 1987, and Austria in 1989. The latest countries to impose a total ban on spanking are Japan in 2020, and Giorgia, South Africa and France in 2019. (endcorporalpunishment.org)

Robots Could Replace Therapy Dogs

Research findings have shown that dogs and other animal companions can provide therapeutic benefits to children, and human

beings in general. Now a new study has shown that robotic animals can be “pawfect replacements” for real-life pets. Published in The International Journal of Social Robotics by the University of Portsmouth, the new paper featured the robotic animal “MiRo-E” which proved to be just as effective and may even be a better replacement. “This preliminary study has found that biomimetic robots –robots that mimic animal behaviors – may be a suitable replacement in certain situations and there are some benefits to using them over a real dog,” said study supervisor Dr. Leanne Poops. (Science Daily)

2020 Tied for Warmest Year Ever

2020 tied with 2016 as the warmest year ever on record, an analysis by NASA shows. The long-term global warming trend continued, with the year’s globally averaged temperature regis-

tering at 1.02 degrees Celsius warmer than the 1951-1980 mean. 2020 was actually a little warmer than 2016 by a very small amount considered negligible due to the accepted margin of error, scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York said. “The last seven years have been the warmest seven years on record, typifying the ongoing and dramatic warming trend,” said GISS Director Gavin Schmidt. “Whether one year is a record or not is not really that important –the important things are longterm trends. With these trends, and as the human impact on the climate increases, we have to expect that records will continue to be broken.” (Science Daily)

Lab Grows Body Parts

Growing back body parts used to be stuff that one would only find in science fiction. But in his lab at Wake Forest University, Dr. Anthony Atala, one of the piioneers of regenerative medicine, is growing body parts. So far, Dr. Atala and his team have managed to build 18 types of tissue from the cellular level up. These tissues include whole organs and the pulsing heart valve of a sheep. Dr. Atala believes that all types of tissue have cells ready to regenerate if they can be prodded into action, and that it’s

just a matter of time before a human heart and other organs can be grown in the lab. “The cells have all the genetic information necessary to make new tissue,” he pointed out. “That's what they are programmed to do. So your heart cells are programmed to make more heart tissue, your bladder cells are programmed to make more bladder cells.” (Science Daily)

Children to Bear the Burden of Climate Change's Effects

A “Viewpoint” article published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation by Dr. Susan E. Pacheco focused on the grim effects of climate change or global warming on pediatric health including startling effects on children’s health even before they are born. Mentioning research by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on increased mortality and morbidity due to heat waves and fires, increased risk of food-borne and water-borne illnesses, and malnutrition due to food scarcity, Dr. Pacheco points out that the negative experiences bring with them psychological trauma and mental health issues that can affect both children (including those in utero) and their caretakers. (Science Daily)

Book Section:

Concentration and Meditation

Christmas Humphreys

INTRODUCTION

MOST of the great religions and philosophies have stressed the importance of mind-development, but none so much as Buddhism, wherein it is regarded not merely as the principal occupation of the more enlightened student, but as an integral part of the daily life of the humblest follower of the All-Enlightened One. This attitude is based on common sense, for it is obvious that only in a fully developed and purified mind can the fires of anger, lust and illusion be stilled, and the cause of suffering destroyed. The very system of thought we know in the West as Buddhism is based on the supreme enlightenment gained by the Buddha in meditation; how else, then, shall we attain the same enlightenment if we do not follow in the self-same way?

In order to appreciate the importance of meditation in the Buddhist life one has only to consider the best known summaries of the Buddha’s teaching as given by himself. “Dana, Sila, Bhavana,” for example, is often given as much as summary. First comes Dana, universal charity,

then Sila, strict morality, and thirdly, in progressive importance, Bhavana, mind-development. Again, “Cease to do evil; learn to do good; cleanse your own heart; this is the religion of the Buddhas.” Note that so soon as ethical control is well established, the “cleansing of the heart” must follow as the next step to the Goal.

The Importance of Right Motive. “Prepare thyself, for thou wilt have to travel on alone. The Teacher can but point the way. ” The cleansing of the heart is no light task, and as these words from the The Voice of the Silence show, it is a long and lonely road. It must needs be difficult, for the untrained stallions of the mind must be brought under control, and the littlest “fond offense” brought out into light and slain to rise no more. There are dangers on the Way, and those who succumb to them. As is pointed out in W. Q. Judge’s Culture of Concentration, “Immense fields of investigation and experiment have to be traversed; dangers unthought of and forces unknown are to be met; and all must be overcome, for in this battle there is no quarter asked or given.” The prize, however, is

worth it all, to free oneself from the tyranny of earthly limitations, and with a soul that “lends its ear to every cry of pain, like as the lotus bares its heart to drink the morning sun,” to join that unseen Brotherhood whose spiritual wisdom forms the guardian wall about humanity. Only with some such motive is it wise to begin the practice of mind-development. The Nature of the Self. “Know thyself,” said the Delphic Oracle. The way of meditation is the way of knowledge, and the aim of such knowledge is to find and identify oneself with the Self within. It is therefore of extreme importance to possess some knowledge of the nature of Self and its vehicles, in order that the purpose and technique of meditation may be understood. The simplest analysis is that of St. Paul into body, soul and spirit, and first including the complex personality, the second all that is though of as the Higher Self, and Spirit being as useful a term as any for what the Buddha called the “Unborn, Unoriginated, Uncreated and Unformed.”

2. Lower Meditation. Under this heading come those mental exercises in which the newly-created instrument of concentration is first dedicated to useful work. It includes, for example, the meditation on the Bodies, on the fundamental doctrines of the Buddha’s teaching, such as Karma, Rebirth, the Oneness of life, and early exercises in selfanalysis.

CONCENTRATION

Definition of Terms. The process of mind-development falls into two main divisions: Concentration and Meditation. By the former we mean the preliminary exercises in one-pointedness of thought which must of necessity precede success in the latter, while Meditation will be considered under three sub-divisions. The first of these consists of early exercises in the right use of the instrument thus prepared, and will be described as Lower Meditation. Following this comes the realm of Higher Meditation, which in turn merges into Contemplation.

Our classification is therefore as follows:

1. Concentration. Concentration, which is a necessary prelude to Meditation, aims at unwavering focus on the chosen thing or idea to the exclusion of any other subject.

This Spirit is no mere attribute. In India known as Atman, it is

The cleansing of the heart is no light task, and . . . it is a long and lonely road.

Concentration and Meditation

the essential Man, yet in that it is but an indivisible aspect of the nameless All no man may claim that it is his alone. Hence, the Buddhist doctrine of anatta, not Atta (Atman) designed to remove the illusion that there is any abiding principle in man, that there is in his composition any single attribute which distinguishes him eternally from other forms of life.

3. Higher Meditation. Stages two and three have no clear-cut dividing line, yet those who reach this level will at some great moment realize that a subtle yet tremendous change has taken place within. Henceforth, they will be in the world and yet not of it; serving the world yet definitely liberated from its thrall. In meditation, they will find that objects are transcended, and even names and definitions left behind. Here is a world whose scale of values is the essential nature of things and not their outer semblances, where for the first time the meditator is freed from the tyranny of forms.

Under this sub-division fall the Jnanas, the stages of consciousness so fully described in the Buddhist scriptures, and here belong the more difficult koans used so freely in Zen Buddhism. In this division, too, will be found the higher realms of mysticism, in which intense devotion blends with intense intellection in the

understanding of pure abstractions and the relationshiop between them. Here is the meeting ground of mathematics and music, of metaphysics and pure mysticism, for here alone the limitations of form may be transcended, and the Essence of Mind perceived in all it purity.

4. Contemplation. If there are comparatively few yet ready for higher Meditation, there are still fewer to whom the act of Contemplation is more than a nebulous ideal. This exquisite sense of union with Reality, of spiritual absorption into the very nature of one’s ideal, though mentioned at greater length hereafter, can never be usefully treated in any textbook, for those who have reached such a level need no literature, and to those who have not so attained even the finest description would be almost meaningless.

Preliminary Observations.

There are certain rules or maxims to be borne in mind if meditation is to prove an entrance to

The way of meditation is the way of knowledge, and the aim of such knowledge is to find and identify oneself with the Self within.

the way of enlightenment and not merely an intellectual pastime.

1. Do not begin unless you mean to continue. Progress is upward and must therefore be continuous, or the climber will slip back whence he came. At the same time, progress must be gradual. If progress seems to be slow, remember that lives of wrong habits of thought must be surmounted.

2. Beware of self-congratulation. It is said that many a weakling can put up with failure but only a strong man can withstand success. When the first wellearned results of mental training begin to manifest, beware of the separative effect of self-conceit.

3. Beware of guru-hunting. The Western world is filled with those who seek for gurus to lead them swiftly to the goal. There is no shortcut to perfection, and the true Adepts will never help a student until, first, he has made all possible use of the materials at hand, and, secondly, he has by

the purity of his life and aspiration shown himself worthy of their help. When that hour strikes, and not before, the Teacher will appear.

4. Ignore psychic experiences or the appearance of psychic powers. Meditation will sooner or later raise the consciousness to a level at which occasional and hazy glimpses will be obtained of the realm above the physical. This is the psychic world, filled only with the shadows and reflections of Reality, a world of illusion through which the seeker after truth must delicately pick his way.

5. Learn to want to meditate. In other words, learn to direct desire. Unwilling work is badly done and there is less waste of effort and a higher standard of workmanship in exercises carried out with the whole soul’s will and in those which are the outcome of a habit forced on an unwilling mind.

6. Do not neglect existing duties. It has been said that meditation is first an effort, then a habit, and finally a joyous necessity. When the third stage comes, beware lest the discovery that it ranks in interest and value far ahead of earthly pursuits and happenings would lure one from the due performance of the daily round. As the Master K.H. wrote to A.P. Sinnett, “Does it seem a small thing to you that the past year has been spent only in your

Progress is upward and must therefore be continuous, or the climber will slip back whence he came.

‘family duties’? Nay, but what better cause for reward, what better discipline, than the daily and hourly performance of duty?”

Concentration: Suggestions. For most of us, a fixed time and place is helpful to progress, and the following suggestions may be useful during the periods so set aside:

Time and times. For obvious reasons, morning is better than evening. In the first place, the earth currents are waxing up to noon, and waning from noon to midnight. To meditate at night is better than not to meditate at all. The brain is also at its freshest after a night’s sleep, and the manifold vibrations of the daily round have not yet stirred the pools of thought.

Place. It matters little where the exercises are carried out, except that the chosen place be free from disturbance and always the same.

Posture. Any position will do for concentration, though it is easier while seated in a cathedral than strap-hanging in an underground railway. For meditation, however, there are at least three requirements to be satisfied, and it is best to acquire the right habits of time and posture from the very beginning. Choose, then, a position which keeps the head and spine erect, and bodily circuit closed, and the whole body at once poised and alert yet re-

laxed and comfortable. The eyes should be closed or fixed through half-closed lids on a chosen object.

Relaxation. Having chosen the most convenient posture, make sure that no single muscle is in undue tension, for the body can never be forgotten while cramp or the desire to fidget intervene. Strive to imitate the glorious serenity of pose exhibited in every Buddhist figure. Too often in the moment of greatest concentration the body will follow suit.

Breathing. Now learn to breathe. Much has been written on this subject, and it may be considered from four points of view. First, as a means of quietening the body; secondly, as an actual subject of concentration; thirdly, as a form of yoga for the development of one’s inner powers, and fourthly, in the course of the meditation on the “bodies.”

At the moment, we are only concerned with the first, but even at this stage serious warning must be given which applies to the subject as a whole.

“

. . . what cause for reward, what better discipline, than the daily and hourly performance of duty?” – Master K.H.

For beginners, the safest and therefore, wisest course is merely to take half a dozen slow, deep breaths in order to induce physical repose, and to awaken the brain to its maximum functioning. In the absence of bodily purity and great experience, the practice of special breathing may be very dangerous.

Begin. Begin each period of concentration with an act of will. Formulate a firm intention in the mind and announce it to yourself. If worldly matters are hovering on the margin of the mind deal with them rapidly, and definitely lay them aside as one might chain up a fractious puppy until it was time to take it for a walk. In the same way, deal with each desire that threatens the mind's serenity.

An Object or an Idea. In choosing a subject for concentration, it is important to bear in mind exactly what one is trying to do. The searchlight of consciousness when directed to a given field of

attention has, as it were, two qualities, extension and intensity. When playing on a distant landscape, for example, the light may either be diffused over a village or concentrated on a church tower, and the intensity of the light will vary with the extension of the field of view. As the object of concentration is to learn to focus the attention on a single point and to hold it there at will, it follows that the more simple the object chosen, the more intense will be the concentration upon it. Even apart from these logical considerations, experience has shown that until one’s mental power is considerably developed, the field of truly concentrated attention is very limited, and such an expansive object as a pure abstraction is beyond the rangle of the beginner.

Intruding thoughts. Do not repress intruding thoughts. There is great danger in using the will to repress or drive away intruding thoughts, for the result is analogous to stopping the circulation and is apt to react on the brain. Experienced teachers find that this is the cause of much of the fatigue of which students at times complain. It is an axiom of all mechanics, whether physical or spiritual, never to oppose one force with another when a less extravagant expenditure of energy will achieve the same result. It is far wiser to adopt the universal laws whose outward

If worldly matters are hovering on the margin of the mind, deal with them rapidly, and definitely lay them aside as one might chain up a fractious puppy.

expression may be seen in the science for Judo by which the line of force of one’s opponent’s effort is skilfully avoided and then turned to his own undoing.

Concentration: Some Exercises. These exercises are merely a selection, and every student is advised to seek for or invent as many more. The list which follows is devised merely to suggest the vast field of possibilities, the actual exercise used being of far less importance than the method of using it and the purpose for which it is used.

1. On a physical object. Place or choose an object a few feet away and then, when all preliminaries are over, deliberately focus the searchlight of the mind upon it. Begin by thinking about it, and then, at a later stage, narrow down the focus of mental vision and think only of it or at it. The difference is subtle yet considerable. In thinking about a matchbox, one may consider its various parts and properties, its sides and top, its color and shape, its substance and surface, but of thinking of it these products of analysis die away and there remains in the whole field of consciousness on object only, the matchbox. Hence the need for an object at once small and simple, one which can be visualized withoiut difficulty as a whole. Simple diagrams, boldly drawn, will be found suitable, but care must be taken to keep the mind

upon the design, and to prevent it passing by a natural transference of thought to elaborations and variations of the diagram, or to the abstraction which it represents.

Do not repress intruding thoughts.

2. On counting the breaths. Concentration on a physical object implies keeping the eyes open, and is purely objective. The next exercise is intermediate between objective and subjective concentration, it being immaterial whether the eyes are kept open or shut. The breaths to be counted must be full and deep, and as breath is the very essence of physical life, it will be well to learn first how to control one’s breathing.

In learning to breathe fully, the following description of the Zen method as taught to a European student in Japan may be followed with safety and benefit:

Begin to breathe, slowly and deeply, the lips closed, both inhalation and exhalation being taken through the nose. As you inhale, you will distend and raise the chest, pull the abdomen in and in so doing raise the diaphragm. When you exhale, you will depress the chest, distend the abdomen,

The first step is to develop towards them an attitude entirely impersonal, thus laying the foundation for the removal of that selfishness which it is the purpose of meditation to destroy.

and push the diaphragm down. This way of breathing is exactly the oppositive to most methods, for when you are inhaling, you will think of pulling up as far as possible the wall of the diaphragm, and when you are exhaling, of pushing it down and out against the solar plexus. As you continue, and do not have to concentrate too much on the muscular control of the breathing, you will find that you can press the diaphragm still further down until the final pressure seems to come just below the navel. Note that it is to the exhaled breath that one puts one's attention. The exhaled breath should be considerably slower than the inhaled breath, the exhaled breath and the downward pressure continuing so long that the inhalation is a reflecx action from the exhalation.

Having just learned to breathe, begin counting the breaths, thinking of nothing save the counting. To quote again from the same Zen student in Japan:

Begin to count the breaths up to 10. Then begin again at one and continue the counting up to 10 indefinitely. you will keep your mind on the breath count and on that alone. When other thoughts come in, don’t try to get rid of them, but just keep on counting and push them out of the way. A willful attempt to keep away other thoughts only seems to make for more disturbance. Just keep patiently coming back to the counting. I found this exercise very difficult at first.

For beginners, it will probably be sufficient to attempt 50 counts with a perfectly concentrated mind, remembering that each of these breaths must be slow and complete.

3. On watching thoughts. Assuming that by now the student has acquired the ability to concentrate upon one chosen object for a definite period, he may proceed to use the very intruding thoughts which at an earlier stage were such a nuisance.

The first step is to develop towards them an attitude entirely impersonal, thus laying the foundation for the removal of that selfishness which it is the purpose of meditation to destroy. Ask them as they flow through the mind, “Whose are you?” and when the answer comes, as come it must, “Not yours,” begin to think of them impersonally, and merely note that the thought of this or the desire for that is now arising in the mind, is passing

before the mind, is passing from the mind, and watch the unceasing process calmly and dispassionately. Note how the thoughts flow past in an unbroken succession, each the outcome of the last, but only two being linked before one’s mental vision at a time. By such dispassionate examination of the flow of thought, it will become easier to control the stream of unwanted visitors when desiring to concentrate upon something else, but the danger of this exercise, if begun too early, is that the mind, not yet sufficiently controlled, will run after some attractive thought as a puppy following a stranger in the street. Hence the need, while performing this exercise, of an active and fully attentive mind which, while watching the flow of thoughts becomes attached to none of them.

At a later stage, one may return to this exercise and use it as a meditation on impermanence, on the nature of consciousness and the non-existence of a personal self.

LOWER MEDITATION

Concentration and Meditation. Although there is no clear-cut dividing line between the habits and methods of concentration and meditation, yet the two are so distinct that it is well to bear the essential differences in mind. In the former, the

Whereas concentration is a process, useful in daily life but having in itself no moral or spiritual significance, meditation produces a state of consciousness in which the spiritual point of view is alone of importance.

student is consciously controlling his instrument, and is aware of every mental effort, whether to keep out intrudiing thoughts or to visualize the object chosen; in the latter, he no more thinks of the mechanics of concentration than a skillful driver thinks of the manifold processes which, when learning to drive, he found it so hard to master. Hereafter, once the object of meditation is chosen and the mental searchlight focused where desired, the meditator must be able to assume that it will remain unaltered until switched off or re-directed by the will.

The second point to observe is that whereas concentration is a process, useful in daily life but having in itself no moral or spiritual significance, meditation producesa state of consciousness in which the spiritual point of view is alone of importance. If

science be regarded as an expedition into the universe around us, meditation may be looked upon as a march within.

Herein lies the essential difference between the lawsand conditions pertaining to these two worlds. Knowledge concerning concentration may be openly taught for money, and no more reverence need be accorded such information than the equivalent knowledge about physical development. In meditation, however, the student enters another world, a realm in which, as only experience will make clear to him, all values are profoundly altered, and the relative importance of many of the “pairs of opposites” reversed. Here motive becomes of paramount importance, and laws as yet unknown begin to operate.

The Purpose of Meditation. It is three-fold: to dominate the lower, separative self; to develop the mind’s own higher faculties towards a vision of life’s essential unity; and to unite this dual process in one continuous spiritual unfolding.

1. To dominate the separated self. “I am not, yet I am.” In these few words lies hidden the secret and the paradox of man. Poetry, drama, myth and legend, each in their own way have attempted to portray this eternal struggle between man’s higher and lower principles, and most that has yet been written on the subject of religion has little more to offer than so many methods by which the final conquest of the lower elements may be attained. That the task is infinitely difficult none denies – “Though one should conquer in battle a thousand times a thousand men, he who conquers himself is the greatest warrior.” Yet all the religions of antiquity have spoken of salvation as the moment when the focus point of consciousness “crosses the bridge” or “ passes through the gate” dividing the higher and lower aspects of our complex being, and he who has thus raised the level of his consciousness to a spiritual center of gravity will bear witness to the bitter struggle which preceded victory. The actual conquest of the lower self pertains to the science of character-building rather than to meditation, but the spiritual trend of thought and moral self-control engendered by habitual meditation helps enormously in such a process, and may therefore be legitimately described as one of its principal aims.

“I am not, yet I am.” In these few words lies hidden the secret and the paradox of man.

Concentration and Meditation

2. To develop higher faculties.

These faculties are not to be confused with “ powers, ” in the sense of the supernormal abilities of clairvoyance, psychometry and the like, many of which pertain to psychism rather than to spirituality. Rather they are the awakening of hither to dormant aspects of the inner man, and are the result of the deliberate expansion of the field of consciousness which comes, at first spasmodically and as the result of effort, later with increasing ease and for longer periods. One may describe the process as the raising of the rate of the mind’s vibration. Science is beginning to realize that Energy (or Spirit) and Matter are the two poles of the same primordial Source, varying only in the rate of vibration at which they manifest. Most of us, for example, tend to focus our consciousness in the feelings or the concrete mind, thus limiting ourselves to the negative world of effects. Yet far above these levels lies the world of causes, and he who would learn to coooperate with the ordered processes of cosmic evolution, or “becoming,” must rise of his own effort to the plane on which alone they may be understood.

who ignore the claims of the lower self and strive to rise above its limitations by developing the synthetic and expansive vision of the higher mind. There is a third and equally important use for meditation, to fuse these two opposing aspects of the self into an undivided unity. There is in fact no essential difference between the two. When the stallions of desire are firmly harnessed to the driver’s will, there is no longer war between them, and in the perfect man there is no lack of harmony between his sovereign will and his various vehicles. This process of alignment is, however, most difficult, for at one stage of his evolution every student finds his higher and lower selves opposed to one another as for a fight to the finish, and in this final stuggle no man can assist his brother to win the final victory. When some measure of selflessness has been achieved, it is time to begin incorporating into the higher self the subjugated lower principles,

in order that the higher and lower, no longer at war with one another, may learn to move towards enlightenment as a united whole.

This effort at alignment, a harmonizing of the various vehicles of consciousness so that they form together a conduit pipe of spiritual force, is in a way the highest goal of meditation, for to the extent that the effort is successful does the individual cease to function as a separated entity and become “ a mere beneficent force in nature,” the very light of enlightenment.

The Results of Meditation. The results of meditation in its early stages are both negative and positive. On the one hand, by reducing the mind’s reaction to outside stimulus, the student acquires a hitherto undreamed-of

equanimity; concurrently, he develops increasing understanding of human nature, his own included, with a corresponding increase in compassion for “that mighty sea of sorrow formed of the tears of men.”

This calm serenity, the ability to be at all times and under all circumstances “mindful and self-possessed,” has two aspects. On the one hand, it implies an unruffled calm in the face of outward happenings; on the other hand, the mind becomes more and more a mirror to the light within.

This poise of mind, this “inner stillness and heart’s quietude,” begets an immense, unmoving dignity, from which in turn is born in others a profound respect for the one who displays it, with consequent enquiries as to the philosophy which gave it birth. True equanimity is unmistakable, for it combines with this air of having achieved a spiritual center of gravity an inward joy, as of one who has glimpsed the illimitable happiness which springs from liberation from desire.

If this serenity be in one sense negative, an absence of self-identification with circumstance, the second result is essentially positive, the ability to grasp and understand an ever-increasing range of human consciousness, both good and evil, and to perceive the world of causes behind

The actual conquest of the lower self pertains to the science of characterbuilding rather than to meditation, but the spiritual trend of thought and moral self-control engendered by habitual meditation helps enormously in such a process.

the daily panorama of effects.

Meditation upon those laws of harmony we know as karma will induce a progressive understanding of one’s own and one’s neighbor’s actions, and the attitude of mind of which those actions are the effects. From such increasingly skillful diagnosis comes the desire to help, and a combination of this understanding and compassion only needs the addition of experience to qualify the student as a spiritual healer in the true sense of the term.

Meditation With and Without Seed. The arbitrary division of meditation into Lower and Higher, here made for convenience, corresponds to the meditation “with and without seed” of other writers on the sujbect, the seed being the subject of meditation.

The choice of the seed-thought, like the choice of method, is infinite in variety, and so long as the object be appropriate to the method its nature is immaterial. It is, however, advisable not to be too ambitious in the early stages, and to choose a positive rather than a negative point of view. If the subject be a moral one, for example, choose the value of a virtue rather than the demerits of a vice.

Preparation for Meditation. In preparing for meditation, several factors have to be considered:

Time. If possible, let the daily period begin the day. It stands to reason that at the end of a long day’s happenings, the mind is in a state of flux, whereas in the

morning it is relatively quiet and therefore more easily raised to higher levels of consciousness. Again, if we start the day with a mind that is focused on spiritual values, we shall live at any later part of the day from a spiritual point of view, and once this habit is formed, it is only a matter of time before the whole trend of our daily life is modelled upon the ideals of the meditation period.

Place. It will be found advisable to use, if possible, the same place every day, for the area chosen will be gradually turned to the vibration of the meditator’s mind. As such, it will become in time so sympathetic to his mode of thought that it will form, as it were, a garment of thought-substance to be assumed at will, thus saving the waste of energy of re-creating this atmosphere every time. In this way, the student will be able to begin his meditation each day at a

In this final struggle, no man can assist his brother to win the final victory.

comparatively high level, without having to build anew from the foundations every time he settles himself to meditate.

Breathing . The breathing should be full, rhythmic and deep in the preliminary exercises, becoming more and more shallow until in deep meditation it is almost unnoticeable.

The Power of Stillness. As the long process of self-development, of unceasingly “becoming more, ” begins to be seriously undertaken, the student will learn to rely to an ever-increasing extent on his own reserves of strength and wisdom, in brief, to retire within. This does not, or should not imply moroseness, or even a lessening of good fellowship with friends and chance acquaintances, still less should it manifest as an egoistic self-sufficiency. Rather, it is the product of an ever-growing realization of life’s unity, with an understand-

ing that each unit of life has its roots in the common whole. This double point of view, that in one’s inner being lies all wisdom if only it can be brought through into the mind, and that the same wisdom lies hidden at the heart of every other aspect of the same life-unity, prepares the way for understanding of the power of stillness.

HIGHER MEDITATION

It has been said that on the subject of Higher Meditation, nothing useful can be written down. Yet words are only symbols for ideas, and the greatest truths can be expresssedin symbol even though they be too great for the concrete definitions so dear to the lower lmind. This language of symbol, of which words are the best form, is common to all who tread the Path, and by its aid the deeper mysteries of Reality may be glimpsed by all who develop within themselvese the ability to read the meaning.

The dividing line between lower and higher meditation is quite indefinite, such relative terms denoting successive stages of a continuous unfolding. But there comes a time in the life of every student when a change occurs as definite as it is indescribable. Those who try to describe it use analogy which, though it cannot reveal the truth, may yet, like a mirror, reflect it for the inward eye.

This effort at alignment, a harmonizing of the various vehicles of consciousness so that they form together a conduit pipe of spiritual force, is in a way the highest goal of meditation.

To some, it seems as though the spiritual center of gravity had permanently shifted, producing a change of relative values between the inner and the outer life. Henceforth, the inner life becomes the definite Reality, and the life of the world but a pale reflection of that inner joy. Others feel as a traveller who stands at the threshold of a new, untrodden world, in which the limitations of unprofitable thought are suddenly transcended, and things are seen for the first time as they are. To other minds, again, the life-force seems to change direction. Heretofore, its flow was outward, away from the heart of things, towards appearances; now it is inward, towards the heart of things,towardsReality.

If all this analogy seems fanciful, remember that the voice of mysticism speaks in a language of its own, and the truths of the inner life are better expressed in symbol, myth and poetry than in the unimaginative accuracy of textbook terms. The latter may more clearly formulate the propositions of the lower mind; the former releases hidden springs of life and enables others to glimpse the flash of enlightenment which the inspired analogy or phrase enshrines.

Only by the coming to flower of Buddhi, the faculty we know as the intuition, is the sense of separateness which form engen-

ders, together with the limitations of those twin illusions, time and distance, slowly purged away. Yet this faculty is not the Self, for it is but a link between the intellect and Universal Mind which, so far from being a personal immortal soul, is as impersonal as the universal laws it represents. As is said in the Lankavatara Sutra.

Transcendental Intelligence rises when the intellectual-mind reaches its limit. If things are to be realized in their true nature, the processes of mentation, which are based on particularized ideas, discrimination and judgments, must be transcended by an appeal to some higher faculty of cognition, the intuitive-mind, which is a link between the intellectual-mind and the Universal Mind. While it is not an individualized organ like the intellectual-mind, it has that which is much better, direct dependence upon Universal Mind. While intuition does not give information that can be analyzed and discriminated, it gives that which is far superior, self-realization through identification.

The Abandonment of the Intellect. The most upsetting change, however, is that which follows the abandonment of the very intellect which years and lives of effort had developed and controlled, the very thought-machine by which the newfound state of consciousness had been attained. Yet, to quote once more from that classic of self-development, The Voice of the

Silence, “The Mind is the great Slayer of the Real. Let the Disciple slay the Slayer.”

All would be well if this could be accomplished at one blow, but the task is long and wearisome. It is one thing to realize, as stated by Porphyry, that “of that nature which is beyond intellect many things are asserted according to intellection, but it is contemplated by a cessation of intellectual energy better than with it”; it is quite another to accommodate one’s mind to a state in which the god of reason is triumphantly dethroned.

Subjects of Higher Meditation. In the early stages of any art or science, it is not merely possible but almost necessary to lay down a definite course of graded exercises in order to lead the student by easy stages up to conscious master. As the higher levels are reached, however, the personal predispositions and preferences of the indvidual be-

gin to manifest, and it becomes increasingly difficult to suggest, much less lto impose a line of further progress suitable to all. What applies to the more mundane arts and sciences applies still more to the spiritual science of meditation, for no two persons bring over from past lives the same tendencies, abilities, and chosen field of work.

In choosing a subject for higher meditation it will be found that the nature of the subject is of less importance than the level at which it is reviewed. For example, he may meditate on the Buddha as a man, a spiritual Teacher, or a cosmic principle, the difference lying not in the subject but in the meditator’s mind. The explanation lies in the fact that the path of progress is an upward spiral and not a straight line. It follows that the same complete circuit is trodden again and again, but at each revolution one arrives at the same point though at a higher level.

Applying this principle, it will be found that subjects used in lower meditation may be used again; the difficulties, triumphs and temptations of the past lying dormant until the cycle returns.

Return to the subjects already used, yet examine them from a higher point of view. For example, the meditation on the bodies may be used again, but having dissociated consciousness from the lower principles of body,

He develops increasing understanding of human nature, his own included, with a corresponding increase in compassion for “that mighty sea of sorrow formed of the tears of men.”

Concentration and Meditation

emotions and thought, the student should try to raise still further the level upon which he still thinks “I am.” Pass from a merely intellectual examination of their essential nature to the life of which they are the outward form. The subject of Self, again, is of course inexhaustible, and of such importance that it will be considered in its higher aspects at a later stage.

Loosening the Fetters of Form. Meditation on all these subjects will be immensely aided by the employment of the newly developed faculty of intuition. This is not so much a new vehicle of consciousness as a light which illumines the higher mind. Its use will help the student to overcome the ingrained habits of form-building which is the work of the lower mind.

Speaking of human consciousness today, Geraldine Coster says in Yoga and Western Psychology:

People ask that life shall be absolute in values, and shall not take them unawares. Relatively, however, is of the essence of life. Life moves, changes inevitably, and the unexpected and the unknown are always coming upon us. Owing to ignorance there is in every man a deep resistance to life as life, an incapacity to accept the flow of things and adapt to it freely. It is sitting loose to life, accepting it as it comes rather than demanding from it what you expect that both analyst and yogi regard as constituting the “free psyche,” “libera-

can be written down.

tion,” which in the eyes of both is the pearl of great price worth any sacrifice to attain.

After all, the loftiest concepts are only mind-made form for expressing spiritual truths, and, as every Buddhist knows, all forms are perishable. Our goal is nothing less than that very Enlightenment which is the soul of form. As is written in the Sutra of Hui Neng,

Our Essence of Mind is intrinsically pure; all things, good or evil, are only its manifestations, and good deeds and evil deeds are only the result of good thoughts and evil thoughts respectively.

And again,

When we are free from attachment to all outer objects, the mind will be in peace. Our Essence of Mind is intrinsically pure, and the reason why we are perturbed is simply because we allow ourselves to be carried away by the very circumstances we are under. He who is able to keep his mind unperturbed, irrespective of circumstances, has real samadhi.

The increasing range of spiritual vision afforded by the devel-

It has been said that on the subject of Higher Meditation, nothing useful

Heretofore, its flow was outward, away from the heart of things, towards appearances; now it is inward, towards the heart of things, towards Reality.

opment of the faculty of buddhi thus loosens the bonds which fetter the mind to forms, and assists the student to consider concepts as aspects of truth, irrespective of the form in which they happen to manifest.

What is needed by the student of Higher Meditation is not ever more spiritual concepts with which to exercise his power of abstract thought, but ever deeper and deeper spiritual experience.

THE RAISING OF CONSCIOUSNESS

The next step is to begin the deliberate raising of consciousness. The process is dual, a raising of the consciousness in meditation to heights hitherto unreached, and a corresponding raising of the habitual level during the whole of the waking day.

In the new condition of consciousness once more review the self, and see with clearer eyes how most of our difficulties arise from thinking of ourselves as separated units, whereas

the notion that our little life is a separate independent unit, fighting for its own hand against countless separate independent units, is a delusion of the most tormenting kind. So long as we thus see the world and life, peace broods far off on an inaccessible pinnacle. When we feel and know that all selves are one, then peace of mind is ours without any fear of loss. (Annie Besant, Thought Power)

So long as we have this “fear of loss,” we may know that we still cling to the Great Heresy, the existence of a separated self. Only when the fetters of this illusion begin to fall will the pilgrim being to see that in forgoing self the Universe grows “I.”

The Meditation of the ‘Higher Third.’ The solution to the paradox of the self, however, will never be found by merely regarding such pairs of opposites as complementary. This superficial view has led to a serious misunderstanding of the Buddha’s doctrine of the Middle Way. As Dr. Barua pointed out in a lecture on the “Universal Aspect of Buddhism,”

When two so-called finalities or ultimate truths come into conflict with each other, as asti with nasti, there must necessarily be a “third” (tertium quid) to unify them in meaning without being identified with either. Buddha’s term to denote this “ third ” is majjha (madhya) which in later nomenclature took rather the misleading form of majjhima patipada, generally rendered “Middle Path.”

This tertium quid, or synthesis of duality, forms the apex of a triangle, thus producing stability out of tension. It is at once independent of, yet arising from correlative opposites, and forms with them a trinity which is the metaphysical basis for all the Trinities found in every religion and philosophy, and indeed wherever there is a pair of antitheses in relationships. But a more perfect understanding of the triangle is achieved by reviewing the apex as the source rather than as the synthesis of the two correlatives. Remember that the Life-Force is One in essence, yet manifests as the duality of Spirit-matter, life-form, light and darkness, good and evil, male-female, and so through all the drived antitheses which form the manifested Universe.

What, then, is the nature of this synthetic factor we have called the “higher third”? The answer will vary with the level of consciousness. That which includes both selfish and altruistic motives, for example, is the perfect motive which seems to us an absence of motive. Again, that which is higher than good and evil as popularly understood is a higher Good which moves on levels far above conventional morality. But as we move up the mountain side, we shall find that the pairs of oppositives are manifesting on a correspondingly

higher level, for they are in a way but outposts of the mind.

It follows that the higher third will seem to evolve correspondingly, until we reach in time a position where the supreme antitheses which appear as complementary cosmic forces know no higher synthesis than the Absolute which includes them all.

The Search for the Impersonal. Applying these principles to the subject of self, the student will find that the paradox of the Self and Not-Self can only be solved from the viewpoint of a unifying third. This applies equally to the warfare in the conscious mind between the dissociated aspects of the self, the “higher and wider interest” being that of an impersonal point of view.

Thus speaks The Voice of the Silence: “Seek in the Impersonal for the ‘Eternal Man,’ and having sought him out, look inward: Thou art Buddha.” To achieve the impersonal point of view, realize that the true Self is not the

So long as we have this “fear of loss,” we may know that we still cling to the Great Heresy, the existence of a separated self.

actor in the world of action. “He who seeth that all his actions are performed by nature only, and that the self within is not the actor, sees indeed” (Bhagavad Gita). The secret of this attitude is the Taoist doctrine of wu wei, “sitting loose in life,” as Miss Coster calls it, a position of detachment in which the twin forces of attraction and aversion are held in equilibrium.

The Voice of Mysticism. Those to whom a sense of the individuality of all apparently divided things is a live and wonderful reality need no intellectual argument to support their knowledge of the Self’s essential unity. Though their feet be still of clay, their eyes have seen the light reflected from Enlightenment, and though the vision be above description save in a richly colored symbolism common to them all, yet they know as a spiritual experience truths which can never be understood

with the cumbrous mechanism of the inellectual mind.

This does not mean that the mystic can avoid the warfare of the selves, but that his method of dealing with the problem is fundamentally different. To him the sense of wholeness is paramount, and the finer aspect of his mindis solely concerned with the renunciation of everything which stands between him and the All of which he never ceases to feel himself a part.

The Fullness and the Void. Those who have risen to some extent above the world of name and form will find the heart expanding to receive a thousand aspects of the truth which prejudice had hitherto concealed. For such new visitors we must make room in the “Cave of the Heart,” for as the cross-cultural scholar Cranmer-Byng points out in the Vision of Asia,

. . . all men and works, whether of men or God, come into our understanding through this capacity of making room. It is a capacity for expansion and containing. Expansion through growth, containing through space. The microcosm of man approaches the macrocosm of God through fullness of life and experience, through knowledge acquired and works accomplished. But it also approaches Him thru emptiness, through its power to cast out whatever is useless or redundant, through the space that it makes within itself for the incoming of the tidal waters of life.

To him the sense of wholeness is paramount, and the finer aspect of his mind is solely concerned with the renunciation of everything which stands between him and the All.

ZEN MEDITATION

Zen is unique. It therefore defies classification and makes description all but impossible. Reference to the works of the late Dr. D. T. Suzuki will tell the student as much as may be known of the history, aim and special methods of Zen, but “the rest is silence – and a finger pointing the way.”

The word is a corruption of the Chinese Chan, which comes from the Sanskrit word Dhyana, the Pali equivalent of which is Jhana. Zen and the jnanas (four higher and four lower), however, have this difference, that the latter are stages of consciousness achieved in definite succession, while Zen is known as the Sudden School. To the extent that Zen is a method it is that of a vigorous advance up the mountain-side without recourse to the well-worn but far longer paths which ultimately reach the same enlightenment. Yet consequences spring from causes, and the achievements of Zen meditation are no less the outcome of lengthy self-development for the fact that they appear with startling suddenness. Nevertheless, while other methods of self-liberation favor a slow, unceasing process of development, Zen leaps upward to the sun.

The dominating factor in the Buddha’s life was his Enlightenment. It follows that all Scriptures, doctrines, services, modes

of living and methods of meditation must be judged by the sole criterion – Do they or do they not produce Enlightenment? Herein lies the secret of Zen, of its maddening paradoxes and scorn of the conventional, of its fierce impatience with all formulated views and doctrines, and the curious and sometimes violent methods used by master to assist their pupils to break free. What, then, are the teachings of Zen? The following is an oft-quoted summary:

A special transmission outside the Scriptures.

No dependence upon words and letters

Direct pointing to the soul of man; Seeing into one's own nature.

In the first proposition lies a secret beyond the scope of this enquiry. A truth explained is a truth no longer true. Words limit, distort, confuse. They are the necessary currency of intellectual thought, but Zen is be-

Those who have risen to some extent above the world of name and form will find the heart expanding to receive a thousand aspects of the truth.

yond the intellect. Thereafter, reason ceases to hold sway, and the only means of communication is paradox and symbol, and the silent communion of enlightened minds. The highest truths can never be contained in Scriptures; they are handed down through the centuries from teacher to pupil, the former giving to the latter only so much as he is able usefully and safely to receive.

Zen masters claim that the Buddha’s inmost teaching has been handed down by this imperishable means, this “special transmission outside the Scriptures” being the very heart of Zen. It follows that no rational method of teaching will suffice to hand on the secret of enlightenment. The master strives to arouse in his pupil a realization of his own essential nature, and all communication must therefore pass between the intuitive levels of their two minds, without recourse to the distorting

mechanism of rational and therefore rationalizing thought. Hence the irrational methods of instruction, in which the most absurd, apparently irrelevant, and often, violent phrase or gesture is justified so as the pupil is thereby freed to the least extent from his own entanglements.

The last three phrases of the foregoing summary are based on the fact that all manifestation is, in the ultimate analysis, illusion, the Essence of life being tathata, Suchness, a Fullness which is at the same time a Void. But esch minutest form of life is the Universe in miniature, and in attaining Enlightenment each living thing obeys the command: “Become what you are, ” that is to say, “Look within – thou are Buddha.” As is said in the Sutra of Hui Neng, “you should know that so far as Buddha-nature is concerned, there is no difference between an enlightened man and an ignorant one. What makes the difference is that one realizes it and the other does not.”

Zen Technique. Zen meditation may be considered under four headings, namely, its continuity, and the nature of zazen, the koan and mondo, and satori.

1. Meditation must be continuous. Whereas it is obvious that one cannot fully concentrate on a koan while doing a day’s work in an office or factory, yet there are far more persons who wish to ob-

No rational method of teaching will suffice to hand on the secret of enlightenment. The master strives to arouse in his pupil a realization of his own essential nature.

tain the benefits conferred by Zen meditation and discipline that can arrange to abandon all worldly ties and permanently enter a Zen monastery.

2. Zazen, literally, Zen-sitting, is the name given to the sedentary aspect of Zen meditation, as distinct from the constant attitude of mind which is ultimately acquired.

3. The koan and mondo. Just as Zen is unique in the world of Buddhism, so is the koan unique in Zen. Koan is a means of handing on the reality of direct experience which is alone enlightenment. A koan is a word, phrase or saying which defies intellectual analysis and thereby enables the user to burst the fetters of conceptual thought. Here are few examples: “What is the sound of one hand clapping.” “What was your original face before your parents were born?” “All things may be reduced to the One. To what is the One reduced?”

The mondo is a rapid exchange of question and answer between master and pupil. In many cases, the answer is itself a koan; in other cases, the question and answer must be considered as a whole.

4. Satori is the raison d’etre of Zen, and the whole purpose of the koan exercise. Dr. Suzuki defines it as “ an intuitive looking

Manifestation, the Wheel of Samsara, is itself Reality, in that Samsara and Nirvana are ultimately One.

into the nature of things in contradistinction to the analytical or logical understanding of it. . . Satori essentially consists in doing away with the opoposition of two terms in whatever sense. ”

This, then, is the secret of Zen, that it uses the mind to surmount the mind, and with or without the aid of a graduated series of koans bursts through into a state of consciousness which lies above duality, and hence beyond the sway of all comparisons and distinction. The sole concern of Zen is to attain enlightenment, and all which stand in the way is made to serve this end or be flung aside. For dynamic singleness of purpose, it has no equal, and its technique is designed to serve this end. No words are wasted on the pupil. The goal is pointed out to him, the obstacles made clear; the rest is silence – and a finger pointing the Way.

CONCENTRATION AND MEDITATION; A MANUAL OF MIND DEVELOPMENT BY CHRISTMAS HUMPHREYS. PUBLISHED BY THORSONS PUBLISHERS, 1998.

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No. 104 (Volume 26 No. 4): What I Know about Love: The Making of a Mystic; How Christ Got into Christmas; Making the Best of the Worst: A Trip to the Ziller Valley; The Ethics and Practice of Non-Dualism; Why Animal Rights?; Entangled Karma; Recovering the Now; Children are Our Salvation; Heaven and Hell; Love Energy: The Life Force: The Fountain of Youth; Shards of a Broken Mirror; Theosophy and Islam; The World as Einstein Saw It; Mankind and a Living Earth; Our Debt to the Gnostics; Theosophical Wizard of Oz; Bridge of Understanding; H. P. Blavatsky, Tibet and Tulku; Theosophical Education; The Concealed Wisdom in World Mythology

No. 105 (Volume 27 No. 1): The Gospel of Thomas: Early Christian Gnosis; Moving from ‘Me’ to ‘We’; The Extended Mind; Leonardo da Vinci and His Works; Let Go the Ego for Freedom, Peace and Bliss; Place of Last Retreat; Losing My Religion for Equality; Aesop’s Fables, Jataka Tales — Truths Older than Time; Theosophy and the Emergence of Modern Abstract Art; Of Snails and Chips; Protecting the Atmosphere: Two Success Stories; The Sacredness of Marriage and the Real Child; The Placebo Effect and the Effect of Belief; Fate or Free Will?; Helena Petrovna Blavatsky: An Introduction; New Monasticism: Monks in the World; Reincarnation; Prayer; Renewal; Reconstruction in Education; The Masters

No. 106 (Volume 27 No. 2): Just Three Seconds . . .; Edgar Cayce: Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Messenger; Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect; All That We Behold are Filled with Blessings; The Breath is the Life; Whose Kingdom?; Recovering the Wonder in Nature; Health and Healing; Education in the Light of Theosophy; Parenting and Spirituality: Can There Be Harmony?; Holistic Consciousness: Intimations from Mystics and Philosophers; Why So Much Anger?; Living in the Present; Fight Global Warming by Going Vegan; Mystical Ancient Egypt: Heirs to Atlantis?; Can the Future be Known?; The Fundamental Question Concerning Intelligent Design; Brahms’ German Requiem; The Traveller; Letters from a Sufi Teacher: the Theosophy of Islam

No. 107 (Volume 27 No. 3): Facing Illness; Beyond the Brain: An Interview with Eben Alexander; Teaching Children Self-Control; We All Want Peace – So Why are We So Divided?; Plant Intelligence; The Albigenses: Bearers of Bygone Wisdom-Tradition; The Stable Mind; Listening to the Voices of the Great Wide Earth; Music and Healing; Life: Chance or Design? Freeing the Mind: Krisnamurti’s Approach to Education; Animal Companion Overpopulation; Art and Theosophy; The Custom of Saying ‘Grace’; Withdrawing Into Stillness – Sleep and Death; Ufos Past and Present; William Wordsworth – Poet and Philosopher; The Mystical in Everyday Life; Theosophical Light on the Christian Bible

No. 108 (Volume 27 No. 4): At-One-Ment; Saving Nature: In Praise of Frugality; Christmas — A Universal Experience; With the Nature of Consciousness in Mind; Pyramids and Temples in Egypt; On Fear and Fearlessness; Blavatsky and the Battle of Mentana; Meditation; Art, Theosophy, and Kandinsky; I Return From Violent Death; Secret Tradition of Islam; Mysteries of Prenatal Consciousness; The Power of Awareness; Evolution and the Intelligence of Life; Fresh Air and Sunshine — Natural Antibiotics?; The Vegetarian Ethic: Its Effect on Inner Health; My Aunt’s Gift; The Creative Silence

No. 109 (Volume 28 No. 1): Guilt, Anger and the Human Condition; Studies in Animal Consciousness; The Underlying Psychology of Star Wars: 6 Hidden Lessons That Keep Us Coming Back; Leaving Sex Behind; Altered States of Consciousness; There is No Religion Higher Than Truth; Scriabin: Musician and Theosophist; A Living Center of Peace; New Environmental Ethics and Ancient Philosophies; Dream of the Sages; The Child’s Soul-Growth; Six Reasons Your Meditation Practice Isn’t Working; The Message of Suffering; Theosophy in Healing Addictions; What Occult Science Affirms, Western Science Confirms Eventually; Dealing with Anxiety; An Interview with Dr. Ian Stevenson; Welcoming Our Children; The Essentials of Spirituality

No. 110 (Volume 28 No. 2): A Living Flash of Light; Glimpses of the After life?; Make a Joyful Noise: How I Learned to Meditate Amidst the Mayhem; There is No Medicine Higher Than Truth; I Adopted a Baby Goose and He Turned My House hold — and Parenting Ideas — Upside Down!; The Universe, the Atom and You; There is a Road . . .; Concerto for Magic and Mysticism: Esotericism and Western Music; Cruel Animal Sports; Drugs and Spirituality: an Occult Perspective; Interfaith as a Faith; A Theosophical View of War and Violence; Why the Fear of Negative Emotions is Really a Fear of Life; Second Sight; Al-Khwarizmi: Great Hero of Arab Mathematics; The Pattern and the Law; What Religion Should We Teach Our Children?; Gandhi, Dogen and Deep Ecology; The Esoteric Basis of Christianity or Theosophy and Christian Doctrine

No. 111 (Volume 28 No. 3): Our Children Teach; Till We Dead Awaken: The Quest for Higher Consciousness in Film, Fiction and Theater; One-Cell Reflections; Insights into the Holy Grail; What it Means to Truly Let Go; Natural Medicine; Shiftings Towards the Flowering of Unity; Contemplative Prayer: The Discipline of Silence; Is the Brain Just a ‘Wet’ Computer?; The Pet Trade; Galileo; 8 Reasons to Forgive Even the Unforgivable; Nature and Our Role; The Theosophical Roots of Spiritual Education; Can Reincarnation Explain Life’s Puzzles?; Awakenment and Phenomena; The Problem with God; A Gardener and His Flowers; The Science of Spirituality

No. 112 (Volume 28 No. 4): To Become as Little Children; Synchronicity: The Chance of Your Life; Making Something of the Nothing I Was; A Core Secret of Happiness: Living Life Without the Need for Specific Results; The Reason for the Season; Pleasure at a Price; Evolution of Consciousness: A Time for Cultural Creativity; Animal Testing 101; Habits of Eccentric Geniuses You Might Do Well (or Not) to Adopt; Inspiration from Early Japanese Poetry;

Death and Life Beyond; Maria Montessori; Meditation and Science; The Sneaky Professor; Women in the Shadows: Reflections on a Muslim Girlhood; The Goldilocks Enigma — Why is the Universe Just Right for Life?; The Spiritual Origins of Childhood; Christs Before Christ; The Human Journey: Quest for Self-Transformation

No. 113 (Volume 29 No. 1): Power of the Powerless: A Brother’s Lesson; Genetic Engineering — Dream or Nightmare?; Six Ingredients to a Happier Life; The Twisted History of the Swastika; The Plight of Animal Actors; The Difference Between My Psychiatrist and My Shaman; Ramblings About a Change of Climate; A Path with Heart; Families Today; Do Psychic Phenomena Exist?; Theosophical Insights into Our Global Village: From Separatism to Holism; Be Still and Know That You Am God; Education and the Significance of Life; Brain Dead; A Handful of Beauty: Music as a Vehicle of Spirit; Mountain and Summit as the Path and Its Goal; The Beguine Sisters; Gift of a Raindrop; The Mystics of Islam

No. 114 (Volume 29 No. 2): Pig’s Peace Santuary; The Morality of Meditation; The Way to the Self; Transformation on the Battlefield; Not Another New Age!; Making Changes; Tracking Patagonia; One of the World's Leading Skeptics Has a Paranormal Experience; David Bohm and the Implicate Order; The Failure Archetype; Peaceful Passages: Glimpses into the Life of a Hospice Nurse; Islam and Vegetarianism; Cultivating Peace in a Violent World; Scriabin: Musician and Theosophist; Learning From Within; On Healing: A Sensitive's Impressions; Reincarnation as a Historical Belief; Begin with the Children; The Alchemy of the Rosicrucians; Of Skydivers and Visions; The Master of Destiny

No. 115 (Volume 29 No. 3): Touching a Soul; Meeting Nature Face to Face; ‘I Love’: Moving Beyond the Conditions of Human Love; Zen and the Art of Prayer; Oceanic Blues; Ian Stevenson: Reincarnation’s White Crow; 7 Ways You’ll Improve Once You Stop Taking Things Personally; Albert Einstein’s Untested Idea; The Mysticism of the Druze; Psi Wars; Teen Depression: Why? What Can Help?; If the Buddha Came to London; Paths to World Peace; Monkey: Journey to the West; Using Scientific Methodologies to Study the Transpersonal; Hidden Pearls of the Heart; A Plea for the Animals: Dolphins are Not Toys; A Message Ahead of Its Time; From Heart to Heart; As a Man Thinketh

No. 116 (Volume 29 No. 4): Demonizing Food; The Inventor and the Sage; Compassion and Universal Responsibility; Inside the Fur Industry; Perspectives on Our Path; Understanding Nature; A Touch of Bodhicitta; Phantom Limbs; Why Men are So Obsessed with Sex; Discover Your Hidden Treasure; Heart to Heart:

The Force Behind Blavatsky’s Message; The Lotus; Death and Life Beyond; Jacob Boehme: Theosophist and Mystic; The Mystical in Everyday Life; Teaching Children to Do Chores; The Magic Flute; Money: Can We Live Without It?; Looking Up; Behind Our Christmas Celebrations; Theosophical Education

No. 117 (Volume 30 No. 1): The Hidden Gospel of the Aramaic Jesus; The Peace Blanket; The Aching Problem of Suicide and a Remedy That Works; The Power of Awareness; Quantum Yoga: A View Through the Visionary Window; Cow’s Milk: A Cruel and Unhealthy Product; The Sense of Wonder; Marcus Aurelius: The Real ‘Gladiator’; Teaching Children Humility; Levitation and Technology; A Path to Unity; Magic of Silence; An Episode in the Soul’s Journey; What Do We Mean by Occult?; The Novelists and the Ancient Wisdom; Brain Science Breakthroughs; Nature: ‘Man, Treat Me Gently’; An Auto- biography by Annie Besant

No. 118 (Vol ume 30 No. 2): Vengeance or Justice?; Evidence That Jesus and the Original Christians Were Vegetarians; Cosmocentricism in the Theosophical Worldview; Near Death: Portal to Dimensions of Life; The Little Lady Across the Street; Theosophy and Meditation; The Money Magicians; Consciousness: What is It?; Unconditional Beauty; New Age Awareness: A Timely Warning; Are You Doing Too Much?; Japanese Torii: Pathways to Awakening; In Search of Happiness; Be in the World But Not of the World; A Parent's Guide to Alternative Education: 4 Types of Learners; Esoteric vs Exoteric; The Ugly Truth Behind the Leather Industry; What You Can Do to Help Bring Peace to the Earth; The Theosophical Roots of Spiritual Education; Blavatsky Defeats an Atheist; May a Christian Believe in Reincarnation?

No. 119 (Vol ume 30 No. 3): The Matrix as the Hero’s Journey; Ripples in the Field; No Death – Just Change; Lost Books of the Bible; A Poem in a Brushstroke; Nikola Tesla’s 10 Most Outstanding Inventions; Christian Dialogue with Eastern Religions; Empty the Mind – Return to Zero; Mind, Health and Healing; First, Second and Third Person; From Heart to Heart; The Hidden Lives of Pigs – and the Pork Industry; Teaching Your Children About Sex; Stonehenge; Thoughts; Truth – The Highest Religion; To Be Silent; Awakening Your Psychic Powers: An Interview with Kurt Leland; Ordinary and Deep Ecology; An Education of the Heart; Steps Towards the Higher Life

No. 120 (Volume 30 No. 4): The Nun Who Loved the Earth; The Dangerous Ways We Compare Ourselves on Social Media; Meditation: Why Bother?; My Dog’s Death; The Festival of Christmas; Anne Frank and Uncle Willy; Singing in a Choir; Theosophical Education: A New Impulse; Electromagnetic Medicine: Then and Today; The Flowering Tree; Religious Intolerance and Sectarian Violence; Consciousness Alone Is; Getting Rid of Mice and Rats the Non-Violent Way; Prayer: A Challenge for Science; The Sacredness of Seeds; A Guide to Successful Parenting; Can Science Explain Psychic Phenomena?; Albert Einstein; Beauty Unperceived; Did Jesus Live 100 Years BC?

No. 121 (Volume 31 No. 1): A Paraplegic’s Letter; Uncovering a Vegetarian Jesus at the Beginning of Christianity; The Light of Self; Near-Death Experiences; Alhazen: The World's First True Scientist; Recovery of Our Shadow; Social Skills More Important Than Academics in Kindergarten; Chickens: Most Abused

Animal on the Planet; Break On Through to the Other Side: Disruptions in Time; Welcome as an Angel; The Regular Practice of Silence in the Classroom; God, War, Work, Sex, Death and Money; Healing and Healers; The Gaia Hypothesis: The Holistic Nature of Planet Earth; Modern Physics and Ancient Wisdom; A Lost Art; Islam in the Light of Theosophy; Know Thyself; Reincarnation: A Hope of the World

No. 122 (Volume 31 No. 2): The Cab Ride I’ll Never Forget; The Once and Future Medicine; Zen Practice: Sitting in Silence with the Pain of the World; The Electric People Phenomenon; Maya and Elusive Reality; Theosophy, Veganism and the Pathway to Final Liberation; 13 Powerful Habits for Raising Well-Adjusted Kids; Music and the Human Soul; Homuncli, Golems and Artificial Life; Abandoning the Wanting Mind; The Strange Identity of Jesus Christ; The Dark Side of Horse Racing; Artificial Reproduction; A Living Conscious Universe; An Overview of Laudato Si; The Reincarnation of Carl Edon; The Message of Suffering; Finding Our ‘Sisu’; Education as Service

No. 123 (Volume 31 No. 3): From Aches to Quakes; Pastures of the Spirit; Looking for the Dutchman’s Treasure; Cultivating Peace in a Violent World; Stereotypes and the Unconscious; The Science of Self-Control; The Spirituality of Oz; The Art of Effective Parenting; The Mysticial Poetry of Emily Bronte; Fight Climate Change by Going Vegan; Prior to Everything, I Am; The Crop Circle-Making Competition; Faiths on Income Inequality; Evidence of Reincarnation; Creating a Montessori-Inspired Playroom; Illness: A Spiritual, Mental and Physical Experience; St. George and Not the Dragon; Bohm’s Quantum Physics Recognized at Last; Speak Up for Animals; Who Was the Real Jesus? Entering the Kingdom

No. 124 (Volume 31 No. 4): A Bus Conductor’s Christmas Message; Transformed by Lightning: Real Life Stories; Pondering Miracles; Changing the World; Fish in Tanks: The Cruel Practices; From Here to There: Women and Their Spiritual Journey; Surviving the End Times; 7 Rules of Happiness Kids Know but Adults Forget; The Religions of the Future; The Scientist and the Fairy Tale; Listening to the Song of Life; Living the Ageless Wisdom, Protecting the Earth; What is True Freedom?; Preparing the Meditation Ground; On the Science of Near-Death Experiences; Theosophy and the Nag Hammadi Library; Teaching Children Moral Values; The Karma of Disease and Health; Placing Krishnamurti in the Philosophy of Education; The Christmas Tree; Technique of the Spiritual Life

No. 125 (Volume 32 No. 1): Learning from Life; Dreams: Another Reality?; A Convenient Truth; Should I Stay or Should I Go?; One World Government; Spiri-

tual Practice for a Global Sangha; How to Balance Meditation, Parenting, and the Spiritual Life; A Question of Identity; Light a Single Candle; Simon’s Crossing: My Beloved Animal Companion’s Death Ritual; The Empty Boat; How to Break a Bad Habit for Good; Liberating Science from Pervading Materialism; Multiple Personality and Possesion; Reconnecting to the Mother; The Practice of Tonglen; The School; Rumi’s Celebration; After Death – What?; The True, the Good, and the Beautiful; Gems from the East

No. 126 (Volume 32 No. 2): The Pulse of Life; The Englightenment Fallacy; I Didn’t Know What to Do So I Just Sang; The New Science of the Health Benefits of Yoga; Winners and Losers: Nurturing the Earth the Andean Way; The Vision of the Understanding Heart; Human Levitation; the Master’ s Hand; Reincarnation: What Evidence Do We Have?; What is Theosophical Education?; Reflections on the Tao Te Ching; The Rising Interest in Spirituality Today; Zen and Hospice; Listen to the Animals; The Power of Joy; Teaching Children Self-Control; The Western Esoteric Religions; My Talk with the Dalai Lama; The Three Hermits; Reminiscences of H.P.B. and the Secret Doctrine

No. 127 (Volume 32 No. 3): Being Free . . . Really!; Love in the Time of Corona; Florence Nightingale’ s Scientific Spirituality; The Most Pervasive Form of Child Abuse; Remote Viewing Revelations from the US Military; The First Rainbow; The Link Between Napping and Creativityt; The Tale of Two Seekers; The Alexandrian Library; Internet Pornography: What Harm Can it Do?; What's the Most Important Thing in Life; Thinking of Someone and Then Meeting Unexpectedly; Induced Altered States; Peace Work, Quantum Physics, and Mysticism; Animals Used for Clothing; The Pool That Lost Itself; Consciousness after Death; Hindu Kirtan Chanting; The Sense of Wonder; The Paradoxical Wisdom of the ‘Gnostic’ Goddess; Climate Change and an Old Prophecy about Trees; Light on Life’s Difficulties

No. 128 (Volume 32 No. 4): A Spell of Insight; Things I Learned fron Hanging Out with Wolves; Raising Optimistic Kids in a Pessmistic World; The New Scientific Revolution; Deathbed Visions and Other Apparitions; Silence of the Mind; The Mystic Poetry of the Sufis; The Cruel Truth Behind Animal Factory Farming; The Kite, the Sailboat and the Salmon; Covid-19: Where Does It Come From?; Birth of the Spirit: A Christmas Message; Prejudice: Are You Infected; The Apocryphon of James; The Second Brain in Your Belly; HPB and the Forerunners of the New Art; The Fish Stories in the New Testament; The Meaning of a Pandemic: What Lesson We Can Learn; Reincarnation; Jiddui Krishnamurti and His Insights on Education: Life’s Riddlle

Send Php150.00 (Foreign: US$6.00) per copy together with your name and address to: Theosophical Digest, 1 Iba St., 1114 Quezon City, Philippines. Tel. No. (632) 8741-57-40. Fax No. (632) 740-3751. (For India, New Zealand, and United States, see editorial box on page 2 for agents.)

Sharing the Light

The Collected Articles of Geoffrey Hodson, Vols. I & II

Here for the first time is the comprehensive collection of all known articles written by Geoffrey Hodson, one of the most prolific and inspiring theosophical writers and lecturers of the 20th century. Spanning a period of more than 50 years, the two-volume collection contains more than 400 articles that cover an astonishing variety of subject matters.

Compiled by John and Elizabeth Sell Edited by John and Elizabeth Sell, Roselmo Doval-Santos

More than 1900 pages

More than 400 articles dating back from 1927 With comprehensive indices

With rare photographs, some never before published Quality hardbound with dust jacket, 6.25" x 9.25 ", 1,900+ pages Php2,900.00 + Php95.00 postage within the Philippines); foreign orders: (US$58.00 + postage) Please email philtheos@gmail.com for postage cost.

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THE SCIENCE OF YOGA

I.K. Taimni

A comprehensive work on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, including the Sanskrit text, with transliteration in Roman and a translation and commentary in English, covering the fields of evolution and the unfoldment of consciousness. A practical approach to the spiritual life, the mystery of existence, and the culminating experience of samadhi.

A STUDY IN KARMA

Annie Besant

Knowledge about karma liberates the mind of its anxiety, fear, and futile desires, and teaches that each person’s future is in his or her own hands

DAILY MEDITATIONS

K. A. Beechey

Selected passages suitable for meditation — one for every day of the year, arranged as twelve virtues, with one quality assigned for each month, such as Compassion, Courage, Tolerance, Self-reliance, Equilibrium and Perseverance.

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Maria Montessori

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The author examines different planes of existence, giving broad principles essential for the understanding of those not familiar with theosophical literature

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