From the Editor
On Sunday 8th January, Phiroz’s ashes were buried in the garden of his son Robert at Stroud. A short ceremony was attended by members of the family and close friends.
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A short non-residential Spring School will be held at 47 Lillian Road, on Saturday and Sunday, 4th and 5th March. Full details and an application form are available from the Editor.
A cassette is now available of the address recorded previously by Phiroz and played at his funeral on 6th May 1994. This is followed by the second movement of Beethoven’s string quartet, op. 135. On the reverse is a very short talk by Phiroz entitled “Children of the New Dawn”, given on 1st April 1990.
Also available is a cassette of a talk by Sylvia Swain entitled “Radicals of the ways”, given at the Summer School at the Royal Agricultural College, Cheltenham, on 30th August 1994.
A talk given by Phiroz Mehta on 13th April 1957
From our earliest days, our sense impressions, our desires, thoughts and actions are categorized for us in that system of symbolical sounds called words. Our ordinary awareness of existence is formulated in words. All the ordinary objects and experiences of our daily life have their own specific forms. To distinguish each form, it is given a name or a verbal description. Discrete awareness or recognition is in terms of name-form. And so throughout our waking life there is a continuous flow of words, a flow made up of the audible speech of ordinary conversation, and, when we are not talking aloud, of the silent speech of thought-feeling. All discursive thought is simply a ceaseless flow of silent chatter. This flow is largely unbidden and uncontrollable, and constitutes the major part of mental life.
Speech-thought is the formal expression of our awareness of the process which is our daily life. All speech-thought has its roots in, and emerges out of, our experience of the substantial universe. The eternal that-which-is, in manifestation, as apprehended by us, is re-presented by speech-thought in different manner, at different times and in different places, by different people. Each person at any moment is a distinct, unique pattern. From the very beginning each person undergoes a conditioning which makes him different from every other person. At any moment, the sense-activities and discursive mind of each person form an image of that person’s world. In course of time, certain ideas abstracted out of these continuously passing images constitute that person’s conceptions of life or of the world. These conceptions, which also change with time, are a collection of silent word-patterns. When a man conveys these silent word-patterns, he speaks or writes. His instrument of communication is words, or symbolical sounds. Not only symbolical sounds, but also colours, shapes, gestures, psychical impressions and so on are used as media of communication, singly or in combination. But it is probably true to say that speech-thought is the main medium.
Each man forms conceptions in various contexts — religious, scientific, aesthetic, social, etc. He uses the same words in each context, with different shades of meaning where necessary.
Our religious conceptions are the product of our everyday life, of our science and art and all forms of mental activity, and of the attempt by the few to convey to their fellow men the experience of Superconsciousness, or in other words the supreme religious experience which we call the experience of God.
Probably the oldest of the revelations given to man are the uncompromisingly monotheistic tradition of the Hebrews and the apparently polytheistic or rather henotheistic tradition of the Rig-vedic Indians. Later on, about a millennium before the birth of Jesus, the religion of Greece is embodied in the poems of Homer and Hesiod. These poems, as well as the hymns of the Rig-veda, present religion in the form of poetry and mythology. Later on follow philosophy and science, when men begin to question the validity of revelation or to demand to know the plain meanings underlying the dogmatic statement of revealed religion.
The emergence of scientific speculation regarding the nature of the world is common to both Greece and India. But in the orgination and trend, and in the relationship of these scientific concepts to, and their influence upon, the spiritual world, Greece and India differ from each other. The Milesian philosophers like Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, etc., and those who thought as they did, mark a branching away from Homeric mythology and Hesiodic theogony. Whereas Hesiod had presented Chaos, Gaia and Eros at the beginning of the drama of the origin of the earth, the Milesian school dispenses with Chaos and favours the idea of a root-matter as the origin of all things. Thus we have Thales presenting water, Anaximenes air, and Heraclitus fire as the primary stuff of the universe. Anaxagoras holds that matter is infinitely divisible; however small the particle, it was a mixture of all four elements, with one element predominating. Empedocles presents all four — fire, air, water and earth — as the primary elements from which all arose; and since Aristotle placed the seal of his approval upon this doctrine, it dominated the western world for nearly two millennia.
In contrast to Greece, Indian speculation derives matter from spirit. The Taittiriya Upanishad states that from Atman arose akasa, and from akasa, vayu; from vayu, fire; from fire, water; and so on. Kapila, the reputed founder of the Samkhya philosophy, and probably an elder contemporary of Thales, propounds a primordial nature or root-matter as the unborn, uncaused, undying force from which proceeds all evolution, material and psychical. He also postulates an infinite number of uncreated, eternal purushas, or spirits, and it is to serve their ends that universal evolution takes place. Like the Greeks, Indian philosophers produced atomic theories, but rather more elaborate than those of the Greeks; and they postulated an extra element — akasa — possessed of more remarkable properties than those distinguishing air, fire, water and earth. But whereas Indian scientific speculations did not lead to a materialist philosophy like that of Democritus or to a purely mechanistic view of the universe, with the exception of the Carvaka philosophy, and had little effect, if any, upon fundamental religious conceptions, Greek science had a marked effect upon the development of Greek and subsequently of European philosophy, and upon the Christian religion.
In tracing this effect, let us link the names of Plato and Aristotle with those of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, for the simple reason that the original Catholic orthodoxy was Augustiruan Platonism, and this was replaced almost a millennium later by Thomistic Aristoteliariism, which survives practically to this day as Catholic orthodoxy.
Plato presents two ground principles: the rational, which is the formal or mathematical and scientific, investigated in the Republic; and the emotional, the eros principle, which is the aesthetic, which Dr. Jowett translated as “frenzy” or “passion” or “love”, expounded in the Phaedrus and the Symposium. In the Timaeus, Plato brings together these two principles, and denominates the rational as the male and the emotional as the female principle in the nature of things. Therefore the intuitive and emotional or passionate person in Church symbolism is the female virgin, and the doctrinal, rational person is the male Christ, who represents the unseen, because only rationally known, that is, the theoretically deduced God the Father. For St. Augustine, who upheld the freedom of the human will, and whose theology is founded on Platonism and the teachings of Jesus, the good life consisted as much in the passionate love of God as in the rational knowledge of God. Plato, however, arbitrarily branded the female principle as evil, and presented the male as good. Thus in orthodox western Christian religion, both Catholic and Protestant, the Divine is restricted to the rational principle, God the Father. Hence when one attacks reason one is trying to destroy orthodox Christianity. For St. Thomas, the good life is the life completely controlled by reason, and man is saved by Divine Grace, not so much by feeling or passion as by the rational knowledge of God.
We must note here a point of great importance: art and philosophy and religion in any age are intimately related to the physical sciences and mathematics of that age. Changes in conceptions of the nature of physical things and phenomena give rise to changes in philosophy.
Democritus was the first Greek philosopher to present an atomic theory and formulate a particle physics somewhat like Newton’s. This physics could not satisfactorily account for incommensurable magnitudes. So it was superseded by the mathematical physics of Plato’s scientific Academy. This conceived of three-dimensional atoms as having the geometrical shapes of the five regular solids termed the Platonic bodies. A member of Plato’s Academy named Eudoxus who rigorously formulated what is known as the method of exhaustion (the Greek precursor of modern calculus) showed that for mathematical reasons Plato’s conception of nature was also untenable. As Aristotle said: “A view which asserts atomic bodies must needs come into conflict with the mathematical sciences.”
Now because atoms could not be seen directly, both Democritus and the Platonists introduced the very important distinction between the world as immediately sensed and the world as designated by mathematically formulated theories which could be experimentally verified by science. Hence Platonic and Augustinian doctrine laid down that the sensed world was not the real world. Thus too the sensed self of man is not his real self but merely the symbol of the real, immortal self. When Aristotle rejected the atomic theory, and therefore also the distinction between the sensed world and the real world, he was driven to say that the sensed world was the real world, and therefore all ideas in the intellect are first given through the senses. Augustinian doctrine had identified God and the divinity of Christ with the unsensed and unseen. This was a theoretic and philosophically postulated factor, not verifiable by direct sense observation. Hence to twelfth century Churchmen of the time, Abelard’s proposal to accept an Aristotelian basis was damned as the rankest heresy, for it seemed that such acceptance would utterly degrade God and Christ’s divinity. But Aristotle, in his mathematical and physical philosophy of prime matter and secondary matter, his continuous field theory in place of the atomic theory, and his doctrines of opposites, of positive form and form by privation, and of the fourfold theory of causes, replaced Platonic science with an acceptable and satisfying system. When European scholars like Albertus Magnus, through better acquaintance with Greek literature, saw that in Greek times Aristotelian science had indeed replaced Platonic science, Catholic doctors of learning and the Church itself came under the spell of Aristotle. St. Thomas Aquinas provided the theological structure on the Aristotelian basis. This has remained dominant up to date in Catholic orthodoxy. At the same time, however, the Platonic-Augustinian distinction between the sensed and real worlds still influences the entire thought of both Catholic and Protestant Christendom.
Continued in part 2, part 3 and part 4
By Sylvia Swain
Continued from part 1 and part 2
Ethical decision begins, as does the living of the religious life, with watchfulness turned inwardly, or mindfulness if we prefer. This inward turning is the first ethical decision we need to make to orientate ourselves to religious living. Western religion has traditionally looked outwards and upwards for its salvation to a deity, and the secular community to science or to politics to provide regulation or reform for the evils of society, but things continue to get worse. The greater the power given to the sick mind the greater the mischief it can wreak. A recent shocking example of this has been a set of statistics showing increases in the numbers of fatal shootings in America by irritated motorists on the highways, and, and even more distressing, murders of children by other children in the playgrounds. When there is a combination of heedless anger and the right to carry arms as a treasured form of “freedom”, the worst can happen. The worst thing about it is that such things happen to the “ordinary” man or child, those who consider themselves “normal” — average, reasonable citizens. The evil deed was spontaneous, without warning, as when a spark ignites a flammable household substance. It was so “ordinary” that it was not guarded against.
It is now an established fact of psychology that the evils of the world spring from the shadow of the world to which we all have contributed our share.
The highest value a human being can contribute to the good of the world is to withdraw their own contribution to its shadow. It is also the highest good they can do for themselves. It heals that person and helps others at the same time. Like charity, healing and virtue begin at home. Being the best, it is also the most difficult, at least to begin with. The most difficult thing about this most difficult thing is knowing where to begin. This is where all who have the privilege of Phiroz’s teaching are so fortunate. Whatever we listen to or read contains the essence of religion, its way and its heart. When he presented to us a religious ideal, he also gave the practical, psychological foundation.
He was wont to say: “One must begin with virtue, the moralities”, and then: “Mindfulness is the lynch pin of it all.”
No-one can be virtuous if they are not in control, and no-one can be in control if they do not know half of what is going on in the mind. It is a long road to the virtuous state, the pure mind, but that need not worry us if we remember that, once we begin, the religious life is itself the way and the goal, a life of gradual growth and increasing self-knowledge.
Because of his associations with the Buddhist Society, Phiroz gave out much teaching of the Buddhist scriptures, and this inspired me to read some of the discourses of the Buddha, which otherwise I would have considered too difficult for me, or, dare I say it, too boring. But Phiroz had the magic touch with all religious scriptures, however antiquated or abstruse they might seem at first glance. What a treasure-house he opened up for all of us.
Let us share some of that treasure together. In his “Discourse on the Sure” (from the Middle Length Sayings, volume II, p. 81), the Buddha spoke thus:
There are these four kinds of persons existing in the world. What four? Here some person is a tormentor of self, intent on the practice of self-torment. Here some person is a tormentor of others intent on the practice of tormenting others. Here some person is both a self-tormentor and a tormentor of others. And here some person is neither a self-tormentor nor a tormentor of others, is here-now allayed, quenched, become cool, an experiencer of bliss that lives with self Brahma-become. In this case, householders, a Tathagata arises in the world… Destroyed is birth, brought to a close the Brahma-faring, done is what has to be done, there is no more of being such or so. When this has been said, the Brahman householders of Sala spoke thus to the Lord: ‘Excellent good Gotama. It is as if, good Gotama, one might set upright that which had been upset … even so in many a figure has dhamma been made clear by the good Gotama. We are going to the revered Gotama for refuge … May the good Gotama accept us as lay-disciples going for refuge from this day forth for as long as life lasts.’
There are these four kinds of persons existing in the world. What four? Here some person is a tormentor of self, intent on the practice of self-torment. Here some person is a tormentor of others intent on the practice of tormenting others. Here some person is both a self-tormentor and a tormentor of others. And here some person is neither a self-tormentor nor a tormentor of others, is here-now allayed, quenched, become cool, an experiencer of bliss that lives with self Brahma-become. In this case, householders, a Tathagata arises in the world… Destroyed is birth, brought to a close the Brahma-faring, done is what has to be done, there is no more of being such or so.
When this has been said, the Brahman householders of Sala spoke thus to the Lord: ‘Excellent good Gotama. It is as if, good Gotama, one might set upright that which had been upset … even so in many a figure has dhamma been made clear by the good Gotama. We are going to the revered Gotama for refuge … May the good Gotama accept us as lay-disciples going for refuge from this day forth for as long as life lasts.’
That exposition is a clear description of scapegoat psychology at work in the ancient world of the East, and, recognising it for what it was, the Buddha denounced it for two very good reasons. Firstly, it was tainting the religious ethos of the time, asceticism. There was a group known as the Jains who, in the name of non-violence, were carrying self-mortification to a dangerous degree and scorning others who were less extreme. The Buddha himself had come close to death testing their method and realised that without commonsense and mindfulness religion can easily become obsessive. From this he taught his Middle Way.
Secondly, the Buddha saw “tormentor” psychology as a very subtle and universal problem, and that it was in fact the underlying cause of ill for which he had been seeking in order to bring an end to suffering. From this he was able to expound his Four Noble Truths:
For the rest of his life the Buddha taught this way and devised many “skilful means”, methods and practices in order to enable people to bring about this healing transformation in their lives.
In part 4 we will look into some of them.
Continued in part 4 and part 5
By George Piggott
Tired of the long dark winter, the snow, wind and rain, I closed my eyes to rest awhile, then opened them again, To spring abounding far and wide, with joy, it filled the air, Rich and green with mayflower scent, of this I was aware, To glimpse a fleeting visit, a blessing once a year. I blinked my eyes and it was gone, replaced by summer flowers, Birds in song and butterflies that danced the sunlight hours, I stretched, then yawned, and gave a sigh, as I lay there in the sun, When suddenly I realised change, the autumn had begun. A tapestry of coloured leaves was massed upon the ground. How sad they fade so quickly, lost before they’re found. The body gave a shiver, the days were getting cold, Or had it felt a moment’s fear, of body growing old? The mind in endless wonderings as seasons come and go, Is unaware of time in flight, as I watched the falling snow.
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