Being Truly Human April 1991 Newsletter

From the Editor

Dear Members,

The response to the first Phiroz Mehta Trust Newsletter has been very encouraging. Thank you for all your comments, suggestions and contributions — however, we need many more, so please let me have them!

We are still anxious to hear of a retreat house or centre suitable for a Summer School in 1992. These get booked up well in advance, so if you know of a suitable location, please advise me.

Phiroz will be giving a talk at Dilkusha on Sunday 21st April and there will be a number of other meetings during the next few months.

From the Editor

The meeting at Dilkusha on 9th March started with a short talk by Phiroz followed by a discussion on the following topics:

• Health therapies as alternatives to orthodox medicine;
• Healing from within and the interplay between emotional and physical health;
• Nutrition and diet;
• Illness and its relation to self-image;
• Looking after our own body;
• Tai Chi Ch’uan.

It was felt that the potential was there to form a serious and worthwhile group and on 6th April a Tai Chi Ch’uan group led by Laila de Lys was started.

From the Editor

An Open Meeting was held at Lillian Road on 2nd March, and everyone was very happy that Phiroz was present in the afternoon. In the morning discussions were held about the possibility of holding a Summer School in the spring or summer of 1992. It was thought that four days would be about the right length, and a number of suggestions were put forward about a suitable location. After a shared lunch, a tape was played of the talk which Phiroz gave just before Easter 1974, and we dispersed after tea.

By Phiroz Mehta

Transmuting is quite different from transforming. When a skilful housewife rearranges the furniture in a room, making it look more inviting and cosy, we I say “you have transformed this room.” The room and the furniture are still the same old room and furniture; only their attractiveness and usefulness have been changed, though the properties of the furniture remain unchanged.

When radium, a radioactive metal, undergoes successive disintegrations, emanating a gas called radon and itself ends up as a lump of non-radioactive lead, we call it a transmutation, for the properties of radon and of lead are quite different from those of radium.

Carbon exists in various gases such as carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide; in chalk and bones and in millions of organic substances; in all living matter (living bodies). Graphite is a fairly pure, crystalline form of carbon. The purest form is diamond, a pure crystal of carbon.

The greater part of the human race is enslaved by selfness.

Through the millennia, only the few transmuted that selfness into selflessness, as exemplified by the Founders of the Great Religions and by all true spiritual Teachers. Of the myriads of souls who are like the cheaper, imperfect forms of carbon, only the few change themselves into the priceless, perfect diamond souls who are a constant benediction and light to all mankind.

To effect, this transmutation is a very difficult task, for we are an animal species and every animal species is characterized by two main drives, viz. self-preservation and the preservation of the species.

Because of the drive for self-preservation, we are isolatively and separatively self-conscious, unawakened to the fact-that actually we are inter-related and interactive with not on each other but also with all Nature and the entire cosmos.

If we awaken to this inter-relationship and interaction, Peace and Love, Wisdom and Purity, Goodness, Truth and Beauty would reign through our own lives. Whatever characterizes the individual influences his environment, powerfully at times, and, through the environment the whole world.

By Muriel Stuart

Here in a quiet and dusty room they lie,
Faded as crumbled stone or shifting sand,
Forlorn as ashes, shrivelled, scentless, dry —
Meadows and gardens running through my hand.

In this brown husk a dale of hawthorn dreams,
A cedar in this narrow cell is thrust:
It will drink deeply of a century’s streams,
These lilies shall make summer on, my dust.

Here in their safe and simple house of death,
Sealed in their shells a million roses leap:
Here I can blow a garden with my breath,
And in my hand a forest lies asleep.

By George Piggott

To simplify the understanding of an expression of Truth, an analogy of nature is a unique guide, effective, simple and more than helpful. For example:

1. The spider and its web.
2. The spider representing the conscious mind.
3. The web — the whole of life.

The spider, with a natural desire to fulfil its requirements, spins countless webs as a practical guarantee to provide a continuous flow for self-fulfilment.

With feverish effort, the webs are suitably located and securely attached, but they are also flexible and adaptable to inevitable changing conditions. The victims who are caught in this silken magnet struggle relentlessly to escape — many succumb to the sticky entanglement and slowly die. Any damage caused to the web in the process may provoke the spider to increase its activities in repairing the essential environment as part of its very existence — a perpetual treadmill of need and acquisition. Consequently, the spider and the web, together with those unfortunates who are caught up in this triangle of relationships, are never free from suffering in one form or another — whether it be momentary or prolonged — and any intermittent intervals of time which may be considered pleasurable seem in comparison short-lived.

As a result the conscious mind once again embarks upon the search for satisfaction from the endless wheel of need. This can then result in dissatisfaction, pain and boredom, whereby one reaches the point in seeking the answers to those inevitable questions:

1. What is life all about?
2. Is there an answer to life’s endless problems and continuous suffering?

It is obvious that over a period of years many problems will occur — in various forms — and it should be accepted that we cannot lead a life entirely free from suffering. We should also recognise that much of the anguish to which we are subjected comes from outside — beyond our influence — and the greater proportion may well be self-inflicted, due to our lack of awareness, and indeed order, in our daily life.

Once again nature in its infinite wisdom may hold the key to those agonising questions. By continuous observation and attentiveness it will reveal a pattern of constant change, apparently at random, yet operating in a Universe of precise order — balanced and harmonious, but like a shadow it is not always directly visible, and it is the understanding of this vital secret that is most important, together with its significance of a holistic Universe.

Deviations severe enough to upset this equilibrium (usually man-associated) could result in devastation with long-term consequences.

This unique pattern has evolved over millions of years, despite nature’s moods of spontaneous change and apparent opposites.

Surely Mankind, with his so-called intelligence, is capable of learning from this Supreme Teacher. Furthermore, it is for our own benefit that we live each day with a sense of responsibility and order, which is of paramount importance to our very existence, and the disturbing day-to-day events in the world around us seem to confirm this proposition.

Summary

Awareness and order, together with a balanced perception in our daily thoughts and actions, may well be the answer to our many problems and sufferings — and to see this clearly as an “Expression of Truth” may prevent us’ from being continually caught in life’s sticky web. The Mind, like the spider, is perpetually spinning to our detriment.

By Editor, translated by Thomas William Rhys Davids

The king said: “What is the root, Nagasena, of past time, and what of present, and what of future time?”

“Ignorance. By reason of Ignorance came the Confections, by reason of the Confections consciousness, by reason of consciousness name-and-form, by reason of name-and-form the six organs of sense, by reason of them contact, by reason of contact sensation, by reason of sensation thirst, by reason of thirst craving, by reason of craving becoming, by reason of becoming birth, by reason of birth old age and death, grief, lamentation, sorrow, pain and despair. Thus is it that the ultimate point in the past of all this time is not apparent.”

“You are ready, Nagasena, in reply.”

The king said: “Can even the most minute thing, Nagasena, be divided?”

“Yes, it can.”

“And what, Sir, is the most minute of all things?”

“Truth, O king, is the most minute and subtle. But this is not true of all qualities. Subtleness or the reverse are epithets of qualities. But whatever can be divided that can wisdom divide, and there is no other quality which can divide wisdom.”

“Very good, Nagasena!”

By Jehanne Mehta

Let me not escape from this moment:
Keep me captive in your arms until I see
From under the wrinkled earthen lids of time
The sudden eye of love wink blindingly;
And all that ever blossomed, blossom now,
Radiant white along the blackened bough.