Being Truly Human January 1992 Newsletter

From the Editor

Diamond Press have just published The Burning Word, a book of poems by Jehanne Mehta. Jehanne’s sensitive and deeply felt poetry is well known to readers of the Newsletter. Her book may be obtained from the Trust.

From the Editor

The Phiroz Mehta Trust Summer School will take place at Cuddesdon House, near Oxford, from 18th to 22nd June 1992. This will be our first Summer School for many years and it is hoped that members will support it. The cost of the School will be £118 fully inclusive. Further details and an application form are enclosed with this Newsletter.

An extract from Zarathushtra: The Transcendental Vision by Phiroz Mehta

Some religions promise blissful immortality after death in an eternal heaven to the faithful devotee who has lived the Good Life, and consign unrepentant sinners to everlasting tortures in a permanent hell.

Religions which uphold theories of karma and rebirth teach that, after the effects of all the causes generated by each human being have worked themselves out through many lives on earth — during which he has at last turned his face to the Light and succeeded in realizing perfection and has fully awakened to Truth — man will then be one with the Ultimate Reality, or be united with God, or enjoy everlasting fellowship with God, perpetually standing in the Divine Presence. Heaven, Nirvana, Paradise, Garo-demana, the Happy Lands, etc., will be the reward, a final payment, for him as an individual, self-conscious being.

Man is in thrall to duality. Credit and debit, success and failure, gain and loss, reward and punishment, pleasure and pain — all these duals dominate his deeds, misguide his mind and lead him astray. Being isolatively self-conscious, it is difficult for him to walk out of his ego-centred prison — self-condemned to hard labour which brings only conflict and insecurity, misery and despair, not only to him but also those around him. Such is man who is still in his sub-human stage of development. And yet, this self-same creature, man, is indeed Transcendence embodied, bearing within himself a wonderful spiritual heritage and a divine potential.

Founders of religions have been credited by their followers with being sons of God, as with Zarathushtra and Jesus, or as being God incarnate, as with Shree Krishna. As such, omniscience has been ascribed to them, just as it has been ascribed to Gotama the Buddha. The masses imagine that this omniscience is an encyclopaedic knowledge of the whole cosmos, including man, and all its past, present and future, as also of celestial realms invisible to us ordinary people.

All true spiritual teachers thoroughly understand the human psyche. Compared with us, they are omniscient in this sphere. They are “soul-healing Lords of Wisdom”. By the complete understanding and purification and the consequent healing of their own psyches, they become eminently qualified to diagnose the illness of any soul and to suggest the right remedy. Their prescription is always a suggestion, never a compulsion. If the patient is sensible, he will do the needful. If not, the consequences will be his.

Such spiritual teachers were living examples of the apothegm mens sana in corpore sano, a healthy mind in a healthy body, which is the one meaning of haurvatat. They well knew the power of the healthy psyche to heal, through asha, the entire psycho-physical existential being and maintain him in perfect health, so that the person could duly realize his spiritual goal. Here lies the significance of the later Avestan prayers in oft-repeated phrases like:

O Lord God, Ahura Mazda, from all my sins do I repent and turn back. From every evil thought, evil word and evil deed, which in this world I may have conceived of, uttered or committed, which from me has come forth, or originated through me; of all such sins of thought, word and deed, pertaining to my body or soul, pertaining to this world or the spiritual world; O Lord! with sincere contrition I repent with three-fold renunciation.

By the accomplished turning away from all evil, the person becomes the New Man.

The Holy Ones clearly understood the ambivalence of the psyche, its relationship to and interaction with one’s innermost consciousness which is not cognized by the brain. This consciousness is the silent watcher and lord, sustainer and consummator of our entire existential being, the microcosm. It does not depend upon sense activity, concept and word for its operation. It is a constant, tranquil influence for the purification and well-being of the psycho-physical person. It is non-compulsive in its action, neither persuading or dissuading. It is universal. It is Transcendence embodied in us, and is not to be mistaken for the ordinary discriminative consciousness (which does depend upon sense activity, concept and word) characterizing the everyday living process of our psycho-physical organism.

Continued in part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5

By Stephen Marshall

How often one resolves to make an effort of one kind or another in the cause of one’s spiritual development, and how often one soon forgets!

The Holy Man’s spoken or written word of instruction or advice strikes a significant chord, and we say I will remember and practise accordingly.” A drive home or the television programme soon whitewashes the mind, and the resolve or good impulse is lost, preference being given to the easier, lazy and fruitless alternative.

What can one do to rectify this all-too-common occurrence? How can we “develop” in a practical fashion?

The first thing is not to criticise oneself or worry about these faults — after all, busy lives mean busy minds, and it is in the nature of things that we forget. However, when one comes to attention or “remembers”, albeit for a second or two, then one should act by making an immediate positive effort to implement the instruction or advice or whatever practice or discipline comes to the mind. In that moment of Grace, one has a choice, i.e. either to “work” or to “ignore”, and if the latter option is taken, one falls back to sleep and that particular opportunity is lost forever.

Even a few seconds applying the right effort is an important step on the Way. One must be grateful for small mercies. For example it may be:

1. Reading a page or two of a good book
2. A Yoga exercise or meditation
3. Listening to some music, or
4. Washing the dishes!

If it is the latter (or any other job that needs doing for that matter) do it, but with your full attention. That is, be present, washing the dishes, not wishing you were somewhere else there’s plenty of time for useless daydreams.

You will know what you should do — just listen to the voice within and make the effort. See what happens if you do, for as we all know, “from little acorns great oaks grow”.

By Joan Dashwood

“How can I reach Nirvana?” A asked.
“Find out who you are first,” replied the Sage.
“What must I do to be saved?” B demanded.
“Who wants to be saved?” the Sage responded.
“Can I reach heaven in this life?” implored C.
“Find out who wants to reach heaven,” said the Sage.
“Where do I go to become perfect?” D pleaded.
“There is nowhere to go,” the Sage replied.
“Dammit,” said A, “I know who I am.”
“Waste of time asking,” said B, “I’ll go to another Guru.”
C said, “I’m the one who wants to reach heaven,
What a silly question.”
D suddenly caught sight of the emptiness in his own heart
And smiled.

From Moneyminder by Editor

Philosophers and theologians can cease their intellectual and spiritual agonising. The answers to the great questions that have dogged mankind are now on offer from the Inland Revenue — or so it would appear, at least, from the title of the Revenue’s revised pamphlet “What Happens When Someone Dies”.

By Laura Piggott

In the winter when it snows
Nothing stirs and nothing grows.
Outside it’s silent, cold and bare,
The chance of a smile is very rare.
People shake and start to shiver,
Even the animals start to quiver.
Oh, how I wish the winter would go;
Then we’d have sunshine, not cold snow.

By an anonymous artist

By A. J. Balfour

Our highest truths are but half truths.
Think not to settle down in any truth.
Make use of it as a tent in which to pass a summer night,
But build no house on it, or it will be your tomb.

When first you have an inkling of its insufficiency
and begin to descry a counter-truth looming up beyond,
then weep not but give thanks.
It is the Lord’s voice whispering,
“Take up thy bed and walk.”