Being Truly Human September 2008 Newsletter

From the Editor

This year we held our Summer School in Kent, in July. The theme was “Awake Now”. The School was a happy and successful one, in spite of the inclement weather and the lack of mindfulness on the part of the Editor who left all the tapes at home.

We shall be having another Summer School at the same venue next year, and the dates have been fixed for 5th–10th September 2009. The cost will be £40–45 per person per day. If you would like to come, please contact the Editor.

From the Editor

Unhappily the 2009 Summer School will be our last one at our present venue, as the house is being sold. The new house will not be open for retreats, so once more we shall have to find a new location for our Summer School in 2010.

If anyone knows of a possible place (even if they are not thinking of coming themselves), could they please contact the Editor.

A talk given by Phiroz Mehta at Dilkusha, Forest Hill, London on 9^th March 1979

As you all know, we have been considering during the last few meetings some very significant and deep matters which are intimately related to this transformation of one’s mode of awareness of existence. We have been considering this whole question of perceptions.

What we call perceptions are the result of our senses and brain functioning, the senses to receive impressions and the brain to synthesize and make some sort of meaningful pattern of those impressions, and we say that we perceive this, that or the other accordingly. Then there is the inward activity of the brain itself irrespective of immediate precepts, because the brain is able to use its accumulated store of concepts and its power of speech and its faculty for reasoning logically in order to produce more perceptions, more of an abstract nature this time. Now, all this takes place in the context of limitation, of the finite, the mortal, the ever changing, that which never remains the same. It is important to bear this in mind. And so we always have this profoundly difficult question to answer: What is reality? Is it this which seemed to me reality five years ago or even five days ago, or is it something else? And therefore, if we are truly sensitive, if we remain watchful and alert and open minded, we will find that our perceptions, that is to say what we believed hitherto were true perceptions, are not true perceptions. Reality, then we begin to say, is something different. And in which way is it different from what we thought was reality up to date? If the process reaches its culmination some time or other in our lifetime, and it happens to a very few people only, we will see that the ultimate which remains as a true perception is the Infinite, the Emptiness.

It is not at all easy to get the feel of this fact, that it all starts from this mysterious Void, this Emptiness, which is pure potentiality, pure creative energy out of which, in the process of manifestation, emerge all so-called perceptions, which are not true perceptions at all. If we really see this, better still, if we are capable in our deep moments to experience this, then we shall find that in our lifetime we become free of intellectual distress. We become free of this overriding urge to seek the Truth, the Real. There is no such thing as finding the Truth in the realm of the finite and the mortal and the ever changing. That changeless state is the state in which there is no such thing as perceiving, in our sense of the word, which means perceiving through the functioning of the senses and the brain. So one actually becomes conscious of the Reality of Emptiness, the Reality of the Immeasurable, the Infinite, that which cannot be restricted, cannot be bound. And therefore one experiences the full and true meaning of spiritual freedom.

I say spiritual freedom, but it is actually our true ultimate freedom possible to us as human beings. This freedom of the spirit, this freedom of the mind, is the ability now to remain in that state of complete open mindedness in which one has ceased to be liable to any sort of delusion. All the ephemeral pictures, the passing perceptions, will of course come, because we are alive in a physical body which has senses and a brain. Therefore they will come, but the practical manifestation of our freedom will consist in the fact that we do not grasp those perceptions and say, “This is the Truth.” And we will not therefore be deluded by all these which are only but phantoms of the physical process, nothing else. They are relatively true perceptions in the immediate moment, in the immediate environment which is under constraint through the actual immediate conditions prevailing, the limiting factors, in other words, which are prevailing. But those are all changing. What we human beings in the world have done and do and will do for another million years at least, perhaps, is to hold onto these perceptions as ultimate facts. Ultimateness in itself is not finite, it is Infinite, it belongs to the context of Eternity, it is not subject to the limitations of time and space, it is not subject to any laws which we believe are the laws of nature, or the laws of our life, particularly our conceptions of causation. They all disappear, causality as such vanishes. So, you see, you are conscious of this as a fact. You do not hold onto it merely as an idea. When anybody speaks about these things or one sees it written anywhere, the spoken word and the written word represent the particular idea at that moment, a fixation now. Once it is spoken and you have heard it, if you keep holding onto it, it is a fixation, it prevents the maturing process, the purification process, of the whole psyche, and therefore Mind, the universal Transcendent energy, which in itself is the Void, out of which is manifested the Plenitude, never comes to fruition through that particular individual. As and when it does, he has become the full human, the true manifestation of Divinity itself. He is not just a genius with remarkable insight as we say, or with wonderful perceptions. It is nothing like that. It is this Transcendent Emptiness which is the ultimate which we as human beings can realize as the Supreme Reality, because this Ultimate Emptiness is only another way for our brains to try and see the meaning of the Primordial Creative Energy functioning all the time. Now you see, when one is conscious of that and does not hold it merely as a thought or a belief, out of blind faith more or less, then one’s whole life changes quite naturally and spontaneously. You do not have to think about doing the right thing, and so forth, the rightist possible thing happens through you spontaneously, naturally, in a sense, not unjustifiably, we may so call it unconsciously .

Now, this is one aspect, a very deep and an important aspect, of the spiritual development of the living person. A faculty of supreme worth, which is now his, is this faculty of letting go whatever comes, because whatsoever is at this moment is undergoing complete change and transformation. If we try to hold onto it, we are trying to fixate that which is moving on, and Life is omnipotent, it smashes it up to our detriment and distress. You see, we truly live by the grace of the Divine. We do so much to spoil our lives, even to destroy our lives, by grasping at things. This is one of the deep meanings of the word greed, as used in Buddhism. This is our fundamental greed, our fundamental spiritual greed, and it is associated with fear, because we want security in thought. We say we want peace of mind, but it is not peace of mind that we are really seeking. Peace of mind is here and now, absolutely so, but if we give up this floundering and struggling for security in terms of fixed doctrines, beliefs, ideas and so forth, we are hindering, very effectively hindering, our peace of mind. When one is conscious in that way, really conscious of it, then there is the state of liberation.

This is one aspect of it, there is the corresponding other aspect of it, and this is the aspect which comes under compassion. This first aspect comes under insight, the Transcendent insight, the full awakening of intelligence which sees the truth of things immediately. When you see the truth of things immediately, you do not grasp at anything, including what you have seen. Corresponding to that which we call the great insight, Transcendent Wisdom is completely contrasted with knowledge, knowledge which we acquire. Knowledge is something which you acquire, which you store up and hinder the mind from coming to fruition through you, the individual, because Mind is utterly free, utterly new every time, creatively new.

This other aspect is Transcendent Love, compassion, the great compassion. We cannot seek or arouse compassion, just as we cannot seek or arouse wisdom. These Transcendent, archetypal modes of manifestation of the Primordial Creative Energy, which we call Transcendent Love, or wisdom or goodness or beauty, and so forth, they are all completely contained within the single context of Eternity, of Immortality. You cannot seek anything in the context of the Infinite. The word seek has no meaning, the word seek simply means, implies straightaway particularity. How can you seek the Infinite? It is the Infinite which completely holds within itself all the finite, and holds all the multitudinous finites in complete inter-relationship.

If and when we awake to that complete inter-relationship, then we are conscious of the Infinite. To be conscious, let me repeat, is quite different from holding a thought. A thought means that there is a limited form given to that which you are thinking of, and it is only temporal, it is mortal, it is not the immortal reality. But we use these terms, Transcendent wisdom, compassion, simply because what other words in our languages can we use? To express means to constrict, to make finite, that is the meaning of expression, to press out of. All finites are ex-pressed out of the In-finite. All time and our experiences of what we call the timeless are ex-pressed out of Eternity. So these are the only words we can use, Words, concepts as a mode of communication must of necessity suffer from the constraints of finitude and mortality. Therefore try to be awake to the fact, the fact which I do not know at the moment, and will never know, but it is possible for me, not knowing, never knowing, to be conscious in those terms. You see, we restrict the meaning of the words conscious and consciousness to discriminative, analytical consciousness, which brings about the finite, the particular, the limited, missing out its relationships, its complete relationships, with everything else that is in manifestation. You see, that is what we do, that is how we actually function in our innermost psychical processes.

We may say that, “Oh, we have had wonderful inspirations, it seemed as if God was walking with me!” Yes, of course, these are beautiful pictures, illusions. They are stages, if you like. But if you bear in mind that all this is changing, changing, changing, and if you bear in mind that we must never seek for a final something which can be used as an anchor for safety for the rest of our days, then, if you are free of that, your discriminative consciousness will undergo that transformation which makes the awareness of actuality, of the truth, to function through you, and your brain which says “I” will not know that you are actually functioning like the Eternal. You see, when the Upaniṣadic teachers said words like these, aham brahma’smi, “I am Brahman”, this was not a case of hubris, that terrible, unforgivable spiritual pride which, particularly the theistic world and the post-Grecian world in the west, Europe and America, say that those old sages were guilty of. “Terrible pride, no humility.” One has gone right beyond the conflict of modesty and humility and so forth, then that realization is there. If it is a question of saying “I” achieved this, then that is an expression of pride. But if one does not say “I” achieved this, but is fully awake to the fact that it is the Totality that has at last come to fruition through this individual as Man, then the supreme Manhood is manifest in that individual as long as he lives on this earth. And there is no life afterwards. When a form disrupts, all the elements associated with it go completely. The finite expressions, the finite bits and bobs, return into the Infinite. The mortal returns into the Immortal. Now, there is no possibility of identifiable entity there.

This is one of the most terrible things to face. I know what distress it causes to be able finally to say this quite confidently and fearlessly. I have been through a good forty years at least of terrific intellectual distress battling with this problem. Then suddenly one sees, “Yes, this is it.” (The 21st of September 1969). Then one knows, it becomes quite matter-of-fact. “Here it is, Eternity, Infinity.” You are at home with it just as much as you are at home with your own house, your own body. (Are we all at home with our own body? Yogis, speak up!)

So now, this other aspect, Transcendent compassion. Compassion is that kind of manifestation of archetypal energy which is the great cohesive force, the unifying force functioning throughout the universe. It is a strange thing to say, but I will make bold to say that it is not untrue. This unifying force is one which does two apparently opposite things, and does them simultaneously. Attraction, repulsion, they are there together. In the scientific sense we know that the north pole of a magnet will repel the north pole of another magnet, and the south pole the south pole, but inside the atom, in the nucleus, the protons, which all have positive charges of electricity, what is it that holds them together? Why don’t they fly apart? So you see our previous perception and our previously well-established law of nature that likes repel, unlikes attract, goes by the board. We also know that the other is also true under the different conditions. Now, if there is compassion in this Transcendent sense, Transcendent love, it functions both ways. It brings together and it takes apart also. If it did not do that, the great transforming process of consciousness itself cannot proceed.

Long before the days when scientific speculation started with atomic theories and so forth, round about the 5th and 6th centuries BC, the old, old people talked of demons, demonic energies and angels, angelic energies. They are only other ways of talking about the manifestation of the taking apart of the form, and in the taking apart the new is released immediately, it is there. You see, if we begin to understand things like this, we will begin to understand the profundity of the great religious teachings. Do not grasp the things of the earth, they said, the earth meaning finitude, manifestation, fixation. We have talked through the centuries about the eternal hills and the eternal stars and so forth. They are not eternal, they are temporal. They too must undergo the taking apart. The time scale is a scale where it is entirely different from the time scale of our individual human lives. We have from the time we are born maybe a hundred and ten, a hundred and twenty years perhaps. There have been cases of a little longer than that, even, so they say. Aaron lived until he was one hundred and twenty three, and Moses until he was one hundred and twenty. But even after that they had to fold up their mats and depart! Now, what is that time scale contrasted with the billions of years (I am using the American billion, thousand million) of the universal processes, where a galaxy, a star, can live that long? But in the end it becomes that mysterious thing, a black hole as it is called, and then it explodes after that tremendous implosion, and, lo and behold, another universe comes into being. To us, possessed of our consciousness and the way it functions in its limited way, we see all this as a time process, because we are looking at particular manifestations. Supposing you and I were not subject to the limitations in our consciousness of the time process, the uni-directional time process, we would be aware of the Totality in the immediate now, not in terms of bits and bobs, but in terms of the absolute Totality as such, the manifest as well as the unmanifest. Then do we say, “Ah, this has happened after twenty thousand million years, the black hole has exploded, and, lo and behold, a new universe has come into being”? We will experience the universe in its Totality. Do not try to get conscious that way, you cannot do it, at least I couldn’t whenever I tried, throughout my lifetime. Then there comes that peculiar awakening when you suddenly know, “Yes, that’s it, that’s how it happens”, and then you do not bother any more. You do not seek to experience. If you seek to experience the joys of heaven or the horrors of hell, you will be wasting your time. They are there all along.

Observe, do not grasp. And in this state, actual conscious state, not a mere imposed attitude, there awakens right inside your being this extraordinary thing of which you will say, and you will know that you are saying it legitimately, “This is the love of God for the universe.” This is God’s love, this is Transcendent Love, this is Maha-karuṇā, the Armaiti of the Zarathushtrians, and so on. But concepts you cannot form of these things. Do not try to form them. Utilise all concepts, all ideas which are presented to you or which you come across, either through the written word, the spoken word, or your own passing experiences during the course of your life. Utilise all of them insofar as you observe them with utmost intensity, with the fullness of your consciousness in the now. Do not hold onto anything, let it pass, let it move out. There are those quite naturally (this is the result of the flaws in our upbringing and education) who will say, “Ah, but this was a wonderful line of enquiry, I want to hold onto it and pursue it to the end and discover.” You cannot pursue any one thing to the end and discover. If you could pursue any one thing to the end, you will have pursued the Totality to the end, because no one thing is fully known unless everything else is also fully known. It is one of the glories of modern science that in the purely scientific sphere this is now an established fact, that we can never know all about any one thing without knowing all about everything else, because any one thing is completely and totally inter-related with everything else in the universe. The same applies to what we commonly call our spiritual life and our mental maturing. So we use these terms, Transcendent Love, Transcendent Wisdom and so forth, because we have no option but to use them as such.

Now, the question arises, how can Transcendent Love arise and function freely through us as individuals, as ordinary human beings in this world? Remain mindful, remain attentive, totally attentive, not grasping anything but wholly observant. If one is like that all the time, then there emerges a state of awareness, or pure consciousness, through which one is conscious of Totality, of Wholeness. Then the limitations of time, space, matter all disappear. As and when they disappear, Eternity, Infinity is functioning freely through you, the finite, mortal organism. When consciousness in you, therefore, awakens to that state of utter wholeness, of holiness, then Transcendent Compassion, Love is present. The brain does not and cannot know it, but it is there, and in its continuous functioning through you the person, the perfect complement of Transcendent Wisdom has come into being, and that is Nirvana.

By Thich Nhat Hanh

Here are some simple exercises you can do to reinforce the connection between your Buddha body and Buddha mind.

Walking Meditation

The mind can go in a thousand directions.
But on this beautiful path, I walk in peace.
With each step, a gentle wind blows.
With each step, a flower blooms.

Walking meditation is meditation while walking. We walk slowly, in a relaxed way, keeping a light smile on our lips. When we practise this way we feel deeply at ease, and our steps are those of the most secure person on Earth. Walking meditation is really to enjoy the walking — walking not in order to arrive, just for walking, to be in the present moment, and to enjoy each step. Therefore you have to shake off all worries and anxieties, not thinking of the future, not thinking of the past, just enjoying the present moment. Anyone can do it. It takes only a little time, a little mindfulness, and the wish to be happy.

We walk all the time, but usually it is more like running. Our hurried steps print anxiety and sorrow on the Earth. If we can take one step in peace, we can take two, three, four, and then five steps for the peace and happiness of humankind.

Our mind darts from one thing to another, like a monkey swinging from branch to branch without stopping to rest. Thoughts have millions of pathways, and we are forever pulled along by them into the world of forgetfulness. If we can transform our walking path into a field for meditation, our feet will take every step in full awareness, our breathing will be in harmony with our steps, and our mind will naturally be at ease. Every step we take will reinforce our peace and joy and cause a stream of calm energy to flow through us. Then we can say, “With each step, a gentle wind blows.”

While walking, practise conscious breathing by counting steps. Notice each breath and the number of steps you take as you breathe in and as you breathe out. If you take three steps during an in-breath, say, silently, “One, two, three,” or “In, in, in,” one word with each step. As you breathe out, if you take three steps, say, “Out, out, out,” with each step. If you take three steps as you breathe in and four steps as you breathe out, you say, “In, in, in. Out, out, out, out,” or “One, two, three. One, two, three, four.”

Don’t try to control your breathing. Allow your lungs as much time and air as they need, and simply notice how many steps you take as your lungs fill up and how many you take as they empty, mindful of both your breath and your steps. The key is mindfulness.

When you walk uphill or downhill, the number of steps per breath will change. Always follow the needs of your lungs. Do not try to control your breathing or your walking. Just observe them deeply.

When you begin to practise, your exhalation may be longer than your inhalation. You might find that you take three steps during your in-breath and four steps on your out-breath (3–4), or two steps/three steps (2–3). If this is comfortable for you, please enjoy practising this way. After you have been doing walking meditation for some time, your in-breath and out-breath will probably become equal: 3–3, or 2-2, or 4–4.

If you see something along the way that you want to touch with your mindfulness — the blue sky, the hills, a tree, or a bird — just stop, but while you do, continue breathing mindfully. You can keep the object of your contemplation alive by means of mindful breathing. If you don’t breathe consciously, sooner or later your thinking will settle back in, and the bird or the tree will disappear. Always stay with your breathing.

When you walk, you might like to take the hand of a child. She will receive your concentration and stability, and you will receive her freshness and innocence. From time to time, she may want to run ahead and then wait for you to catch up. A child is a bell of mindfulness, reminding us how wonderful life is. At Plum Village, I teach the young people a simple verse to practise while walking: “Yes, yes, yes” as they breathe in, and, “Thanks, thanks, thanks” as they breathe out. I want them to respond to life, to society, and to the Earth in a positive way. They enjoy it very much.

After you have been practising for a few days, try adding one more step to your exhalation. For example, if your normal breathing is 2–2, without walking any faster, lengthen your exhalation and practise 2–3 for four or five times. Then go back to 2–2. In normal breathing, we never expel all the air from our lungs. There is always some left. By adding another step to your exhalation, you will push out more of this stale air. Don’t overdo it. Four or five times are enough. More can make you tired. After breathing this way four or five times, let your breath return to normal. Then, five or ten minutes later, you can repeat the process. Remember to add a step to the exhalation, not the inhalation.

After practising for a few more days, your lungs might say to you, “If we could do 3–3 instead of 2–3 that would be wonderful.” If the message is clear, try it, but even then, only do it four or five times. Then go back to 2–2. In five or ten minutes, begin 2–3, and then do 3–3 again. After several months, your lungs will be healthier and your blood will circulate better. Your way of breathing will have been transformed.

When we practise walking meditation, we arrive in each moment. When we enter the present moment deeply, our regrets and sorrows disappear, and we discover life with all its wonders. Breathing in, we say to ourselves, “I have arrived.” Breathing out, we say, “I am home.” When we do this, we overcome dispersion and dwell peacefully in the present moment, which is the only moment for us to be alive.

A talk given by Phiroz Mehta at the Convent of the Cenacle, Grayshott, Hampshire on 11^th April 1981

The first question here is: “You spoke of Truth taught in ages gone by and in far parts of the world as being different from the Truth of the here-now. Could you enlarge upon this?”

I should like to re-word the question in a slightly different form: “You spoke of the expression in concept and word of the Truth in ages gone by and in far parts of the world as being different from the expression in concept and word of the Truth of the here-now.”

You see, the Truth in the religious context is something which is the individual’s actual experience. This Truth is experienced in the profoundest meditative states, only in those conditions. This experiencing is not of the nature of our ordinary experience here in the world of things and affairs. When we go through an experience here, we know that this is an experience I am going through. When you experience Truth, the Ultimate Reality in the deepest meditative states, you do not know that you are experiencing anything. The point is that you are that thing in mind and consciousness. We use a phrase like the Unity of the Universe. Those are words and the top layer of our brain cells is responsible for saying those words. But whilst we may hold that as a thought, as a belief, it is not something of which we are truly and completely conscious. I spoke of consciousness this morning, but I omitted to explain that consciousness in the profoundest sense is a case of being that of which you are conscious in mind. You are it. You are not conscious of it as a separate object from yourself. In the same way you are not conscious of the conceptualized or the spoken truth as something separate from yourself. “I, the person, am conscious of that Truth.” This aspect of consciousness harks back to the nature of the ultimate origin of things, which is simultaneously the Primordial Creative Energy plus absolutely Pure Consciousness. Try and get the feel of it. They are an identity, they are not separate. This is something very difficult for the brain and the use of our senses to see. It is an identity. Therefore that consciousness is not a discriminative consciousness. You and it are not separate, the unity is absolute.

Do you get the idea anyway? If you get the idea and let it work upon your mind, you will get the sense of it strongly, and you will be able to realize that consciousness in this sense is something which functions naturally and spontaneously. And the expression of that spontaneity and naturalness of consciousness expresses itself without your knowing it in your thought and feeling, your words and your actions. It is an unknown knowing. It is a curious paradox, but there it is. It is an unknowing knowing. Not analysable, it cannot be subjected to analysis, but it is there, and the proof of its being there is that one’s actual life, in thought and feeling, speech and action, will naturally and spontaneously express that consciousness. When we say consciousness, we always mean ordinary discriminative consciousness. The analytic as well as the mechanically synthesizing activity of the brain is at play, and that is what obstructs that transcendent consciousness in its true nature, in its ultimate nature. See what was said in the Upanis¸ads about this, it is very, very instructive. The question of how did these Teachers realize the unconditioned Transcendent and then affirm it may be considered. The Aḍhyaṭma Upaniṣad says:

That is called samadhi in which the attention, rising above (that is, becoming free of) the separative conception of the contemplator and the contemplated, merges gradually into the state of the contemplation.

The attention just becomes completely merged in it. This has been characterized by the word prajñenatman.

... merges gradually into the contemplated, like a light undisturbed by the wind. Even the mental states are not known at the time when one is in the embrace of the Atma.

You are the Atma then. It is not something which you seek or aspire to, it is not separate from you, you are it, in mind and consciousness.

The mental states are only inferred from the recollection which takes place after samadhi.

So, you see that any attempts at suggesting in concept and word what samadhi is like, the realized Ultimate Truth or Ultimate Reality, comes only by inference after the experiencing. After having entered the state of samadhi, after having plunged into Nirvana, so to say, then that actual experiencing leaves an impress upon the psycho-physical organism. If your intellectual nature and your intellectual development are of the right sort, then gradually concepts will arise which are like vague pictures, almost smudgy pictures of what actual samadhi is. Then you can convey those concepts and words to other people, and for your own brain perception you can use those. They will be not the Truth, obviously, they will be representations, re-presentations of that Ultimate Reality, the Truth, which is a living experience, it is a living experiencing. Through this samadhi, pure dharma is developed. That is very significant. It is because the Perfected Holy Ones are able to enter this state of samadhi that their religious teachings, the pure dharma, as it is called, emerges. Recollect the first words of the Buddha, “Hearken, bhikkhus, the Deathless has been found.” What a statement to make! It is absolutely tremendous. “The Deathless has been found.” By whom? By this man, Siddhattha Gotama. Supposing John Brown came along and said, “My friends, I have found God.” If you are very kind, you will be silent and say, “Oh, yes,” and that is about all. A statement of such tremendous importance is very difficult to fathom. So, pure dharma is developed. “Knowers of Yoga call this samadhi, dharma megha.” Note the term “dharma megha”. “Megha” means “cloud”, so “dharma megha” is “truth-cloud”. How wisely they used the right term, “truth-cloud”, not something which has absolutely clearly defined, rigid outlines. It is like a cloud, truth-cloud, or,to use the phrase used in Christian mysticism, the Cloud of Unknowing, that is what that is. “That in which speech was hidden till now appears no longer so and shines as Truth.” That means that the Teacher who can give out the Teaching concerning the realization of such Truth gives it out in words which shine as Truth. Although it is cloudy it is also shining, the cloud shines — mystery.

Bearing that in mind, let us consider the situation here. “You spoke of Truth taught in ages gone by.” Throughout the ages there is a development taking place in terms of the understanding of the nature of things and of the phenomenal world. This understanding is born of the use of our senses and the logical activity of the brain as such. According to the extent, the degree, to which we have discovered the nature of things in these terms, the brain will produce concepts and then words (concepts of course are clothed in words) which are dependent upon this discovery, in other words, the science and mathematics and so on of past ages determine the form in which the Ultimate Truth finds expression. You know how the conception of God has undergone extraordinary changes from far distant areas. First we had this idea of spirits everywhere, the spirit of a tree, the spirit of a river and so on, and the spirit was conceived anthropomorphically. Then, during the sixth and fifth centuries BC, atomic theories came into existence, in Greece with Democritus and Leucippus, in India with Kanada and others who founded the Nyaya philosophy and the Vaiseṣika philosophy. They talked in terms of atoms, and they defined the atom as invisible, because it was infinitely small, indivisible, it could not be divided any more, and indestructible.

The God conceptions which were presented from that time onwards bore the stamp of this belief. God similarly was invisible, indivisible and indestructible. So you will find that the expression of deep realizations is dependent upon the extent to which we are well acquainted with the knowledge of the nature of things. Concepts and words depend upon that. Since the knowledge of the nature of things undergoes change (and even at the same time in history different parts of the world have different ideas of the nature of things), people express their inner and profound realizations according to the concepts and words which are prevalent, in accordance with what we commonly call the climate of thought. So you see we are restricted by all that. The Truth of course is The Truth, whatever it is. But expressions of the Truth differ, so that it is not the Truth of the past which is different from the Truth of the here-now. The Truth of the here-now is the same Truth. Truth belongs in this religious context to Eternity and it is not subject to time and its changes. But the expressions of that and the way we communicate that change with our knowledge of the nature of things. I hope that gives some lines to utilize.

This is the next question: “You have told us many times that the birth of Christ represented the birth of the sense of Transcendence. Please could you explain a little more what this sense of Transcendence is, with particular reference to the symbolism in the Christmas story, and also the stages on the path that we all tread, again with reference to Jesus’s own journey, which culminate in this birth.”

Again a very, very difficult question to answer satisfactorily. But the first part we can deal with fairly well. “You have told us many times that the birth of Christ represents the birth of the sense of Transcendence.” The birth of Christ refers to the emergence of what in Christian terminology we may call the Christ-consciousness. The word Christ means the Anointed One, and the King was the One. When an individual has flowered out spiritually to a certain degree, he becomes a King spiritually amongst other individuals. He is the Anointed One now. Remember that consciousness in this context is not discriminative consciousness, it is an awakening from within oneself to the actuality of Transcendence as such, Transcendence which is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient, all-knowing, all-knowing, not in the encyclopaedic sense, but in the all-knowing sense that, to whatsoever matter that person directs his attention, his buddhi, his nous, function with unerring accuracy. That is the omniscience. None of the great Teachers of the past are likely to do very successfully in an A-level examination! It is not that kind of omniscience; it is a totally different kind of phenomenon. That person being utterly purified, there are no mental fixations blocking the psyche so that the light of Transcendence cannot come through, or, to put it in other terms, nothing to prevent pure Mind, this archetypal energy, which releases cosmos out of chaos, from flowing into that person’s psycho-physical being, and his brain interpreting it with reasonable accuracy. So this is the emergence of the sense of Transcendence. The sense of Transcendence means, I think that we can put it this way, that you become really positively aware of Transcendence as the fact of existence. There is Transcendence embodied throughout existence. Existence is that aspect of part of Transcendence which is the perishable part, it undergoes change, it is impermanent, and in fact it belongs to the realm of mortality over which Death is lord. But when the sense of Transcendence awakens, there is in oneself that sort of vibration, if you like, or thrill, which realizes that the fact, the unchanging fact, the Eternal Truth, so to say, is Immortality not mortality. We are conscious of mortality simply because we have a discriminative consciousness, and in discriminative consciousness there can come a sharp break when the form changes in such a manner that it is no longer recognisable, re-cognisable, as the original form. And that is why Death troubles us so much. We have lost what we knew.

The awakening of the sense of Transcendence is of the utmost importance as far as the living of the religious life is concerned. When the sense of Transcendence awakens, it becomes easy to live the pure life, because that sense tells you unerringly what is the proper next thing to do. In other words, it enables the moral imperative in oneself to find the right expression in the particular situation, whatever it is. This moral imperative in us is inherent in us and in every single thing throughout the universe. It is the expression in various different forms of that principle of ṛtaas the Ṛg-veda put it, the Divine Law, as asha, as Zarathushtrian teaching put it, which animates and moves everything towards its fruition. We human beings, having the power of choice, can go against it. When we pluck the fruit of the Tree of Life, because we are unprepared for it, psycho-physically, this pure consciousness is spoilt, and the Tree of Life is scarred, and the scarring of the Tree of Life is the Tree of Good and Evil, because the consciousness which is released in us is not absolute consciousness, but it is discriminative consciousness. The moment you get discriminative consciousness you will exercise preferential choice, and that preferential choice always falls into the trap of “I like this, I want it, I don’t like this, I will not have it.” Who am I to say to the universe, “I will have you, I will not have you”? I have no power really to fulfil that. I do not know that I am powerless and so I strive against the reality, against Truth, against the world as such, against my neighbour, and so forth. So when this sense of Transcendence awakes, this principle of ṛtathe essential rightness of things, “God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world” (wasn’t it Browning who said that?), then one does awaken to the truth of that, that God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world. But that rightness and that heaven is misdefined and misconceived by us. That is why we poor mortals pay such a dreadful price.

“Explain this sense of Transcendence with particular reference to the symbolism in the Christmas story.” The Christmas story is the symbolical representation of what happens to you yourself. Do remember that the scriptures of the world essentially teach you psychology, which means that they teach you what you actually are in the imperfect state and also what you can be in the perfect state. Recall that statement about the Buddha, that after the Enlightenment he stared at the roots of the tree under which he sat for seven days and nights. Now, even if he had botanical interests, do you think that he would just stand there staring at the roots of a tree, no experiments, no laboratory, no investigations? What did he stare at? Here is the root of the tree. The Asvattha tree which has, as put in the Gita, roots above and branches below, when completely purified (that is to say, the psyche is utterly pure), means that pure Mind now begins to function. And pure Mind is something which nobody knows about. How does it function? What is it like? This is what he looked into, and he did not look into it with a logical brain. He looked into it by being it, and by being it he became fully aware of it, and in that fullness of awareness he gave out his teaching and realized the meaning and significance of Deathlessness. If you were to make yourself well acquainted with the Buddhist teaching, the Resurrection and Ascension will find their proper meaning. So you see, scripture teaches you the psychology of the sick psyche as well as the psychology of the utterly purified psyche, the pure mind, the Divine Mind, if you like. Do remember that the Buddha himself used the phrase viññaṇaṃ¸ (discriminative consciousness) anidassanaṃ¸ (without characteristics) anantaṃ¸ (endless, which implies therefore also beginningless) sabbatopabhaṃ¸ (everywhere shining or everywhere accessible). You see the implications of that. Everywhere shining, everywhere accessible, meaning that the entire universe is full of this Truth, this Reality, and wheresoever one turns one can be in touch with Truth, with Reality. This is the deep, supreme meaning of Yoga and its fulfilment. The dhyaṇa , dharaṇa and samadhi, and particularly the samadhi, imply all that.

“…And also the stages of the path that we all tread.” As far as the Christian presentation is concerned, one need only look into the Sermon on the Mount. Take the statements in the Sermon on the Mount and sort of grow into the complete understanding, the complete comprehension of those statements. That will show you the stages on the path. “…Again with reference to Jesus’s own journey.” I do not quite know what you are referring to with the phrase “Jesus’s own journey, which culminate in this birth.”

There are two more questions. “I used to take pride in believing myself to be free of envy because of my lack of ambition. Now I know this to have been a camouflage for an envy of a very subtle kind. This envy expresses itself in my reactions causing great discomfort. I have observed this for quite some time, yet it still clings as a leech. Is it possible to let go of this and be free of it completely? Is it possible for the mind to free itself of all the accumulated burdens?” Yes, it is possible, because if it were not possible, the individual can never realize the wholly fulfilled human state. The key to it is attentiveness. Attend, attend, attend. When there is proper attention, full observation, complete observation, then the diagnosis is correct of what is the illness within the psyche, and the right knowledge of the diagnosis, as such, is also the medicine which heals it. With the body you have to go to another person who is a doctor and he does something for you. With the psyche you are your own doctor, no-one else really can be your doctor, and the healing agent is this attentiveness, complete, total observation, and that heals. We all have this sort of problem with various qualities, every one of us has this problem, and all these problems can be classed into three different categories, greed, hate and delusion. Understand the categories as such, understand the particular expression there. When you have fully understood, you will find that it has fallen off you.

“Do you agree that purity and innocence make a person extremely vulnerable, especially in youth, usually resulting in many painful experiences and damage to the psyche?” Yes, indeed. One is extremely vulnerable, especially when one is young, if one is innocent and quite pure, because when the world throws the opposite at you, it cannot but hurt, it cannot but upset and cause serious discomfort psychologically, illness psychologically, and so forth, and many painful experiences are bound to come out of it.

“Can you explain why this is so, particularly when it usually happens at a stage of life when Transcendence could not be explained or understood.” Transcendence in any case can never be explained. Transcendence can be realized in the deepest meditative states, but you cannot explain Transcendence, because then you make it an other something which you are explaining. This is one of the sad misfortunes to which all human beings are subject. We start innocent, we start simple, pure, and, as we grow up from babyhood onwards, we experience all these things. We are very vulnerable.

Here the talk breaks off

By Edmund Burke

No man can make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he himself could only do a little.

From the Editor

The sermon this morning: “Jesus walks on the water.”

The sermon tonight: “Searching for Jesus.”

From a Church announcement