Universalism – Soul Needs

New Group ‘Wisdom Questions’, St Augustine and Perennial Philosopy

‘Wisdom Questions‘

“Wisdom is the faculty of making the use of knowledge, a combination of discernment, judgement, sagacity and similar powers. If knowledge is the accumulation of facts and intelligence the development of reason, wisdom is emotional and spiritual discernment. More than knowledge, it is the right application of knowledge in moral and spiritual matters, in handling dilemmas, in negotiating complex relationships. Wisdom is nine-tenths a matter of being wise in time. Most of us are often too wise after the event! It is insight into the heart of the matter.” Wise people see beyond the facts and figures. They avoid problems before they occur. Wisdom is gained through experience, patience and listening. Definition by Evan Owens CEO of CentreSource – HERE

Some questions to ‘kick-off’

Does anyone want to make out a case for the wisdom of woman being different to, or the same as, the wisdom of men?

Is science the only method for connecting to reality?

Do the great wisdom traditions really teach the same about what it is to be wholly & fully human – in the world with others – in relation to the mysterious Whole?

Are the arts a means to reality – or just self indulgence?

If we base the education of our children on whole-person leaning might they contribute toward a better world?

Do we agree with Evan Owens in his definition (see above) ?

Are (some) children wiser than many experienced adults – if yes why & how is this?

Some friends and I are starting a new group – both locally in Brighton and online. Online details below.

The suggested group title is a play on a) the wisdom we have (should) question – ourselves, our world and reality – AND we can have fun, enjoyment and learning in framing questions to ask of ‘our accumulated, or realized, wisdom’!

THE WIDER CONTEXT OF PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY

Here is an ancient poetic summation of the state of being human, and implicitly of The Perennial Philosophy – from the Bhagavad Gita;

“Like two birds of golden plumage, inseparable companions, the

individual self and the immortal Self are perched on the branches of the

self same tree. The former tastes of the sweet and bitter fruits of the

tree; the latter, tasting of neither, calmly observes.

“The individual self, deluded by forgetfulness of his identity with the

divine Self, bewildered by his ego, grieves and is sad. But when he

recognizes the worshipful Lord as his own true Self, and beholds his

glory, he grieves no more.”

This so beautifully describes …. well what do you think?

Stunningly just yesterday I discovered that St Augustine wrote……….

“The fact, which is now called the Christian Religion,” he boldly says, with the earlier Apologists, “existed among the ancients, and was never lacking from the origin of the human race.” –

C C Martindale SJ – SOURCE

Those who want to dig deeper can compare the above two quotations with the contemporary re-presentation of Perennial Philosophy in Aldous Huxley’s The Perennial Philosophy or Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now or Stillness Speaks – or Ken Wilber or Karen Armstrong, or Wayne Teasdale, or Thich Nhat Hanh, or Thomas Merton or Shaikh Helminski etc. – each I suugest speaks in different language and cultural clothing but teach the same message?

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This is St Augustine not me! – Lol

Picture source and helpful list of facts on Augustine & Aquinas by Jeffrey Hays – HERE

The ‘Wisdom Questions group ON-LINE

My contributions to this group’s interests will go to my general blog – https://sunwalked.wordpress.com/ – along with my other core projects

1 whole-person learning,

2 photographic art,

3 social justice,

4 inter-spirituality

5 transforming IPF, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis into something life-enhancing

i.e. https://sunwalked.wordpress.com/ is a metablog of all my blogs

however the dedicated site for Wisdom Questions and inter-spirituality is – http://universalistspirit.wordpress.com/ – you can comment on or add ‘gems’ to either or both!

All good wishes

Roger

Kabir Helminski on Individuality Spiritual Transformation

A beautiful talk on Spiritual Transformation by Kabir Helminski;

Kabir’s sweet, gentle, loving and wise teaching is my Islamic gateway into the ‘One Garden’, the Islam-inspired path to the One Summit – interfaith inter-spirituality at its best!

Some biographical background is HERE

TAGS: interfaith, interspirituality, Kabir Helminski, inter-spirituality, Universalism, oneness, Islam, Sufi, One Garden, Onesummit, InSpirit

An introduction to Perennial Philosophy

An Introduction to PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY

(closely allied to Perennial Wisdom, Neo-Platonism, Universalism)

Dr Roger Prentice

“He who knows (only) one religion knows none”– Max Mueller

“God is a circle whose centre is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere.” Empedocles

“Concepts are delicious snacks with which we try to alleviate our amazement.” (A J Heschel)

Experience amazement right now! – via a 1 minute meditation HERE

We can think of Perennial Philosophy as the (mystic) heart of all of the great world traditions.

The Perennial Philosophy isn’t ‘philosophy’ in the academic sense so much as wisdom. It concerns what it is to be spiritually human plus a map of reality – and how we best relate to that reality to develop our innate wisdom. It is also about some of the practices to develop that wisdom. The central concerns of practice seen in the various great faiths are the ones to reduce the activities of the ‘me-me-me’ lower self and its delusions. These cause, as the Buddhists teach us, our torment and personal suffering, and the cruelty inflicted on others. First we need to awaken, then become progressively detached from our lower selves and thirdly we need to find happiness in serving others.

Through Perennial Philosophy you can come to understand the true oneness behind apparent differences.

Aldous Huxley’s definition of Perennial Philosophy (in Latin Philosophia Perennis);

The metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality; the ethic that places man’s final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being.

‘AWAKEN, DETACH, SERVE’:

A version of perennial philosophy

the practice and knowledge at the (Mystical) heart of all of the great wisdom traditions

AWAKEN “We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.” Thich Nhat Hanh SL p504

A) • There’s a reality beyond the material world:

• Which is uncreated.

• It pervades everything,

• but remains (as a whole) beyond the reach of human knowledge and understanding.

DETACH

“A man is a slave to anything he cannot part with that is less than himself.” – George MacDonald

B) • You approach that reality by:

• Distinguishing ego from true self

• Understanding the nature of desire

• Becoming unattached

• Forgetting about preferences

• Not working for personal gain

• Letting go of thoughts

• Redirecting your attention

• Being devoted

• Being humble

• Invoking that reality

• Surrendering

RP + all other names, attributes, & qualities of God!

C) • That reality approaches you through:

• Grace i.e for many folk the Holy Spirit

• The teacher/ss (s/he seems to appear whenever you need to move on up through the next stage)

D) • You’re transformed – enlightened – so that you embody or reflect that reality by:

• ‘Dying’ and ‘being reborn’ (i.e transformed and living more by the true higher self than the lower self!)

I’ve added service;

SERVE

“The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.” – Albert Schweitzer

E) . You then find (even better) ways to serve – realizing that all work done in the spirit of service can be ranked as worship.

A poet’s summary of the mystic experience;

“The birds have vanished from the sky,

and now the last clouds slip away.

We sit alone, the mountain and I,

until only the mountain remains.”

(8th Century) Chinese poet Li Po

For an alternative model of Perennial Philosophy by Ken Wilber see HERE

My three word summary version then is Awaken: Detach: Serve.

Q. Do the 3 words sum it up correctly for you?

PRACTICE – is there such a thing as interfaith practice?
Here is one starting point;

Suggested key practice to re-balance our tendency to ‘live in our heads and bring us back to now, and to wholeness, mindfully:

We look to achieve the happiness of at-one-ment & reduce the pull of the lower self. How? By staying ‘awake’ more. How? Through mindfulness. How? a) Creating short periods of stillness and silence b) staying conscious of the breath, c) as thoughts and feelings arise acknowledge them but don’t fight or chase them – say “Hello – thank-you – goodbye.” If things stop or get interrupted just go back to stillness and the conscious breathing.

“Breathing in I know that I’m breathing in.” “Breathing out

I know that I’m breathing out.”

“Smile: Breathe: Go slowly.”

– Zen master – Thich Nhat Hanh

Interfaith 1 minute meditation – HERE

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ROGER’s NOTES ON UNIVERSALISM, ‘SPIRITUAL FEDERALISM’ AND ON DIALOGUEs

Concerning Universalism I make the following distinction;

To subscribe to Perennial Philosophy you almost certainly will hold a ‘pan-religious’ and inter-faith position, in addition to a including some theological ideas such as pan-en-theism – which holds both immanence and transcendence to be true at one and the same time. My favourite quotation that celebrates this idea is;

“God is a circle whose centre is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere.” Empedocles

On the other hand a universalist in my view however can have an open and respectful mind and an open and generous heart whilst staying with connected to her/his cultural roots. Such a person might also be called a Spiritual Federalist (someone who is comfortable in a mainstream religion but who has the desire to reach out to others paths that take them to the same summit).

Huston Smith is one such example. More striking is the specificity of Abraham Joshua Heschel’s traditional Hasidic faith as compared to the Universalism of his heart and astoundingly deep insights into core mystical and eternal reality, and especially into the nature of being human in the world – with others.

Either way the world has no more desperate need than an increase in the ability of people to see the oneness in, and beyond, specific belief systems – whether they do it from a truly Perennial Philosophy position or as a Universalist or Spiritual Federalism.

DIALOGUES:
Who are some of the great Christian, and other ‘Universal/ist souls’ who help our understanding or Perennial Philosophy – often through dialogue with some friend from another religion?: –

Brother Wayne Teasdale, Thomas Merton, Brother David Stendahl-Rast, William Johnston, Huston Smith, Thich Nhat Hanh, Abdu’l-Baha, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Shaikh Kabir Helminski, Ken Wilber, Deng Ming-Dao, John Daido Loori Roshi, Ken Wilber, Albert Einstein, Karen Armstrong, Eckhart Tolle, Professor John P ‘Jack’ Miller. Women are massively under-represented in this list. One hope for correction lies in a site I have just discovered – http://www.zenwomen.com/

For my ‘course on a page’ see HERE but make sure you start with the conversation between Brother Wayne Teasdale and Ken Wilber which is HERE

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InSpirit are interfaith inter-spiritual study groups – in addition to the online site for our virtual community. Both promote practice derived from a range of sources, starting with mindfulness via staying consciously i the now via breath awareness – but practice is ultimately a matter for each individual. Above all this project – which I call ‘the InSpirit One Garden project’ aims to help in interfaith understanding.

RESOURCES

A tremendous piece of work on Perennial Philosophy – HERE –
check also all the other work under

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Index

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Articles and Essays

Insight (52 Meditations)

In-sight is the interior version of physical sight.

It is a seeing into the reality of things – self, relationships, scientific problems – into reality as a Whole, or some part of reality.

In-sights expand our space. They expand the parameters. They expand our sensibility.

But they also re-order priorities and tweak life-perspectives.

According to the teachings of Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh

THIS WEEK’S MANTRA or ‘BREATHTRA’

In-breath:I ask my spirit

Out-breath: light breaks forth

Words from a spiritual master;

“…while you meditate you are speaking with your own spirit.

In that state of mind you put certain questions to your spirit

and the spirit answers: the light breaks forth and the reality is revealed.

SOURCE

Words from another spiritual master;

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A lightning flash:

between the forest trees

I have seen water.

Shiki Masaoka

(1867-1902)

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TAGS: Zen, insight, meditation, interspirituality, intermysticism, interbeing, Thich Nhat Hanh, Abdu’l-Baha, spiritual masters, reality, spirituality, spiritual development, spiritual federalism, interfaith, universalism,

‘The One Garden – many gateways’ project – in service of ‘Spiritual Federalism’

THE ‘ONE GARDEN – MANY GATES’ project

The contemporary Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh in his book Happiness (pp20-21) writes about an experience when he first came to feel a connection with ancient Europe through the sounding of church bells. His description resonated with me because I also have been yearning for ways into ‘feeling at-one’ with major wisdom traditions. Why? Well in order to experience the oneness that I believe is at the centre of them all.

In honouring the sweet simplicity of everything that Thich Nhat Hanh does and teaches, and imagining a large walled garden, I have decided to call it the ‘One Garden’ project – ‘One Garden; many gateways’.

Thich Nhat Hanh is my Buddhist gateway to our One Garden. The other gateways to the One Garden include Abdu’l-Baha, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Shaikh Kabir Helminski, – see HERE for a fuller list.

The project, and learning and teaching about it, is about encouraging realization of oneness – what the Baha’is call the ‘changeless faith of God’. That oneness is to do with our being human – we are one because all people of goodwill recognize, through compassion, that all humans suffer, laugh, love and struggle to feed their families. That oneness is also to do with the inner oneness of all of the great wisdom traditions – even though men have done terrible things in the name of those traditions – everything from current wars, to the persecution of Baha’i and other minorities in Iran, to making hundreds of millions of people in India into sub-human ‘untouchables’.

But misuse of the wisdom traditions is no reason to ignore the gems of wisdom they contain. In one sense this is a humanist (small ‘h’) and humanistic project because it is looking for ways to best answer the ultimate question, ‘What is it to be positively and fully human?’. This includes however looking beyond those horrors men have done in the name of religions to the jewel-like true teachings.

PROCESS: we have evolved a study process that includes head, heart and action, left-brain and right-brain, mythos and logos etc

Contemplative Study Process: head, heart and action! (includes silence, contemplative reading & dialogue as preparation for better action)

1 Short period of silence (just discovered 1 min = approx 20 breaths!)

2 TEXT – experienced via ‘whole-person reading’ (based on lectio divinia & ‘looking & listening for the inner light’)

a) Read text slowly

b) Quietly absorb and ponder

c) Listen to what it is saying to you by the text – express aloud if you wish but no dialogue

d) Listen for your response, formulate it & express it – express aloud if you wish – but no dialogue until after Step 3

3 Short silence – each can use, if they want, a choice of SHORT phrases from chosen text for repetition as a mantra –

4 Dialogue – as per Prof Matthew Lipman’s philosophical inquiry system

5 Final Short silence – only in silence are we truly at-one!

One thing is missing from this study process and that is creativity. Go create! – in whatever medium takes your fancy. Thich Nhat Hanh recommends the writing of poetry as a practice in spiritual development, and as with everything, so far as I can see, he ‘walks the talk’’ But most other art forms can add that vital dimension to personal and group learning.

PERSONAL PRACTICE: This is down to each participant. We can’t do all the practices of all of the wisdom traditions – there wouldn’t be time to eat or sleep! In any case this One Garden project isn’t yet another religion, but it does show that we can be a Spiritual Federalist i.e. be happy with our given or chosen tradition and also be at-one with the inner golden core of all of the great wisdom traditions (just as in a federal system like Germany has a person belongs to a region and to the nation as a whole. However you can’t go far wrong if you start with Breathe; Smile and Go slowly – these simple three everyone can do. They all bring us back to now and help us stay mindful and balanced.

ACTION: It’s down to each participant.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE GOLDEN CORE OF TRUE RELIGIONS – PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY

Perennial Philosophy is the structure of the spiritual journey we all take and a model of the universe in which we undertake that journey – seeHERE

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FURTHER DEFINITION OF PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY or PHILOSOPHIA PERENNIS

Perennial philosophy (Latin: philosophia perennis “eternal philosophy”, also Philosophia perennis et universalis) is the notion of the universal recurrence of ….. insight independent of epoch or culture, including universal truths on the nature of reality, humanity or consciousness (anthropological universals).

UNIVERSALISM

Concerning Universalism I make the following distinction.

To subscribe to Perennial Philosophy you almost certainly will hold a ‘pan-religious’ and inter-faith position including some theological ideas such as pan-en-theism – which seems to hold the view that God is both immanent and transcendent – at one and the same time – which I take to be the case. My favourite quotation that celebrates this idea is;

“God is a circle whose centre is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere.” Empedocles/Anonymous, ‘The Book of the Twenty-four Philosophers‘ (12thC)

On the other hand a universalist in my view however can have an open and respectful mind and an open and generous heart whilst staying with her/his cultural roots. Such a person I call a ‘Spiritual Federalist’.

Barack Obama (I hope) is one such example. More striking is the specificity of Abraham Joshua Heschel’s traditional Hasidic faith as compared to the Universalism of his heart and astoundingly deep insights into core mystical and eternal reality, and especially the nature of being human in the world – with others.

In an earlier post I introduced the idea of Spiritual Federalism HERE and ‘One Garden – many gateways’ is my personal project in favour of Spiritual Federalism.

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NB The ‘one garden; many gateways’ metaphor is of course an alternative metaphor to ‘many paths: one summit’!

Perennial Philosophy and Universalism – a distinction.

Source world-religions-11

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Definitions

PHILOSOPHIA PERENNIS The metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality; the ethic that places man’s final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being. – Aldous Huxley

Concerning Universalism I make the following distinction.

To subscribe to Perennial Philosophy you almost certainly will hold a ‘pan-religious’ and inter-faith position including some theological ideas such as pan-en-theism – which holds both immanence and transcendence to be true at one and the same time true. My favourite quotation that celebrates this idea is;

“God is a circle whose centre is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere.”

Anonymous, ‘The Book of the Twenty-four Philosophers‘ (12thC)

On the other hand a universalist in my view however can have an open and respectful mind and an open and generous heart whilst staying with her/his cultural roots.

New slant on having, knowing, being and doing

It’s always great when a new idea bursts in your mind – or simply a new slant that puts in focused place long-held but vaguer ideas.

This for me was such an idea;

‘What you do is what you you’ve got’.

It came from here;

With Eckhart Tolle however I would say that having, knowing, being and doing have more than complex interactions, they have the context of silence – from which their truths arise.

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True achievement, success and happiness lie in being fully and positively human –

through our caring our creativity and our criticality –

developed via service to the communities to which we belong.

All postings to this site relate to the central model in the

PhD. Summaries are HERE

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On this site there are 1000+ ideas that you can put to work straight away.

“Why not use the SEARCH, CATGORIES or INDEX to find the ideas for you?”

What’s the difference between spirituality and religion?

How do you answer the question above?

Below is how far I have got with this issue.

Spirituality is how we relate to the unknown and unknowable – to Ultimate reality – and the meaning and motivation we derive therefrom.

Our worldview, as a consequence, is how we ‘read’ the world. Our worldview includes that of which are conscious, plus that which derives from enculturation. Becoming more fully conscious of Oneness, and acting accordingly, is our purpose.

Religion is the agreed set of relationships, teachings and customs held in common with any religious group of which one has membership.

Progress in spirituality is measured by regularly bringing oneself to account – in relation to the standards of your spirituality, world-view and religious group/s (if any).

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Etymological issues:

The English word “religion” is derived from the Middle English “religioun” which came from the Old French “religion.” It may have been originally derived from the Latin word “religo” which means “good faith,” “ritual,” and other similar meanings. Or it may have come from the Latin “religãre” which means “to tie fast.”

Doing your own research:

A very good starting point is provided by the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. See HERE

The definitions I like best from this source are;

George Hegel: “the knowledge possessed by the finite mind of its nature as absolute mind.”

Paul Tillich: “Religious is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern”

Others are;

The Religious Tolerance group tell us that David Carpenter has collected and published a list of definitions of religion, including:

Anthony Wallace: “a set of rituals, rationalized by myth, which mobilizes supernatural powers for the purpose of achieving or preventing transformations of state in man or nature.”

Hall, Pilgrim, and Cavanagh: “Religion is the varied, symbolic expression of, and appropriate response to that which people deliberately affirm as being of unrestricted value for them.”

Karl Marx: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”

Don Swenson defines religion in terms of the sacred: “Religion is the individual and social experience of the sacred that is manifested in mythologies, ritual, ethos, and integrated into a collective or organization.”

Paul Connelly also defines religion in terms of the sacred and the spiritual: “Religion originates in an attempt to represent and order beliefs, feelings, imaginings and actions that arise in response to direct experience of the sacred and the spiritual. As this attempt expands in its formulation and elaboration, it becomes a process that creates meaning for itself on a sustaining basis, in terms of both its originating experiences and its own continuing responses.”

He defines sacred as: “The sacred is a mysterious manifestation of power and presence that is experienced as both primordial & transformative, inspiring awe & rapt attention. This is usually an event that represents a break or discontinuity from the ordinary, forcing a re-establishment or recalibration of perspective on the part of the experiencer, but it may also be something seemingly ordinary, repeated exposure to which gradually produces a perception of mysteriously cumulative significance out of proportion to the significance originally invested in it.”

He further defines the spiritual as: “The spiritual is a perception of the commonality of mindfulness in the world that shifts the boundaries between self and other, producing a sense of the union of purposes of self and other in confronting the existential questions of life, and providing a mediation of the challenge-response interaction between self and other, one and many, that underlies existential questions.”

My final question – “Why are there so many religious intolerance groups?”

To read the full article by the Religious Tolerance group go HERE

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True achievement, success and happiness lie in being fully and positively human –

through our caring our creativity and our criticality –

developed via service to the communities to which we belong.

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All postings to this site relate to the central model in the

PhD. Summaries are HERE

An open letter to all who recognize Oneness

goldenrule-poster

An open letter to all who recognize Oneness

Dear Fellow Travellers

1) Like your lives my life, (in a modest way), has (for the last 45 years), been dedicated to;

‘the advancement of education in the consideration of the basic unity of all religions, in particular by the provision of courses to provide an understanding of the relationship of man to the universe, the earth, the environment and the society he lives in, to Reality and to God.’

and right now the global and local opportunities, and dangers, strike me as unparalleled.

2) The great challenge seems to me to concern ‘the how’ of getting wider acceptance of Oneness and oneness as in Perennial Philosophy and the The Golden Rule – raised consciousness that will positively affect decision-making in all of the vital arenas of human concern.

3) A great shift in consciousness is taking place.

The great shift in consciousness is evidenced by two events.

Firstly in just the last few years what was esoteric is now open and freely available to to all.

Secondly millions are responding – in some way shape or form.

I have in mind especially the work of Ken Wilber, Karen Armstrong and most recently Eckhart Tolle.

Tolle’s writing is highly accessible – in the UK most Sun and Daily Mirror readers could handle it.

Of course functional literacy and level of consciousness and not directly correlated! But eleven million had by Week 3 tuned in to Tolle’s course run by Oprah Winfrey – see HERE

….. Oprah went further with Eckhart Tolle than she has ever gone with a previous author picked for her book club. She chose to present, with Tolle, a 10-week series of “webinars” – online seminars – with one chapter of the book (which she puts on the bedside table of all of her guest rooms) discussed each week. In the first webinar, transmitted on 3 March, Tolle led Winfrey and the millions of viewers who logged on in several different countries in silent meditation; viewers were then encouraged to submit questions to Tolle via Skype. By the third week, 11 million people were logging on.

This surely has no parallel in the whole of humankind’s spiritual history. The course is HERE

Not only are ‘the books open’ but there is more than Maslow’s 2% willing a new earth.

The question is how can their energy be harnessed and focused for the common good – or do we have to wait until the first nuclear war, simply because those who ‘know’ can’t find ways and means to influence those who actually ‘do the doing’ and make our world as it is.

4) We need to be thinking ‘outside of the box’. The old ways may not be sufficient. Keeping the candles of light and hope and truth is something that the precious few have done down through the ages, but now the challenge is to shift up to a larger stage.

For example inter-faith dialogue may well be effete (and for some cunning PR) compared to the people who really operate at the ‘hot interfaces’ – e. g. diplomats and business-people.

5) Absorbing and responding to this fact seems to me to be the challenge that might bring forth balm for suffering being borne by untold millions.

A sufficient proportion of America has said ‘Yes we can’ but even more critical than the decisions Obama will be making over the next 4 or 8 years is how can the light of Oneness be brought into the darkened hearts of religious haters and racists. That Oneness is the Tipping Point. The

‘tipping-point’ is realization of that Oneness – and it needs more than abstract assent.

6) My personal experience has led me to realize that individuals need something real and living and breathing through which to connect with ‘foreign’ wisdom traditions.

I believed in the oneness of religions long before I came across

a) Jane Clark’s article on Ibn al-Arabi – which created for me a living connection to Islam – and

b) the Bhagavad Gita Chanted in English HERE using a text of the Bhagavad Gita in English HERE

NB Try listening to the chanting whilst reading the text – wonderful! – transporting!

These gave me a living connection to Hinduism.

7) Starting points:

Perhaps looking very closely and deeply at ‘reverse fundamentalism’ is the way to generate programmes of positive action.

Karen Armstrong as you probably know is being given the opportunity to raise up the principle of the Golden Rule via her ‘Charter for Compassion’ campaign see HERE

Perhaps making celebratory programmes free to all on the internet…..

Perhaps Golden Rule materials free online for Heads and school…….

Perennial philosophy and the ‘federal’ Golden Rule – the ‘world language’ to be taught, in addition to their own religions, so that all can communicate with those of other faiths ……

What do you think?

We who have striven to keep the candles alight have to contribute to ways and means of reaching a sufficiently wider audience to get established some of the foundations for a new earth.

All blessings on the further development of your work.

Roger

Ten ways to bridge and transcend racial and religious hatred

coexist-perennial-philsoophy-inter-faith1

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The campaign Charter for Compassion are asking for contributions for the final charter. Here is my first draft contribution;

Compassion and Peace: ten ways to bridge and transcend racial and religious hatred

1 See the Golden Rule as the equivalent to a language in addition to your own – “My ‘mother tongue’ is Islam/Christianity/Buddhism etc but I also speak ‘the Golden Rule’ – so that I can be a sister/brother to peoples of all religions and none.

2 Implore people like Barack Obama to spend money on deepening cultural understanding – say 10% of the military budget switched to Arabic/Islamic, Chinese and Russian studies. Generate an ‘open data-base’ of experience learned.

3 Encourage all countries to massively increase exchange programmes. Send everyone with a ‘We’ve got these problems how are my host country dealing with them’ pack – and require a thorrough de-briefing upon return to home country – we must see that the most important problems are held in common, and that we must pool answers.

4 Use the knowledge as a data-base for university and school respect for other cultures courses – instead of allowing our societies to continue falsely claiming that the mad fundamentalist minority = the reality of the whole communuity.

5 Get celebrity goodwill ambassadors for the GR – include business people , they have more interchange with ‘foreigners’ than any other group. Get pop groups talking and singing about it.

Get Barack Obama talking about it – and Nels Mandela, and Archbishop Tutu etc.

6 Start teaching the Golden Rule – one school at a time – everywhere.

7 Generate badges, widgets and bling for websites, windows, clothing that conveys messages such as – ‘I speak oneness and diversity’. ‘We support the GR’, etc (Get some adverstising agencies working on it).

8 Support studies of fundamentalism – focus on ways and means antidotes and prophylactics. The best writers on fundamentalism may not be in obvious academic fields – the best I have found is

9 Look for ‘out of the box’ solutions such as brilliant comedians such as Omid Djalili and Shazia Mirza.

If you don’t like strong comedy don’t go – but I suspect that Omid, and the others have ‘lanced more religious boils’ for the general population than all of the politicians and academics put put together!

10 Support ways and means for deeper applications of the Golden Rule – we need courses from nursery to university epecially based on the brilliant writings and work of a) Eckhart Tolle, b) Ken Wilber and c) Karen Armstrong.

Eckhart Tolle article HERE

Set your goals to motivate your success – through ‘singing’ your ‘uni-verse’

In my work as a life-coach I lead people to develop and focus their life-force so that they can get from where they are at, to where they want to be.

Getting in tune with your self and your life’s purpose is central to such achievement and success.

Getting in tune with you self and your life’s purpose is a matter of harmonization – of vision, goals, plans and action and of head, heart and circumstances.

To ‘sing one’s song’ is a metaphor for finding and staying tuned with your life’s purpose.

Harmonization is also a matter of getting in touch with our inner wisdom. Chinese wisdom places great emphasis on harmony. Inner and outer harmony are both important.

Outer harmony depends on inner harmony.
Inner harmony depends on being, doing and having in relation to our life purpose – i.e. getting alignment.

We need to get alignment between head and heart, and between the activities of our inner and outer lives. Then we get ‘flow’ – when we are able to function in energized harmony – like an athlete ‘in the zone’.

Episodes of silence are vital.

If we are in a situation we don’t see as getting us toward our dream then ‘see it differently’ – that is see it as a stepping stone, as opposed to a mill-stone!

Decide on your life’s purpose – don’t worry it will evolve via experience – and further reflection.

Locating, tuning and singing your ‘song’ also requires a sufficiency of silence and experiences of living in the now – see my Eckhart Tolle articles and better still read and listen to Eckhart Tolle.

Just DECIDE and START! (‘Ready. Fire. Aim!)

Set your goals – and work your goals day by day. How? – here’s one way great way.

For every day draw 4 circles.

1st circle = My Lifelong Dream,

2nd circle = My Year,

3rd circle = My month,

4th circle = My day.

Keep the 4 circles of your personal universe in harmony via working to your daily goal-setting.

The ‘universe’ as Wayne Dyer reminds us means ‘one song’.

Live your life singing your single, harmonised, song and you will succeed.

Harmony here is what enables us to be focused, and motivated.

Plan and work every day to achieve toward your monthly goals – etc.

Periodically adjust them all according to each other, so you have the motivation of always operating in a single, harmonized universe.

Keep the dream sharply visualized.

Don’t be afraid of adjustments – think of life as a ship’s journey – course corrections are inevitable and necessary.

Occasionally remind yourself of these two quotations;

1 “If you don’t think about the future, you won’t have one.” Henry Ford

2 “The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

Rainer Maria Rilke’s statement takes us even deeper by telling us that we create our future by what we are.

Balance doing, knowing and having with being. The current master of ‘being’ is – Eckhart Tolle.

If you don’t plan your journey don’t be surprised if you end up somewhere you don’t want to be!

Have fun singing your song – literally as well as metaphorically.

Keep the dream – even if a ‘credit crunch’ means you have to do stuff that is a temporary delay.

Sometimes just surviving is the biggest step you can make that particular day – but that day in the future will be seen as being just as important – because you didn’t give up!

Survival is sometimes progress.

Sometimes survival is the best singing of your song possible on that particular day. It’s still worth celebrating – you can’t sing at your own wake!

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I once used What’ll we do with a drunken sailor as a class song but be careful, a full rendition of all verses would remove all desire to go on living! Others might be shocked as to how brutal was the British Navy of that time.

What’ll we do with a drunken sailor,
What’ll we do with a drunken sailor,
What’ll we do with a drunken sailor,
Earl-aye in the morning?

Chorus:
Way hay and up she rises
Patent blocks o’ diff’rent sizes,
Way hay and up she rises
Earl-aye in the morning

1. Sling him in the long boat till he’s sober,
2. Keep him there and make ‘im bale ‘er.
3. Pull out the plug and wet him all over,
4. Take ‘im and shake ‘im, try an’ wake ‘im.
5. Trice him up in a runnin’ bowline.
6. Give ‘im a taste of the bosun’s rope-end.
7. Give ‘im a dose of salt and water.
8. Stick on ‘is back a mustard plaster.
9. Shave his belly with a rusty razor.
10. Send him up the crow’s nest till he falls down,
11. Tie him to the taffrail when she’s yardarm under,
12. Put him in the scuppers with a hose-pipe on him.
13. Soak ‘im in oil till he sprouts flippers.
14. Put him in the guard room till he’s sober.
15. Put him in bed with the captain’s daughter*).
16. Take the Baby and call it Bo’sun.
17. Turn him over and drive him windward.
18. Put him in the scuffs until the horse bites on him.
19. Heave him by the leg and with a rung console him.
20. That’s what we’ll do with the drunken sailor. Source

You won’t believe the background to this song see WikiPedia HERE

—–0—–

NB This article was inspired by Steve Chandler’s brilliant ‘100 Ways to Motivate Yourself’, one of my Top 10 Personal Development texts.

Oprah Winfrey’s free online course on Eckhart Tolle’s book A New Earth

Photos: WikiPedia

If you haven’t yet caught up with Oprah Winfrey’s free online course on Eckhart Tolle’s book A New Earth you can find it HERE

Back to the Eckhart Tolle discussion – intellectuality & the mind are as spiritual as prayer & meditation

In the context of discussion with contributor ‘Patrick’ I offer a contribution to the issues I raised concerning the brilliant Eckhart Tolle. I do this via a beautiful poem that describes, with exquisite simplicity, the mystical experience of non-duality, or oneness. The poem is by the renowned Chinese poet Li Po;

The birds have vanished into the sky,

and now the last cloud drains away.

We sit together, the mountains and me,

until only the mountains remain.

Li Po (701-762)

IMHO

1 Clearly for Li Po there was, to start with, on that occasion, duality.

2 I’m assuming that Li Po returned from non-duality, back in to duality – unless he sat there until his bones turned to dust. I assume he returned in order to do the laundry, chop wood, carry water. Of course he would now do them on the bed-rock of enhanced consciousness derived from his mystical/aesthetic experience of non-duality. Both wings of being human would be beating – as he scrubbed and carried and chopped. Enlightenment is now – if we let it.

In this world – the contingent world, the world of duality, the ‘Kingdom of Names’ – the complementarity of duality and non-duality is the key. Duality is not a curse, or a failing. When in dynamic inter-relation with non-dual experience it is heaven and perfection. Without non-dual experience it is hell, including the hell of relativity. The purpose of life is not just transcendence and timelessness – it is also immanence and being in time, moment by moment. Complementarity is the key.

3 The non-duality or mystic state is the same as the state of creativity (or the truly aesthetic experience). We are ‘taken out of ourselves’ as we say in modern parlance. Art and ‘religion’ are not similar, they are the same – as Coomaraswami says. It is the forgetting of self, a loss of ego boundaries, a letting go and letting God etc. But the artist as well as the mystic comes out of the non-dual state back into the dual state. – and s/he becomes someone who lives with what s/he has created. What s/he has produced might even be a bit of a shock – a bit like the dumb panda who jumps when she sees that something is moving on the floor beneath her i.e the cub to which she has just given birth. The artist becomes nurturer/appreciator/critic – more or less. They in duality are the left-brain evaluator (criticality mode) to complement their non-dual right-brain creativity mode. Complementarity is the key. One mode, and only one mode is in the foreground at any one time. Duration is from milliseconds to hours in the case of non-duality.

4 The question is are both states normal, desirable and, if the term is acceptable, God-given, i.e. both part of the life’s teaching-machine from which we are supposed to learn. Or is one state bad, immature, to be got rid of, so that we can be non-dual 24/7?

5 Intellectuality is not the same as intellectualism, just as individuality is not the same as individualism. In both cases the first is normal, healthy, proper, desirable. In both cases the second is excessive, unbalanced, undesirable and pathological. The same difference incidentally exists between sexuality and sexual-obsession. Tolle IMHO makes the mistake of not distinguishing between ego and the egotistic. He also can give the impression that he is trying to invalidate mind per se instead of distinguishing between true mind and the neurotic egotistical mind, trapped as it is by attachment.

Awareness, raised consciousness, is true mind. True mind is ‘xin’ heart-mind, interiority bathed in the light of the intellect and the warmth of true love, without attachment to forms – derived from the complementarity of the modes of duality and non-duality. ‘Without attachment to forms’ doesn’t mean without love of forms. Forms are the means (the only means) by which we can come to understand the essentiality of formlessness.

True love as Tolle says is realization of oneness – complementary to which is the glory of diversity.

God loves our celebrating diversity with Him as much as wanting us to realize oneness.

The one who is awakened is a one as well as a not-one – the Buddha was not non-Buddha – at least as a gateway, a pointer.

Spirituality or transcendence or consciousness is not increased by a diminution of intelligence, or more correctly a diminution of intellectuality. The intellect as enlightened heart-mind is the human spirit. Enlightenment comes from realization of the true Self, as opposed to self, that is the eternal. Unlimited Whole, the Silent One, God the Father, God without Name, the Nameless One etc.

Complementarity is the key. Yin is lovely only in the balanced presence of yang – and vice-versa.

6 ‘Before all else, God created the mind.’ (Koranic tradition) The intellect is the supreme gift of God to man, the pinnacle of the way in which we are made in His image – providing we realize that all rivers flow back to the one Ocean, from which those parts also have their origin. Complementarity is the key.

7 The fear and misunderstanding of the term ego. The ego is simply the part of the self – the dimension or mode – that deals with immediate reality. As such it is neutral – like the heart or lungs or kidney. Whether it is healthy or diseased – now that is a different matter. The ego is as much part of the enlightened one as with the crass self-obsessive.

God celebrates His Creativity in the uniqueness of me, as well as in His Creation of our species.

We believe what we believe – some we choose to believe, some is ingrained.

The happiest of worlds is one where we can believe different things without feeling an obligation to kill each other! Complementarity is the key.

The ultimate sickness is to know who you are through knowing who you hate.

Enough

Namaste!

The fundamentalism of cultic behaviour

Great movie to show the characteristics of cultic behaviour;

Is Eckhart Tolle anti-intellectual?

A thoughtful respondent stimulated me in to raising a few more issues re Eckhart Tolle, so here they are.

Is Eckhart Tolle in his teachings anti-intellectual – or at least might he be playing into the hands of anti-intellectualists?

My perspective is from within a Perennial Philosophy and Universalist world-view, as is Wilber and Tolle.

So, in my understanding:-

You said:

‘Tolle does not speak of ‘non-duality as everything’. But he speaks of duality and our relationship to it often.’

The ‘it’ that relates to the non-duality I am arguing is part of the design – not just a deficiency on our part!

Does he celebrate duality as one of the two wings of being human, in this world with others. Or does he say, or imply, that the non-dual is not just desirable but the only goal – to such an extent that a newcomer might think, “I’m not good, I’m not normal, I’m not a true Tolle-ist (God forbid – but I bet it happens) unless I experience complete non-duality 24/7.”

I guess my question is, “Would God’s Creativity have failed if for all humans there was 24/7 non-duality?”

I want to argue that non-duality is the goal and indispensable to unity, peace, stability, conflict-resolution, an end to suffering etc. BUT being in duality is also normal, beautiful, testing, the source of compassion and empathy etc. It is more than just the darkness to the realization of the beauty of light.

I don’t underestimate the collective pain-body and collective insanity that continues to rule our world.

Duality is THE means of all growth and development – up to the need to realize non-duality. It’s the name of the game in this world. My understanding is that babies don’t immediately realize that they are separate beings from their mothers – although the birthing process and daily experiences get that process going pretty quickly!

My point is that although duality is not the goal – it is the means, and a means without which we would neither realize the essentiality of non-duality nor would we have the means to accomplish the realization of it. We have to feel separate to realize at-one-ness. If this is the case then both non-duality and duality are part of the game – and part of God’s great teaching ‘machine’.

So in my view we come to realize that we need (at least in this world) two wings – not one wing and a useless stump! To change metaphors – the purpose of life is for the drop to lose itself in the Ocean – not all the time but sufficiently deeply and sufficiently often to become the conditioning bedrock for all of our living within duality. The dynamic is where knowledge comes from – and duality is not just a design fault or sin!

I have the same problem with an even greater ‘genius’ Ken Wilber. God speaks via duality as well as non-duality, He speaks via subjectivity as well as objectivity AND He speaks via mind and reason as well as their opposites.

A separate, but vitally connected subject concerns the nature of the pain-body and how it relates to mind and thought. The great Tolle also gives the impression that the mind is virtually the same as the pain-body. I would say the the ‘egoic-mind’ = the pain-body – or more accurately the pain-body is the habituated shadow-self created in us via our egoic responses.

He should be ‘condemning’ the egoic-mind not the mind! The mind free of the egoic pain-body = a ray of the Holy Spirit. I don’t think because I’m sinful, I think because I am made in the image of God! Tolle is at risk of giving the mind and thinking a really bad name, whereas they are, when free from the egoic pain-body, first in Creation – the very purpose of Creation.

I have the same problem with (possibly) an even greater ‘genius’ Abraham Joshua Heschel.

You said:
‘When a person is not in the now, it is natural to ask where they should be, because there is an inner sensing that they are not where they belong.’

The ache you refer to is when we haven’t realized that we already have enlightenment, and that it is simply a matter of ‘letting go and let God’. When we have had experiences of non-duality, and re-cognize them and re-alize them, the wood chopping is in the enlightenment and the enlightenment is in the wood chopping!

You said:
‘When you are not in the now, God continues on. Your presence in the now, or not, has no effect on God.’

Yup! The sun shines whether I choose to face it and reflect it or not.

You said:
‘Duality is not ‘not non-being’. Duality is the natural state of the world of form. Seeking an understanding of ‘non-duality’ is not the only thing to do in life, but understanding ‘non-duality’ gives one a profound foundation for all of living.’

Yup! – Beautifully put.

You said:
‘All knowledge comes from consciousness, and you are consciousness. So when you behold, or categorize, the inter-play between duality and non-duality, you, that is consciousness, has created knowledge.’

Ah but what is ‘you’?

For me your term ‘inter-play’ is the key – it indicates the dynamic between experiences of duality and of singleness: me-not me, me and ‘the greater whole of which I and all other phenomena are emanations’ etc.

The explanation that works for me goes like this. I ask of my Spirit a question. My Spirit answers, and lo the light breaks forth. The ‘I’ of course is the egoic self and the Self, ultimately, is God within. But it is more then the pain to which I am addicted – it is God’s Creativity via difference (diversity) – complementary to His/Her/It’s creativity via sameness.

Ultimately I suppose I’m arguing that to deny God’s Creativity in His creation of difference is to deny some aspect of Him/Her/It that cannot be denied. I, and you and him and her and them, are important outside of complete self-abnegation in non-duality! Hooray – vivre la difference – I want dia-logos from you as well as silence, I gratefully acknowledge the dia-logos within me as well as the speechless silence of complete self-abnegation!

The ‘me’ is vital – along with experiences of non-duality – for God to perpetually continue His Creation-emanation. The film projected needs a screen. Every lily of the field is different or unique as well as belonging to the same species.

If you accept the temporary naming of the un-nameable both are part of God’s teaching machine. Difference as well as sameness reveals. The uniqueness as well as the sameness of each of us ‘reveals’ – to us and to others. It is ‘me and non-duality’ that gives rise to development in consciousness, which gives rise to the kind of knowing to which you refer.

This ‘knowing-that-comes-through-raised-consciousness’, comes to us as a ‘gift’ without book-learning and academic study. It is the majority of what we know.

An Islamic (hence Arabic terms) and Bahá’í distinction helps (me) here;

SOURCE: Two words for knowledge, but very different kinds of knowledge. Ilm can be acquired by education and training and through the exercise of reason. Irfan is higher knowledge, or gnosis, that can only be acquired by, first, education, and then contemplation under the guidance of a master. The guidance would include spiritual training in zikr, music (sama) and meditation. Ilm is expected to lead to the sober contemplation of God as both Creator and Judge—his awesome power– whereas irfan may lead to ecstasy as a person is simply overwhelmed by God’s immense beauty and falls in love with that Beauty. SOURCE

The sheer weight of emphases in Tolle might give the impression that mind and thinking = bad. Whereas although the soul is infinite because it is ultimately God, and the mind is finite, the two are essential – from our perspective. Religions can suffer from anti-intellectualism as well as what a friend calls ‘adminology’ in which the essential heart is set aside in favour of jurisprudence and nit-picking.

I am wondering if Tolle, understandably, started from the (to me erroneous) Western view that separates heart and mind, as opposed to the Chinese view of heart-mind – ‘xin’.

I don’t think Tolle is anti-intellectual but I wish he would celebrate a bit more the other wing of being human – duality, without which non-duality would not be.

******

May the Nameless One, who some call God, finish raising up the Self-actualized 2% , the yeast for the bread of humanity!

Maybe He/She/It already has and they are just really badly organized!

“How does the energy generated by Tolle actually get transformed into social action and social transformation?”

Now that’s a really challenging question!

Photo source: Microsoft Clipart

The Whole and the Parts – a personal view updated

I updated the short version of the ‘Whole’ to which all of my posts relate. Please share your own version.

The Whole and the Parts

SunWALK model of being human & the expression of the human spirit

We all go through each day doing particular things but what’s our view of ‘the Whole’ to which all the parts relate? From these two, our sense of the Whole and our myriad thoughts, feelings & action comes the meaning and purpose of our lives.

The Whole for me I see this way;

Humanization is everything. De-humanization is hell. We are human in our caring our creativity & our criticality – acting individually and in community. Through these 4 ways we experience, grow and heal, through them we come to know who we are, our identity, and what it is that we all called to do, our purpose.

However, even when being scientific the ultimate context in which we operate is always mystery. Consequently we are also more or less human in how we relate to mystery and to how others relate to mystery.

From such a model of being human we can create personal, professional & community systems for holistic learning & healing.

Q. What is it to be professionally or personally holistic? My answer: It is to develop that consciousness that enables us to proceed, in all particular acts, with a sacred sense of the Whole, and vice versa. – just as the Zen saying says; “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water”. Q. What’s this universalist approach called? Ans: Perennial Philosophy – the identical core you can find in all of the great wisdom traditions.

Q. What is your ‘Whole’ or world-view to which the particular actions of your life relate?

Art, Nature and realizing our own Beauty

To look upon beauty, in art or in nature, is to realize our own beauty.

Photo source

The relative context of perspective – or new perspective from re-contextualizing?

Art teaches. Nature teaches.

Buddhism is compassion. When we realize our own beauty the boundaries of our compassion expand.

—–0—–

All postings to this site relate to the central model in the

PhD. Summaries are HERE

Compassion is love shaped into an embrace.

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NB Try listening to the chanting whilst reading the text – wonderful! – transporting!

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Compassion and Peace: ten ways to bridge and transcend racial and religious hatred

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