BESHARA
An Obituary of Bulent Rauf
DR. R.W.J. AUSTIN Poverty and Selt-Sufficiency
DR. ROM HARRE Ontology and Physics
CHRISTOPHER RYAN A Journey in Ottoman Turkey BESHARA
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The Magazine of the Beshara Trust Issue 3 Autumn 1987
CONTENTS EDITORIAL
News and Views It is with great sadness that we report the death of Bulent Rauf A New Translation of Ibn on September 5th . His contribution to this magazine was 'Arabi's Fusus al-Hikam 2 immeasurable, both in the vision which led to its inception and in the wise advice he gave and valuable contributions he made An Obituary of Bulent Rauf to the first two issues. In this, as in so many things, he will be Hugh Tollemache 3 greatly missed. The Man from Whom God Nothing Hid Publication of this issue has been slightly delayed as we A report on moves to re-habilitate wished to include an obituary. We also have talks by two M eisler Eckhart into the Catholic Church 4 distinguished scholars, Dr. Rom Harre and Dr. R.WJ. Austin, and the first of what we hope will be many travel The Marian Year features in Christopher Ryan 's piece on Ottoman Turkey. Martha Chamberlin 5 Nature, House of the Soul If there is a theme to be discerned in the diversity of articles in Ircnc Young and llilary Williams on a this issue, it is that of dependence . The idea that we are not seminar given by Kathleen Raine 6 self-sufficient,but dependent on a totality, is implicit in all holistic formulations, which assert the inter-connectedness Features and inter-penetration of things. Dr. Harre refers to this trend Ontology and Physics in modem science when he says, in his article "Ontology and Dr. Rom Harre 8 Physics", " ... not only the mass, but all the properties of an object could be created by the rest of the universe. There are A Journey in Ottoman Turkey not isolated things; ... The universe is one entity . . . ". Similar Christopher Ryan 16 ideas are, of course, emerging in other fields such as ecology, Poverty and Self-Sufficiency biology and economics. Dr. R.W.J. Austin. A commentary on two poems by Ibn 'Arabi 21 Within the spiritual traditions, dependence is often related to concepts of poverty and service, which are considered Letters to the Editor 20 essential for real progress. In the writings of men like lbn 'Arabi and Meister Eckhart which embody a perspective based The Beshara Trust on absolute unity, it is a completely positive idea, as Dr. Austin points out on page 22. In acknowledging the fact of Reaffirmation our indigence , we become open to receive generosity and are Elizabeth Roberts writes on a course at Chisholme HOllse 26 offered the possibility of participating, through conforn1ity to its order, in the creative movement of the whole. Ecce Homo An Homage to the Bishop of Gloucester 27 This is supremely demonstrated by the Virgin Mary, wh om we are particularly invited to celebrate in this Marian Year. In Reviews the state of receptivity and perfe ct servanthoodwhic h she Mcister Eckhart's Sermons and exemplifies, we find our true dignity as human beings; Treatises, tran�l. Maurice Walshe Elizabeth Roberts in her article on "Reaffirmation" quotes Adarn Dupre 28 from Meister Eckhart, " It is here in this poverty that man regains the eternal being that once he was, now is and ever Temenos 8 more shall be" . Artlzur Martin 30 Jane Cfark On Time by Michael Shallis BESHARA Stephen Hirtenstcin 31 EDITOR: Jane Clark. ASSISTANT EDITORS: Alison Yiangou, Contact by Carl Sagan Cccilia Twinch. ILLUSTRATIONS: Ruth Kenner. ADVERTISING: Khalil Norland 32 Leslcy Abadi, Emma ElIiott. SUBSCRIPTIONS: Christine Hill. COVER DESIGN: Leslcy Abadi after a painting by Mondrian.
ADDRESSES. Editorial and Advertising - 24 Sidney Street, Oxford OX4 BESl1ARA is produced by the Beshara Trust, a registered educational charity No.296769. It was 3AG. Subscriplions- Beshara Sherbome, Stable Block, Sherbome, Nr. typeset using an Apple Macintosh computer, courtesy Cheltenham, Glos GL54 3DZ of Applitek of London, produced by Designers and Copyright on all articles is held by The Beshara Trust. Permission fo r Partners of Oxford and printed by the Beshara Press. multiple photo-copying and reprinting must be sought. BESHARA News and Views / Fusus al-Hikam
News and Views A New Translation of Ibn 'Arabi's Fusus al-Hikam
, T he second volume of an English Arabi elevates the position of Man for then known by him as 'our student translation of Ismail Hakki the one who would reach perfection, in since the age of three'. He eventually Bursevi's translation of and commentary explanation of the saying that 'He who became his successor. He wrote over on the Fusus al-Hikam by Muhyiddin knows himself, knows his Lord' when 1()() books, expressing himself equally Ibn ' Arabi appears in October. This he writes that: "The Perfect Man is he well in both Turkish and Arabic. His book, which is described by Ismail who knows without doubt that all commentary on the 'Fusus al-Hikam' is Hakki Bursevi as "magnificent of value existence is nothing but the existence of of inestimable value for not only does it and great of address and order", has been God". incorporate his knowledge of all rendered into English by Bulcnt Rauf previous commentaries, but it is drawn with the help of Hugh Tollemache and n 1223 Ibn 'Arabi settled in from the same source as the original
Rosemary Brass and will appear in five IDamascus where, apart from a short work and in accordance with the ordl r volumes. The first volume, containing visit to Alcppo, he lived until his death upon the Fusus "Bring it out to the Ismail Hakki Bursevi's illuminating in 1240. It was while he was in people who will benefit by it." introduction, together with the first two Damascus that he wrote the 'Fusus al chapters on Adam and Seth, was Hikam', which of all his works is he entire English-speaking world, published in 1 anuary 1986 and is still considered to be outstandingly T especially those who thirst for the available. significant, due to the purity of its reality and meaning of the knowledge Muhyiddin Ibn ' Arabi, who calls manner of arrival, disclosed and attested contained in this book, may now profit himself 'a complying servant' in the to by Ibn 'Arabi himself in the account from this particular translation and bringing down and exposing of this detailed in the extraordinarily explicit commentary which is a further book, was born in Murcia in Southern introduction to the first volume. enlargement of the Mercy of God. Spain in 1165 AD. He spent much of Each of the twenty-seven chapters of Bulent Rauf writes in his forward to the his youth in the company of learned and the Fusus treats of a unique aspect or first volume about the all-engulfing saintly people and from the age of thirty 'bezel' (jass) of the Divine Wisdom as power of such Mercy . In undertaking he travelled extensively, meeting many exemplified in a particular prophet in the translation of such a work, which of the great mystics and thinkers of his the line from Adam to Mohammed, the seemed an insurmountable task, he time. This led to a great interchange of whole book shedding light on the many observed: "the undertaking was not a ideas. He was known in the West as faceted jewel of the Unique and Infinite result of my knowledge of what was to Doctor Maximus and in the East as al Wisdom, hence the title which translates be understood, but ... the undertaking Shaykh al-Akbar, the greatest Shaykh. as "The Bezels of Wisdom" . itself undertook to teach me all that was He completed in the region of 500 This second volume will contain the necessary to bring about this books, writing down for the first time following five chapters: tremendous task" . many of the teachings which until then The Wisdom of the Transcended It is a book which reveals possibil had remained within the oral tradition. Magnificat in the Word of Noah, ities of an unforeseen magnitude. He writes from the perspective of the The Wisdom of Sanctity in the Word of Rosemary Brass writes in her excellent Unity of Existence which by its Idris (Enoch), foreword to the second volume: "This Absoluteness includes all possibilities The Wisdom of Ecstasy and Rapture in book is beyond ordinary measure. It is with a universality that excludes the Word of Abraham, beyond the general run of mystical nothing. In this way his writing, which The Wisdom of the Truth in the Word writings, and it is more than just a book may at first glance appear very of Isaac, of meanings. It is to do with the very particular, leaves no domain untouched The Wisdom of Exaltedness in the Word meaning of meanings, with the in its implications. For the one who of Ishmael, meanings, the realities and the reads his works unprejudiced by opinion Ismail Hakki Bursevi, who translated knowledges of God, and it comes or belief or narrowness of vision, there the book into Turkish with explanation directly from God according to His own are indications of divine knowledges and commentary, was born in Aydos manner and wish." which 'result fr om complete fa cing and near Adrianople in 1653 AD. He lived The translation has been published joy of thought and fr eedom of place aft er in Bursa for more than thirty years and by the Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society the Divine Munificence' (page 15) died there in 1725, hence his name The and is available through all good intensifying and refining the taste for Bursevi. When he was three, he met the bookshops. A further three volumes are the Beauty of the Real Beloved. Ibn lelveti Shaykh Osman Fazli and was in preparation.
2 ISSUE 3 News and Views / Obituaryof Bulent Rauf BESHARA
An Obituary of Bulent Rauf
Ulent Rauf was consultant to the man came in talking about a lecture on of him in later years as he became BBeshara Trust from its inception Ibn 'Arabi, and Bulent said that he increasingly conscious of the need to in 1971 until his death on September would like to listen as he knew a little devote his time to educating the next 5th 1987. about the subject. From then on he generation. He was able to express In the passing of Bulent from this realised that he had not been sent to himself equally clearly in the language life to the next, we have lost a true England by chance, and a series of of Christian, Moslem, Jew, Zoroastrian, friend and a wise counsellor. We mourn remarkable coincidences occurred which scientist and even apparent atheist, and deeply at his departure, however demonstrated to him that his real work many looked to him to explain the inevitable. had begun. He was fortunately able to meanings of their own traditions. He Most obituaries deal with the past. read the old Ottoman Turkish, and was had no time for the religious bigot nor For Bulent, I would like his obituary in therefore able to translate the exception for dogma. this magazine, which will be read by ally difficult commentary on Muhyiddin His wife Angela, whom he married many who knew him well, to deal with Ibn 'Arabi's 'Fusus al-Hikarn' by Ismail in 1973, was a devoted wife who the future. No eulogy would do justice Hakki Bursevi - an immense work fortunately understood the demands on to this extraordinary man, and doubtless which is being published in five him made by the many who looked to a biography will be written at some volumes, and which Bulent regarded as him for advice. He always had time for later stage. the most important contribution to us, knowing that he had much to do in a It is important to realise that there esoteric literature, mapping as it does so relatively short time. He was accosted was something that Bulent embodied comprehensively the Spiritual by one lady who said: "I have two that we need. He often said that he was landscape. He was Life President of the weeks holiday, and would like to just a signpost, pointing the way to Ibn 'Arabi Society, understand it all befo re I return." To those who recognised that he knew what It was evident that only by an which Bulent's reply was: "It can take they were looking for. He avoided in intimate knowledge of the most two seconds or two thousand years; it any way being a teacher or guru figure, profound spiritual stations was he able all depends on you." Angela was a great being strongly critical of those who so clearly to imbue the listener with support to him and an inf1uence whose interpose themselves between the seeker understanding. His attention was importance cannot be quantified. Our and the sought. "Don't look at me; look constantly on that highest goal that heartfelt condolences and love go out to at what I see. Don't love me; love what Man can attain - Union with God, and her at this time. Ilove." For Bulent to be more than a all questions and actions were great man of the past, we must look at transformed towards helping others to what it was he embodied, and become appreciate that goal. In the best Socratic Ulent was confident of the future that ourselves. Where we saw his tradition, he illuminated with infinite Bof Beshara; he had few doubts humility, be that; where we saw his patience the perennial wisdom about the future when he reflected upon constancy, be that; where we saw his summarised in the Delphic inscription what the present encompassed. He often knowledge and understanding, be that. "Know Thyself'. said that most leaders were unwilling to Otherwise, his work will be to no avail. make sufficient preparation for the time after they died, and that the inspiration s varied life and broad interests so often died with them. Remarkably, e was told in 1966 by someone he enabled· him to relate his spiritual without establishing dogma or rules, he Hhad never met before in Istanbul Hknowledge to many other fields. An was confident that Beshara would to go to England. He knew that this was Archaeological scholar educated at continue to develop in its correct way. It an order of a different level. "Don't you Comell and Yale Universities, he was is up to those who understood him to know that you are required in England? an authority on early Civilisations, and live up to his confidence. We have been waiting fo r you fo r a long his great concern was the dilemma of A photograph of Bu1cnt is interesting time, stop wasting your time and go" . modem man's lack of spiritual and gives a partial and surface view of He had no idea what he would expect in dimension. He was equally secure in the man. For this reason, Bulent seldom England, nor what he was supposed to great wealth and in great poverty. He allowed his photograph to be taken. do, but the order was compelling and he was married to Princess Faiza of Egypt Equally, this obituary is like a arrived in England. After some time, he until 1962. His wide circle of influential photograph, giving only an imperfect was working in an antique shop when a friends of many nationalities saw little impression of a complete man.
AUTUMN 1987 3 BESHARA News and Views / Meister Eckhart
The Man frolll wholll for the Church to make its position clear. In 1980 a petition, initiated by lay God Nothing Hid Dominicans and signed by eminent people from different religions, was Meister Eckhart's acceptance by the presented to the General Chapter of the Dominicans in Warlberg, requesting that Catholic Church may be imminent. the Sacred Congregation for the Faith examine the question. This resulted in the institution of an Eckhart oves to re-habilitate the great before the Papal court, which was then Commission in 1983, headed by the MGerman mystic and writer, at Avignon. Before going, he made a eminent scholar Professor Dr. Heinrich Meister Eckhart, into the Catholic solemn declaration that he was not a Stimimann, OP. This has underuiken a Church could bear fruit this autumn, heretic, but that his statements had been deUliled study of the writings and the when a report will be presented to the distorted and misunderstood; innuences upon his thought, which has Master General of the Dominicans. The ncverthcless, he formally retracted all resulted in the interim recommendation Eckhart Committcc, which was set up sUltemenL<; which might be considered to quoted above. It is not intended that the in 1980 to exmnine Eckhart's be heretical. bull of 1329 should be reversed as such, orthodoxy, will be suggesting that there He was not, as some people think, but that the Pope should Imike an should be "an official declaration by the ex-communicated but died whilst his official declaration of Eckhart's Pope acknowledging the exemplary case was under consideration, in 1328. acceptability as a Christi
Eckhan, both inside and outside the include U growing contemporary n around 1322 Meister Eckhart was church, 4 ISSUE3 News and Views / The Marian Year BESHARA The Marian Year On June 7th this year, Pope John Paul 11 inaugurated The Marian Year - only the second in the history of the church to be dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The 'year' will run for 14 months, ending on 15th August 1988, on the Feast of the Bodily Assumption of Mary into Heaven, and it will be marked by world wide celebrations and pilgrimages to Mary's shrines, including a visit by Pope John Paul himself to Poland's Our Lady of Czestochowa. Martha Chamberlin writes:- he announcement by Pope John T Paul II of the present Marian Year is of interest not only to Catholics and observers of that Church, but to all who Mary's House a1 Ephesus, Turkey, where she spenJ the last years of her life. It was 1973. arc attracted to the Virgin's compelling proclaimed an official place of pilgrimage by the Catholic Church in grace. It is the grace of perfect servitude, The Virgin's supreme example is pleasure, is no other than ule Good perfection verified and which has no best followed by one who wishes to News, which in Arabic is Beshara , and imitators. serve and receive in the proper manner. it is news which invites to and requires Perfect servitude means perfect Yet such a one must remind himself for its reception, total fiding in God, receptivity to the wishes of the Lord; often that thoughts such as "I receive" exactly as exemplified by Mary in the U1US Mary, having received perfectly His do not enter in, for, as we have said, in accounts which have come down to us Word by ule agency of the Archangel the matter of true reception there can be of the Annunciation. May God help us Gabriel, reception 'became' no other neither subject nor object, neither does in this endeavour, for no-one can than the received, which is to say that any relation obtain - without doubt, his undersl1nd His servant Mary except the three elements implied in 'receive', wish implies a place which can be called God, and to aspirers towards a fitting (ie. the receiver, the received and the essential, for this is an Essential matter. response, both to the Essential reception) are understood to be one by His concern must therefore be, as invitation and to the announcement of virtue of the dominant influence of the Muhyiddin Ihn ' Arabi has written this named and thereby especially perfection mentioned above. That which to face God with absolute blessed year, He has offered, and always receives perfectly becomes no other UlaIl unification, which is not marred by any offers without restriction, prayer; God is that which it receives. Her purity may form of polytheism, implicit or the Guide, the Most Wise. be seen in this absolution of trinities - explicit, and by denying with absolute they are said to be absolved because LO conviction all causes and intermediaries, (I) Quoted in The Mystical Philosophy uf relation manifesting itself in three, nor whole or part ..." (1) Muhyiddin Ibn 'I\rabi' by;\ E. Affifl. indeed any single atom of existence, is That this is possible, and is even - Cambridge, England. 1939. left untouched by purity of heart. and most emphatically so - God's Meister Eckhart Continued "Meister Eckhart, the man from whom which will not only support the work of BACK ISSUES God nothing hid" - was held at the the Eckhart Commission, but also ail'l Dominican Conference Centre in to disseminate Meister Eckhart's work Issues 1 and 2 of BESHARA Staffordshire in June. Chaired by Dr. to a wider public. In recognition of Ule are still available at £ 1.25 per Ursula Flemrning, this was attended by very b'Teat stature of Meister Eckhart and copy plus 25p postage. over 50 people, and included papers hy the sublimity of his spiritual under Fr. Edmund College, Fr. Cyprian Smiill standing, this will surely bring great Please apply to: and the Buddhist, Lama Chimi benefit and we wish them well. The Beshara Trust Rinpoche. As a result of the interest The Stahles, ( I) At a seminar on the ecclesial mission of generated, it was decided to make it an Adrienne Von Speyr, quoted in Sherborne, Nr. Cheltenham, annual event and moves are now afoot L'Observalore Romano Oct. 28 1985. Gloucestershire GL54 3DZ to form a Meister Eckhart society AUTUMN 1987 5 BESHARA News andViews / Nature, House of the Soul KathJeen Raine says, "However Nature, House of the Soul much we have learned, what is given to every child at birth, unsought, is incomparably, immeasurably more. Given with life itself, inseparable from what we are, we have no need to learn or Kathleen Raine's Seminar at Beshara study that on which our eyes open,our ears hear, our fingers touch. We have Sherborne in July 1987 only to look andli sten ... Nature is vision - epiphany - indeed, theophany; it is the discourse of life itself as it Hilary Williams reports on the weekend and Irene shows itself in and through the myriad Young explores some of the thoughts it provoked. of forms of the natural world ... Nature can be weighed and measured - and science is essentially quantification - but it can be known in other ways, in t was indeed a treat and an honour natural forms are themselves images, terms not of measurable facts but of I for those of us who were able to be 'idle shadows/ Of thought's eternal immeasurable values, and that world of present at this seminar given by the flight'. Therefore it is, that in reading immeasurable values belongs to the distinguished poet and seholar Kathleen such poetry, what we experienceseems world of poetry and the arts... " Raine because, by her own admission, more real than reality; it comes from She points out that throughout the she now rarely accepts invitations to that source". materialist centuries it has been the conferences. An acknowledged authority poets, implicitly or explicitly, who on Blake and Yeats, and author of have challenged the materialist view of numerous books, Or. Raine is also the T.T athlecn Raine brought to the nature that has led to its abuse and editor of TEMENOS, which she .I� eminar examples of the very desecration and it is these, like Los, the describes as a "review devoted to the arts finest nature poetry - Vernon Watkins, poet and time spirit in Blake's great of the imagination" , whose editorial Blake and Tagore - and we were mythology, who have kept faith with position is to reaff mn those spiritual privileged to be able to bring the poetry the living universe. Spenser, values which must be the ground of any of the great Persian saint and poet, Shakespeare, Milton, Herbert, Blake, human culture. (1) Jalaluddin Rumi. Vaughan, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Or. Raine took as her theme Nature, Reading these together, we were able to Yeats and others echo one another, and House of the Soul. In her opening paper experience for ourselves the pleasure of the doctrine of poetry in all is the same. (2) she made the following observation: poetry whose potential power, as the "The three deviant centuries are over" '" " We are mistaken when we think of reeeptive reader can testify, is that of says Yeats, "Wisdom and poctry return". --.�': 'nature poetry' as conferring meaning transforming conseiousness itself. As (1) The iaJesl issue, Temerws 8, is -- upon nature; rather, nature itself is the nature itself, such poetry holds before us reviewed on page 30. � true poetry of the universe, to which the icons, images of reality which will open (2) To be published ill Ternenos 9 in poet listens. Sun and stars, trees, to us meanings if we are capable of an 1988. clouds, birds, every creature, are words open-hearted response. (3) Colgonooza Press. Reissued 1986. in the language which the universe itself speaks.... Is it possible to remember back to the kind of knowledge we had of our world before inner and outer became separate? ... It is knowledge of being that the poet seeks, a knowledge not of something other but a kind of self knowledge, and this in fact is the vision of what is called poetry." The true poetis not simply an observer but rather, a whole-hearted participant who is able to respond to those 'ancient springs' of the Self that are the ground of the creative life and of being; for it is the supreme Self that is at once the one life of the universe and the life of man, the microcosm. In her book 'Defending Ancient Springs'(3), Kathleen Raine writes of Shelley's poetry. "Those enchanted landscapes are not reflections of nature but immediate creation of that mental ground of which 6 ISSUE 3 News and Views / Nature, House of the Soul BESHARA "Raven, kestrel wheeling round, by Tagore, "a profound reverence fo r life Show your minstrel the heart of pervades our consciousness, sound". manifesting itself as a deep compassion fo r all creatures... all the elements from Taliesin's Voyage by Vemon Watkins would be looked upon as manifestations of Divine Grace." Such a perspective is consciousness led by the Beauty of the Whole. This integrated vision of oetry which reflects the spirit' was Nature does not preclude scientific BESHARA Pthe subtitle of this two-day investigation but rather, reverence for seminar. The discussion was based on, life is the light in which Nature's PUBLICATIONS, and constantly revolved around, the mysteries are explored, whether by No 2, The Stablcs, Sherborne, Nr. premise that the function of the poet is scientist, conservationist or poet. Cheltenham, Glos GL54 3DZ. to mediate values and meanings, and For each individual, the manner and that these values and meanings are depth of desire for, and the response to, The Wisdom of the Prophets - ultimately rooted in the sacred. Kathlcen such a unified vision is a matter of Ibn ' Arabi £6.50 cloth Raine's introductory lecture elegantly predilection and taste in knowledge. £4.80 paper and lyrically expanded on this premise, Where the response is to write and drawing on the wisdom of a wide range convey the meaning in verse then the Whoso Knoweth Himself - Ibn of traditions to give a profound and man is qualified as poet and this is his , Arabi £3.30 paper delightful overview of a qualitative service to Beauty. For those who have Kernel of the Kernel - Ibn vision of Nature as a realm of the taste, it is possible to choose , Arabi £4.80 cloth immeasurable values. From such a consciously and willingly an unqualified vision is the poet inspired. service of love in which all acts, Mystical Astrology According For two days we were immersed in whatsoever they be, are performed in to Ibn ' Arabi - Titus the poetry of Blake, Tagore, Yeats, remembrance of Beauty. This sentiment Burkhardt £3.00 paper Kebir, Rumi and Watkins. Central to anticipates and leads to a complete Universal Man - ' Abd al- reading the poetry and to the identification with Beauty itself. Karim al-Jili £7.50 cloth conversation was this quintessential appreciation of Nature, which, in onc of Intimations - J.G. Bennett its many guises, is the informing and ature is variously referred to as £3.60 paper inspiring Muse of the poets. A vision Nthe Veiled Goddess, the of nature as a mirror to the mind of Receptive Mother, and is the maternal A vailable shortly Man, and a certainty that it speaks aspect of the Divine: that is, its creative Sufis of Andalusia directly to his soul, is the insight shared energy. Here the concept of Nature by Ibn 'Arabi by all our poets. To quote Dr. Raine, "It extends far beyond the limits of (Translated by Dr. RWJ. Austin) is not that poetry gives meaning to corporeal images visible in the world of Nature, but that Nature itself is the the senses, such as the images of Telephone enquiries; poetry of the Universes". To this the growth, flowering, decay and renewal Oxford (0865) 243406 poet listens and is thereby enabled, by observable in plants and animals. These being nature's scribe, to mediate values are certainly of nature, as are also the For personal orders in the UK, please and meanings. images of the intellect, knowledge, add 7Sp fo r post and packing imagination, spirit and divine images. fo r one book, SOp fo r each subsequent Ibn 'Arabi says, in the Fusus-al book in the same order. ore than passive acquiescence is Hikam, "Nature encloses all the Trade terms on application. required for an adequate response receptive images of the Universe fr om toM poetry which conveys such values. its peak to its fo undation". Nature thus To accept fully the gift offered involves conceived as the inclusive and collective a receptivity to the quality of the vision totality is comprehended only by BESHARA of Nature which inspired it. This essential insight and this is sublime receptivity cannot be reached by means knowledge. This collective receptivity is MAGAZINE of scientific reductionism and by the same as the active spirit, the Self of welcomes letters to the editor, standing aside to analyse nature the Compassionate. Consequently, if a contributions and suggestions 'objectively' , but rather, is fostered by man is given the insight that Mercy is means of a sympathetic concordance the same as the images of Nature then from its readers. with Nature's own order, which is great goodness and a close and certain For the January issue, please essentially the order of Being. When it intimacy with the One Indivisible Being write, by November 15th 1987, to: is fully appreciated and acknowledged is established. The Editor that Nature is a manifestation of Being, 1) From his address at the World Wildlife BESHARAMagazine then one witnesses Life in all its myriad Fund's Nature and In1erfaith Ceremony held 24 Sidney Street forms. Then, as Karen Singh has at Assissi in 1986, published in Issue 1 of Oxford OX4 3AG, England. suggested (1) commenting on a poem BESHARA. lrene Young AUTUMN 1987 7 BESHARA Rom HamS Ontology and Science The case of Quantum Field Theory with special reference to how existing experimental technique influences the development of theory. A talk given by Dr. Rom HaITe at Beshara Sherbome in July 1987 n this talk, I am going to work my way into here are two things that scientists claim to have some quite deep ideas, but I am going to take it T to hand; they have laws - such as Boyle's Law, stepI by step. And I want to begin by talking a bit Newton's Law of Gravity, etc - and they have about the nature of the physical sciences, how they theories, all manner of theories. Everyone is work and some of the illusions we might have about tremendously proud of these and at first sight it them. would seem that they are the important things on The first thing one notices when reading accounts offer. And certainly philosophers who have read of physics - in The Times science report or a journal scientifie writings, but who have not actually done like New Scientist - is their extreme confidence. any science (and there are a good m 8 ISSUE 3 Ontology and Physics BESHARA swerve in a magnetic field. Clavius noticed that the Diagram of a heliocentric )-.- A perfitdeFcription of the CxlefhallOrbes, term B - which is the theory - never appears in the ;{{OTMngto ,1,<- mojf .1um IOI! do{/nr:( 0/th( universe in J'yriJ.:J,OT(.;nJ. cc. observations. It is therefore possible to construct all Prognostic sorts of other hypotheses which would fit the ation experimental data just as well, providing they have Everlasting the same logical form - for example, all electrons are (1576) by made of wood, all wooden things swerve in a the English magnetic field, therefore electrons swerve in a men Lconard and Thomas magnetic field. And this is called Clavius' Paradox or, Digges. sometimes, The Indetermination of Theory by Data. Inspired by Now, in the case of the 'wood' theory, you may the work of argue that it is obviously not true but Clavius' Copernicus, Paradox implies that you can have a perfectly good this is the first diagram theory which is not true. In fact, the chances of ever to show hitting on the 'true' theory are practically zero, and an infinite so you might as well choose any theory - the universe, simplest one, or the prettiest one, or the one which opposing pleases the Pope the most - as long as you get the the old idea results. of a sphere of stars. The ** idea was .j.. + � quickly *** " taken up by *' *" 7t- -* * ll this indicates that the idea that scientists ;,. * ,. k r '"'* A Giordano ,,* *"'-t"->(.* **;'- should be pursuing truth in the form of true llruno. laws and theories is seriously mistaken. So what are they doing? Einstein said that you should never listen to what scientists say, but should watch what they hypothesis was wrong. Now people have become do. Recently a number of philosophers and scientists, very excited about this - in the Middle Ages, in the myself included, have al l come up with a similar idea age of Queen Elizabeth and in the 20th century with - that what scientists are doing is trying to find Popper - but each ti me someone has coolly pointed things. They are undertaking a controlled search of the out that the idea has a disappointing feature; ie. that world for things and substances of various kinds even if some true local facts are proved to fo llow the which their theory suggests might exist; and this is law, tomorrow, or somewhere else in the universe, why it is hailed as a scientific triumph when Voyager the result might be completely different. Further, if reaches Uranus and finds the 14th moon; there was no you do an experiment which does not turn out as you new theory involved, no new truth, but by using expected, then you eannot just throw out the law theory something new has been fo und. because tomorrow the universe may ehange in such a So nowadays, people of my persuasion arc inclined way as to make it appear true. It seems, therefore, to say that science is what the Marxists call a I. It is a that neither the truth nor the falsity of laws is any Theoretically Guided Material Practice; it is the complete my th. good to us and this is called the Paradox of Induction. business of looking through the world to see what incidentally, there is. And whilst this may seem at first sight to Every time this has come up, it has rekindled that when interest in the question, what are laws for? Well, that be a very crude and materialistic notion - after all, Copernicus becomes a pretty hard question to answer; they are the world is just full of stuff and things - I shall try published his perhaps for propagandist purposes; they state to show you that this is not the case, and that the book eve ry one said "Oh yes, hypotheses very firmly, but they certainly cannot be stuff we actually find when we pursue this is much so the earth assumed to be universally true or false. more interesting than the pursuit of truth. goes round the In the case of theories, there is an even more Let me give a couple of examples of how to think sun " When the interesting paradox which was first enunciated by of science in these terms. When Tasman set off to Inqul,ition Christopher Clavi us, the chap who gets a mention in find Australia, it was not an idle or accidental thing. caused Galileo Brccht's play Galileo. In those days, the problem that It was a highly theoretically guided enterprise to find all that trouhle, was besetting people was that they had too many Terra Auslralis, the southern continent, which resulted it was not thnt they were a atronomical theories - as many as six or seven - all from current beliefs about the nature of the world. bunch of old (1). explaining the same observations This led They bel ieved that the world was a sphere, spinning rear:lionarie,\ Clavius to notice a curious thing about theories (2) as like a kind of top, and that to balance the weight of but that then fol lows: suppose we have a very simple theory which the northern continents, there must also be a southern were a great can be expressed in logic like this: All As are Bs, All continent. That was a theoretical idea, based on what many theorie. Bs are Cs, therefore all As are Cs. Let us !like as an was actually a mistaken view of rotation and motion, on offe r. example the theory of why electrons swerve in a but it guided Tasman to set off in his ship. 2. In his The magnetic field, which goes: all electrons are Now there is a very fundamental thing to learn in Fundamentum negatively charged, all negatively charged things logic here, for when he arrived, he did not find the Astronomium swerve in a magnetic field, therefore all electrons nice, tidy continent he had expected. He made a series of J600 . AUTUMN 1987 9 BESHARA Rom Harn� Map by Fran�ois Valentijn of 1726, which shows Tasman's route around the coast of Australia. Note that New Guinea is still thought to be part of the mainland. . ' ... . Tasman's route •...... of terrible mistakes; he sailed down the coast of New onus is on the makers of apparatus and designers of Zealand, which he thought was the edge of Terra experiments to set about telling us how to find them. Australis, then hit a bit of Australia and eventually The apparatus gives us 'epistemic access', which leads drew a very interesting map with a lot of unknown to further exploration. territory which is now called the Tasman Sea. But as A recent example of this is provided by Freud. The the years go by, we have gradually learnt quite a lot idea of the unconscious mind and of suppressed about Australia, and there is a technical term for this unpleasant memories causing neurotic behaviour was which has become fashionable in recent years - very old, but no-one until Freud had any way of 'gaining epistemic access.' finding it. Freud thought of using dreams as a means To take another interesting case; when Pasteur and of entering this mysterious realm in a way almost Koch attempted to find bacteria to explain the parallel to the invention of the microscope, and suppuration of wounds, diseases, etc. they were guided finding these things. I personally think that the whole 3. /le was a by the powerful theory formulated by Baptiste van Freudian thing is nonsense, but it does fit the idea of Dutchman and it Helmont in 1625. He had the idea that disease was a science. is perhaps no caused by the body being attacked by a kind of But unfortunately, it is not quite so simple, surprise that he invisible invading anny, which took it over, like an because we find that it does not take many steps of fo rmulated this army taking over a town, and used all its facilities to scientific investigation before you lose touch with theory in the produce poisons which made you ill. Now he was things that are observable. This we will call the last stages of (3) the war between right, but there was no possible way, in 1625, of regress. Spain ana testing it by looking for things. It was not until the For example, suppose you are a chemist Ho//ana. mid-19th century that it could be tested againsl the explaining to a friend how to make the Dutch drink competing theories by finding out whether these Advocaat. You explain that you drop whole eggs into invaders - bacteria- actually existed. And what was a large jar of lemon juice and the shells dissolve. involved? Improving the apparatus - in this case, the Why? You reply, in the spirit of Freud and van microscope, which is why I mention experiments in Helmont, that it is because in the lemon juice there the title of this ullk. is a hidden substance - citric acid - which we can show you and which can be produced by chemical analysis, and it dissolves calcium carbonate. All well o we could say that we have developeJ a and good. But if your friend wants to go further and s formula for doing science. We theorise ahout asks why citric acid behaves in this way, you reply some phenomena, and in that theory we find cel:ain that it is because it contains free hydrogen radicals. So kinds of things mentioned and if these 'things' or he says, show me a free hydrogen radical like you processes or substances excite our interest, then the showed me citric acid. Well, that's a bit more 10 ISSUE 3 Ontology and Physics BESHARA difficult. In fact, here you have to answer as Newton forever discovering new ones - but we have to have 4. Richard did to Bentley (4) about gravity, "I'll have to take the right equipment to bring them out, to make them Bentley (1662· reveal themselves. The same idea has application in time to consider this and come back and give you an 1742) , the answer tomorrow". You see, these things are, as far as psychology. There are many things of which a person classical we are concerned, entirely imaginary, and this leads to is capable but we not know what they are until they scholar. another side of the story, and to the need to introduce are put in the right circumstances. There is a myth some new ideas. that people have fixed personalities, but it is now widely accepted that they do not. Rather, it is thought that people are all kinds of possibilities and that their T he idea that I want to introduce is that of a capabilities, intelligence etc. depend on the demands power, or a disposition, because that is the put upon them. notion we need to tackle the problem of regress. In the end we will see that the world is made of this. Now disposition is a word which is in ordinary use, he idea, then, is that the world will show us in everyday psychology, when we speak of a person T what we ask of it. If you are a physicist, then it having a disposition and character, etc. and it is a is with apparatus and experiments that you question concept we use when we do not know what it is that the world. Now there is one very interesting brings about a certain activity. disposition which has become tremendously A disposition which arises in the individual itself, important in all our lives - electro-magnetic and which is an active one, is called a power. We induction. You will never find electro-magnetic know, for instance, that the earth has the power to induction just lying around the place and it is attract heavy bodies; I can demonstrate that it still immensely improbable that the apparatus would ever has this power by holding up an object, then letting it have come together by accident - Michael Faraday go, and we see that it falls to the ground. This had to construct it. Electro-magnetism is a property capacity of things to fall - to move, without any of the world but it arises purely in the context of 5. Another very strings, rocket motors, etc. - is absolutely amazing human construction and the technical term for this - topical example and nobody, I assure you, not even the greatest for a disposition which comes about from something is Q new physicist on earth, can explain it, although there are, a human being has manufactured - is affordance. To property called of course, all sorts of views of the maLter and almost give a simpler example, this wooden floor affords super- as many theories as in the days of Christopher walking, but wood would not have manifested the conductivity, Clavius. property of being walked on if human beings had not with which () .wT/nll British But clearly we can talk in terms of a disposition made a wooden !loor and walked over it. (5) firm has for a thing to fall. And when we talk about this, it I am going to finish up with the problems of suddenly rna,le a gives us the very important concept of a field, the quantum mechanics, of which I am sure you have all big gravitational field and its energy. Now those people heard. People like to baffle one with science, but it breakthrough. who are not physicists have no need to be alarmed at this concept of energy, because it is basically the smne as disposition. To say that a field has energy simply means that certain dispositions arc true of it; that certain things will happen, if they are about to do so, in that area because of the energy which is in the field. This idea goes back to the great Elizabethan physicist, William Gilbert, who, in one of the best science books ever written, the de Magnete, explored the power of magnets entirely in tenns of a field and a disposition. This was around 1600; the concept of energy, of course, did not appear until the 19th William century. Gilbert Now we can use the idea of disposition to go (1540. further in physics. Instead of talking about hydrogen 1603), radicals, we can talk about the disposition of pbysician to hydrogen to have a negative charge and build up the Queen Eli�.abeth I whole picture, the whole regress, in these terms. and James I. Let me give an exmnple to illustrate a further very His work De important point. It is quite obvious that human Magnele beings have known about gravity, and made use of it, was the first more or less from the beginning of human life. But it great is also extremely obvious that people have not scientific book to be known about electricity or magnetism until fairly published in recently. These dispositions were there in the world, England. but they had to be discovered. Now the world is a very rich source of dispositions - physicists are WILLL\:-'I GILHI-:RT. �t \l.-E/YCTt.:IC'IAi\.. AUTUrv1N 1987 11 BESHARA Rom Harn� is really all quite simple. Now, science has been as wave. If a man were to walk into a baker's shop following a kind of story, going down a regress, and see some nice crusty loaves and some bridge rolls, where one theory is built on the basis of another. And and asked the baker, how did you get these, the baker now we have developed all kinds of special devices - would reply that he made them out of dough. If the cloud chambers and bubble ehambers, photographs, man then asked, but what is dough? Is it a crusty loaf etc. - to make the inward structure of atoms and even or is it a bridge roll, he would have misunderstood the sub-atomic particles reveal themselves; sometimes, as nature of the problem, for dough affords both crusty with the huge thing at Cern, spending enormous loaves and bridge rolls. He has been misled by a sums of money in the process. But there turns out to picture. be a very serious problem . If we do an experiment In the same way, physics has been misled by an with sub-atomic particles, electrons say, whilst old picture. There is still a deep, fundamental mystery thinking of them as particles and using a cloud which we shall never solve, but there is no longer a chamber or photographic plate, then every time we do philosophical mystery, for we are talking about a the experiment we get a different result. It is not familiar problem - about the affordances of the Glub, complete chaos, because they will cluster; there is a the dispositions and powers of th ings to act in certain certain way in which more of them will fall in to one ways when we subject them to the treatments we have sort of result rather than another. But if we proceed in thought up. These are our conceptions, our a different way, as if the electrons were a wave, we constructions. I still preserve a romantic coneept of also get a good res ult. So you can get two sorts of there being, on the other side of the universe, other results; particle type and wave type. creatures. They are also doing experiments but Well, why don't we combine these and really because they are totally different from us, their picture discover the way things are? Now I am now going to of the universe is totally different from ours. The introduce you to a word of my own - The Glub. The Glub is the same, but they do different things to it, Glub is what there really is and I have chosen this and so different aspects of it appear. The only thing kind of word beeause it implies a gooey, we can share is the notion of the Glub itself, which of undifferentiated sort of stuff. If I build a wonderful, course is a very undifferentiated stuff. expensive piece of apparatus to make the Glub appear Now, the last point. What of our fam il iar things as a particle, I get pictures of particles and tracks. If I has these properties? Well I have already mentioned it. do another experiment and make the Glub shape itself The one thing that seems to be common to all of this as a wave, then I get wave pictures. The trouble with is what physicists call fields - and this leads one combining the two is that you cannot build a piece Diagram of of particle-creating equipment in the same spaee as a the equip· piece of wave-creating equipment. The two pieees of ment used by apparatus are complementary. Vlichacl Could we not, then, just combine them in Farad:IY to ( ( -f. thought? If we try, we run into an equal conceptual invc.�tigate electro· difficulty. If we force the world to display itself in magnetic one way, then it loses the properties it would have rotation. had, had we not done so; in other words, if we force it 1 to become a spot, it cannot also be spread out over f the rest of the universe like a wave. T he trouble all starts because people have asked the wrong question; they are spell-bound by their imagination. The line of thought I sUlIled with - that led Tasman to search for Australia and Pasteur to look for bacteria - led us through the world of the 19th century in a very satisfactory manner. Physics _ -, just worked like that and the world did seem to be as Newton thought it was, a cluster of atoms in the empty space. But it was all will 0' the wisp; what contemporary physics has shown us is that that chapter of the story has now closed. We are into a new chapter in which we can no longer seek for things, we must seek for dispositions and affordances. We are now looking at the world as we would look at people - prodding it to see what it gives back - and we are no longer able to form a picture of what lies behind these affordances. The world, the Glub, is neither a particle nor a wave, but we have made it shape itself as particle or 12 ISSUE 3 Ontology and Physics BESHARA towards a vast synthetic idea. The one substance is have the physical properties it has if it was the energy, which is just the set of affordances that the only object in the universe; that iL<; mass, inertia, world makes available to us. The physicist might say, etc is a property that it has because of the rest of therefore, that the world is ultimately some form of the universe. energy, but if you ask which form of energy, you are So we could say that the rest of the universe is asking an illegitimate question, as absurd as asking like an enormous piece of apparatus which forces the baker whether his dough is crusty loaves or bridge the Glub to manifest itself in this particular way. rolls. The universe is closed in on itself. And because it What we can do as human beings to show is much grander than human apparatus, the things ourselves the nature of the universe has come to an it squeezes out seem to us to be much more perm end in a very fundamental way. We can continue to do anent and definite than the things we make appear. experiments, but we will throw up more and more Although Mach's idea was not popular when it affordances, not more and more 'things', and we have was introduced at theend of the 19th century - and more and more reason for thinking that the universe is is still very controversial - a number of things composed of a field of energy, rather than thinking of have happened recently to make it more it as composed of lots of little chunky bits of matter. comfortable. There is thought, for instance, to be a very close connection between the charge of Q. Is the Glub similar to the Greek idea of the hyle, something, the direction of time (P lus or minus) Prime Matter, and if so, do some people accuse and what is called its parity (right or lcft you of returning to Idealism in some form ? handedness). Now parity and time arc both global properties - that is, they are relative to the rest of A. It is a bit like Idealism, but it has a different the universe - so some people argue, myself flavour. Whereas traditional Idealism thinks of the included, that charge must also be global. This universe as having properties that are essentially leads to the idea that not only the mass, but al l the mental, it is rather that the mental and physical properties of an object could be created by the rest aspects are more alike than the Materialists of the universe. There are not isolated things; that thought they were. We still want to distinguish is another old Newtonian idea we have to drop and between purely physical dispositions and mental we have to move not only into affordances, but dispositions, but also say that Mind and the into holism as well. The universe is one entity universe are essentially the same kind of thing. which, because of its oneness, so to say, has all This idea that human life and the universe are part these component parts which would not exist if and parcel of the same thing goes back to the universe did not exist in just the way that it 6. Werner Aristotle, and Heisenberg was the first modem (6) does. lIeisenberg physicist to realise that modem physics was in Roughly half the physicists of my acquaintance whose fa mous some sense a return to Aristotelianism. Uncertainty believe this, and half disagree. I confess that I Principle is a myself am a Machian. Q. If you cannot talk about what is behind the Glub, cornerstone of quantum theory. is it the case that it will never come to an end, but that the horizons have just disappeared? The Q. Would this suggest to you that there are a lot of possibilities of discovery or expression or similarities between various parts of the universe? manifestation are infinite? A. Yes it would. The universe is shaping everything A. Yes, only under the Newtonian picture could you up more or less the same way and it is roughly have come to an end, when you got to the tiny uniform, so things should be fairly fixed. little biL<;. Here there is no finitude. Q. What comes out in what you say is that the Q. If it is the type of affordance that manifests a universe is a self-revealing entity depending on particular form, how do you explain the appearance local conditions. Would you subscribe to taking of well-defined things, of the 'common sense' the whole discussion further under the heading world we live in? Why is a fi r tree a fir tree, for 'the anthropic principle'? (7) 7. i\ current instance ? debale wilhin physics, fr om lhe greek A.That is a very deep question, and one which takes A.That depends on how you read the anthropic 'anthropos' us further into the whole story. I have not yet principle. It seems to me to be perfectly mraning Man. mentioned the holistic aspect of contemporary reasonable to say that our slice of the universe is a Sa Barrow and physics. There is a great split amongst physicists function of us, but to go on to say that the whole rip/ers book on this matter and I am not sure whether I am universe is a function of us seems to me to be The speaking for myself or physicists here. The famous mistaken, for other creatures in different parts of Anthropic }'rinciple. German-Austrian physicist and philosopher Mach the universe will be slicing the Glub differently. Oxford introduced an idea of enormous importance, now Nor do I think it right to make all steps to human UniversiLy called Mach's Principle. He concluded that we beings necessary steps, and to say that the Press 1986. should not take for granted that an object would universe had to produce people. AUTUMN 1987 13 BESHARP Rom Harn� QMaybe the mistake is in defining us, as people, as like the biopic principle, because the thing we the final product. Perhaps the aim is intelligence want to get hold of is that the world is such that it and the acquisition of knowledge of this sort. affords life. A. That is quite a different principle which is not all Q. If we put ourselves at the centre, then there is absurd. obviously a problem. But if we see the reality of what being human means, then it is fa r more Q. What seems to be coming out is that what is sophisticated than the amoeba. 'Man' , putting the really significant about things is their quality, word in inverted commas, seems to have a very rather than their mass or quantity. And as it is significant fu nction in the whole matter, wouldn't intelligence - or awareness - which brings fo rth you say? and reflectsthe qualities, one would suspect that it is fundamental: that the universe creates fo r itself Q. 'Man' or intelligence could perhaps be the this affordance. principle which synthesises the diversity of different possibilities encountered by what you A. I think that is absolutely right, and it is one reason call 'prodding the world' , of which people are why I have a good deal of faith in the existence of examples. other intelligent beings. What you say about qualities reminds me of the philosopher Bishop A. Yes, as long as 'Man' IS fIrmly in inverted Berkeley, who said that all qualities are secondary, commas. there aren't any primary qualities and that things have no qualities independent of human beings Q. You don't want to anthropomorphise the interacting with them. anthropos? A. That expresses it very well. Q. Could you say that the whole perception of the universe is created by the way the perceiver acts Q. You have described the Club as rather passive. Is upon it, so that anything beyond your own there an active principle? perceptual action upon it is, by definition, unknowable? A. Certainly. I have described it as passive because I wanted to convey this picture of 'prodding'. But in A. Yes, but one must beware, as Marx pointed out, of the example, dough is a very active substance. It the trap of falling into intellectualism. The has to be, otherwise we, as active beings, could universe reveals itself just as much by not have emerged out of it. manipulating with our hands as by thinking about it. It is important that we see this spectrum of Q. lt includes us; we are part of the 'apparatus' fo r its things: it is not just how it looks, it is not just manifestation. I was wondering whether it would how we think about it, it is what we can do with be acceptable to say that there is a kind of it. The idea of a 'material thing' is a function of mirroring going on. Just as the can manifest people actually shifting things about, cutting Club with any quality, so it seems to have produced things up and banging into them; it is why the localised awareness which, in its extended sense, is notion of 'material practice' is so important. If we capable of mirroring, reflecting, all the qualities. could expand your thought in this way, then I think it is quite right. You could say that we need to combine what Dr. A. That's right, and to make that point in a slightly Johnson said about Berkeley with Berkeley. different way: theworld must have evolved out of Johnson said "Thus I refute Berkeey" and kicked a itself. Nothing else evolved it, so it must have had stone. He was right, and he was making a point these affordances all along, even though they could 8. Dr Samuel that Marx made later on. (8) not be stated until creatures like ourselves came on lohnson said the scene. People thought very hard about this in Ihis on 61h Q. I wonder how this relates to what you have said cosmology, asking themselves what affordances AugusI 1763, about the different anthropic principles, if we do must have been !.here at the beginning or near the acr:ording 10 not limit the concept of 'perceiving' to the beginning, and whether new properties of this Boswell. intellect but to what we might call 'exploratory general sort came into existence in the first thrce or fa culties' . four minutes of the universe's existence. Now there is a step beyond all this - vacuum physics. A. If we put it that way, then we sce that these The universe is now thought of as a vacuum exploratory faculties are characteristic of life, not Ouctuation. A vacuum is no longer nothing, it is just people. If you watch an amoeba under a full of potentialities and possibilities, of microscope, you can see it determining the world affordances. It is what I call the Glub. This is a in terms of its affordances. The anthropic principle very rich notion, and vacuum physics is now a is perhaps badly named, it should be something very rapidly developing field. 14 ISSUE3 Ontology and Physics BESHARA Q. Sounds like meta-physics to me! A. Oh yes, it is rich in meta-physics, which is why the philosophers are so interested in it. Barnsley House Q. What you have been saying points to the Garden Furniture singleness of the universe. Does that recommend a new kind of science which, rather than tracing universal laws, which, as you say, cannot be done, pursues in some way the properties of singleness from the centre out, rather than from the outside in? A.This idea is evident in a lot of modem science, particularly in cosmology, where people are concerned with the properties of this particular universe. You can imagine other universes, but they are no good to you; and there is no sense in having a set of universes. There is also a new field calledfractals, which is the investigation of unique, single objects. The idea that we do not need laws of a general kind, but, rather, that we need to understand the particular, has always beenaround in anthropology and linguistics. Barnsley House Garden Furniture Q. But you can't escape the universal. Barnsley House, Nr. Cirencester, Gloucestershire. A. The universal is a kind of Glub; an undifferentiated Telephone: 0285-74 561 medium which each of us shapes up in our own unique way. The medium has virtually no virtually no properties. Glub cannot be known. All we can know of it is that it is and that it has affordances. Q. And we know them only because it manifests them. A. To human beings, with their own particular way of approaching it. You cannot, as classical physics thought, divide off the human being. Q. ls time itself an affordance? A. Whether time and space arc themselves affordances poses a very decp philosophical question, which I still have to explore fully. I do not think, myself, that the Glub can exist in space and time; with mathematical tools you can certainly find ways of slicing up the universe which do not come out as our space and time. As far as I am concerned, they are affordances, but of a very peculiar sort. Time, you see, is so much to do with our minds. Q. Can one know that the Club is infinite? Hand knits and knitting kits in quality yarns. A. I think that it is hard to use the idea of quantity, even, because quantity is a notion we have brought For catalogue and samples send SAE to into it. But certainly from our point of view, it is 23. Southm oor Rd. Oxford OX2 6RF. infinite in its possibilities - at least, wc had better suppose that it is. AUTUMN 1987 15 BESHARA Christopher Ryan Photograph by John Farnham • A Journey In Ottoman Turkey Christopher Ryan Each summer fo r the past three years, The Beslzara Trust has arranged trips to places of sp iritual and historical interest. In May this year, 17peo ple travelled to Turkey to explore the origins and meaning of the empire established by the Ottoman Turks who, in 1453, conquered Constantinople and began a new era in European history. "Ah' If we were so happy as to be cymbals ringing, come the assault. Up huge battering ram. In minutes, it was the conquerors of K onstantiniyeh" the steep bank went the Ottoman over; the keep was scaled, the defending (hadith) regulars. Fearless in their chainmail and garrison fled and the Sultan's army, bronze helmets they scrambled into the marching in the most curious fashion, breach, their vast and curved mustachios turning alternately on every third step to T he broken walls of Constantinople waving no less menace than their left and right, made its ponderous exit. rose before us in the grey morning scimitars. Wc had assisted 111 the 534th light, sombre and deserted, awaiting the Following came the Janissaries, the commemorative of the Conquest of attack. Urban's great cannon had done Sultan's own guard, parading before Constantinople. its work and the dust had settled long them the famous horse tail standard. In ago. From behind began the trumpets, their red tunics and gold-braided blue pipes and percussion of the martial pantaloons, their white wool hats which y proximity to the extraordinary band; the spirit of the assembled rose a foot from the brow and draped Bcharacters of this civilisation, to soldiery lifted and their leader proclaimed twice that much behind, they approached their works in art, government, religion prayers in ever-increasing pitch. With the sound of the rattling drum. With and architecture, God Willing the great cannonshot crashing, musket-fire and them came climbers with ropes and a drama of the Ottomans might reveal a 16 ISSUE 3 Ottoman Turkey BESHARA hallmark of the Ottoman experience began to be felt. Ed""e BLACK SEA • he Ottoman 'Golden Age' was the T age of Si.ileyman the Magnificent (1520-1566) and is best mirrored in the prolific work of the architect Sinan. • [JlJ'�:l Incomparable in his ability to unite man's best aspirations with the architectural environment which that TURKEY aspiration required - be it a mosque for a sultan or an orphanage for a caravanserai - his work set the standard, unequalled, and was the perfect measure and Map of Turkey complete response to the era of greatness in which he lived. It was certainly an age of bounty and little of its plot to us. Standing still in great expansion. It is said that when the our own moment, we may lean a little kitchens attached to the Suleymaniye into past times and, like slipping in and Mosque were opened for the feeding of out of sleep, return with a tale - a tale the poor of the area, such was the which when presented before taste, general amuence that only 38 needy imagination's best arbiter, might show people could be found; and when twice things more as they actually were. That the required tribute was sent one year was the taste, the scent, which we from Egypt as an honour to SUleyman, sought on this trip. this extravagance was reprimanded and Overgrown Olloman wooden house, Where does the trail begin? How the surplus was ordered to be returned, Istanbul could we connect between nomads of the accompanied by the Grand Vizier who Central Asian Steppe, the Islamic personally saw to its distribution among Caliphate, cmd Byzantium, heir to the the poor. led from within by those who serve the Caesars and Empire of 1000 years S. Lane-Poole writes (1) "The true originator of lordly qualities. The standing, concluding with a young Sultan's claim to be called 'The Great' Ottoman lands with Istanbul as their Turkish army officer seizing the rests not merely upon his undoubted centre were the focus of a great spiritual moment at Gallipoli and bringing wisdom and ability, and the sp lendid inflorescence and the great saints of Turkey into the 20th century? series of his successes, but upon the fa ct Anatolia - Hajji Bayram , Hazreti Osman I and his tribe of nomad that he maintained and improved his Uftade, Aziz Mahmud Hudai Effendi, Turks succeeded where both Chingis grand position in an age of unsurpassing Osman Fasli, Ismai l Hakki Bursevi and Khan and the Crusaders fai led. With greatness. " their kind - were the real pivots upon intelligence and perfect timing, they Civilisations are measured by the which this civilisation turned. first established a kingdom at Bursa in strength of the spiritual force which Here is an illustration. Sultan Ahmet 1326. In 1349 they crossed the nourishes them at source. The outward I, for whom the Blue Mosque was built, Hellespont and by 1361 Adrianople had display of Caliphate (The Divine and his mother Valide Sultan, were become their new capital, Edime. On Viceregent) is a charade if the land is not pupils of the J elveti Sheikh Aziz the Asian shore by the Bosphorus, a fortress, Andolu I fisar, was built, and later, opposite, another, Rumeli lIisar, and thus Constantinople was effectively encircled. Such artistry of preparation and patient strategy was excelled only by the dramatic climax of the Conquest itself. Our trip was to follow this route, but of necessity, we entered Turkey at Istcmbul; and so we began here with an extensive study of the monuments of the Ottoman period: mosques and their appendent schools, orphanages and hostels; palaces and gardens, museums and tombs. It was here, in the architecture, that the particular flavour of grandeur and generosity which is the Kiosks, Yildiz Park, Istanbul AUTIJMN 1987 17 BESHARA Christopher Ryan Istanbul and his former palaces over the of his newly restored Khedive's Palace, water. Itsint erior is a rather over-the-top we met Mr <;elik Gulersoy, a charming interpretation of the late European man and the architect responsible for �:M"''''''''IIiIMi--- baroque, and certainly does no justice to saving many of the neglected mon the earlier glories of classical Ottoman uments of old Istanbul from the architecture. It is a grand operatic stage, voracious designs of the city planners. without even the echo of a lingering In reference to the proliferation of aria to sweeten this dusty requiem to concrete in modern Turkish architecture, passing grandeur. Seen from the water, he said that in Istanbul the east has however, behind its long quay, it has a departed and the west has not yet arrived. certain elegance. There is a sequel: the Eating in Istanbul is a sultan 's next day when visiting the Dolmaba�e choice. At Kadir's Place in the fish Palace on the opposite shore (another market of Pera, one suffers formica 19th century monument of man's self tabletops and television blaring to eat aggrandisement) we saw the room facing turbot steaks from the charcoal grill, the water where AtatUrk, the founder of fresher, more succulent and generally modern Turkey, died in 1938. Here all tastier than have been fo und in London __ 1_ the clocks are stopped at just past 9 in recent years. This is also the season o'clock. for artichokes; cooked with olive oil and For lunch we were guests of Mme Corner of a mosque, Rume/i Hisari, diced vegetables, and served cold as a Munever Ayasli, a true Ottoman in her Istanbul salad, there are few things finer. 'yali' (waterside residence, a few of Strawberry compote with kaymak (thick Mahmud Hudai Effendi. One day, during which remain on the Bosphorus shore). clotted buffalo cream) completes a meal an intimate dinner from which the Her gracious hospitality is an enduring worthy of Lucullus. At Hajj i Baba's servants had been dismissed, Hudai ViaS reminder of an age when generosity and restaurant near Taksim Square, we had washing his hands, with the S uftan gratitude were the rule; and manners, aubergine salads, grilled king prawns, pouring water and the Sultan 's mother whether in the poorest or the most chicken breast with pilaf stuffing - an drying his hands. They asked him to noble, were the hallmark of a civilised endless menu of delights. However, it is perform a miracle. He replied "What society. sipping raki on a balcony of the famous greater miracle can there be that I, the Pera Palace Hotel, and nibbling Sultan's subje ct, am having my hands pistachio nuts with the sun selling over washed by the Sultan and his motherl" . he following afternoon, drinking that unbelievable skyline beyond the T Turkish coffee in the rose garden Golden Horn, that holds the n a wet and misty Sunday morning we made a visit to the tekkeO of the lelveti order of Dervishes in Uskudar. Above the entrance is written: "Oh lIeart, if you want to learn of the Divine Taste Surely you will receive your portion V you enter by the gate of the Iludai. ' Here we paid our respects at the tomb tlf its founder, Aziz Mahmud Hudai Effendi. The keepers brought us water to drink from the Ayazma (spring) and we sat a while in the small mosque where Sultan Ahmet's mother used to come and listen to the sermons of Hudai. Red roses bloom in profusion and the view over the Bosphorus from this sprawling hillside enclave is of one perfect sClling to another. All that day was spent on the Bosphorus, our first port of call being Beylerbeyi Palace on the Asian border. Here the deposedSu ltan Hamid II (1876- 1909), the last proper sultan, saw out the sad end of his days in a small back Ottoman Yali (seaside mansion), room, unable to bear the view of Istanbul 18 ISSUE 3 Ottoman Turkey BESHARA quintessential flavour of the bounty of Next morning on the anniversary or D Istanbul. Day we crossed the Hellespont and landed on the Gallipoli peninsula. There on the hillside, written in white stones sunny morning saw us in a are these words of Necmettin Halil A small plane flying low over the Onan: sea of Marmara, skirting the Princes Stop 0 Traveller Islands (the place of exile of many a :this earth you tread so unaware deposed Byzantine emperor or empress) Is where an age died and hedgehopping the remaining 25 Bow and listen to this quiet mound miles to Bursa. Where beats the heart of a nation. Bursa has been a spa town since Roman times and has worn manycl oaks Seven miles before Edime there since the early days of its eponymous appeared, as if a mirage, the Selimiye king Prussias (hence Brusa, Bursa). Mosque, its dome and spiring minarets Under the Ottomans it flourished as the barely anchored upon the Thracian centre of the silk trade with caravans plane. This is Sinan's greatest master from Persia bringing this luxurious piece. Later, sitting in the cool of its fabric to the agents of the great trailing interior it seemed that in the equation of houses of Renaissance Europe. Like its appearance, its mass resembles light Istanbul, its story may be read in its and its volume infinity, to the point of mosques and tombs. Many of the early complete identity; a unity inclusive of sultans were buried here, and their all the figures under its canopy. Its lovely tiled mausoleums and the Market stall, Bursa dome, even higher than that of the Ayia mosques which they had built, begin the Sophia in Istanbul, is so light and free transition from Seljuk and Arab Down through the market, past the fruit that birds fly there, mistaking the sky. influences to a purely Ottoman style. sellers, their baskets overflowing with Through dozens of windows perforating The Ulu Camii - the Great Mosque produce, the spice merchants with their the cupolas and arches light streams in c.1400 built by Bayazit 1 - is the centre multi-coloured mounds and the olive upon the pale sand-coloured stonework. of the town. Its many columns are man surrounded by buckets of gleaming The details of its architecture are defined painted with the most beautiful black fruit - just round the corner and a by little more than a simple calligraphic calligraphy, and beneath an opening in hundred yards is Ismail Hakki's place, a frieze of tiles, a continuous prayer the roof is, unusually, a fountain for rose garden in full bloom, and a shady running at midway height around the ablutions. The Yesil Camii - the Green corner away from the storm of the walls, and the stones of the arches Mosque, built in 1420 - also has a world. On the green painted iron work picked out in alternating red and white. fo untain and the most beautiful tiles. surrounding his simple tomb is written: Sinan demonstrates in this perfect Humility is the garment of true space a unity and conformity to an order grandeur and certainly the humble tomb "Only those who have burnt into their which includes and surpasses man's of Hazreti Uftade discloses palace gates. hearts the love of Tawhid (Unification) mortality. Here, where centuries before Wandering east out of the town, bearing bring light to the tomb of Isma il llakki both Hudai and Bursevi spent time as left up the hill, a linle street opens out Bursevi" . students, and no doubt also wandered and onto a small square, set with plane trees wondered within this grandest of icons, and bounded by a Qu'ran school, a How generous that such an eminent a linle of the Ottoman meaning became mosque and a simple square building, disciple of Ibn ' Arabi should be so evident. It was not in the trappings of This is Uftade's place. It is quiet but its accessible, there among the buying and religious appearances, nor in the peace is rich. 'Uftade' means 'humiliated selling. sultan's riches, nor in his glorious in Love' and he was the teacher of victories. It was here in this singular Hudai. building where the particular of the Different yet with the same e journeyed on by coach via the civilisation transcends itself, and man announcement - like diamonds cut each WGulf of Edremit where for a finds himself simply as a lover of in their unique way indicate and reflect while we became lotus eaters, Beauty. the same light - is Ismail Hakki swimming in the crystal blue waters and Bursevi, the lelveti Sheikh "noted for lunching on kofte and salad and yoghurt The writer wishes to express sincere and his erudition both where the Turkish in a remote little seaside locanta. heartfe lt thanks to Mr Bulent Rauf, language of his time is concerned and To Troy - a dusty wind blowing in especially fo r all his help, his inilisputable mastery of the finesse the afternoon heat, sweeping over the encouragement and direction in making and intricacies of the Arabic language". dereliction of three thousand year-old this journey, and to Mr Peter Yiangou (Bulent Rauf). crumbling walls, a mass of stones fo r his unstinting good humour in layered in centuries of toil and myth - arranging and conducting this tour. "Those whom neither buying nor where blood red poppies spring up selling distractfr om the remembrance of among the fallen rocks and wagtails (1) lIistory of Turkey by S. Lane-Poo/e. God" - Qu'ran. search for water in the dried up wells. London 1888. Chapter 10. AUTUMN 1987 19 BESHARA Letters to the Edi tor Letters to the Editor Issue 2 Sirs, Your editorial in Issue 2 was exemplary of compassion as eagerly as we now feel morphogenetic field theories, in which in tone and meaning, with one free to develop our 'taste' for the the individuals are "inside the plan". exception - the use of the 'acknowledge' useless. Lookedat from this viewpoint, the in the context of ... "and acknowledge Michael Litherland, ability of theplan itself to learn and the ego-centricty which is implicit in Edinburgh. evolve has a double significance. First, much of our modern (particularly that such consciousness is independent scientific) thought". of the particular individuals that make it To acknowledge means to recognise Sirs, up and secondly, that the success of the the existence, truth or reality of Having recently been fascinated by Dr. nest does depend on the experience of its something. Egocentricity has no Sheldrake's articles in the first two individuals to evolve. existence, truth or reality andapprec editions of the magazine, and in Here also is an example of the way iation is due to that which raises one particular his descriptions of the in which knowledge is identical witJJ the from the level of such non-existent working of termites, I was struck by a thing known, since the two (the activity - ie. to the True Self, not the recent article Colonial memories in the individual and the nest) are only imaginary self. It is this which must be ant world in the New Scientist (2nd July separable in thought, not in fact recognised before understanding - and 1987, page 33). This article describes (without lie individuals, the nest would real usefulness - can ensue. the work carried out by Deborah Gordon not exist). As long as this is kept in Mark Temple of the Museum of Comparative mind, what appears as a puzzle is indeed East Grinstead, Sussex Zoology at Harvard University, who quite natural. examined the behaviour of Harvester Frances Ryan ants when subjected to interference. She Cambridge Sirs, intriguingly found tJ13t the older May I congratulate Mr Pawloff for his colonies were more tolerant. To quote excellent and informative review of The the last two paragraphs: Non-Locality Living Economy ( Summer 1987). "These results, intriguing though they Sirs, What this bookseems to highlight is arc, raise more questions than they On perusing lie back copies of the New the need for us to completely re-appraise answer. Ants performing one task seem Scientist, I came across an interesting what we call wealth and to ask difficult to monitor their own numbers and article on the curious quantum effcct of questions, such as - does it enhance the numbers involved in other tasks. Does Non-Locality by Nick Herbert (How to wealth of the world more to extract the this involve a central source of be in two places at one time, August earth 's mineral substances to build a information inside the nest ? Do they 21 st 1986). The author concludes with a million television sets or to cultivate keep track of how many of them are question "Why. ..does nature need to within oneself the quality of, let us say, working on a task, or how much of the deploy a fa ster-than-light subatomic compassion. task is being do ne ? When there is a reality to keep up merely light-speed Econom ic progress has been seen commotion, do ants who were doing macrocosmic appearances?" almost entirely in terms of quantity other tasks become patrollers. or do Perhaps theanswer to this lies in ratherthan quality. Those of us who ants who were idle within the nest punctuation, as follows: wish to demonstrate the unity of decide the start work? Most puzzling of Question: Why ...does nature need to existence through the economic sphere all. why do older colonies diffe r fr om deploy a faster-than-light subatomic must prove what we know by our younger ones? reality? achievements. It is not a question of Cordon estimates that her older Answer: To keep up merely light-speed dismissing conventional economics, but colonies were about five years old, macrocosmic appearances. of placing them within a wider context compared with two years fo r the QED. - rather as relativity theory did with younger ones. But the average worker Richard Twinch Newtonian mechanics. This does not ant lives fo r a year or less. so the The Beshara School of Esoteric involve looking at isolated different responses of workers in the Education. Scotland. environments, but of developing witJlin older colonies cannot be the result of ourselves the capacity to witness all learning by individual ants. There must environments 20 ISSUE 3 Poverty and Self-Sufficiency BESHARA Poverty and Self-Sufficiency Two Poems from Ibn 'Arabi's 'Revelations at Mecca' Translated by Dr R. W. J. Austin, with his commentary. A talk given at The Beshara School of Intensive Esoteric Education in September 1986. On Poverty Poverty is something common to all creation, both Its rule is special to Him, even the essence being essentially and effectively. abstracted from it in a state of non-existence. It does not come into existence and thus cannot be described. Properly, however, it denotes that state of contingent potentiality which the divine Names vie with one All evidence of its realisation is totally hidden to one another in seeking. who would talkof it, although the intellect confirms itstruth. The strong are only strong predispositionally; likewise the weak in their weakness, so that in effect Thus, in the Sura of the Spider He speaks of Himself the two are in accord. as beyond all need of the realm of becoming. All realities flow in their (appointed) courses, the Study this matter well and you will find (experience) course of each reality being innate within it. the negation I have mentioned, namely, that no proof The poor one whose destitution dominates him in is given of it. everything is clothed in creatureliness. None knows of these things save he whose mark is of this world and the Hereafter and which is confirmed In every state one sees him as if thus clothed layer by the Holy Dispensation. upon layer. This does not hide him from the eye of his Creator, strewn as his life's path is with calamities and On Poverty attachments. Poverty is a rule (state of createdness) which none et us look at this very important concept of truly grasps save he who has risen above theconcerns L poverty, al faqr. As usual with important of fam ily and offspring. Arabic words, it is impossible to find a precise Poverty is the universal and inexorable rule of all Engl ish word to convey everything that Ibn ' Arabi becoming, nor do I exempt a single one of the undoubtedly intended. Al faqr properly means poverty Essences. in the sense of not having very much, of needing. So a better translation of the word fa qr might be need, or That is because all of them fundamentally seek it indigence; not being able to do without something; (poverty) and it seeks them out intrinsically, dissatisfaction. If you like, it is a raw, vulnerable, wherever they are. open, passive state - a state of receptivitiy. All of them are a matter of number and all of them In Arabic the root meaning of a word is very are evens apart from the one called the Unique. important, and it is interesting that one of the other meanings of the root of the word is a hole that All other essences are, as we have indicated, names fa qr has been dug for things to grow in. It therefore means like the Bestower, the Beneficient, the Eternal Resource. a receptive space, and in that sense poverty, as it says in the second line of the poem, is a state of Exalted be He Who is far beyond any comparison, contingent potentiality. I think that Ibn ' Arabi means unbegotten as He is in intellect or body. very m uch the raw, vulnerable, total I y receptive state of matter at the moment of creation. To put it in classical philosophical terms, it is the receptivity of On Self-Sufficiency Prime Matter to the creative act of the Universal Intellect. Self-sufficiency is a negative attribute whose rank and dignity is quite distinct from the relationships of The idea of need is very important here, for by Names. definition we are all in need of God. In other words, AUTUMN 1987 21 BESHARA Dr. R.WJ. Austin poverty is very much to do with the notion of in the mind of God, need something else - a state of servanthood. Poverty in this sense can be expressed poverty- in order to become manifest. Here poverty by defining our identity as 'reference identity', and the is a very positive quality. Without poverty, without Divine Identity as 'core identity'. Our sense of self need or desire, without the reaching out and striving and identity is dependenton outside reference - our which is implicit in poverty, nothing would become. relatives, surroundings and achievements; laboratory This is why Ibn 'Arabi says in the Fusus al-Hikam experiments have shown that people deprived of that caprice, whim, desire, al-hawa, is such an virtually all stimulation hallucinate and go mad, for important part of the Divine method. In a sense, the we need stimuli and references and history to give us Divine splits Itself, like the fertilisation of an egg, to identity. In contrast, God the Divine has 'core create a new creature. By this Self-dividing into that identity'. He is Himself, in Himself, without need of which creates and that which is created, there is reference to anything else. Ultimately, of course, in established need not only on one side, but also on the the philosophy and teaching of Ibn 'Arabi only His other. The essences which we are in aeternis need the Identity exists. Our identity is therefore marked by creative process in order to manifest themselves, just this wordfaqr , need. as the creative process needs the essences in order to This is our essential condition. It is the essential bring into being. condition of everything. As he says in the first verse, This mutual poverty ultimately stems from that 'It is common to all creation'. I use the word which is the subject of the second poem - the creation, but the Arabic word, kan, means all that is Divine Self-Sufficiency, the Divine Completeness, in a state of becoming, or in other words, all that is which I always refer to as the Self. In the Divine Self in a state of change. Birth, decay, death, things which there are no oppositions, no needs. All need is are constantly on the move, constantly changing implicit in a total Self-satisfaction. form, shape and function - this is the world in which we live, the Cosmos, al-alamin. "Properly, however, it denotes that state of Had we a much wider scope of vision, even the contingent potentiality which the Divine Names things we regard as stable, fixed and eternal would vie with one another in seeking. " appear to flow and change like everything else; had we galactic, rather than planetary vision, we would Here again is the notion of a sort of screen which is see mountains, oceans and continents changing shape begging to have a fonn projected onto it, of a hole very quickly. It is only beeause we live in such into which a tree is going to be planted, of an instantaneous time that we do not see all that happens emptiness. Faqr in this sense very much relates to in the universe, all becoming, as part of the great what the Christian mystics call vacare Deo:: to be outpouring of the Divine in Self-manifestation to empty for God, to be ready and receptive to the Himself of His infinite possibility. Being part of the Divine commands and to the Divine imprint. That is outpouring, we are totally in need of the One who what makes fa qr such a precious quality. It is a very outpours. difficult attitude to properly cultivate, but it is such Without His power of imagining Himself, we an important quality to learn for anyone interested in would not be here at all. A sufi sheikh once looking the spiritual life. over a beautiful mountain scene turned to his As Ibn 'Arabi has said, the Divine Names are companion and said, "But for the Beauty of God none essential relationships. They are the hidden essences of this would exist. But for His wish to enjoy in the mind of God. The Names require the mutual Himself, none of this would exist at all". need of essence and creation to operate, and so they are in a sense a bridge between God in Himself and (1) Bezels of This brings us to another very important point made God as Self-realised in creation. The Names also fulfil Wisdom. by Ibn 'Arabi: that in certain aspects, God Himself is a microcosmic function in that Man himself is the Transl. also in need. "/ worship lIim and lie worships me" . bridge between the Divine latency and the Divine Austin. (1). Many of the great mystics in the Christian, manifestation. Paulist Press, Islamic and other traditions have pointed out that NY. 1980. there cannot be one who is worshipped unless there "The strong are only strong predispositionally; page 95 are worshippers. Ibn 'Arabi builds up an enormously likewise the weak in their weakness, so that in fa scinating notion of the mutual polarity between the effe ct the two are in accord. " Lord and the Lorded, rabb wa marbub, or between the God and the 'Goded', ilah wa ma 'luh. If anything is Here he is making what to most people would seem in a polar relationship with anything else, then there an amazing statement: that strength and weakness, is a mutual dependence between them. Hence God in indeed all of the opposite things which are manifest the aspect of being separate from the creation is also as characteristics of created beings are nothing but in need. creational effects which give manifested form to things latent in the Divine possibility. The whole "Poverty is something common to all creation, universe, all the things that worry us from one life's both essentially and effe ctively. " end to another, all are but a part of the great bursting of possibilities. He means that we, even in our eternal essences deep When he says that the strong are only strong 22 ISSUE 3 Poverty and Self-Sufficiency BESHARA predispositionally and that the weak are only weak be poor; poverty regarded as imperfection must be a predispositionally, he indicates that they are in one part of HisPerf ection and Wholeness. sense the same. This relates to what Ibn ' Arabi says So in these lines he is alluding not only to the in 'The Fusus al-Hikarn' (2) about the roles of poverty of the human condition, but to the fact that (2) Chapter Pharoah and Moses. Pharoah , the great archetypal God, deeply buried under all the layers of creation in on Moses. tyrant, is playing an essential role with respect to us and in everything else, is ultimately not hidden Moses, the servant and apostle of God seeking to free from Himself in origin. God knows Himself through the Jewish people from the yoke of slavery. Ibn all the layers of becomingand when God sees through , Arabi suggests that Pharoah knew in his heart of all our layers of poverty, He sees into our heart and hearts that he was only playing a role, and that he meets Himself again there. was not totally identified with the tyranny he Ultimately these lines are saying: however poor, represented. Moses was also aware that he was however non-entity, however miserable and ridiculous playing a role with respect to Pharoah. a person is, God's eye will penetrate through to In other words, strength and weakness, tyranny and Himself in that person. However poor, the richness freedom, are all part of therelease of predispositional and self-sufficiency of God is ultimately there. As effects. They are all part of what the Hindus call the with a hologram, where every piece contains the Ula, the play of the universe. Even things that appear whole, so each of us contains the whole. Each i�, in to be despicable and evil are an essential part of the essence, the Divine Itself, with all Its richness and wholeness of the universe. Ibn ' Arabi says that it is self-sufficiency deeply buried under the layers of an essential part of the perfection of the universe that poverty and creatureliness. there is imperfection in it. The strong are just as much in need as the weak, but in a different way. "Poverty is a rule (state of createdness) which none truly grasps save he who has risen above the "Allrealitiesflo w in their(ap pointed) courses, the concerns offamily and offsp ring. " course of each reality being innate within it. " This is a very important line, for when he says This again relates to the previous verse, but in terms 'family and offspring', he means the whole business of 'destination'. By reality he means essence and of being desperate about security, of being involved manifestation as a single entity - that we are here and busy with the world and building our own little and an essence in the mind of God together. The universes for ourselves; that is, of making ourselves realities have their own peculiar destinies which are like God. One who is busy with this cannot laid down, so to speak, in what they are in eternity in understand real poverty. That person can only see God. However, they have a freedom in that they poverty as something negative, to be avoided and provide God with the knowledge of what they are hedged against as much as possible. Real poverty is going to be, so that He ordains their destinies something you can understand only when you are free according to what they, in eternity, give Him. of that self-deification process which is involved in In other words, he is saying that all realities arc being secure. intimately dependent in one way or another, whether as manifested beings or as essences, and that "Povertyis the universal and inexorable rule of all dependence underpins their destinies. And as I have becoming, nor do I exempt a single one of the indicated already, there would not be any destinies essences. " without the experience of need. The Arabic word I have translated as essences, a'yan, can mean either one of the essences in the Divine "The poor one whose destitution dominates him in Essence, or it can mean important people in a everything is clothed in creatureliness. community. So here is another double meaning: that In every state one sees him as if thus clothed he exempts from this rule neither the essences latent layerup on layer. in the Divine, Eternal Being, nor the most important This does not hide him fr om the ey e of his of people, not even the greatest sheikhs and saints. creator, strewn as his life 'S path is with calamities Even they are inexorably poor, no matter what they and attachments. " seem to have achieved. In these three verses we have Ibn ' Arabi at his most "That is because all ofthemfundamentally seek it subtle, fo r he is playing on many different levels. (p overty) and it seeks them out intrinsically, There are three possible ways of understanding his use wherever they are are. " of 'the poor one' in these verses. The most obvious is the person who is totally dependent on God or on Here he refers to the rule that poverty is an essential other people; then there is 'the poor' in the spiritual experience for anyone definitely seeking truth and sense of the metaphysical poverty discussed above; insight into the way things really are. The experience and then there is the much more subtle sense in of oneself as totally insufficient must be part of any which, because the poor are ultimately nothing other spiritual advance for, as Ibn ' Arabi has said twice in than He; the poor can be thought of as He, the the poem,it is an essential, fundamental, unavoidable Divine. The Divine wanting to be complete must also law of being and becoming. AUTUMN 1987 23 BESHARA Dr. R.WJ. Austin "All of them are a matter of number and all of spiritual matters, and although these may be them are evens apart from the one called the confirmed inwardly, to talk about the most important Unique." things in the spiritual life is a dangerous practice and not to be recommended. This is why silence and Here he rounds off the poem by bringing it back to al - reticence are such an important part of all spiritual Ahad: the Unique, the Incomparable, the Alone with disciplines, and why, within religious traditions, whom nothing can be compared, who has no notion those whose prayer and contemplation are the most of creating anything other than Himself. This is the valued are those who say as little as possible. In touchstone of the poverty discussed above, for it is in silence, things may be known and experienced which relation to That that all is needy. are quite beyond words to explain. Whereas a/-A had refers to He who is One without Moreover, as Ibn ' Arabi has said on other second, the Name al-Wahid means the One which is occasions, you cannot tel l someone else about the the First of the infinity of numbers. All things which taste of honey until he has eaten it for himself. are 'products' of whatever creative process are a Spiritual experience and being admitted into the truth matter of number and evens. They are all part of the of great realities is something which is peculiar to the polarities, and hence are all in a state of need. person who has it. Grace works in a miraculous and mysterious way, its wonders to perform. Trying to "All other essences are, as we have indicated, tell someone else about it, however innocent the names like the Bestower, the Benefi cent, the enthusiasm, may be trying to communicate about Eternal Resource". that experience to someone who is not ready for it. Although one may perhaps talk about it in later years All other essences are looking to become created in when other experiences have overlaid it, I think that the universe. The Names are, if you like, the media in the immediate aftermath of any such experience, it through which God creates Himself as God. The is best to savour it inwardly. We have as an example Names of God include such Names as the Destroyer of this the fam ous line in the Gospels referring to the and the Ravager, for in that outpouring of Himself He Incarnation, 'and Mary kept all of these things and (3) Luke is all possibility; He is all the things that are savoured them in her heart'. (3) 2.vJ9. essential to the completeness of the Divine. So the message of this little poem on Self Ibn ' Arabi completes the poem with a dedication to Sufficiency is partly a message of silence, for it the Unique One before whom we are all in dire concerns al-A had, the Unique, which is never realised poverty: in manifesUltion. "Exalted be /-le Who is fa r beyond any "Self- suff iciency is a negative attribute whose comparison, ullbegotten as He is in intellect or rank and dignity is quite diffe rent fr om the body. " relationships of the Na mes. " No creature can experience ghina, self-sufficiency, in On Self-Sufficiency the proper sense of the word. This illustrates another message which comes out of this poem, and I am, after all, sharing with you my own feelings and elf-sufficient, ghani, is often translated in interpretations about this poem: the need in spiritual SEnglish as 'rich', but as with the poem on matters for great mysteries, great unknowables, Poverty, it has nothing to do with possession. It is ineffables, indescribables. There is a tendency in the state of being able to do without, of not needing modern times to want to make all of religion anything: it is the opposite of fa qr. As such it is vernacular and comprehensible to the people. There is essentially beyond our experience, and so the less said a certain truth in that, for if one becomes too secret about it the better. However, through our constant and obscure then one begins to remove religion from attempL" to deify ourselves, we aim at a self the people, and a certain amount of opening becomes sufficiency which is a delusion, whereas our poverty necessary. However, it is absolutely vital in religious is not a delusion. matters that God the Divine remains ultimately I would like to use this poem, therefore, to talk incomprehensible, a mystery. Without mystery there about two things which are rather important in the is no vision, and people perish. And this precisely spiritual life: the need for mystery, and the need for relates to these lines: that God in His Self silence. Sufficiency, ir: His Aloneness and Incomparability, is a mystery which cannot be fathomed. "All evidence of its realisation is totally hidden to Whilst in his writings Ihn ' Arahi unravels for us one who would talk of it, although the intellect the innermost mysteries of the Divine and the confi rms its Truth." relationship between the Divine, Man and the universe, he himself would be the first to caution that In this third verse Ibn ' Arabi poinL" out that, these are ultimately a matter of grace and inner although one may come to know through grace or discovery. However many books one has pored over, effort or divine inspiration certain things about it will be the decision of God as to how much of that 24 ISSUE 3 Poverty and Self-Suffi ciency BESHARA any one of us can absorb, and there will remain path, are redundant and obsolete, because there is mysteries which cannot be explained. So I think that nothing beyond the Alone which can pointto Him, one of the things this poem is telling us, and which should be borne in mind by anyone spending a lot of time studying the works of Ibn ' Arabi, or of Rumi, "Study this matter well and you will fi nd (experience) the negation I have mentioned, or of any other spiritual path, is that one must leave namely, that no proof is given of it. " room in one's heart and mind for great mysteries. It says on Muslim tombstones, 'Huwa al-Baqi' - The Self-Sufficiency, the Aloneness, the UniquelJess He is the One who remains. After all the talk and is an abyss which can be compared, although in a study and writings and great volumes, after all the very different way, to the emptiness of poverty. It is centuries of spiritual efforts to understand, after all the an abyss of unknowing, and if one strives to realisations of the great saints and sheikhs and gurus, understand it too much, it becomes an abyss in which 'Huwa al-Baqi': He remains and His Mystery remains one is totally dissolved. untouched. In other words, He is Glumi and SeIf Another thing one might say here is that, in Sufficient in His A hadiyyah. He does not need our spiritual matters, one should take heed of obstacles. study, devotion, worship and aspiration. From the Sometimes obstacles are not just indicators that one point of view of the Unique, all that is a total is not working hard enough or that one has not delusion. But what is then perhaps the greatest understood something, rather that at the moment, or mystery involved in the notion of ghina is the chasm perhaps for all one's life, one is not intended to leaped from the Unique One to the Great Creator, understand such things. Sometimes obstacles with whom we are all involved and of whom we are beneficially bar the way to things that are not to be all ineffably a part. understood, except by those for whom it pleases God to unlock them. So looking for proofs, evidences and "Its rule is special to Him, even the Essence being explanations for everything is a mistake. abstracted fr om it in a state of non-existence. It does not come into existence and thus cannot be "None knows of these things save he whose mark described. " is of this world and the Hereaft er and which is confirmed by the Holy Dispensation." In relation to the Divine Self-Sufficiency, not even a notion of our individuality or separateness in the Here Ibn ' Arabi is saying that only the Perfect Man eternity of Divine latency operates. There can be no really understands the implications of God's Self breath of another for Him, not even the merest Sufficiency. 'this world and the Hereafter . .. ' points suggestion that we might be in some way other than to life and death, body and spirit; , which is confirmed Him, even in the depths of His own Being. One of by the Holy Dispensation.' points to that which is the greatest teachings of Ibn ' Arabi is the notion of exoterically as well as esoterically authoritative. Thus the essences of created things deep in the eternal being the great prophets and saints, as functions or of God, but in the context of the Self-Sufficient, operations of the Perfect Man, are among those who Unique One, even that principial, conceptual may be said to understand or know something of the distinction ceases to exist. This again reinforces the implications of this great mystery of the Divine Self mystery of the aloneness and unrelatability of God. It Sufficiency. does not come into existence and thus cannot be If one were to draw from this poem a single described. Occasionally I cannot resist a wry smile message, one might say it is a message of great when one thinks that the great mystics are always spiritual caution: Beware, you are on Holy ground. telling us how indescribable things are, and then You are before mysteries which are not for the spend years writing great volumes! profane, and which are only for those who are elected by Grace to know them. "All evidence of its realisation is totally hidden to I think it is important to accept that, in the one who would talk of it, although the intellect spiritual quest, all of us have some limits. All of us confi rms its truth. are made in such-and-such a way, and there are certain Thus in the Sura of the Spider He speaks of things we are going to be capable of knowing and Himself as beyond all need of the realm of others which we are not. I think that realising our becoming". own qualities is, paradoxically, part of beginning to understand the mysteries of Sdf-Sufficiency. In the It says in the Sura of the Spider in the Koran that He poem by Rumi, (4) the aspirant who comes to adore (4) From The is beyond all need of the worlds. The root of the God knocks at the door and the voice within asks, Malhnawi of Arabic word used, al-alamin, also means to know, to "Who is it?". He answers, "[/ is /." The response is, lalaluddin indicate, to learn something by finding clues and, of "[ know not an /." Ultimately the man at the door Rumi. course, the clues themselves. So one might say that answers, "It is Thou", and is let in. Self-sufficiency He is beyond the need of all proofs, indications and demands the complete effacement in poverty, the evidences. Here again is another aspect of the mystery admission of the inability and inadvisibility and of Uniqueness: that all evidence, all clues, which are incapacity of even the greatest aspirant before such such an important part of religion and of the spiritual mysteries as these. AUTUMN 1987 25 BESHARA Beshara Tru st / Reaffmnation Beshara Trust News replied, 'The rest of you come to see me Reaffirmation with part of yourselves, leaving the other part of you occupied with your A course at Chisholme other concerns, while Ibn 'Arabi is a House during the consolation to me,for he comes to me with all of himself. When he rises up it summer of 1987 is with all of himself and when he sits it is with his whole self, leaving Elizabeth Roberts nothing of himself elsewhere. That is how it should be on the Way." n the last issue of BESHARA, an I o return to the aim of the course; article entitled 'What is the T Difference? A Reaffinnation' began by in the introductory paper which all quoting a conversation known from students find by their bedside when they tradition in which the One and Only arrive, it is stated that "The cause and Unique Lord addressed His own Chislwlme House, Scotland predicate of reaffirmation is the Essential possibilities with the underlining and stressing of the "Am I not your Lord?" is no real expression or individuation at constancy and quality of the service of question Our _ unequivocal and most spontaneous all. Servanthood and dependence are the love, which can only come about in answer was " Yes, indeed" . means given to mankind for drawing total awareness" . This conversation takes place in our close. In choosing to make himself The reason why the awareness must pre-existence, 'before' coming into servant, a man must observe the be total is because the love referred to being in this world, though not in time inclination and take his cue from the here is not that of a particular or partial - for eternity is not subject to the limits one served . To do this, it is necessary to point of view; rather it is the love of the of relativity. So, equally, in the Divine adopt the point of view of the one Whole for Itself, as in the hadith qudsi domain of Oneness, distance has no served towards all matters, including "{ was a hidden treasure and I loved to effect. There is no separation in terms of himself, until the servant's being is in be known ...... " This love is the distance between the questioner and the the lord, not in himself. In this way, Essential love of God, conceived in answerer. The answer is spoken in full service leads to identification with the transcendence from the plurality of light of the self-evident truth of the lord, which is union. qualification and name, to witness that situation. At the same time, there is a To put it another way; if something total image of His perfection which is very clear distinction made between the is so dependent on another that it privately treasured in the Unknow two positions. simply cannot exist without it for ableness of His Essence. And yet it is to It is in the light of this original anything at all, then what being or precisely this degree of love that Ismail affinnation of His Being alone, identity can it be said to have apart from Hakki Bursevi, in his introduction to demonstrated in the submission of all the one on which it depends? None. Ibn 'Arabi 's 'Fusus al-Hikam ' (1 ), else beside Him, (for the Essences have This is real intimacy, not of two but of invites us to intitiate our intention, never smelt the breath of existence), that one. when he says "And you, ifyou want to the reaffinnation course at Chisholme Outwardly submission often appears observe the Beauty of the Real Beloved, this summer ta kes place. Here, we are as abstinence, as self-denial. Inwardly initiate your intention to the Love of pointed to our place of origin, where we however it is the giving of oneself so God according to "I was a hidden are already established in perfection in completely to the object of one's desire treasure and I loved to be known ...... "". the Divine knowledge, as the true that nothing of oneself is left to remain This matter is of such height and starting point for our education in this behind. So the inner meaning of majesty that even to find in oneself a life, which is potentially the superlative submission or servanthood is love, and taste for it is already cause for praise - place of progress in education. its purpose closeness. for it is beyond any individual capability In the translation by R.WJ. Austin even to conceive of it. At the same of Ibn 'Arabi's book 'The Sufis of time, it is the cause and purpose of all Following the sense of the dialogue Andalusia' is recounted a story of a existence, but particularly of human just quoted, the necessary ground woman sage in her nineties, Nunah existence. Such knowledge does not for individual progress must be Fatimah Bint Ibn al-Muthanna, who happen to people as a result of their conceived of in terms of submission, for used to say " Of those who come to me, application, their good works or their without this pre-condition we are in the I admire none more that Ibn 'Arabi." ability to receive it. Even the receptivity - realms of relative imagination and there On being asked the reason for this, she for it has to be given, for it is His 26 ISSUE 3 Beshara Trust / Reaffmnation BESHARA knowledge of which He alone is the knower and its effusion, from the point Ecce HOlllo of view of the servant, is pure Divine Beneficence. An Homage to the Bishop of Gloucester This again points to the uncond itioned poverty of spirit which characterises the real lovers of Beauty ome while ago, we were very through the complexities of his beyond form. As Meister Eckhart says S kindly received by the Bishop of cathedral and his Pasture to reach concerning the reception of God in the Gloucester, of whom we had solicited an towards the sublime Christian quote: hearts of men, " True poverty of sp irit audience concerning matters of Cathedral "Be ye perfect as your Father is" . requires thatman shall be emptied of and ex-Cathedral addresses. It takes depth of passion and god and all his works, so that if God During conversation, mention was learning, tempered with humility, to wants to act in the soul he himself must made of Beshara, with whose intentions refrain from shutting gates which lead to be the place in which he acts .... fo r God and writings the Bishop was already further glories. is one who acts within himself It is familiar, and he had the grace to refer to It is rare to see, in the finesse of here in this poverty that man regains the them as they were concerned with high devotion to task, a greatness of soul, an eternal being that once he was, now is matters and, humbly, that his task was equal admittance of the presence of other and ever more shall be." (From 'The to do with the multitude. concepts of elation permitted and Sermons', No 28, Blessed are the Po, )r) What emerged from such a converse attractive to man, and yet not interfere. was the great humility of the vocation Our gratitude to the Bishop of and his deep understanding of mankind - Gloucester is as infinite as his "lX Tcbegan with reference to th.: that because it did not fit in with his unhindered vision to horizons where V V �ternal being that once we scheme of things he did not discard but "stands erect the Man", as Giordano 'were'. The use of the past tense here is seemed instead to tolerate such Bruno once wrote. to point inwardly, not behind. We are discrepancy of approach as laudable, Arthur Martin all, without exception, of His Essence, allowing those who wish to emancipate and it would be a pity on us if we were to squander our possibility and fail to reach our portion. Still it remains that, Beshara Australia if there is any oppression, "Indeed, it was I who was the oppressor and Yo u There have been major developments and cost of passage. Grenville Coli ins is who are the most Merciful of the recently in the movement to establish a the Trust representative co-ordinating all Mercifuls". (From The Wird of Ibn School of Intensive Esoteric Education these different aspects and the Beshara 'Arabi, Wednesday morning prayer). in Australia. A suitable property in Trust is in the process of registering as May He clarify our intention, purify Victoria has come onto the market and a foreign company in Australia. our motivation and strengthen our funds are being negotiated to purchase Since the intention was first set, resolve that we may find Him as He is. it. If the sale goes through, there could activity has been concentrated on And may He make of us His express ion, be courses running in Australia within looking for suitable properties. Severell as He chooses. the year. have come up - either on the open The intention to establish a School market or offered [or Beshara's use - but 1. Translated by Bulenl Rauf. Muhyiddin in Australia along the lines of circumstances have prevented their Ibn 'Arabi Society, 1986. See Page 1. Chisholme House in Scotland was set acquisition. But in July this year, a 53 over a year ago. It came about in acre working farm at Yackandandah, in response to the need of people in the State of Victoria, became available Beshara Israel Australia and the general level of and it is this which is now under In the past year, a Beshara study group interest there in the type of education consideration. has been started in Israel and three Israeli offered by the Trust, reflected in the Yackandandah is well-located, being students have attended the first six number of Australian students on accessible from the most densely month course at the Beshara School of courses at Chisholme in recent years. populated part of Australia, within easy Intensive Esoteric Education at The aim is to start a school where a reach of Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra Chisholme House. This marks the strong foundation in esoteric knowledge and Adelaide. The property has an beginning of a new and exciting can be established; it will run short existing farmhouse and numerous development which, it is hoped, will courses and a six month introductory outhouses which could be easily eventually be able to provide courses in intensive course. Richard MacEwan, converted for use as a school, and there the country itself. Groups have been who has spent many years at Chisholme is great potential [or future expansion. It meeting regularly, first in Tel Aviv and as Estate Manager and course co comes up for auction on October 10th now at a more permanent base in ordinator, has agreed to act as the and by the time this magazine appears Jerusalem, and lectures have been given Trust's agent in the matter and he and the outcome will be known. If you in several different towns and his family will be moving to Australia would like to know more about this communities. For further information in July 1988; a special fund, which venture, or about Beshara courses in and addresses, please contact the attracted generous donations, was set up Australia, please contact: PO Box 1474, Secretary at Sherborne. last year to cover their legal expenses Sydney, New South Wales 2001. AUTUMN 1987 27 BESHARA Reviews / Meister Eckhart Reviews Meister Eckhart. Sermons and Treatises, Volume 3. Translated and Edited by intellectual and educational skwding, cholarship, like art, should be M. O'c. Walshe whose spiritual needs, as Walshe puts S invisible. The aim of both is to Element Books 1987 £9.95 it, "rose above elementary levels". The allow the reality that underlies them to shine through unobstructed, unimpeded Reviewed by Adam Dupre Dominicans were entrusted with the instruction of the nuns, a job for which and in its full glory. Scholarship is not Eckhart was particularly responsible. invention and there is no room ror T his is the third and final volume These were some of the factors which personal opinion or interpreUltion. The of a complete translation of the contrived to create a situation which translator bears the responsibility for German works of the great teacher and demanded of Eckhart that he articulate introducing his author to a new culture, mystic, Meister Eckhart. The fi rst two something of his extremely refined which will judge the original by the volumes were published in 1979 and spiritual understanding. quality of his work. 1981 but the publication of this last The first of the three Treatises' , the With the writings of a man like volume was delayed and it has finally Talks of Instruction, is a series of talks Eckhart, there is an even greater appeared this year. given to novices, possibly given in challenge. There are some who say, Meister Eckhart, born around 1269 in 'question and answer' sessions to with some justification, that only one Thuringia, Gennany, is among the novices under his charge. The second who has, himself, the vision of a greatest of theChr istian mystics. As a (Divine Comfort and The Nobleman, mystic can hope to translate the works Dominican monk he rose in the taken as one) was reputedly written by of a mystic. This is because translation hierarchy to the level of Prior of Erfurt Eckhart to console Agnes, Queen of in this case does not simply mean the and Vicar of Thuringia. His teachings Hungary, on the murder of her father, horizontal replacement or a term in one have been clouded for some Christians Albrecht of Habsburg. The language for an equivalent tenn in by the fact that, after his death, some of circumstances in which the inspired On another. Where the writings of a mystic his ideas were declared heretical by the Detachment were written remain are concerned, translation is ideally the Catholic Church, but his "''fitings have unclear. re-expression, from the same original been a great source of inspiration to non This is a scholarly and painstaking source, of an essential and universal Catholic Christians - and to non translation, fo llowing the derinitive text meaning which lies beyond words. Christians, since his stature transcends of the Gennan professor Joseph Quint The purpose of mystical commun the boundaries of particular religion, (1898-1976) who per[onned the ication is clear - to help people with a springing from the Universal. Herculean task of weeding out the taste fo r such matters to come by His German works consist mainly of genuine Eckhart from the mass of whatever means to perfection. Hence, a sermons, most of which were included altJ·ibuted works. Maurice Walshe taught great responsibility lies on the head of in the first two volumes of this series. medieval Gennan at the Universities of the translator of a mystic - he is In this third txx)k, Walshe offers us Leeds, Nottingham and London and responsible ror those who follow his three Treatises (Tractate) (culled from recently retired as Deputy Director of the author through his translation if any eighteen attributed to Eckhart) which are Institute of Gennanic Studies at the deviation or misleading arises through a now considered to be genuine. They are University of London. He is interested nl Ult in the translation. the Talks of Instruction, The Book of in Buddhism and has made several Maurice Walshe has therefore taken Divine Comfort and On Detachment. translations from the Buddhist on and completed a daunting and The book also contains translations of Scriptures. awesome task in this translation. two shorter works - The Nobleman, This three volume translation is only However, the discipline of scholarship which is possibly an appendage to the the second complete rendering into is a fonn of servanthood; iL� concem is Book of Divine Comfort, and a English of the totality of accepted to give passage to meaning not Fragment of an Unknown Sermon. genuine works, and Walshe himself sees conUlined or conk'linable within itself. it as replacing the two volume work of The true scholar is self-effac ing, and Miss C. de B. Evans of 1924 and 1931. here lies the only circumstance in which E Ckhart's time, historically, was It is set fIrmly in the tradition of a 'scholarly' translation can hope to one of great social and religious Eckhart scholarship that finds iL� render a mystical writing. The intention disturbance. It was marked by an particular origin in the pioneering work not to obstruct or defonn the original, increasc in the number of nunneries, of Franz Pfeiffer in the mid 19th even if it goes beyond one's own possibly due to a decimation of the male century. Where earlier renderings were knowledge, if ra ithfully carried through, population as a result or the upheavals. deemed correct, they have been retained can remove the potentially distorting The inhabitants of these were in many and the reader is thus presented with the presence of the translator and allow the cases widows and daughters of cumulative fr uits of Eckhart scholarship original to shine through. aristocratic extraction, with some and translation with a solid pedigrcc. 28 ISSUE 3 Reviews / Meister Eckhart BESHARA lshe's rendering is, on the W, whole, in lively, expressive and direct English, though the language The Beshara Trust Seminars perhaps suffers slightly from the pedestrian quality of all completely faithful translations. If it is not entirely 27th-29th November translucent, it is very fa r from opaque Dr. Michael Shallis and one can read it with confidence in its (Lecturerin Physical Sciences, accuracy and with mind free from the Departmentof External Studies, Oxford) fear of reading works of doubtful attribution. "Science, Religion and the There is so much in these works - SymbolicWorld" the immediately practical advice in the Talks of Instruction, the startling £50 (inc. fu ll board) fo r the whole weekend, £5fo r eachindi vidual paradoxes of On Detachment, the session. Special ratesfo r OAPs, students and the unemployed. intensity of the Book of Divine For further details please apply to Beshara Sherborne, Stable Comfort. All we can do is offer some Block, Sherborne, Nr. Cheltenham, Glos GL54 30Z. quotations to illustrate theelevation, Or telephone Windrush (045 14) 448. refinement and universality of Meister Eckhart's understanding. In the Book of Divine Comfort he speaks of "being transformed in God and SUBSCRIPTIONS estranged from all multiplicity, from anything at all which even in thought or Beshara magazine appears fo ur times a year and is name permits the merest hint or shadow available only by subscription fr om the Beshara Trust and of difference; and is entrusted to the fr om selected newsagents and bookshops. One, bare of all number and variety, If you would like to subscribe and receive your copy wherein God-Father-Son-J-/oly Ghost through the post, please fill in the fo rm below and return loses all and is stripped of all it, with a cheque or postal order made payable to Beshara distinctions and properties and is One Magazine,to: alone" (page 85). Beshara Magazine , clo The Beshara Trust, And - "I/eart to heart, one in one is how God loves. Whatever is other and Th e Stable Block, Sherborne, Nr. Cheltenham, differentfram that, God hates. God Gloucestershire GL54 3DZ entices and lures to the One. All creatures, even the lowest, seek the One, Please send me the next four issues of BESHARA . I enclose a and the highest perceive the One. ch eque/postal order for 0 £7.50 (UKlCommon Market) Caught up above nature and o £9.00 (Other - Surface Mail) transformed, they seek One in One, One All overseas subscriptions must be cheques or giro cheques in in Itself' (page 89). These have to sterling drawn on a UK bank. Otherwise add £5fo r currency suffice to give an indication of the conversion. Airmail on quotation. awesome beauty and elevation of the point from which Meister Eckhart's Name experience arises,and itsrelevance to those whose taste is fo r the highest Address ______spirituality. Translation is 'making accessible' and this bookoffers an invaluable entry, for those ignorant of 14th century Middle high Gennan, into understanding one of the world's greatest mystics. Not least, it affords the opportunity of closing the review of a notable and �------� estimable translation of a work of SUBSCRIBERS IN extreme value withMei ster Eckhart's own prayer, with which he closes the AUSTRALIA and USA Book of Divine Comfort (page 22): can now obtain thcir subscriptions locally. Please apply to: "May the loving and compassionate Beshara Foundation Beshara Australia God, the Truth, grant to me and to all 1019Overlook Road PO Box 1474 who read this book, that we may find Bcrkcley Sydney trUlh within ourselves and become aware California 0894708 New South Wales 2001 of it. Amen." AUTUMN 1987 29 BESHARA Reviews / Temenos 8 highest criteria for accepting deliver. In this sense, it is concened Temenos 8 contributions are maintained and with the transmission of a body of Editor Kathleen Raine. Kathleen Raine has said, " We are knowledge aboutman 's immutable Distributed by Element Books.March fo rtunate in being able to publish work spiritual reality and is, as Basuab 1987 by artists of renown who have Nicolesco says in his article 'Peter Reviewed by Arthur Martin demonstrated in their work and af firmed Brook and Traditional Thought' in their statements the highest spiritual "eternally present, here and now, intent" . Numbered amongst the springing eternally within each man" . emenos, a review devoted to the international list of contributors are Indeed, Brook has said that for the T arts of the imagination, is aptly some of the finest creative minds theatre to be alive and communicative, named as it concems itself uncomp working in the arts today, including S. it "must be continually reborn" and that romisingly with a perspective which H. Nasr, Keith Critchlow, Marco Pall is, often, regrettably, tradition degenerates sees the arts as having their origin and David Gascoyne, Joscelyn Godwin, into an attempt to preserve at all costs finding their highest expression within Santosh Pall and Kamaladevi the outward forms. the 'precincts of the temple' (the Chattopadhyay. The source of Tradition cannot be temenos). The current issue, TEMENOS 8, other than metaphysical, and because it From time immemorial the arts have includes, to mention just a few items in addresses itself to what is essential in been the medium for the expression and the 294 pages, essays on the work of man, it possesses immediate reality. It spreading of the multi-faceted vision of the great Russian film-maker Andrei emerges through these articles thatboth the beauty and sacredness of life. Tarkovsky and on the theatre director Brook and Tarkovsky believe that Temenos was founded in the face of Peter Brook - the latter culminating in a genuinely inspired work transcends the what was felt to be an increasing tide of review by Jean Mambrino of Brook's boundaries of time and culture. So, secular and even profane criteria and has magnum opus, the great Indian myth Brook moved from the contemporary been concerned to re-affum and re-define and epic 'The Mahabharata', currently theatre to produce the thirteenthcentury the spiritual ground from which all running in Zurich. There is a review of poem 'The Conference of the Birds' by imaginative work must grow. the work of the Welsh poet Vemon Fariduddin Attar, and even further back When in 1980 the editors - Kathleen Watkins, whom many consider to be the to the ancient vedantine epic 'The Raine, Philip Sherrard and Keith true successor of Blake and Yeats: Mahabhavata' of which the universally Critchlow - approached established excerpts from a new work by the revered Baghavad Gita is the heart. So, publishing houses with their plans for Russian novelist V. S. Yanovsky: too,Tar kovsky's greatest film remains Temenos, they were told that it was not poems by Wendell Berry and his beautiful evocation of the life of a a good time to launch such a review, philosophical works by E.W.F. Tomlin medieval icon painter in 'Andrei that there was no demand fo r it, nor and the great French Islamic scholar Rublev'. Before his death earlier this could it make a profit. Undeterred and Henri Corbin ( on 'The Theory of year, he had been preparing films on the even encouraged by the opinion that Visionary Knowledge in Islamic life of St. Anthony and a version of such a publication would not meet the Philosophy'), both of whom write Hamlet. Both Brook and Tarkovsky are taste of the day, they resolutely went within the perspective of the perennial careful in not believing that the ahead. The fL rst three issues were wisdom. Peter Lambourn Wilson experience of film or theatre can become published by Robinson and Watkins, reviews Corbin's latest book 'Temple a substitute for a spiritual way of life but the editors decided to publish and Contemplation' whilst Kathleen but feel that they can provide privileged subsequent volumes themselves, having Raine herself considers the paintings of moments of meaning and self-discovery. built up a small list of faithful readers Winifred Nicholson, who currently has One of the treats of thisvolume for and friends who were willing to help an exhibition touring the country. The me was to be introduced to the work of with editorial expenses. volume includes beautiful colour Vernon Watkins and to learn something The standard of production is illustrations of Nicholson's flower of his ideas through 'Selected Letters to extremely high, it being the belief that paintings and there are also four striking Michael Hamburger'. Watkins was a the making of a book is itself an art calligraphic paintings by Ameen Ahuja, deeply religious man, a poet steeped in form . From the outset it was intended illustrations to Attar's Conference of the Greek philosophy, Christian mysticism not to continue indefinitely, and only Birds. and the ancient Celtic legends preserved ten volumes will be published. After the in the Mabinogion. For him, art was first three, the editorship passed into the not an end in itselfbut an instrument of distinguished hands of Kathleen Raine, theme which seems to run the "secret law" of love, serving to who is currently preparing for A through this volume is Tradition reveal the divine symmetry. His images publication of the ninth, penultimate, - and one could say that Tradition is the are always created with rigorous Issue. very ground and source which has precision, with the total respect due to inspired theethos of Temenos. Here it the holiness of all creation. Poetry for is taken in its highest spiritual him was required to align itselfto a he scope and variety of material in connotation - not in its usual sense of spiritual knowledge and in a letter to T the fi rst eight volumes has been 'a custom or habit long established and Michael Hamburger he says " In true enormous, covering the whole panorama generally accepted' but in its profound poetry metaphysical truth transfigures of imaginative arts and originating from and original meaning derived from the aesthetic ideas". Speaking of prayer, he the four quarters of the globe. Yet the Latin tradere meaning to hand over, or says in the poem 'Taliesin and the 30 ISSUE 3 Reviews / On Time BESHARA Spring of Vision': The book falls basically into two Hawking asks, " why is disorder "In time of darkness the pattern of life is parts: the first deals with time as a increasing in the same direction of time restored quantity measurable by change in the as that in which the Universe is By men who make all transience seem physical universe and discusses the expanding? A well-defined an illusion operation of various kinds of clocks, the thermodynamic arrow is necessary fo r Through inward acts, acts corresponding implications of Einstein's Theory of intelligent life to operate" . to music Relativity, the arrow of time in Their works of love leave words which quantum theory and cosmology, and so do not end in the heart." on. The second part describes the quality r. Shallis is not concerned solely of time as a meaning which is D with a narrow definition of time Temenos' raison d' etre has been to essentially symbolic, and is more in any cosmological sense, since he cleanse the imaginative life and to re anecdotal, looking at the experience of feels that the spatialisation of time in align thecreative impulse to the timelessness, precognition, divinations modem science is a kind of spiritual well-springs which are its true and prophecy. detemporalisation, 'analogous to the source. This volume furthers this great dehumanisation that occurs when human endeavour, and in a climate where qualities are denied in a quantification of reductionism is so fashionable, it shines s Staff Tutor in Physical Science personality'. (page 109). In Chapter 7, like a beacon illuminating the ever A in the Department for External on coincidence and meaning, he clearly present sacredprec incts. Studies at Oxford, Dr Shallis is demonstrates the different approaches admirably qualified to explain the that scientists can use, which he calls intricacies of modem science, and the descriptive science and instructional science. In descriptive science, the On Time first part of the book is an excellent guide for the non-specialist, with a question being asked is "What do I An investigation into Scientific comprehensive bibliography. Some of actually encounter?" It is concerned with Kn owledge and Human the most interesting sections come from the search for the whole truth abouta Experience the analysis of the connections between thing of interest. There is no limit to by Michael Shallis time and light, a thread to which Dr. the investigation since whatever is Pelican Books, 1983, 208pp. Shallis returns again and again uncovered will always be a part of the Reviewed by Stephen Hirtenstein throughout the book. whole picture, and not thewhole "Itis strange that light to an observer picture itself. "Time has always fa scinated man and has afinite, measurable speed, when to The second approach is concerned yet it is so slightly understood. Time is light there is no time and no space. with finding explanations fo r perhaps the most elusive yet fa miliar Light seems to interpenetrate the whole phenomena and therefore general laws, phenomenon we experience. So how can universe as ifeverywhere and every time such as Newton's Laws of Motion, we try to pin it down? This book was ' here and now', and yet to the which provide idealised instructions for examines the descriptions of time that human observer it travels and it travels producing effects. Naturally the emerge fr om the modern sciences of at a finite speed. That is one great instructional method as embodied in physics and astronomy as well as fr om puzzle of time. The other is the Probability Theory and statistics has those areas of experience that modern individuality of time that has emerged powerful applications in this world and science finds either too awkward or too from relativity. Each person carries his has dominated western thought for the ephemeral to encompass. This quest is own time and it will not necessarily be past few centuries, but it cannot describe scientifi c in approach, rather than the same time as fo r other people." the uniqueness of an event, and it leaves philosophical, but scientific in its more (page 62). out the acausal aspect of nature. This, as ancient meaning: a search fo r Concerning the dircctionality of time Dr Shallis observes, is 'our loss', since knowledge, wherever that search goes, (the three arrows of time - it denigrates meaning to a quantity. He ignoring boundaries or taboos that thermodynamic, cosmological and clearly favours a recognition of time as present custom up holds." (Page 13) electromagnetic), many tantalizing a multi-faceted phenomenon, with questions and observations are raised causal and acausal elements, which has which are very much under discussion in meaning in all its aspects. t is extremely refreshing to read a contemporary science. For instance, As he says on page 198: "Clock time I book that sets out to bridge the there is a very close connection between is invented time, but man has been too apparent gulf betwecn the scientists' the arrow of time and the Second Law of gullible, he has ended up believing that viewpoint and our human experience, Thermodynamics, which states that his invention has an objective existence and this short paperback is full of energy - the capacity to do work - tends separate fr om the way he designed it to stimulating and thought-provoking to be expended. This is spoken of as an be. Objective time has gone. It has gone material. The titles of the ftrst and last increase in 'entropy', and is essentially a in relativity, gone fr om the quantum chapters, 'The Elusiveness of Time' and decrease in the inclination to change, a world, gone in cosmology, where scales 'The Paradox of Time', are evidence of process of ageing which is regarded in and redefinitions of time are almost the slipperiness of the subject matter, modem science as an increase in arbitrary. Objective time has vanished in and this is partly due to Dr. Shallis' 'disorder'. In a recent article in New the paranormal. The time we think we attempts to cover so many different Scientist (9th July 1987), the leading inhabit is neither simple, linear nor facets and descriptions of time. theoretical physicist Professor Stephen objective. We are immersed in pools of AUTUMN 1987 31 BESHARA Reviews / On Time / Contact time and timelessness. in a sea of embodied in religion but which the come to a unified vision is to suppose causality and acausal connections. We scientific approach, by regarding the that the most certain and objective are flooded by light that brings us time religious view of the significance of knowledge which we have - namely the and banishes it." human life to be the result of prejudice mathematical structure by which order Meister Eckhart has said that "Time is and superstition, has all but banished. in the universe is revealed to us - could what prevents the light from reaching Thus the author offers the reader the be seeded with messages from an us" . This intimates that anything hope that the human spirit, in the form intelligence which lies beyond it and which brings us closer to understanding of science, will reach out ( with a which is somehow able to create and the nature of time clarifies our closeness certainty which, in his view, religion inform it. Thus, Sagan attempts to to the light of truth, and this book is can never offer), and discover an unite the two poles by a conceit of therefore to be warmly welcomed. ultimate in the fo rm of intelligence fiction. beyond the human which rules and I believe that there is a real striving, Dr. Shallis willbe visiting Beshara informs the very structure of this as yet largely unconscious, to unite Sherborne in November to give a weekend universe. This universal intelligence these two poles within the development 29 seminar. See page fo r details. waits patiently fo r life forms to grow of science. But the reality is that within it and discover, comprehend and science, of itself, cannot unite th em; it perhaps one day become at one with it. can only acknowledge that they arc in Contact At this point I must reveal the any case a unity and base al! its theory by Carl Sagan surprise ending - which would be an upon this truth, which lies beyond any inexcusable lack of gcxx:l form were this Arrow Books 1986 £3.95. 'objective' science. simply a review to recommend a It could then be seen that the quality Reviewed by Khalil Norland romance or a thriller. However, as the of living intelligence which we ending is the crucial conclusion of the acknowledge subjectively within author's aspirations, it is necessary to ourselves is nothing other than 'the C ontact is a good read. It is discuss it in order to see how near and living' in expression as the universe. science fiction written by a yet how far these arc from a complete The universe is intelligent, and the scientist whose vision goes beyond the understanding. At the very end of the intelligence which comprehends this as facts of present day science and which book, the heroine is able to verify that a mathematical order is djscovering therefore becomes the medium by which the meaning of universal intelligence aspects of itself. It does not necd to he expresses his aspirations. It is has been hidden in the very structure of construct complicated machines to intelligent and well-crafted , so that each mathematics: that deep within the communicate withother intelligence, chapter leads the reader on to hope for at inviolate order of number, in the (though it may choose to do so), least a partial resolution in the next, secmingly meaningless and infinite because the universe is alive and life with a development of human character progression of digits which represent a communicates with life through the of greater depth than onc would transcendent number such as re , lies a quality of 'the living', of which it necessari ly expect from a scientist. message which, like the voice of God, partakes. Thus we may be able to throw The heroine, an astrophysicist who will speak to all life forms capable of lumps of metal around the universe in begins life in the 20th century, understanding it. order to make conwct with intelligences embodies the author's beliefs and is a ouL�ide ourselves, but in truth we represenunive of the 'scientific spirit' in already contact that same intelligence action. She becomes instrumenuli in ow I feel that this vision, and those same intelligences within making an amazing discovery - of the Ncoming as it does from the pen ourselves. existence of an extraterrestrial of an astrophysicist, should be regarded intelligence fa r beyond that fo und on as onc of the emerging concepts Earth. As a member of a team which underlying present-day science. It deciphers, and then carries out, coded exposes the brink upon which science instructions sent to Earth, she is enabled swnds - one viull jump away from to make conWct with this intelligence abandoning the 'solid' ground of and thus take humanity a step towards objectivity and its traditional picture of inclusion in the universal community the universe as lifeless matter whose which guides and regulates the life of nature intelligence seeks to discover. the universe. According to this traditional view, intelligence can only be understcxx:l as growing, in some way, out of dead T he book takes the reader from the matter and meaning can only be familiarity of the present into the introduced by something which lies world of the next millenium by gradual, beyond the material; thus we are believable and well-informed swges. The presented with two poles - the one pole final denouement promises to return a being material reality which physics depth of meaning to human existence on seeks to study, the other be ing a spirit this fragile and seemingly insignificant of intelligence which does the studying. planet - a meaning which was once The closest such a conception can 32 ISSUE 3 BESHARA Notes on Contributors McALLISTER Dr. Rom Harn� is Vice-Principle of Linacre College, TECHNICAL SERVICES Oxford. He is also adjunct Professor of Philosophy and Sociology and Behavioural Sciences at the State University of New York and holds several other visiting Professorships. He is the author of several books, Manufacturers of surface analytical including "The Principles of Scientific instruments and devices Thinking" and "Great Scientific Experiments", published by Oxford University Press. Christopher Ryan McAllister Technical Services has been a restaurateur in Cambridge 2414 Sixth Street for the past ten years and is a Director of Berkeley, California 94710 USA the Chisholme Institute. He became deeply interested in Turkey - the Phone: (415) 644-0707 country, its people, its history and Telex: 9102501 666 (McAllister UQ) cuisine - when he first visited in 1970 and has returned at least once a year ever since. M.R.C. Dr R.W.J. Austin What you need to know is a lecturer in Arabic at the University of Durham. He graduated from the When you need to know it University of London and researched at the University of California. He is an Commercial decisions rely on accurate and professionally assessed internationally renowned scholar, and in infonnation at the right time. 1980 published his own translation of M.R.e. provides the infonnation and analysis combined in an 'Arabi's 'Fusus al-Hikam' as 'The unparalleled consultancy service. M.R.e. reports can cover any Bezels of Wisdom'. Dr. Austin has been company, anywhere in the world, with special expertise in the a regular guest lecturer at the Beshara shipping and oil industries. School of Intensive Esoteric Education for more than 10 years. M.R.e. provides an invaluable support to the decision makers at the top of the market. Elizabeth Roberts studied English at St. Anne's College, Shipping - Oil - Industrial Oxford. She has worked as a teacher of English as a Foreign Language in M.R.C Indonesia and in England, and has 115 Magdalen Road, Oxford OX4 iRQ. England completed both courses at the Beshara Telephone: (0865) 245908 Telex: 875585 MRC OX Facsmile: (0865) 722103 School of Intensive Esoteric Education. She now lives in Scotland with her husband and two children and has acted as a co-ordinator on a number of courses Traditional at Chisholme House. Savoury Pastries and Quiche 17 Snowdon Road, Eccles, Manchester M30 9AS Telephone: 061 789-0646 I�I AUTUMN 1987