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The Study Society Newsletter

Seeking a grand unification of matter, mind and spirit S. M. Jaiswal

The Games

Mouravieff & the secret of the source

Meditating with your children

No. 61 Summer 2013 FREETOMEMBERS, OTHERS £5.00 Contact The Study Society Newsletter

Question about loss of direction

Question: What is the right effort involved in remembering what one has forgotten? Dr. Roles. I think it is to be silent for a moment. In that silence one collects oneSelf – one comes to oneSelf. It seems to be the one effort that works, for a sense of direction comes from within. One aspect of this is to give up all problems, all thinking, all mental activity and do what you have to do as if you were under orders – simply stepping out when you are walking, unlocking a door with attention, nothing else going on at all. That is so very refreshing; one is just a servant of the Param-Atman. This becomes very interesting if you take the Gospels psychologically. You remember Christ saying: Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. (Matthew 7: 21–23) Now meditators, just doing empty repetition, just repeating the Name, are saying ‘Lord, Lord’. But what counts is, do they use the Meditation to do the Will of the Param-Atman, the Divine Self, the Christ, or whatever you like to call it? ‘Doing the Will’ is not allowing anything to come between the action and the Director. FCR 1977/15

Cover: Mount Athos. Monastery of Gregoriou, 14th cent. dedicated to St Nicholas (Photo: Wikicommons)

CONTENTS

3. Seeking a Grand Unification of Matter, Mind and Spirit Prof. Bernard Carr 10. A Precious Gift — Meditating with your Children Kim Nataraja 14. Answers Mother Meera 15. The Olympic Games Michael Griffiths 18. The Misunderstanding about Self-remembering Francis Roles 21. S.M. Jaiswal — a Man for our Season Gerald Beckwith 23. Mouravieff & the Secret of the Source Robin Amis 29. Tribute to Jocelyn Rose Martin Rose 30. A View of Launde Abbey Rev. Alison Christian 32. Glad Living Wei Wu Wei 33. Book Reviews 4 Page INSERT Diary & Events Seeking a Grand Unification of Matter, Mind and Spirit

Bernard Carr is Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at Queen Mary, University of London. His professional area of research is cosmology and includes such topics as the early universe, black holes, dark matter and the Anthropic Principle. He has recently edited a book entitled Universe or Multiverse?, based on a series of conferences sponsored by the Templeton Foundation. He has a long- standing interest in the relationship between science and spirituality and also in psychical research, which he sees as forming a bridge between them. He aims to extend physics to incorporate con- sciousness and associated mental, psychical and spiritual phenomena. His approach is mainly theoretical but emphasises the experiential as well as experimental aspects of nature. He is a former President of the Society for Psychical Research and currently Chairman of the Scientific and Medical Network.

    THE MISSING JEWEL IN THE CROWN OF PHYSICS

Physics might be regarded as the queen of the sciences and there can be no doubting its remarkable success in coming to understand the material world from the smallest scales of particle physics to the largest scales of cosmology. In particular, it has revealed a remarkable unity about the Universe, with everything being made up of a few  
     fundamental particles which interact through four forces which are now thought to be part of a single grand unified 
interaction. Indeed, the history of physics might be seen as   the progress in our understanding of this unification. It is even claimed that the end of physics is now in sight, in the  sense that our knowledge of the fundamental laws and principles governing the Universe is nearly complete and that we are close to obtaining a ‘Theory of Everything’. So the rationalist, reductionist, materialistic approach of the physical sciences appears to have been triumphant! Another success of physics has been to explain the development of the dazzling array of increasingly complex FIGURE 1. This shows the hierarchy of scales of structure in structures in the 14 billion years since the Big Bang. This is the Universe, with the size increasing by a factor of 10 for each encapsulated in the image of the Uroborus, shown in anticlockwise minute. Mind may enter where the head meets the Figure (1), which shows the intimate links between the tail at the top and extra dimensions may also play a role here. microscopic domains (on the left) and the macroscopic ones (on the right). The point at the top (where the very scientists assume that the study of such topics is beyond large meets the very small) corresponds to the Big Bang, their remit altogether because science is concerned with a while the point at the bottom (human beings) corresponds ‘3rd person’ account of the world (experiment) rather than a to the culmination of complexity – at least here on Earth. ‘1st person’ account (experience). They infer that the focus However, Figure (1) also reveals a missing jewel in the of science should be the objective world, with the subjective crown of physics. For among the remarkable attributes of element being banished as much as possible. This goes human beings are consciousness, mind and spirit. It is also back to the Cartesian divide between res extensa (the striking that the Uroborus can be used to represent the domain of science) and res cogitans (the domain of religion) expansion of consciousness through scientific investigation in the 17th century. to ever larger and smaller scales. So it is curious that these Yet it seems profoundly unsatisfactory that the contents attributes are almost completely neglected by science and of the mental world are neglected by science. After all, indeed judged to be without significance. The mainstream these comprise roughly half the contents of our view is that consciousness has a purely passive role in the consciousness and even our experiences of the material Universe, minds are just the froth generated by billions of world are ultimately just mental. So the claim that physics neurons, and spiritual evolution is a delusion. In fact, most is close to a theory of everything seems a rather hollow one. 3 One could, of course, maintain the validity and value of required and would it be the kind that mainstream science mental experiences in their various forms but just regard would recognise as legitimate? them as being beyond science. However, as a working Some forms of psi – a general term for psychic scientist I find this attitude rather defeatist. For science phenomena – might conceivably be amenable to a assumes that the world is governed by natural laws and – reductionist brain-based explanation. Telepathy, for given the success of the enterprise so far – it seems instance, might derive from some unknown signalling plausible that mental and spiritual experiences are also process between two brains, while psychokinesis (PK) and subject to such laws. Our aim should therefore be to clairvoyance might depend on some little understood demonstrate that natural law can be extended to include exchange of energy between the brain and its physical these areas and not to throw the ball back into the court of environment. However, apart from various technical the ‘supernatural’. One expects science to have some limits objections, these sorts of explanation seem unlikely but one does not know what they are in advance and the because psi also involves other types of phenomena which lesson of history is that one should try to push its frontiers would appear much less amenable to a brain-based forward as far as possible. explanation: for example, near-death experiences, out-of- But how feasible is it that physics can accommodate body experiences, death-bed visions, the evidence for consciousness and associated phenomena? Clearly survival of bodily death and the whole domain of mystical physics in its classical mechanistic form cannot achieve this, experience. These are examples of the sort of ‘rogue’ since there is a basic incompatibility between the localised phenomena which support the view that the brain is a filter features of mechanism and the unity of conscious of experience rather than a generator of it. So the sort of experience. However, the classical picture has now been physics we want is probably not of the usual reductionist replaced by a more holistic quantum one, and some people kind. have argued that this can include consciousness. For I believe that a new paradigm – involving a radically example, studies of quantum phenomena convinced Louis different sort of physics, which I call ‘hyperphysics’ – will de Broglie that ‘the structure of the material Universe has eventually reconcile psi and physics and throw light on something in common with the laws that govern the each of them. Indeed, the fact that physical reality has workings of the human mind’, while John Wheeler turned out to be so far removed from common-sense inferred that ‘mind and Universe are complementary’. reality has led some people to suggest that there might However, quantum theory does not actually explain mind already be room for the sort of phenomena studied by – it just hints that it may have a role to play in physics. parapsychology. Besides, since nobody understands quantum theory Although quantum theory is likely to play some role in anyway, it seems unsatisfactory to merely replace one a physical model for psi, my own view is that a full mystery by another one. So some new, deeper paradigm explanation will require a paradigm shift which goes is probably required that will explain both consciousness beyond it. One ingredient of the new paradigm must and quantum theory. Thus Roger Penrose anticipates that surely be consciousness, since this is a common feature of ‘we need a revolution in physics on the scale of quantum most psychic phenomena, although psi may also operate theory and relativity before we can understand mind’. unconsciously and some people argue that it is a general Some other developments in physics, such as the feature of life. Another ingredient may be a transcendence Anthropic Principle, also suggest that consciousness may of space and time. Such transcendence already arises in be a fundamental rather than incidental feature of the physics itself in the context of quantum gravity, the long- Universe. So we require a physical paradigm which sought unification of relativity and quantum theory. An incorporates mind explicitly. example of this might be the holographic model of David Bohm, in which there is a greater collective mind with no PARAPSYCHOLOGY: THE THORN IN THE CROWN boundaries of space or time. However, some The most compelling argument that physics must expand discrimination is required in assessing these ideas. to accommodate mind (at least for those who accept the The final (and in my view most important) ingredient of data) comes from the parapsychology (which here I take to the new paradigm may be the invocation of higher be synonymous with psychical research). This suggests dimensions. The notion that there could be extra that there can be a direct interaction between mind and the dimensions beyond the three revealed by our physical physical world, as opposed to the indirect one which is senses has already been proposed by physicists trying to channelled via the brain (and also not fully understood). If explain certain aspects of the material world. A unified this is true, then a final theory of physics must take account understanding of all the forces which operate in the of mind and consciousness. But what sort of physics is Universe suggests that there are extra ‘internal’

4 dimensions. This approach was pioneered in the 1920s by through ‘experiment’ and ‘3rd person’ investigation, Theodor Kaluza and Oscar Klein, who showed that a fifth which is the usual prerequisite of ‘science’. By contrast, dimension can provide a unified geometrical description the mental world is assumed to be ‘internal’ or ‘subjective’ of gravity and electromagnetism, providing it is wrapped or ‘private’, so its contents are ‘imaginary’ and do not up so small that it cannot be seen; this is the Planck appear to conform to laws in the same way as physical distance of 10-33cm, the smallest scale that appears in systems. They are in the domain of ‘experience’ or ‘1st Figure (1). person’ investigation and more closely allied to Subsequently it was discovered that there are other ‘mysticism’. subatomic interactions and recent unification theories suggest that these can be explained by invoking yet more TWO WORLDS wrapped-up dimensions. For example, ‘superstring’ MATTER MIND theory suggests there could be six. There were originally External Internal five different superstring theories but it was later realised Objective Subjective that these are all parts of a single, more embracing model Public Private called ‘M-theory’, which has seven extra dimensions. In Real Imaginary one particular variant of M-theory, one of the extra Experiment Experience 3rd person 1st person dimensions is extended, so that the physical world is Science Mysticism viewed as a 4-dimensional ‘brane’ in a higher- dimensional ‘bulk’. These developments are summarised Outer Inner in Figure (2). We do not experience these extra dimensions SPACE directly – their effects only become important on the CONSCIOUSNESS smallest and largest scales – so it is clear that our ordinary senses reveal only a limited aspect of physical reality. FIGURE 3. Showing how the traditional dichotomy between However, these higher dimensions may also be relevant to matter and mind may be bridged by extending the notion of mental and spiritual experiences. space and consciousness.

11D M-theory There are various reasons to be suspicious of this dichotomy. The first problem is a philosophical one. Our B superstrings ra 10D information about the physical world comes from looking ne at instruments, scrutinising data, reading papers etc., all of Bulk 5D Kaluza-Klein which involve sense perceptions, so even our experience of matter is ultimately mental. There is a subset of percepts 4D Einstein which seem to be generated by the physical world, so it is useful to distinguish between percepts of physical and dimension 5th 3D Newton non-physical origin, but percepts themselves are always mental. The interesting philosophical question concerns FIGURE 2. The sequence of extra dimensions entailed in the the relationship between the percept and the object, and unification of physics. They are usually assumed to be whether they are as distinct as the two worlds as compactified but one is extended in brane theory. described above. Any model which purports to unify matter and mind must address this question. TWO WORLDS AND A SPACE FOR MIND The second problem is an empirical one. The standard All of us inhabit two worlds. There is the material world, view that the material world is real and the mental world which is studied by physics and which we move around imaginary does not sit easily with the findings of psychical in and interact with in our normal waking state, and there research, since these suggest that in some circumstances is the mental world, which we encounter in our memories, mental worlds may be shared (as in telepathy) or directly thoughts and dreams. We may also occasionally contain the physical world (as in clairvoyance) or even encounter less familiar regions of this world in mystical access the past and future of the physical world (as in experiences and altered states of consciousness. Most retrocognition and precognition). Experiences of the people would claim that the material world is ‘external’ transpersonal kind indicate that the mental world may also or ‘objective’ or ‘public’, in the sense that it can be accessed contain higher levels of reality which are not accessible to by everybody and corresponds to some communal physical sensors at all. This suggests that one needs a ‘reality’. It also obeys laws which can be investigated model in which the mental world takes on some attributes

5 of externality, while the material world takes on some phenomenal space is the same as physical space (i.e. the attributes of internality. In the words of Paul Brunton, ‘we percept is the object). While advances in neuroscience must learn to mentalise space and spatialise mind’. now make it very difficult to uphold this view, recent The third – and most profound – problem is developments in theoretical physics suggest that consciousness itself, as distinct from the contents of representative theory is also unsatisfactory – at least in consciousness. Although it is an obvious feature of the its original form – since the ‘ultimate reality’ revealed by mental world, most physicists assume that consciousness modern physics bears very little resemblance to the is irrelevant to the material world and therefore neglect it common sense reality of classical physics. Indeed, the altogether. However, once the distinction between mind version of reality assumed by old-fashioned and matter becomes blurred, the notion of matter as representative theory is itself a representation! unconscious and mind as conscious makes no sense. As we will see, my own model regards both object Consciousness must underlie both worlds, so there is and percept as lower-dimensional projections of a 4- merely a distinction between ‘inner consciousness’ and dimensional structure, so neither is primary and the ‘outer consciousness’. percept is not in the brain. However, it goes well beyond In resolving these problems, I believe a crucial clue this by proposing that a wide range of other (non- comes from another feature of the ‘two worlds’. For it physical) mental experiences also requires some form of seems that both physical phenomena and a large class of space, Indeed, I argue one needs a sequence of spaces, mental phenomena involve some form of space, so the associated with experiences which are increasingly description ‘outer space’ and ‘inner space’ might be used controversial from a scientific perspective. The defining in this context. Both worlds also involve the experience of characteristics of these spaces are summarised in the time, although the relationship between mental time and table below. Although one is not dealing with ordinary physical time is not fully understood. physical space here, the idea is that the various mental The most obvious example of a mental space is the spaces can be integrated with physical space into a ordinary ‘phenomenal’ space associated with percepts communal space which is higher dimensional, in the which appear to be generated by the physical world via sense that it has more than the three dimensions physical sensors (i.e. the only ones associated with an perceived by our physical sensors. The total space is external reality in the standard view). Most scientists called a ‘Universal Structure’ and it has a hierarchical and philosophers adopt the view of representative theory, structure in the sense that each level is associated with in which phenomenal space is just an internal construct an extra dimension. Thus the sequence of spaces in of the brain (i.e. the object is primary and the percept is Figure (3) is associated with increasing dimensionality derivative). The alternative naïve realist view posits that and the first level of the hierarchy is physical space itself.

tabLe OF mentaL sPaces

nOrmaL (1) Phenomenal space. Generated by perception of physical space through physical sensors. (2) Memory space. Replay of images and events experienced through physical sensors in the past. (3) Visualisation space. Generated and controlled by imagination, related to creativity. (4) Dream space. Like memory and visualisation space but more vivid and with other elements.

ParanOrmaL (5) Psi space. Involves both mental space and physical space, so directly links matter and mind. (6) Apparition space. Different from physical space but with some aspects of externality. (7) Threshold space. Pseudo-physical experiences on the threshold of sleep and waking.

sPirituaL (8) †OBE space. Resembles physical space but subtly different and changed by imagination. (9) †NDE space. Relates to OBE space but other space-like experiences are involved. (10) Survival space. Where ‘soul’ dwells after death or between incarnations. (11) Mystical space. Associated with various extrovertive experiences, including ‘higher planes’.

†OBE = out-of-body experience. NDE = near-death-experience 6 This corresponds to a sort of ‘Grand Unified Theory’ of PERCEPTUAL FIELDS mind, which accommodates all forms of mental experience and is analogous to the physicists’ ‘Grand Unified Theory’ of matter. This sounds rather P P P pretentious, so I should stress that the term ‘mind’ is 1 2 3 used here in a very restricted sense. My focus is mainly on its perceptual aspects and many other aspects (cognition, emotion, volition, etc.) would need to be included in a more complete treatment. Although the breakdown into 11 classes is S somewhat arbitrary, since one could certainly merge or subdivide some of these mental spaces, the order of the sequence is significant, since it represents the transition from normal to paranormal to spiritual. REALITY STRUCTURE

HIGHER DIMENSIONAL REALITY STRUCTURE FIGURE 4. A symbolic representation of how a reality structure In order to justify my proposal, I need to make the (3D for Newton, 4D for Einstein) reconciles the different notion of a higher-dimensional reality more precise. If perceptual fields (2D for Newton, 3D for Einstein) of observers one were to ask a philosopher of the 19th century in within that structure. what sense the physical world is real, he might have replied as follows: There exists a 3-dimensional (3D) past light-cone. This is illustrated in Figure (5, overleaf) space in which are localised both the sensors through with one spatial dimension suppressed. A 20th century which we observe the world and the physical objects philosopher would therefore argue that reality is a 4- themselves. Each observer has only partial information dimensional structure (S4) but the notion that the world is about that space because of the limitations of his real because there exists a higher-dimensional structure sensory system. (For example, his eyes will provide which reconciles our perceptions of it is preserved. him with a projection of the space which is essentially Indeed, the situation can still be represented symbolically 2D.) However, the crucial point is that, given his by Figure (4), providing one interprets the squares as past location and the direction in which he is looking, one light-cones and the cube as S4. can always predict how he ought to see it. The fact that It is interesting – and not generally appreciated – that one can find a 3D configuration which predicts a set of the controversy between naïve realism and 2D projections concordant with those which are representative theory is largely resolved with the 4D actually presented to the different observers is what is perspective. This is because the distinction between the meant by stating that the physical world is real. One 3D object and the 2D percept only really arises in the may say that the physical world is a 3-dimensional Newtonian context. In Special Relativity the object and structure (S3) which consistently reconciles how percept are merely different cross-sections of a 4D everybody within that structure perceives it. The world-tube: the object is the world-tube’s intersection situation is depicted in Figure (4), which represents with a hypersurface of constant time, while the percept three perceptual fields (P1, P2, P3) by squares and the is its intersection with the observer’s past light-cone. Of reality structure (S3) by a cube. course, perception is generally more complicated than The construction of S3 only applies at a particular time. this – not even visual perception is always restricted to From a Newtonian perspective, time is absolute, so the the past light-cone and there are also non-visual modes 3D structures at successive moments can be trivially which involve timelike signals. However, I would argue patched together to incorporate the flow of time. that every form of perception – including any natural However, Einstein’s theory of Special Relativity showed extension of the physical sensory system (such as a that space and time are not absolute but part of a telescope, microscope, TV, computer screen or virtual spacetime continuum. Thus a consistent picture of how reality helmet) can be represented as some form of cross- different observers perceive the world requires that it be section of a 4D structure. Even the brain processes 4D, with the fourth dimension being time and material involved in perception can be related to the world-lines objects corresponding to world-lines. Photons travel at 45 associated with neuronal signals. degrees in a spacetime diagram, so the observer’s Since both the object and the percept are lower- perceptual field at any moment corresponds to part of his dimensional projections in the 4D description, neither is

7 t 3D SPACE + TIME future t light-cone 3D space at t4 3D space at t y 2 3D space at t ABSOLUTE 2 FUTURE 3D space at t1 HERE-NOW x

ELSEWHERE Time B Time A ABSOLUTE PAST Space B

past Space A light-cone

4D SPACETIME

FIGURE 5: A summary of Special Relativity, showing the amalgamation of 3D space and time into 4D spacetime on the right and the light-cone structure on the left. primary and so the standard view of representative theory termed the Universal Structure and represented is superseded. Furthermore, while the percept is 2D in the symbolically in Figure (6) by a hypercube (the 4D analogue 3D view, being just a geometrical projection, it is at least of a cube). The lowest member of the hierarchy is just the partly 3D in the 4D view because of all the extra 4D reality structure of Special Relativity (S4), which we information which can propagate from the object to the might regard as the ‘physical’ world. So one has resolved sensors via non-visual sense modes. The distinction the paradox of Figure (3) by incorporating both sides in between the 3D and 4D views may be summed up as some larger ‘box’. follows: Any percept which is contained within this structure is 3D view: 3D object à 2D percept. said to possess ‘actuality’ (a less ambiguous term than 4D view: 4D object à 3D object + 3D percept. ‘reality’) and in principle all percepts could be included. The 4D picture corresponds to a sort of extended mind, One can formally regard the extra perceptual elements in which consciousness is associated with all the parts of which are incorporated as one introduces successive spacetime to which the brain is linked through signalling dimensions as defining a sequence of ‘actuality planes’ world-lines; it is not localised within the brain itself (where the term ‘plane’ is not used in the usual 2D sense because that is just one end of the causal chain. Thus the but turns out to have geometrical significance). It is implicit stars are not contained within the skull – they are precisely here that perception involves some form of sensor which is where they appear to be, a view also advocated by Rupert itself associated with an actuality plane and cannot receive Sheldrake. In the context of physical perception, mind is signals from any higher one. spacetime, which is why one cannot regard consciousness But what are these extra dimensions and how do they as being confined to the right side of Figure (3). relate to consciousness? We have already emphasised that This approach is fine as far as it goes but it makes no the Universal Structure must incorporate the ordinary time reference to the other sorts of sense-data which are of Special Relativity. However, one also needs to assign a presented to our consciousness: mental percepts with no time coordinate to non-physical experiences and this physical counterparts. In fact, so far we have only covered requires that each level of the hierarchy have its own the first two of the mental spaces in the table. One therefore dimension of time. One therefore has a hierarchy of times needs to extend the definitions of reality given above to {t1, t2,… tD-3} with t1 corresponding to the time of Special include the possibility that other types of percept may be Relativity. The multi-level time perspective also relates to real (i.e. communal) in some sense. This is achieved by the problem of identity (1st personhood), since conscious- assuming that the communal space has extra dimensions. ness may be fragmented at one level but unitary at a higher With the addition of each dimension, the number of objects level. From this perspective telepathy would be the and observers incorporated increases, so one generates a manifestation of the higher dimensional connection hierarchy of reality structures of increasing dimensionality between people, while mystical unity would reflect an even (S4, S5, S6….). One eventually reaches a maximum higher level of connection. dimensionality D, at which point one has extended the The next step in the argument is to identify the reality structure as much as possible. The final one (SD) is Universal Structure with the higher-dimensional space of

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FIGURE 6. This shows how one can extend the notion of a reality structure to include non-physical percepts by generalising from a 4D structure to a higher-dimensional one. modern physics. In particular, I relate it to the version of CONCLUSION M-theory in which the physical Universe is regarded as a This article has described a new paradigm in which matter 4D ‘brane’ in a higher-dimensional ‘bulk’. For if physical and mind are merged at a very fundamental level. The objects occupy only a limited part of that higher- benefit of this is that physical percepts are no longer unique dimensional space, it is natural to ask whether anything in representing an external reality. However, the price one else exists there. Since the only non-physical entities pays is that the space required is not the usual physical one; which we experience are mental ones, and since it has it is a higher-dimensional space with a complicated been argued that all mental experiences have to exist in hierarchical structure. Although the model proposed here is some sort of space, it seems natural to associate this with not the usual type of one-level reductionist physics, it the ‘bulk’. However, I should stress that my proposal does should still be classified as science and I would argue that not depend on M-theory itself being correct. Indeed, it multiple levels of reality are a vital ingredient of any model preceded the brane-bulk proposal by several decades. linking matter, mind and spirituality. One just needs some form of higher-dimensional model. Bernard Carr The final step is to formulate a theory of how the different elements in the Universal Structure interact with THE HEART OF THE MATTER each other. Of course, this is a very ambitious task. The The seen picture from M-theory confines attention to the or the seer of the seen interaction of objects on the brane, which in my language or the seeing of the seer of the seen? is the first actuality plane, whereas the full theory must My money’s on the latter. also consider the interactions of objects in the bulk, The heard corresponding to higher actuality planes. So not only or the hearer of the heard must one provide a model for how objects on the first or the hearing of the hearer of the heard? actuality plane interact (i.e. a complete theory of physics), This is the heart of the matter. one must further describe how objects on higher actuality But who can tell the bird planes interact. This is also necessary if one wants to from the flying? extend the discussion from the passive aspects of mind the babe from the crying involved in perception to more active ones. The model the meaning from the word, involves a formulation of what I term ‘Transcendental Field Theory’. The name indicates, firstly, that all the wings from the sycamore as they scatter interactions are assumed to proceed via fields and, the bush from the berry, the pip from the cherry? secondly, that the fields involved are more extensive than This is the heart of the matter. the usual physical ones. However, there is no space to Tony Brignull discuss this further here.

9 A Precious Gift Meditating with your Children

Kim Nataraja joined the World Community for Christian Meditation in 1993, becoming a Benedictine Oblate to the Community in 1998 and Director of the School of Meditation since 1999. See is also a member of the Guiding Board of the World Community for Christian Meditation and in that role travels widely, leading schools and retreats and producing many teaching materials; these include Sharing the Gift, recently published in a new edition. She is also the author of Dancing with Your Shadow (Medio Media, 2007) and Journey to the Heart (Canterbury Press, 2011). She is a founding member of the Bede Griffiths Sangha and is very interested in inter-religious dialogue. She has taken part in the joint ‘Way of Peace’ initiative of HH the Dalai Lama and the WCCM to promote and strengthen inter-religious understanding and harmony.

The earliest reference to meditation is found in the Hindu Scriptures of 1500 BCE, but meditation as a valuable way of prayer is found in most of the world’s main religions and wisdom traditions. In the 4th century there was a flowering of this way of prayer amongst the Christian Desert Fathers invited Laurence Freeman to give a talk in his diocese of and Mothers. The culture determines variation in practice Townsville in northern Australia about Christian but all share the emphasis on paying attention leading to Meditation. One of the members of the audience was Ernie inner silence and stillness. In the Christian tradition this was Christie, Director of Religious Education and Curriculum achieved by focusing on the faithful, loving repetition of a for the diocese. After meditating for some time and prayer word. Over the years in all these cultures there increasingly feeling the benefits, he took the initiative to talk would have been parents encouraging their children to sit to his superior, Cathy Day, about the possibility of with them and enter the silence. Who would not share with introducing meditation in the diocesan schools. To cut a long their children what has been of such value in their own life story short, with the support of Bishop Michael Putney, and given such deep meaning to their existence? meditation is now practised in 32 schools with more than In some traditions this discipline will have been taught 10,000 pupils from the age of 5 to 18 practising daily. Now not only at home but also in more formal settings. In the this has spread to other states in Australia, with many World Community for Christian Meditation, children have meditators involved in projects to train teachers to do so. always been encouraged to join in meditation. Already in And it took only one person to take the initiative! 1977, John Main had started a meditation group for children In 2010, Meditatio, the outreach of the World on a Saturday morning in the monastery in Montreal. This Community, under the guidance of Briji Waterfield, invited was led by a young monk called Laurence Freeman. Some Ernie Christie and Cathy Day to lead a day seminar on of you may recognise the name. He is the successor of John ‘Meditation with Children’ in London and other cities in the Main and the Director of the World Community for UK. The seminars generated a great deal of interest and this Christian Meditation. Right from the start of our has been followed through by Charles and Patricia Posnett, Community, meditators have written books to help parents who have been visiting schools with other meditators from and grandparents to do this – Sr Madeleine Simon’s book our Community and training teachers to meditate with Born Contemplative and Greg Ryan’s My Happy Heart have their pupils. As a result there are now 115 primary schools been favourites for years. in England, where the practice of meditation takes place on Also, for many years there were – and still are – individual a daily basis. Following this positive development, the teachers that meditated with their classes in many countries programme of outreach has been extended to Scotland, over the world. But since 2005 this development has been where in-service training days are being held. Since the UK set on a firm footing. In 2004, Bishop Michael Putney, who event, Meditatio has organised seminars in the Philippines, had been practising silent prayer himself for many years, Indonesia, Singapore, Dublin and Poland with very

10 encouraging results. Later this year seminars will be held We don’t think of children being affected by stress. We in several cities in the US and Canada. It is a flourishing actually ignore under how much stress our society, our way project indeed. of life, our expectations, our competitiveness, and our The reason why so many in our Community are educational system puts on children. We are well-meaning, committed to meditate with children and encourage and but because we live under constant stress ourselves and are train teachers to do so, is the overwhelming evidence used to it, we are not as aware of the effect this has on our coming from many quarters of the benefits and fruits of young ones. Only when the stress causes illness do we look doing this with children and young people. When you read at our way of life. the following list you will understand our strong Stress has a deleterious effect on our well-being. My motivation: daughter, Dr Shanida Nataraja, a neuro-scientist, explains the effects of stress in her book The Blissful Brain: Meditation • increases the power of attention The main physical link between our mind, and • introduces the child to deep interior silence therefore our psychological/emotional state and our • leads to relaxation body is believed to be the endocrine system, a • counters the effects of stress and enhances network of nerve cells that produce and secrete well-being hormones into the bloodstream. The release of • boosts energy levels different hormones is triggered by activity in the • makes the child less prone to emotional out- brain, and so changes in brain activity can drive bursts of anger/hostility changes in the body’s functioning. • improves interaction with others Serotonin is a chemical that influences our • prevents physical and mental ill health emotional state: a happy state is associated with • optimises a child’s potential increased levels of serotonin and an unhappy state • allows access to a different way of being from is associated with decreased levels. Stress reduces our normal one the serotonin level considerably. Moreover, stress • reconnects us with the spiritual side of our will lead to higher levels of the hormone cortisol in nature and with the Source our blood stream, which triggers our ‘flight or fight’ reflex. This leads to a permanent state of tension and You will agree with me that these are impressive effects, alertness to danger, which in turn is proven to lead proven by research. to memory loss, depression and anxiety. I would like to explore with you why meditation has Meditation’s impact on stress underlies many of these beneficial outcomes. The context in which we and our its proven physical health benefits. children meditate is a world where silence is a rare commodity. We are all constantly surrounded by noise, To understand this process we have to look more closely hustle and bustle. In fact, in our Western world especially, at what happens when we meditate. The essence of the need for silence is not acknowledged – admitting that meditation is paying attention. By teaching our children to you need silence and solitude is often taken as a sign of pay one-pointed attention to their prayer word, their being slightly odd, if not anti-social. The result is that we mantra, we not only increase their power of attention, but instil in our children the value of excitement not silence, we allow also a switch to be thrown between our left activity not stillness. Children are therefore often over- hemisphere, which we predominantly use – it is our stimulated and restless. They are encouraged to look survival mode, it builds our ‘ego’– and the right hemi- constantly outside themselves for the solution to this inner sphere, the main centre for being able to pay attention and restlessness in further activity, frequent change and also for entry into a different mode of being. distractions. As our focus deepens, the activity in the cells involved in Through the teaching of meditation we help children to thoughts and images decreases considerably. It also re-connect with interior silence and stillness. In fact, in activates cells that lead in a chain reaction to the limbic essence meditation is simply being still at the centre of your system, the region dealing with emotional response. The being. It allows them respite from and insight into the emotion of fear expressed in the strong survival ‘flight or demands of their ordinary life. fight’ response changes to one of acceptance, relaxation and We must not forget how this constant noise, continuous tranquillity, the ‘relaxation response’. Hence the powerful change and activity cause enormous stresses in our modern relaxation effect of meditation. life. This is also the reason why meditation is experiencing Research has proven that meditation produces important a revival. In our secular society it is seen as a way of physiological effects on the body – lowering of breathing relaxation, an antidote to stress. rate, blood pressure and heart rate – due to the ‘relaxation

11 Children meditating before lessons at the Miracle Foundation’s children’s home in Savalee, Maharastra India. (Open source) response’. This counteracts the effects of stress, anxiety and time creates more and more bridges between the two even pain. In doing so, moreover, it decreases the urge hemispheres, leading to harmony and balance in our life. involved in addictions of many kinds, which are a negative Albert Einstein diagnosed the ills of our society as a result way of trying to lower stress. In our children we see an of the over-emphasis on the left brain: ‘The intuitive mind addiction to technology to escape from pressure. is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. Meditation therefore provides us with a method of We have created a society that honours the servant and has switching between the two hemispheres, which have forgotten the gift.’ It is interesting to see how our ‘ego’ different but complementary functions. The left hemisphere consciousness, with its survival needs in this material plane, filters and analyses logically and rationally an experience is encoded in the circuitry of the brain, but can be and stores these experiences as mental maps. We then temporarily by-passed. In doing so we ‘cleanse the doors of express this in language. Accordingly, the left hemisphere perception and see reality as it is, infinite!’ (William Blake) is often considered to be the dominant hemisphere, and We return to our original nature, which is interwoven with many of us spend much of our existence cultivating and the rest of creation and the cosmos. using the left-brain mode of being. But our left hemisphere Children take to meditation like ducks to water, because has a tendency to filter our experiences, so that they fit into children under the age of two function mainly from the our established perception of ourselves and the world. right brain, as research has shown. Hence their strong Experiences that fit our worldview and ‘boost our ego’ are intuition, creative imagination, sense of empathy, captured, whereas those that challenge our worldview and connectedness and a natural sense of wonder and awe in ‘undermine our ego’ are ignored. their awareness of the Divine presence all around them. The During meditation we access the right hemisphere way definite switch over from the right hemisphere activity to of being with the intuitive ‘self’ as its centre. The right the left one starts around school age, when the child is 5 or hemisphere is actually the older of the two. Experiments 6 years old. Writing, reading and arithmetic encourage suggest that the right hemisphere captures a much more logical, rational thought – a left hemisphere activity. truthful representation of an experience. It deals with Qualities which flow from this switch-over are logic, abstract thought, non-verbal awareness and a holistic view rationality but also assertiveness, aggression and com- of experience. It intuitively examines experience and stores petition, all further strengthened by competitive exams. it as images and emotions. It is the centre for creativity, A scientific study done on the effect of meditation on empathy, compassion, and a sense of connectedness to the children in Townsville by Dr Jonathan Campion, a whole, as it sees everything in context not just from the consultant psychiatrist, underlines the points made above. survival point of view. It is also our access point to our It is so easy to get the children to meditate – they love it. spiritual ‘self’ and our Source. They are rediscovering a way of being that is natural to But both hemispheres are important; we need them them. Cathy Day remarked in an interview that children supporting each other and co-operating. Meditation over certainly did not ask for extra lessons of maths but

12 frequently asked for more meditation. They also suggested fruits are a direct result of paying attention, leading to their that it would be good if their teachers meditated even more, being able to access a right hemisphere way of being, their so they would be much nicer and more patient! One teacher spiritual dimension, causing a transformation of the way in Jonathan Campion’s report remarked: ‘I am a lot calmer they operate in the world. and accept that things happen. I can’t control everything. I Not only does paying focused attention lead to relaxation often tell myself now, I can control what I can control and and well-being, but it is also a key ingredient in true prayer. what I can’t, I have just to do my best... it has affected how The quality of attention determines the quality of prayer. I look at the children. I honestly can’t remember the last time Laurence Freeman in a recent talk said: ‘So often today, in I got angry or upset in my classroom.’ our activities and education, we have forgotten the spiritual Ernie Christie stressed that we need to distinguish dimension of the child, because we adults have forgotten it between benefits and fruits of meditation. The benefits were ourselves.’ By presenting meditation in a spiritual context we the ones the children themselves remarked upon and the add to its effectiveness. Herbert Benson explored the truth fruits were those changes in attitude that others noticed. The of this in his book Beyond the Relaxation Response (1984) and benefits are caused by the practice of paying attention and stated that research has proven the importance of a spiritual the ‘relaxation response’. The children and young ones talked framework. By giving young ones a chance to experience about feeling more relaxed, calmer, being able to sit still for the Divine – rather than just hearing about our belief longer; they felt less stressed, more alert; they found it easier structure – we give them a sense of authenticity in making to concentrate despite distractions; their clarity of mind them aware of their own spiritual being. As St Ireneaus helped them to solve more complex problems; they were stated in the 2nd century: ‘We will never understand the more confident in making decisions; they felt generally words of Jesus, if we don’t first understand his silence.’ We better; they were more at ease relating to others; their energy need to help them to listen to the silence of God. Doing this levels were boosted. will also sows seeds for deep prayer to take root in the heart They also seemed to be able to regulate their emotions of the young, which allows them at any time in their life to better, especially anger. One teacher told the following touch the Source and know that their existence too has a story: she noticed a group of pupils sitting in a circle in the profound meaning. I would like Ernie Christie (quoting middle of the playground meditating. When she asked Pierre Teilhard de Chardin) to have the last word: them later why they did this, they told her that some We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; amongst them had got angry and wanted to fight, so they we are spiritual beings having a human experience. decided to meditate instead. In Jonathan Campion’s report he quotes a student as saying: ‘Like if someone gets really Kim Nataraja angry, they might want to do something mean and someone might want to do something back and with meditation it gives you the chance to cool down and you can think of other things, like not wanting to do that or you Meditation – could ask them to say sorry or something instead of you what children ask for… hurting them, to calm you down.’ Many teachers and students remarked on the effect meditation had especially In these extracts from a meeting paper, Dr Roles recalls the on difficult children: ‘Some children misbehave a lot. They refreshing honesty of children: fight with the teachers and then they have meditation and they actually are quiet.’ Now there’s a difficulty about connecting the Meditation This is already an excellent incentive to teach meditation with what one wants because one is so many different to children. We improve their health, their way of being able people in one skin wanting so many different things. to cope with the constant stress coming from the We’ve recently been giving the Meditation to children... environment and their ability to benefit from their from the age of 10 upwards. One learns how those chil- educational opportunities. But that is only one part of the dren’s minds work because on their confidential form story. There are not only benefits but also fruits. they really open up, for they realise that they can say The fruits are that they are more considerate towards things that don’t get to their parents and teachers. Two others, more aware of what their friends are feeling – even days ago... a small girl of 10... put the following on her going so far as alerting the teacher if they felt there was form in answer to the question: ‘In your own words, what something wrong with a friend. They have increased self- do you really want in life?’ She gets it all in: ‘I want to live knowledge and accept themselves and others better. One in the country and I want a sister, and I would like two aboriginal boy movingly remarked: ‘Now I know at last black and two tabby little kittens. I want my name to be who I am!’ There is also a marked increase in the sense of changed... I want my hair long right down to my feet.’ being part of a community. They also report feeling closer So I said to her, ‘Of course, we couldn’t promise all to God, having a sense of his presence. We can see how the these things, though it is surprising what the Meditation

13 can produce sometimes! Only we will not let you change of children’, ‘I want to get free from my parents’ – things your nice name into something so ordinary as... ’ However, like that. she showed considerable reluctance about repeating the So I say to them, ‘I’m afraid we can’t really promise Mantra; she kept stopping, but one only had to say, ‘What everything but we do say that if you meditate properly, about those kittens?’ and she laughed and started again. So you will probably find some way to get that pony!’ she’s made a beginning. ! Now we can laugh superiorly at her, but the chief Yesterday, amongst others, we gave the Meditation to difference I’ve noticed between her and myself was she had some children, and there was one very confident small boy the courage to write it down and I’d rather die! of 10 who put on his form: ‘I want to be a fully Realized ! man.’ The next little boy of 10 was the smallest I think I I get rather tired of people writing what they think they have ever seen – he was so small we had to give him a foot- ought to want: ‘I want to help the School’, ‘I want to be holy’ stool for his legs dangled in the air when he was trying to – or something like ‘I want to help mankind’. But it’s a meditate. On his form he put in writing so small that it great help to the person giving you the Meditation if you almost needed a magnifying glass (you’ve guessed it) – ‘A are able to put something genuine. A lot of children put on hamster!’ It will be very good to see who gets what! their form: ‘I want a pony’ or ‘I want a big family with lots FCR 1975/21

Mother Meera: there is only one energy...

Q: In spite of MM: Suffering is one way, but not the main way. It everything I have comes by itself; you don't have to ask for it. If you are experienced with suffering, naturally you will ask for happiness. But the you, I still some- Divine never says that suffering is necessary—this idea times doubt you. is created by human beings. The Divine asks us to be happy, harmonious and peaceful. MM: Doubt is useful. It keeps you Q: How does suffering work to bring about change? honest. Sometimes MM: People suffer a great deal in life without knowing people say how why. When there is Grace, you are helped to know why much they love me and to change. The greatest pain is ignorance. When the and love God, but I pain is clear, you can find its source and can change. know what is in their hearts. It is better when someone says, ‘I love you,’ knowing all the hatred and doubt that Q: What is your attitude to suffering in the body? is still within them. Then it means something. Then the MM: Pain belongs to the body, so it must be accepted. love can grow. Whatever doubts come, however frightening they are, know they are the creation of your Q: Can we alleviate our own suffering? mind. Only the Light is real. It is difficult for the ego to MM: When we are insincere we feel suffering. When accept this. we are sincere there is no suffering—we are But do not be ashamed of doubt. You are human, and concentrating on the Divine so that even if we have these things come to the human being. Use every energy physical suffering we will not feel it. We cannot say that to change yourself. There is only one energy and when there is no pain at all, but as we do not feel that it you know that, you can turn every impulse towards me, belongs to us it is weakened. If we have faith we feel offer everything up, however bad you think it is, to be pain less. transformed. How we consider suffering depends on our Q: Religions such as Christianity and Buddhism take the mentality. When we offer pain to the Divine we are free view that suffering is good in so far as it drives us to seek of it. Focusing on the pain only increases it. Humans God. Does suffering have a role in sadhana? make the pain more than it is by concentrating on it. From Answers, p.87. Rider 1991. © Mother Meera www.mothermeera.org.uk

14 The Olympic Games 776 BC – 2012

Michael Griffiths is Vice Chairman of the British Institute of Florence, a city where he now lives. A member of the Study Society since 1960, he has contributed articles to The Bridge and given lectures at Colet House, including the AGM lecture in 2005. The following article is adapted from a talk given to the British Institute of Florence in November, 2012. It highlights the spirit of the Games and refers to some of those who have exemplified it. Discobolus the OLymPic games symbOLise in many ways the But the original spirit and achievements of the ancient ethos of ancient Greek culture in its search for human Greek Olympics are preserved in the victory poems of the perfection and harmony within the context of those divine poet, Pindar, (522-443 BC) whose odes not only celebrate forces which the Greeks believed shape the world of the Olympic victors but the states from which they came human affairs and conflicts between one man and another. and the Olympian gods. The relationship between man The original Games were a religious and athletics festival and the Greek gods is beautifully expressed in Pindar’s held in honour of the Olympian gods, but also in honour 8th Pythian ode: of human excellence exemplified in physical and mental Creatures for a day! What is a man perfection. Nowhere is that ethos more beautifully What is he not? A dream of a shadow expressed than in Myron’s famous statue of the Is our mortal being. But when there comes to men Discobolus, sculpted about 450BC. The two-kilo disc is A gleam of splendour given of heaven, launched into space from an intense, human spiral Then rests on them a light of glory outreaching into space like the spiral nebulae that its And blessed are their days. spinning shape resembles. The Discobolus is a beautiful An extract from one of these odes, Olympian 12, expression of physical strength, rhythm and balance. celebrates the victory of the long distance runner, The Games were held every four years in Olympia in Ergosteles of Himera, from Magna Grecia (Sicily): southern Greece when all military combat between the Greek city states had to cease, so that they became a ... men’s expectations are often tossed up and then symbol of reconciliation and fraternity between warring back down, as they cleave the waves of vain false- factions. The Olympic torch was lit in the temple of Hera, hood. Never yet has any man on earth found a the wife of Zeus and goddess of marriage, and that is reliable token of what will happen from the gods. where it is still lit today as it begins its journey from Our understanding of the future is blind. And therefore many things fall out for men contrary to Olympia to the country chosen to host the Games. their judgement, bringing to some reversal of Tradition has it that the Games were founded by one of delight, while others, having encountered grievous the Greeks’ favourite heroes, Heracles, or Hercules storms, in a short time exchange their troubles for (stepson of Hera), whose twelve Herculean labours high success. symbolise human achievement against the dark forces which would destroy the hero’s attempt to defeat them. The ancient Games consisted of running, jumping, throwing (discus and javelin), wrestling, boxing and chariot racing. The events took place in the Olympian stadium which still exists today, about 200 m long, which meant that the 100 m and 200 m could be run in one straight stretch while the 400 m runners would have to retrace their steps once or the 800 m three times. These Games continued until the 4th century AD when Theodosius I decreed that pagan cults and practices should be abolished in what one might call an early example of Taleban-type, iconoclastic prejudice!

15 Fanny Blankers-Koen Let us now jump about 1500 years to the early 1800s when renewed interest in the Games coincided with the Greek War of Independence from the Ottoman Empire; it led to the first attempt to stage the Olympic Games in an Athens’ city square in 1855 and then again in 1870 and 1875. But it was Baron de Coubertin who can be regarded as the father of the modern Olympic Games. He founded the IOC, the International Olympic Committee, in 1894 and this led to the first Games in Athens in 1896. 14 nations participated with 240 athletes, a far cry from the 13,000 athletes competing in over 30 different sports and 400 events from over 200 countries in the 2012 Winter and Summer Olympics. Since 1896 the Games have been held every four years, apart from the interruptions of the First and Second World Wars. The spirit of the Games is summed up in Coubertin’s words: was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from The most important thing in the Olympic Games is Gerald Ford in 1976 and, posthumously in 1990, the not to win but to take part, just as the most Congressional Gold Medal by President H W Bush. important thing in life is not the triumph but the Reflecting on the spirit of the Games, Jesse Owens struggle. The essential thing is not to have remarked, ‘Friendships born on the field of athletic strife conquered but to have fought well. are the real gold of competition. Awards become And it was through the inspiration of a friend, Father corroded, friends gather no dust.’ Henri Martin Didon of the Dominican order, that Fanny Blankers-Koen epitomises the spirit of the post- Coubertin chose the Olympic motto. Didon, principal of war years, a 30-year-old housewife who trained after Arcueil College, near Paris, regarded the discipline of putting the children to bed, living in digs at the Olympic sport as a powerful educational tool. One day, when Games in London in 1948, travelling by bus to Wembley drawing an interschool athletics meeting to a close, he stadium and then running on the damp cinder track. ended with three Latin words: Citius, Altius, Fortius... Known as ‘The Flying Housewife’ and ‘The Flying (Faster, Higher, Stronger). Coubertin commented: ‘These Dutchmam’, she became the most successful athlete at the three words represent a programme of moral beauty. The 1948 Games, winning four gold medals. Yet competing at aesthetics of sport are intangible.’ The motto was a time when many disregarded women’s athletics, she had introduced in 1924 at the Olympic Games in Paris. to endure the sour comment of Jack Crump in the Daily Michael Griffiths continued his talk to the Institute by Telegraph that she was ‘too old to make the grade’ and of referring to the Olympic spirit in individual practice. He those who said she should have stayed at home to look illustrates how that spirit can be tested and difficulties after the children. In 1999, she was voted ‘Female Athlete of overcome. the Century’ by the International Association of Athletics It is people who make the Games what they are: a Federations (IAAF) and her Olympic victories are credited kaleidoscope of human personalities facing the with helping to demolish the convention that age and exhilaration of victory or the disappointments of not motherhood were a barrier to success in women’s sport. coming first, or gaining second or third place in their Emil Zatopek’s achievement at the Helsinki Olympics chosen sport. in 1952, when he won the 10,000 m, 5,000 m, and the In 1936, at the Berlin Olympics, Jesse Owens, the black Marathon, has never been rivalled. He became a legend American runner, won four gold medals in front of an in his day and a national hero with Czechoslovakia’s infuriated Adolf Hitler and a Nazi audience. But not Communist party. A supporter of Anton Dubcek and his even on his return home did the most successful athlete belief in a socialism with a human face, he was of the Games receive proper recognition. ‘President scandalously treated after the 1968 Soviet invasion, being Roosevelt,’ Owens commented, ‘didn’t even send me a stripped of his rank of Colonel in the Czech army and telegram.’ Nor was there any significant put to work in a uranium mine for seven years. acknowledgement from President Truman; it was not Fortunately, following the collapse of the Communist until 1955 that Eisenhower, himself an athlete, honoured regime, he was reinstated as an ambassor for Czech sport Owens by naming him an ‘Ambassador of Sports’. He by Vaclav Havel, the country’s President.

16 Jesse Owens demonstration to the public that competitive sport is not the prerogative of the able-bodied.’ These Games developed into the Paralympics, which in London in 2102 saw the participation of over 4,000 athletes from 165 countries. Ludwig Guttmann became a British citizen in 1945, became President of the English Federation of Disability Sport in 1961 and was knighted for his services in 1966. The original spirit of putting aside political differences to engage in a few days of international reconciliation and friendship has often been ignored in post World War Two Olympics. In 1956, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland did not participate because of the Russian invasion of Hungary, while Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon abstained because of the Anglo-French invasion of Suez. In 1968, at the Mexico Olympics, the Black Power salute was given by Tommie Smith and John Carlos. In 1972, tragedy struck at the Munich Olympics when the Black September In a spirit reminiscent of Owens, Zatopek said: ‘Great is Palestinian Group was responsible for the kidnap and the victory but the friendship of all is greater.’ deaths of 11 Israeli athletes and one police officer. African Mo Farah, the Somali-born British athlete, won the 5000 boycotts took place in 1972 and 1976 because of apartheid m and 10000 m at the London Olympics in 2102. A devout policies in Rhodesia and South Africa and in 1984, as a Muslim, he is an example of successful multiculturalism in protest against the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, 65 Britain. A good example of the commercial wealth open to nations led by the USA boycotted the Moscow Olympics. Olympic champions today, he is expected to earn £2 million Jesse Owens unsuccessfully tried to persuade President in advertising alone. This highlights the nature of today’s Carter not to withdraw the US team. The Russians aggressive, media-driven world and the pressures it creates responded by boycotting the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. for world class athletes. We need to get the balance right We can only be thankful that the London Olympics escaped between athletic prowess and being rich and famous. As such political infiltrations, thus avoiding a thunderbolt from Zatopek once said: ‘An athlete cannot run with money in Zeus, the ancient Greek threat to anyone not willing to put his pockets. He must run with hope in his heart and dreams aside his weapons and hostility when coming to Olympia. in his head.’ Michael Griffiths concluded his talk with an extract from The advent of the Paralympics after the Second World Tennyson’s poem, Ulyssess. The final line is inscribed on a wall War was inspired by Ludwig Guttmann, a neuro-surgeon in the 2012 London Olympic Village: who left Germany in 1939 as a result of the Nazi persecution of the Jews. Through looking after members of the armed That which we are, we are; forces paralysed by spinal injuries, he became a passionate One equal temper of heroic hearts, believer in the power of sport to inspire and motivate. He Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. started the Stoke Mandeville Games on 28th July,1948, the opening day of the London Olympics, when 16 disabled Michael Griffiths men and women took part in archery and javelin (All photos Open source) competitions. He later said: ‘Small as it was, it was a

SPIRITUAL ATHLETES — Sri Chinmoy (1931-2007) Spiritual teacher, Sri Chinmoy, was also a dedicated athlete. Through his own achievements, he spent his life vividly demonstrating how sports can be a powerful means to unlock the true potential of the human spirit. He founded the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team in 1977, which has grown into what is today the world’s largest organiser of endurance events. In 1987, he founded the World Harmony Run, a global relay that seeks to promote international friendship and understanding. Travelling through 100 countries, runners carry a flaming torch, passing it from hand to hand as a symbol of harmony. The World Harmony Run does not seek to raise money or highlight any political cause, but simply strives to create goodwill among peoples of all nations. As a young boy, Sri Chinmoy was inspired by Jesse Owens, the greatest athlete at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. 17 The Misunderstanding about Self-remembering ...

Francis Roles wrote simple natural method. But it’s been lost. I could never in 1960: find it. Once in India, I heard an echo of such a method.’ And he told it me, ‘Try it if you like,’ he said, ‘but I can’t tO direct attentiOn On teach it because it’s not the real thing—it’s only second OneseLF without weakening hand. Perhaps you have to find the real thing.’ And from or obliterating the attention that time on he began to send me to see anyone who came directed on something else to London with any claims. I saw the most fantastic Yogis, is impossible. To imagine etc., but never anything real until last January. one can do it before one has Then one of our people mentioned to me a certain arrived at the state of Self-consciousness is mere self- Indian Master† then in London who had a very interesting deception; such a process attempted in the state of relative method which her daughter was trying with great success. consciousness is only spoiling both worlds – the inner and As usual I went to try it with the scepticism engendered by the outer. For until a man has found Himself it is impossible previous disappointments. Judge of my astonishment for him to remember himself in the midst of external when I recognised the exact method of which Mr O. had activity; and to find Himself often demands that for at least given me the echo! No doubt of it. Well then, was this man half-an-hour, twice a day for many months, his mind a charlatan like the others, was his method the real thing, should turn in quite a new direction away from all external or again only second hand? impressions and away from all his ordinary psychological I saw a great deal of this man. He was not a charlatan. processes—but without resisting them! He had the signs of higher being; he belongs to a great It is Plato’s cave again, where the chains of the Tradition; he was sincere. I had hours of coaching in the prisoners ‘are arranged in such a manner as to prevent them method which was giving me results beyond anything I from turning round their heads… and moreover when any one could hope for. I got about twenty old hands to try it of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to go up and turn his simply as an experiment. They at once got results; they neck round and walk and look at the light he will suffer sharp found the use of the method gave them more moments of pains… and when he approaches the light he will have his eyes self-remembering, more understanding of certain ideas of dazzled and will not be able to see any of the realities which are the System. So then I decided that all our people should now affirmed to be Truth.’ Therefore the process must be have a chance. Now 380 people are doing it with very gentle and gradual; a special method is required, and gratifying results—only a handful have failed or refused. expert help and guidance needed. With the successful use of this method has come the Quite early on Mr O. began to think on correct and solution of the problem about attention and self- independent lines. In the very same passage in Fragments remembering. We are back now on the right lines—the before the mistake occurs he writes (p.118): lines which successful mystics like Jacob Boehme have always followed: I decided to draw no conclusions whatever, but to try to remember myself… The Disciple said to his Master: The very first attempts showed me how difficult ‘Sir, how may I come to the Super-sensual life, so it was. Attempts at self-remembering failed to give that I may see God and hear God speak?’ The any results except to show me that in actual fact we Master answered: ‘Son, when you can throw never remember ourselves. …The first impression yourself into that where no created thing exists, was that attempts to remember myself or to be though it be but for a moment, then you hear what conscious of myself, to say to myself I am walking, God speaks.’ I am doing, and continually to feel this I, stopped Disciple: ‘Is that, where no created thing exists, near thought. When I was feeling I, I could neither think nor at hand or is it far away?’ speak; even sensations became dimmed. Master: ‘It is in you, and if you can, my son, for a while only cease from all your thinking and willing, About 1935, when I first began to sit with him alone he then you will hear the unspeakable word of God.’ would often say: ‘Something is missing in the System. Either G. didn’t know or he forgot. We are told that every- That I have now experienced through this method, for thing depends on remembering ourselves and next minute without such a method known in a Tradition 5,000 years we are told “You can’t remember yourself”. If man is old and guided by a Master, one cannot learn to ‘throw meant to remember himself there must have been some oneself into that where no creature dwelleth.’

†Maharishi Mahesh Yogi 18 ‘When I was feeling ‘I’, I could neither think nor speak . . .’

But at what point on the double-headed arrow is the observer situated? Where is his standpoint? It is no more at the inner end of the arrow than at the outer. In each case his attention is supposed to be directed towards these points. If it is taken instead that there is never more than one b) arrowhead at any particular moment, the idea of attention being divided is overcome. It can be taken that the inner end of the arrow is the standpoint of the observer, and from there his attention is directed outwards—and this may mean on either external phenomena or what is happening inside his own mind. It is easier to see the stages of development of consciousness if the arrow is taken as a d) radius of a circle, the centre of which is ‘Real I’ and the circumference being the world of observed phenomena. outwards, since the point of anchorage is not necessarily situated at the same point reached by the inner end of the a) Relative consciousness or OBSER OBSERVE OBSERVED arrow in the previous stage. This must come only with waking sleep: the inner end of BS V D O ERVE P ED PH repeated practice, as we are reminded in the simile of D PHE the arrow is rooted very H P EN

HEN Real O ‘dipping the cloth in the yellow dye’. Only after repeated E N

Real O shallowly and there is no M N

Real O M E dippings will it retain the yellow colour. Only when the O

RealSelf M

E

connection with one’s Real Self N M

E

N

Self A anchor is let go and firmly fixed deep down on the sea bed

N E

Self A

N

Self. The degree of conscious- A A is the ship safely at rest. FCR 1960/49 ness depends on the place a) a) a) where the observer is ‘rooted a) and grounded’. b) In order to penetrate deeper, the direction of the arrow is reversed; sensations of external phenomena are b) dimmed and the arrow of b) b) attention penetrates within. b) c) Self-consciousness is reached when the head of the arrow penetrates the centre of the circle and remains there.

c) d) The inner end of the arrow is c) c) then fixed here and the attention c) again directed outwards. When this becomes possible, the state of cosmic consciousness is achieved. The observer has full attention on external phen- d) omena at the point of the arrow, d) d) the inner end being rooted and d) grounded in the Real Self. Many stages must exist between (b) and (d), (above, right) with different degrees of penetration towards the centre, and different points along the line where the inner end of the arrow is fixed when attention is again directed

Illustrations: details from ‘the 24 teachers of Dattatreya’ © www.exoticindia.com/product/DI22/ 19 “If you want to enter the chamber of the Absolute — unload yourself...” SMJ S. M. Jaiswal — A MAN FOR OUR SEASON

mr s.m. JaiswaL. For us, at the Study both stood up and held our hands Society, it was always ‘Mr Jaiswal’ – the together in namaste, Eastern fashion, S.M. remained a mystery for his lifetime as while all the others bowed down with in many ways did he. Tall, spare and their foreheads touching the floor. I said remarkably good-looking, he projected a that I thought that as it was our last serious presence, a slightly enigmatic, meeting I must at least kneel down. intelligent seriousness that ranged beneath Jaiswal said, ‘I think we should keep both our feet on the ground and our a quizzical and lightly held self-confidence. heads on our shoulders.’ In fact we both One immediately wanted his approval. knelt down! Born in 1923 into a humble family in Allahabad, he rose by effort and talent to a Like many Indians he held the culture life most of his peers could never have of the British Raj, with its ideal of the imagined. First to art school in Bombay ‘English gentleman’, in high regard and where he quickly gained a high reputation particularly admired the integrity of the and from there to the Royal College of Art in London – a judicial system. Any kind of bribery or corruption was rare passage in the 1950s. 1960 found him working for the anathema to him and this frequently made life in India J Walter Thompson agency and much of the artwork for exceedingly difficult. He would only ever deal with honest the ‘Put a Tiger in your Tank’ campaign stemmed from his tradesmen and always went to great lengths to avoid hand. In London he met his wife Bharti, the daughter of buying the prasad flowers and fruit from stalls where only an Indian High Court judge and in that time their marriage an extra tip could produce the best. Rickshaw drivers held was another rare and brave anomaly. him in awe. When starting their school in Varanasi the Together they attended classes at the School of Jaiswals were plagued with violent threats from officials and Economic Science and when Dr Roles was searching for a tradesmen to whom they had refused to offer the expected translator to go out to India to interpret at audiences with backhanders. After much tribulation they acquired the the newly discovered Shankaracharya, Leon MacLaren, derelict Victorian hospital in Varanasi, a gigantic stone and head of the SES, put Mr Jaiswal forward as the obvious red brick edifice they slowly restored and which now shelters candidate. So began a lifelong association that was to and teaches over a thousand children. Several partially sustain and significantly define the relationship between the successful attempts were made to burn the building down Holy Tradition and the Schools in the west. (with them in it) but they held unwaveringly to their Although without formal training in the Vedic tradition principles, installed a ferocious-looking guard dog who soon Mr Jaiswal possessed a remarkable capacity for verbatim became shamelessly pampered as a pet, and eventually the translation. His attention to His Holiness’s answers was so school opened without one bribe being paid. focused and transparent that he would unhesitatingly Initially supported by donations to the Jaiswals’ Jyotir- produce a flowing translation for several minutes, seldom nidhi Nyasa Trust, the school was founded and run along requiring any subsequent correction from the recording. lines not perhaps immediately understood in the west. His Holiness enjoined him to ‘translate not my words but my Adding to the conception of the obvious priority – to meaning,’ which he did, with consistent insight and fidelity. educate the very poor – the Jaiswals were convinced that an At a Monday meeting at Colet in 1964, Lord Allan gave equally vital need lay in reversing the increasingly wide- this account of their visit to India that year: spread secularisation and loss of core values in Indian Mr Jaiswal and I were together all the time; we middle class education. They believed that enlightenment travelled out together, we shared a room together in and wisdom delivered here would have a powerful and the hotel and we worked together very closely. He subtle effect upon Indian society as a whole and they were was a marvellous interpreter because he has a great fully supported by the Shankaracharya in this conviction. knowledge of the languages, Teachings and His Holiness opened the school with his formal blessings conditions there and also of our own System. He and a suite of rooms was kept for him where he often stayed was also very helpful in that he is apt to be detached when visiting Varanasi – preferring it, Mrs Jaiswal said with on certain emotional occasions; and when we were some satisfaction, to the several ashrams at his disposal. about to go to our final meeting, I was wondering He had a subtle and understated sense of humour that what I would do. In all our previous meetings we could go unnoticed – or sometimes not. Once, when accom-

20 “If you want to enter the chamber of the Absolute — unload yourself...” SMJ panying Professor Guyatt on the trip to India in 1988, we ‘tough’ love, providing what he perceived was truly were invited to dinner by the Jaiswals at the Varanasi school. needed rather than what was desired or demanded. Even In a vast, dimly lit room, sitting at a long, scrubbed table, after so, his gentle, always welcoming presence and perceptive a while the conversation seemed to falter. Noticing a large thoughtfulness for others inspired much love – he was a framed photograph hung in pride of place above the door I deeply kind man. rushed to fill the gap, remarking, ‘Is that a photo of Mahatma His life was ruled by his practice and he appeared quite Gandhi up there? Do you admire him very much?’ A silence: spontaneously free from careless words or movements. Mr Jaiswal gave me a cool look and replied, ‘That photo- Perfectly naturally he would initiate any action, a journey, a graph, Mr Beckwith, is of my dear mother.’ In the gloom meal, a conversation, with a silent pause and then the quietly another heavy pause drew out and then his gaze softened uttered phrase ‘Om: Paramatmane namah; ata’ – in the name into a smile. ‘Actually Mr Beckwith, you are not so far wrong. of Param-Atman; let’s begin. When meditating he became My mother had much the same civilising effect on me and strikingly still, like a stone, seemingly emptied in an instant my family as did Gandhi-ji upon the world.’ It went better and without effort of any personal presence whatever – in after that — and the conversation turned to the perception of this respect a shining beacon light for those who sought it. the Antahkaran as a factual ‘inner organ’ that can be seen, felt His life’s work was to comprehensively assemble and and controlled. He produced illustrations from a text used by assess the knowledge of Advaita into the English language Guru Deva. ‘Until the subtle body awakes and becomes – a most substantial book which it is very much hoped will conscious of itself in the inner light of Atman,’ he said, ‘none shortly be published by the School of Economic Science. It of this can really be known or understood.’ will contain much that will clarify, and often challenge, Before His Holiness died in 1997 he appointed Mr current understandings. Jaiswal to be the sole intermediary between the Schools in the west and the Ashram of his successor in the Tradition. This appointment was described in 2005 by Dr Sastri, administrator of the Allahabad Ashram, as a ‘holy promise’ similar to that made by Rama’s father King Dasharatha to his wife Kaikeyi, a promise which, though it may appear unfair, can never be broken. His Holiness appointed Mr Jaiswal not only to be our mentor in matters of Advaita and the Meditation but also as the arbiter of any further disagreements and disunities that should disturb our peace. This charge was given him so as to hold open the inner connection to the Tradition. Due solely to him it remains open. Another mythical image that comes to mind when remembering Mr Jaiswal’s life of service to the Tradition is that of Shiva in the Samudra manthan. When the gods and Following Barthi’s death in 2007 he stepped back a little, demons churned the ocean to produce amrita, the nectar of became more transparent, as if in the spirit of the Hindu’s immortal life, the first thing to arise was a deadly poison. third stage of life, Vanaprastha, the graduated withdrawal This, Shiva mercifully took it upon himself to hold in his from the world. He assumed the long, impressive beard of throat, so that it could contaminate neither the outer nor the the sannyasin and grew so thin it seemed a soft breeze inner worlds until the process was completed. Just so did might carry him away. His health, never robust, deter- Mr Jaiswal contain the conflict and ambivalence over the iorated until kidney failure required dialysis three times a relationship with the Holy Tradition that arose after Dr week. This severe debility lasted more than ten years and Roles’s death in 1982 and which still continues. throughout it all he provided a moving and salutary Mr Jaiswal’s own path was by the way of knowledge, the demonstration of dealing with his body as if it really were Jnani. Once satisfied of the truth of anything, his conviction only a servant; simply and without fuss dismissing its pain was unshakeable. Sometimes, and unsurprisingly, some and frailty as occasion and necessity demanded. peoples’ dearly held opinions foundered uncomfortably on Mr Jaiswal gave his life to the understanding and this rock, but in the face of even his unfairest detractors he practice of the Advaita tradition and its promulgation in the focused always on their good and positive qualities, west. He believed in us, through thick and thin; in the remaining himself entirely dismissive of any negativity or capacity of the west to learn to appreciate Advaita not only controversy. He gave love to everyone and everything he as philosophy but as a practical reality, as a transcendent met – though sometimes it seemed an uncompromisingly evolution of being for the whole human race. Nevertheless,

21 as the Shankaracharya’s appointed gatekeeper, he could not generally regarded as either attainable or necessary. The allow us through unless he saw we truly and concertedly level and intensity of the search for the Truth alone, ‘costing appreciated the need and longed for such a reconnection. not less than everything’, the reality of the passion and In the Society today it can seem as if the miraculous life- courage, the humility and enlightened determination of changing blessings of the inspiration and energy available those who went before us has slipped year by year further in the physical presence of a realised man, or woman – for into rosy-tinted myth – as a hero’s journey in a time long those open to it – has become something doubtful, even past, beyond realistic aspiration. Yet still, the gate stays open. feared and distrusted. Yet those who advocate that such an So where do we stand? In the progression of Guru Deva’s influence is no longer required, quoting selectively that ‘we original impulse to send Advaita to the West, a new octave now have everything we need’, have yet to demonstrate at arises from the forces available in this moment and – as Mr all convincingly that this claim is anything more than hubris. Jaiswal might say – we must first use reason; then, faith and As His Holiness explained in 1988: love will naturally arise to seek out and entertain only those The relationship [with the Tradition] which Dr True influences that will really help and lift us now. For a Roles spoke of is equally eternal but it can only brief moment we may yet have some choice in the matter but be kept operative by a conscious relationship. It before long, time and tide will gather up again and sweep can be kept alive when the next Shankaracharya on. One recalls the story of the boatman ferrying a saint takes over. Just as after the passing away of Dr across the Ganges who, when offered any wish at all, had Roles the relationship is kept alive. The same only the wit to ask for his next meal. Can we now do better? will be true for the future. The passing of this quiet and brilliant man whose genuine The ‘eternal relationship’ is not with any person but with greatness of spirit went often unregarded marks a crucial the appointed, living embodiment of the Tradition itself turning point in the life of our School. Even now, his life of whose full and true power can be conveyed in no other way. conscious service can still light our path. All of us connected After our Teachers passed on, Mr Jaiswal continued to with the Shankaracharya’s teaching owe him a lifelong debt hold open the door to the possibility of the highest ideal of and those who were his friends are the richer for it. human life and to a level of practice that seems no longer Gerald Beckwith

At the final meeting in 1993, HH Shantanand Saraswati recommends Mr Jaiswal . . . ‘ ... It is necessary that ignorance be dispelled by knowledge and those who have the responsibility of running the organisation must take the lead in this. If there are any doubts or complex matters to clear up, then help should be sought from Mr Jaiswal who is not merely an interpreter of words, but whose mind has a thorough grasp of the Advaita system due to having had 31 years of Satsang with His Holiness. Although HH's help is always available, in all practical matters he advises you to get help from Mr Jaiswal.’ (Record, 3 January 1993)

Collage: Birds flocking. © Sylvia Nickerson

22 BORIS MOURAVIEFF and the Secret of the Source

This article by Robin Amis ‘No.’ first appeared in the summer ‘Where did you find it? Where did you get it?’ 1991 issue of Gnosis maga- ‘Maybe I stole it...’3 zine, a publication in San A conversation with Ouspensky shows how difficult it Francisco, which ran from was to obtain an answer to this question: 1985 to 1999. The article was based on Gnosis – Studies and Commentaries on the ‘Did you never ask Gurdjieff about the origins of the Esoteric Tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy, the 3 volume work System?’ written by Boris Mouravieff. Mouravieff was an enigmatic ‘third O: ‘We all asked him about 10 times a day, and man’, known to Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, who found and every time the answer was different.’ learned to practise what he clearly believed to be the complete sys- ‘Did you ask Gurdjieff why he always gave differ- tem of which only ‘fragments’ had been previously published in ent answers?’ Ouspensky’s In Search of the Miraculous. O answered: ‘Yes.’ ! ‘What did he say?’ To speak of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky is to speak of the esoteric ‘He said he never gave different answers.’4 Tradition which was unveiled in a fragmentary way by Gurdjieff, Stories like these about enigmatic people delight our with substantial cooperation by Ouspensky. love of gossip, so that everybody takes sides. The real Boris Mouravieff1 question has to do with Gurdjieff’s statement that the ‘keepers’ from whom he obtained this knowledge ‘did not the subtitLe OF OusPensky’s bOOk In Search of the understand it at all’. Most seekers have accepted this Miraculous – the main text of the System known as the uncritically, because of their disappointment in churches Fourth Way – is Fragments of an Unknown Teaching. But the that showed no interest in inner questions. But if real question is, why was the System only available in frag- understanding is, as both Gurdjieff and Ouspensky say, an mentary form, and why are only fragments of the System essential element in the System, Gurdjieff’s statement available today, over seventy years after it was introduced? implies that he did not receive the System in the form of Nobody has ever revealed where these fragments came understanding, but information. from, or why they are fragmentary. One answer lies in the Why was the understanding not conveyed? work of Boris Mouravieff (1890–1966). Mouravieff, the scion Collage: Birds flocking. © Sylvia Nickerson of a distinguished Russian family, knew Gurdjieff in understanding arises OnLy FrOm Practice Constantinople and in France and was a personal friend of The characteristic of the great science of man which Ouspensky. Mouravieff researched the origins of the was taught by the doctors of the early church (and which System, which he considered to be incomplete as later went underground) is that it is only understood when Ouspensky presented it. In a 3-volume work entitled Gnosis, put into practice. And it is from this ancient science that which appeared in French in 1961–63, Mouravieff presented Gurdjieff’s System is derived. As a result, there will always what he considered to be the complete teaching. He also be people around such knowledge who do not understand claimed that this work had been authorised by the ‘Great it, either because they are too new to it or because they esoteric Brotherhood’, which, he said, Ouspensky’s was not. have failed to practise it. One has to get past this outer cir- In a 1957 article published in the Belgian review, cle to learn whether or not there is someone at the centre Synthèses, Mouravieff records a conversation he held with who does understand as such people remain hidden until Gurdjieff: they decide to reveal themselves. I once sat with Gurdjieff at the Café de la Paix in Knowledge gained intellectually is not the same as Paris, and suddenly, with no preliminaries, I said, ‘I understanding, and does not have the stability of under- find the System is based on the Christian Doctrine.2 standing. This intellectual knowledge has two other char- What have you got to say on the subject?’ acteristics. First, it will appear to be new. This explains the ‘It is the ABC,’ he answered, ‘but they do not under- statement by Ouspensky that when he first met Gurdjieff stand it at all.’ in the spring of 1915, ‘I realised that I had met with a com- ‘The System – does it belong to you?’ pletely new system of thought surpassing all that I knew

23 before’.5 It also explains why Kenneth Walker, a student of was a hermit on Mount Athos, and, as the evidence of a fel- Ouspensky, wrote that ‘Ouspensky required of us that we low monk, Archimandrite Karambelas,11 confirms, a should avoid mixing religious terms with what was called respected hermit. He was also for many years a friend of “the language of the system”.’6 Ouspensky. It is said that Father Nikon spent seven years Second, those with neither the background knowledge in a cave in Karoulia (the tip of Mount Athos) without nor the understanding needed to evaluate the message tend speaking a word. Then he decided to stay in the cave to rely on the messenger’s evaluation. As Mouravieff has another seven years because in fourteen years all his cells pointed out, this tends to foster a certain credulity. He would have been reborn so that then he would have been writes: ‘made in Karoulia’. One can see clear connections here between Father Nikon’s ideas and Ouspensky’s teaching The greatest difficulty in approaching esoteric linking psychology and time. problems is that we live in an analytical society. By its After Ouspensky’s death, the first man to visit Father extreme specialisation our civilisation has created a Nikon as his silence ended was Gerald Palmer, once a cultured elite in which each individual intellectual pupil of Ouspensky. It was Father Nikon who suggested possesses only an infinitesimal part of our total that Palmer publish the well-known editions of Early knowledge... This has led to an imbalance in the man Fathers from the Philokalia and Writings from the Philokalia on of the contemporary elite: along with a highly Prayer of the Heart – both taken from the Russian version of developed critical faculty, an unsuspecting credulity the teachings of the earliest monastic fathers. Moreover, is formed in his subconscious concerning any subject the translator of these texts was Madame E. Kadloubovsky beyond his own special field...7 – Ouspenksy’s secretary from the mid-1930s until his In Ouspensky’s case, Mouravieff says: death. The editor of the Russian text used for these trans- lations – and the man who added to it many quotations Ouspensky knew the Gospels passably well but did from Syrian and other fathers not in the Greek text – was not know the Doctrine, the commentaries left by the Theophan the Recluse (1815-1894). fathers of the Œcumenical Church. As far as I know, he had never been initiated into the oral tradition the missing Link other than through Gurdjieff. So it was impossible Theophan was to provide the ‘missing link’ in the labour for him to cross-check anything he received; he had of tracing the main elements of the System back to their no other reference. He also jumped in headfirst roots in the practical teachings of the early church. Four without pondering because he had confused the years ago, by an amazing chain of coincidences, I was given message with the messenger.8 by someone within the Russian church an incomplete series of manuscript translations from his works. seLF-deveLOPment is against nature Theophan (now Saint Theophan; he was canonised by Only these two factors, taken together, explain why the Russian Orthodox Church as part of its millenary students of both Gurdjieff and Ouspensky could accept celebrations in 1988) was already known as the adapter of such pronouncements as, ‘The way of development of a sixteenth-century work entitled Unseen Warfare.12 The Art hidden possibilities is a way against nature, against God’.9 In of Prayer, another well-known work of Orthodox practice, such a denial of God has great psychological spirituality, is largely based on his writings.13 significance, especially since in the classic psychological Theophan was a scholar who between 1850 and 1857 method of the early church, remembrance of God’s travelled round the monastic libraries of the Middle East, presence is an essential element in the spiritual practices on the literary heirs of the Desert Fathers. He became a bishop, which a large part of the System was based. In the second then a hermit, and was also an influential author and editor. half of this article we will show that this remembrance leads Because he made special efforts to bridge the rift between to a ‘fear of God’ – a powerful method, because ‘the the Orthodox and Western subcultures of the Russia of his experience of the fear of God arouses attention and time, his works remain comprehensible to today’s concentration in the heart’.10 rationalistic man. In his writings, many of which are only Yet it could be argued that there was good reason for now reaching the West almost a century after his death, we leaving out the word ‘God’ in the first introduction of the can find detailed terminology that makes it incontestable System to the West. ‘God talk’ has from then until now that many of the special terms of the System were fully been highly suspect to generations of seekers disenchant- developed decades before the births of Gurdjieff and ed by churches that do not practise what they preach. Ouspensky. They also provided clear links to earlier The first major opening in the ‘God talk’ barrier came sources. This confirms that the immediate origins of the in 1984, when I learned about Father Nikon. Father Nikon System lie in certain unwesternised segments of the Russian

24 ancient beliefs – Slavic and pre-Christian – to estab- lish their relation with the beliefs of the Scythians, the ancient Indians, and the Egyptians. I had to study such antiquities as the Philokalia, to study the Gospels anew with the help of the keys thus obtained, and finally to re-examine King David’s Psalm 118,15 which contains the same System in compact form... In its historical frame and on its proper soil, (the message) loses its sensational character and ‘exotic’ taste to appear at last like a mixture of old symbols, parables and various allusions that are generally available and known to all, having their roots in the ancient beliefs of the Slavs and Athos – the Holy Mountain Scythians which still survive in the traditions of Byzantine-Russian Orthodoxy.16 church, and reach back into the millennia-long tradition of spirituality whose roots intertwine throughout the Eastern Here we meet another phenomenon. Although the churches. In the Europeanised subculture of Russia, how- practical techniques of the Islamic and Indian faiths have ever, this background knowledge was not assimilated in the long been studied, the comparable practical methods of the same depth. Christian tradition are little-known outside the specialised In 1957, Boris Mouravieff outlined his ideas about this field of monasticism. There is a blind spot in the knowledge source: of the Western world, and this is another reason why these ideas appeared for so long to be the work of one individual. From the start it was evident to me that for such a system to be brought to Moscow or Petrograd it was twO teachings first necessary for it to pass through a long histori- Father Herman Podmoshensky said recently in a cal route – through the religious centres and laity of Gnosis magazine interview, ‘The whole psychology of Egypt, of ancient Greece and Central Asia, finally modern man is fragmented. The society is quite different taking refuge in the heart of Eastern Orthodox from what it was centuries ago, because then it was quite Russia, the last surviving country of the now-van- close to the earth’.17 A rational, dualistic view of life ished ancient world. These clues reached me as a divides – and sees divisions everywhere. It attempts to result of extensive searches during the second and force its authority, yet blinds us to the suprasensual so that third quarters of the nineteenth century by André it never understands older cultures. This danger has Mouravieff, who spent most of his life travelling always been present where the criteria of reason are through the Near East. He journeyed extensively in applied to religion. Egypt, the holy places, and Asia Minor, into Because of this it has been said that Christianity Armenia and Kurdistan, searching for ancient man- possessed two teachings. In the open teachings of the uscripts and ancient traditions. A member of the modern churches, people’s imperfections are revealed. But Holy Synod, as well as occupying the post of cham- the practical Doctrine has been lost, and with it we have lost berlain at the imperial court, he founded the the cures for these imperfections. My own view is that there monastery of Saint Andrew on Mount Athos.14 He is a natural sequence in the decay of spiritual truths. In the built a hostelry in Constantinople and dedicated it West this took the form of a loss of the experiential or inspired to pilgrims. At his death in Kiev in 1874, he source of hope given by the practical Doctrine. This in turn bequeathed to his most trusted disciples the mission led of necessity to reasoned arguments for hope (cf. Cardinal of pursuing these researches from the region of Kars Newman’s A Reason for the Hope Within), and, because (as and the lakes of Ourmiah and Van to Azerbaijan in the System says) reason cannot reach the heart, this was Persia. followed in its turn by the unredeemable sense of guilt that I have since followed my own researches, tak- is characteristic of the mainstream Lutheran and Calvinist ing into account the preceding and comparing the churches. original Russian culture with Eastern Orthodoxy. By what was the practical Doctrine hidden? Study of From these studies I finally succeeded in locating in church schisms shows that this loss occurred throughout its historical context the message brought by the Christian world as the wave of fragmentation spread. Gurdjieff. To do this I was obliged to go back to Although this division only troubled Russia since the time

25 of Peter the Great, it had its roots in the conflicts of the What was Gurdjieff’s goal in fact? Nobody has Josephites with the Transvolgan hermits that split the ever known. It is as difficult to try to deduce this Russian church in the fifteenth century.18 But even this from his acts as it was in the case of Rasputin. was part of a larger picture, and can be traced to a cen- Ouspensky told us in Fragments that he asked turies-long process whereby the growing intellectualism of Gurdjieff the same question in the beginning, and the West brought to an end the holistic world view that the latter answered: ‘I certainly have an aim of my had been held by the whole of the early church. own,’ said G, ‘but you must permit me to keep The credulity described above was a side-effect of this silent about it. At the present moment my aim fragmentation. It made possible Rasputin’s hypnotic power. cannot have any meaning for you, because it is A similar but less-known phenomenon occurred after the important that you define your own aim. The Russian Revolution, when the Russian intelligentsia were Teaching by itself cannot pursue any definite aim. It reported as turning to God, and some of these soon can only show the best way for men to attain imagined themselves to be startzi or spiritual elders.19 whatever aims they may have.’22

False eldership evokes a hypnosis of ideas. And since This statement distorts the basic aim of the Doctrine, a false idea lies at the root, this idea evokes a spiritual which is to bring out people’s real nature so that they will blindness. When the false idea overshadows reality, be as God first made them. To be oneself is a unity of will no disagreements whatever will be accepted, since between the individual and God. The change in this idea they deny the fixed idea which is considered to be reveals fragmentation in the System as Gurdjieff taught it. an immovable axiom.20 Wherever the fear of God is absent, even teachings such as these remain intellectual, since the fear of God is the open- The rational world view – a broader ‘hypnosis of ideas’ ing of the heart to truth. Without it, we have intellectually – has penetrated deep into the structure of Western formed aims, which remain changeable. (Changing the civilisation to shape our very thoughts. It is described in the mind is easy, changing the heart more difficult.) Theophan myth in which the Ice Queen’s influence hardens the heart, the Recluse once wrote: ‘If we permit ourselves to stop which then shatters into small pieces. It underlies the on- short by pursuing limited aims, an infinite inconstancy going conflict between knowledge defined by reason – will come into our lives – lives which should possess the episteme – and knowledge dictated by the spirit – gnosis – in one tone imparted by unity of aim, so that our entire life which gnosis embraces episteme but episteme is blind to becomes a sacrifice to God.’23 gnosis. The fourth-century saint Gregory of Nyssa put it The original Doctrine is empowered by the fear of God. thus: When this is present, there can be only one major aim, and The perfection of everything which can be measured that aim will be sustained by proper practice of a technique by the sense is marked off by certain definite which in the West sometimes took more intellectual form. boundaries... The person who looks at a cubit or at This was incorporated in a series of subtle psychological the number ten knows that its perfection consists in exercises originally known as the tresvenic. We have found the fact that it has both a beginning and an end. But evidence for this going back to Saint Nilus of Sora in the in the case of virtue we have learned from the fifteenth century. Apostle that its one limit of perfection is the fact that attentiOn & inner Prayer it has no limit.21 Most people who have been seriously involved with This blindness of reason has changed the way the the ideas of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky will have come Gospels are interpreted, so that we no longer understand across the ideas of ‘self-remembering’ and ‘double-headed their original meanings. From this stems the loss of the attention’. Ouspensky once said that ‘if you are conscious practical Doctrine described earlier. From this too comes the at the same time that you observe, the line of your attention difficulty of Westernised men who join the Orthodox clergy will resemble two arrows, one showing attention directed but fail to penetrate to the heart of the Doctrine. Yet the on the thing you observe and another on yourself.’24 ancient knowledge of the early church lives on in certain Saint Ioaseph – one of the rigorously ascetic hermits of sources. Russia’s northern forests – was known to practise this under its Russian name: the tresvenic. Mouravieff says what was gurdJieFF’s aim? about this that: Here we meet a strange phenomenon in which the System bridges the rift, but as it now is – Westernised, Orthodox practice knows another form of tresvenic, ‘reasonable’ – it does so dangerously. In part this danger is of active external constatation, which it commonly a question of aim. Mouravieff had to ask: used. It acts in the prayer of Jesus in this form: ‘Lord

26 Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ We where we may discover ancient and forgotten forms of can recognise the double objective presented to the holistic Christianity. These forms had – and in some places attention in this verse: asking for grace, and still have – their own ‘Christian yoga’, their own powerful consciousness of oneself as a sinner... Bishop and demanding methods of developing the heart by which Theophan says in his commentaries that the force of agnosia, ignorance, becomes gnosis or spiritual knowledge. this prayer... lies in our constating our degenerate These other techniques include psychological methods long state before God in his state of perfection.25 ago taught by the fathers and now generally practised by small bands of monks working full-time with a teacher. In Theophan linked the tresvenic with the fear of God, saying: the monastic tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy, such practices This fear is no torment. Every genuine contact of our are normally carried out in small communities, called sketes, spirit with God its source is sweet and blessed. The which are described as a ‘middle way’ between the large power of this reverent fear is great; it pierces to the monasteries and the solitary life of the hermit. ‘Ascetic separation of soul and spirit; of joints and marrow; labour in the skete is noetic or mental activity. (‘Whosoever humbling and refining both soul and body by its prays with his lips alone, neglecting his mind, prays to the spiritual activity. The person who feels this falls air: God heeds the mind.’)’27 prostrate as if ready to pass through the depths of According to report, sketes have existed on Mount Athos the earth, through everything created, into the abyss for something like a thousand years, and this form of rule in which nothing exists, so aware is he of his own was brought to Russia at the end of the thirteenth century, nothingness and the greatness of God. Yet in spite of when Saint Nilus of Sora returned from the holy mountain all this he enjoys this state, it diffuses a pleasing to found Russia’s first skete. Saint Nilus wrote in his original coolness in his being, perhaps because this is a true Rule that ‘many have obtained this radiant activity (of and not merely mental penetration of his being by hesychasm)28 by means of instruction, but few have the power and action of the Godhead.26 received it directly from God by force of ascetic labour and warmth of faith.’29 This makes available new energies with which it is easier Like Sufism and yoga, the functional forms of this for us to continue this practice. To be more exact, these teaching do not depend on the letter but on the spirit, and energies show in a restoration of true aim. True spiritual specifically on spiritualised men and women – the startzi. aims are not personal inventions, but come from the Among these startzi were some – in particular Saint Nilus of experience of the tresvenic. Once they fade over the years they Sora, Paisius Velikovsky, and Theophan the Recluse – who can only be restored by repeating this tresvenic. Otherwise took it upon themselves to organise this knowledge. Saint we are once again left with merely personal aims. Nilus did not consider this teaching as one man’s possession, This kind of tresvenic is most easily understood by but as a discipline that belonged to mankind as a whole. He describing its absence. If we are honest, we will admit that wrote: ‘It is not we who teach... but it is the blessed and Holy most of the time we are not strongly motivated enough to Fathers who teach from Divine Scripture.’30 respond to glimpses (or ‘snapshots’) of ourselves in such a way that our behaviour will change. With the tresvenic, this cOncLusiOn changes. In this moment the heart is conscious of the Before closing, I should remark that in Theophan’s difference between what we are and what we might be. A writings there are clear references to many other System staretz once explained how studying the lives of holy people ideas, such as ‘magnetic centre’ and ‘permanent centre of can make us aware of the difference between our intentions gravity’. But students of the System in the West, for whom and our performance – an awareness which creates a real thinking about God was not recommended, had no choice motivation for change. Again the principle is the same as in but to understand this ‘centre of gravity’ differently from Ouspensky’s account, but there are more and different Theophan, who wrote: ways of applying it. The aim is to strive toward God; this must be a way the sOurce OF the system of life – a natural gravitation that is sweet, voluntary The source of the System in its modern form lies with and permanent. This attitude shows us we are on the the true startzi, men who are by any standard remarkable. right track. Iron clings to a magnet because the They are capable of talking to an individual in ways that magnet draws it. In spiritual matters the same is true; demonstrate knowledge of that person which nobody has we only know that God is touching us when we given them. Almost certainly these are the ‘conscious men’ experience this living aspiration; when our spirit described in Gurdjieff’s teaching. But once we bring God turns its back on everything else and is fixed on Him back into the picture, it opens for us a door to the heart, and carried away.31

27 Monastery of Simonos Petras Mount Athos

Another clue to the source of Gurdjieff’s teaching is In a myth well-known in the Orient, we are found in Mouravieff’s Gnosis, which reveals that many told that there exists a race of particularly noble of Gurdjieff’s aphorisms come from a secret text known swans, that of the ‘royal swan’. And it is said that as the Golden Book, said to be a text on the Gospels if one puts before one of them milk mixed with going back to apostolic times. It is said of this book that water, it separates out the milk and drinks it, the student was not given a copy. A single sentence leaving the water. That must be the attitude of would be read to him, once only, at appropriate times.32 students.34 Despite the incompleteness of Gurdjieff’s System, he, Once we have ‘drunk the milk’, we will be better along with Ouspensky and Mouravieff, have performed equipped to join with Mouravieff in a final tribute to an inestimable service for the whole of our civilisation. those two who, against all difficulties, reintroduced to a Their work should be seen as a major event in specialised civilisation all it could then assimilate. With contemporary philosophy. If it is not, it is perhaps time it will be discovered that they opened a long-closed because it has been seen by the mainstream of Western door for us, and that our whole civilisation owes them a thought as ‘unscientific’, and has thus been treated as a great debt of gratitude. Now it is time – because it is now mere curiosity, just as so many writings of the early possible – to go through that door and discover what lies church were for a long time set aside as ‘literary on the other side. But first we must ponder for ourselves curiosities’. It is clear that Ouspensky himself recognised what it means to look for the message beyond the level this danger when he wrote: ‘There are great difficulties of information. in the way of training people for this work, since an ordinary intellectual study of the System is quite Lastly, let those who have profited and are still insufficient; and there are very few people who agree to profiting from the message still be grateful to the other methods of study who are at the same time messenger and to the one who interpreted it. If capable of working by these methods.’33 they know how, let them pray for the salvation of Mouravieff also says: their souls.35 Robin Amis Now to the practical question: What should be the Footnotes are printed on p.38. attitude of students towards the ‘Gurdjieff Robin Amis is the Director/Principal Researcher of Praxis phenomenon’ and Ouspensky’s Fragments? The Research, an Institute founded to rediscover spiritual attentive reader will easily find the answer to that teachings from the earliest Christian traditions and to question himself... we must begin by separating the make them available in forms accessible to serious seekers message from the messenger, and we must look for today. More information can be found at: the former beyond the level of information. This is www.praxisresearch.org the way to discover and eliminate error. (All photos Open source)

28 Tribute to Jocelyn Rose

An edited version of the address given at the funeral of Jocelyn Rose by her son, Martin.

in the earLy summer of 1990 Jocelyn sat in our garden in Baghdad and wrote a poem which I have only seen since her death:

Numbed is my soul But no tears fall. Roses and swaying hollyhocks Form shadow play men and women of my own generation who write words With palm tree leaves like ‘she was a mother to me’, or ‘she showed me what Upon a shut-eyed wall. parents could be’, ‘she was the counterpoint to my own And as the darkness falls mother’, or even ‘she was more to me than my own This quiet evening and midnight blue, parents’. She had an extraordinary, gargantuan capacity for Splinters between the leafy orange trees. love. Alone At one important moment in my own life, not very long I listen in this garden after her poem was written, she played a crucial and Hearing doves call like distant pipes, courageous part. I was held hostage in Baghdad by Saddam Enticing dreams to dance once more Hussein, a bit-part player in the Middle East crisis of 1990. Before collapsing at the door Towards the end of the year it became clear that to women Of love… who were prepared to risk going to Baghdad, their sons, in a grotesque pantomime of magnanimity, might well be One cosmic breath released. Frightened but determined, she set about getting For ever separating now from then visas and AIDS certificates for her journey into the Heart of Which breaks the bolt and socket Darkness, energised in an unexpected way by joining what Of our human fate. she called ‘a silent company of women’. She speaks clearly to me across the quarter of a century She didn’t have to come in the end – we hostages were between that hot Mesopotamian evening, and today, and I released just as she set out. But she would have come, and want to celebrate the sensibility, the heart, the extraordinary she had a disarming way of getting what she wanted; as person: my mother, seeker, poet, potter, dervish, one of her oldest friends wrote to me recently: ‘She was very grandmother, wife and friend, who died in February 2013, dashing and daring and would ride her bike the wrong way after a long illness. down the street in Cambridge and charm any policeman I think what I find most amazing about Jocelyn is the who tried to stop her.’ Half a century after Cambridge she imprint she left on so very many people, with insistent was utterly determined to get me back from Saddam, and grace, instinctive wisdom and utter modesty. In her last had it come to a straight fight, my money would have been months, as the perimeter of her world closed in on her, on her. beloved people found ways through. She drew energy from At the centre of her love was her family, a family she them, and meaning. And they, I think, from her. In the loved unconditionally, uncompromisingly and with fierce sheaves of letters and e-mails I received after her death, two clarity. Dennis, her father, remained a clear, bright beacon things stand out. of love and integrity to her, half a century after his death. The first is her ability to see into people’s hearts. She was Her mother, Mary, mentally ill for much of Jocelyn’s able to cut straight to the chase in a way that few can; to childhood, was a beacon of a different sort, a mother she brush gently aside the illusions we all have about ourselves spent patient decades learning to love again in old age – a and to give what one dear friend called ‘that blue gazed difficult journey which she completed over many years, focus, that deep stare into my soul’. That blue gazed focus triumphantly, with pain and joy. But above all her husband we all knew so very well. of 60 years, my father Geoffrey, who she loved most dearly, The second is the sheer number of people who felt they and whose hand held hers as she died. had, and really did have, a special relationship with her, She was a seeker. A Christian, certainly, and with a deep often like a parent or as the closest of friends. I am love for the gospel that stayed with her all her life and is particularly moved by the number of letters I have from blazoned across her writing. But there was more to her

29 spiritual quest, too, a lifelong hunger for truths. She linking heaven and earth. To her this tradition, and the trust meditated most of her adult life, and as she died, Geoffrey placed in her and others by Resuhi to preserve exactly and and those with her held her hands and said the mantra to nurture it, were a commission of utter seriousness and about her bed. great joy. Ultimately, in recent years, she worried deeply She was – and this I think was right at the heart of her about the continuance of this exactitude, and the integrity spiritual life – a mevlevi, whose engagement with the with which Resuhi’s commission was executed. teachings and the spiritual heirs of Jalaluddin Rumi formed I’m going to end with the last few lines of a sonnet by the culture of her soul. Her visits to Istanbul, to Shaikh Kenneth Boulding, which Jocelyn and Geoffrey found in a Resuhi Baykara and his wife Muttahara, to their son Baki tray outside a bookshop in Hay-on-Wye many years ago. and Baki’s wife Sema, and to Shaikh Sıtki Celebi, are shining I read it aloud to her a fortnight before her death. highlights in her talk and her writing. The mukabele at Colet House, for decades while she could turn, and later while We know not how the day is to be born. she could only help to make the music, was of her essence. Whether in clouds of glory, tongues of flame, I remember with joy and boyish pride the beauty of her tall, As once at Pentecost the Spirit came, slender figure turning to the music of the ney, the hem of Or whether imperceptibly at dawn; her robe forming a circle, spinning among many other great But as the seed must grow into the tree, white circles, her head slightly tilted, her tipped hands So life is love, and love the end must be. Martin Rose

A View of Launde Abbey

it aLL starts with Prayer. Within a very short time I realised it all starts with prayer. I arrived at Launde Abbey in November as new Warden Prayer was the foundation of the Abbey’s life when it came of the retreat house that serves the dioceses of Leicester and into being in the 12th Century. Prayer still must be if the Peterborough. I came from a very busy life as Rector of a Abbey is to cope with the daily influx of groups and large London parish, longing for a slightly slower pace and a individual retreatants bringing with them all sorts of needs life that would be more focused on using my gifts; less on and expectations. administration, the upkeep of buildings and the day to day People come to this beautiful place sometimes thinking minutiae of running a large and complex organisation. I that those of us who work here have a glorious and serene knew I was coming to a place where we stopped for services existence. And indeed, it would be telling a lie if I did not say four times a day. I knew there would be more prayer. The that the stillness of a star-filled night sky, the cry of an owl, thought of it daunted me, a little. Interested as I have always the early morning light over a field of quietly munching been in the life of prayer, would it not be tedious spending all sheep, does not give great pleasure. But to work in a retreat that time in chapel? house, as opposed to being a visitor, is like being ‘below

30 stairs’ in an episode of Upstairs-Downstairs or Downton Abbey. is hand pumped), no heating and lighting is by a few gas It is like being in the boiler house whilst others are sipping tea lamps and candlelight. But it is a treasure of a church much in the sitting room. It is hard and demanding work and we loved by the village. could not function without the heartbeat of prayer that Launde Abbey had to face a big decision in the first threads itself throughout the day. decade of this century. It was in need of major renovation We start officially at 7.45am with Morning Prayer and a and the question arose as to whether it should be closed and daily Eucharist, but someone is usually in the chapel long before sold or if the money could be raised to restore it. The money the official services start, taking the opportunity for a period of was raised because people love the place, not by large dona- contemplation. At 12.30pm there is the ten minutes of midday tions but by many small ones. It was refurbished to a very prayer (should be at 12 noon but it is organised to fit in with high standard indeed and reopened in 2010. It is a little like a meal times). Evening Prayer is at 5.30pm and Night Prayer or country house hotel except there is no television in the bed- Compline, so called because it completes the day, is at 9pm. For rooms and it is hard even to pick up a mobile phone signal. many, Compline is their favourite service. The candles are lit We have given into modern pressure, however, and all the and there is a sense of going into the deep silence of the night. bedrooms have a WiFi signal. These are the services but the chapel is open day and night for Launde Abbey is first and foremost a retreat house. Its focus individual prayer, meditation and contemplation. And there is is on being a place of prayer and retreat for any who want time also a tiny chapel, the Emmaus Chapel in the Stable Block, if out from the business of daily life. Although a Christian you want a more intimate space, as well as the beautiful gardens foundation, we welcome people of faith and those who have in which to sit, walk or ponder. none. Many who come to spend time here come for specifically The main chapel was originally part of the Abbey spiritual needs. Some come to share professionally (doctors, Church. We believe the Abbey Church was very large and head teachers, etc) or to enjoy leisure pursuits with like-minded the little chapel we use was simply a side chapel. Little of the people – we have people who come to do quilting or original abbey exists now, but there is medieval stonework embroidery, for example. Some come for creative retreats, using and flooring in various places; the monks’ ‘stewpond’ (pond painting, poetry or photography as jumping off points into with fish for cooking) still exists and we know that various prayer and meditation. Next year we are having our first retreat rooms are where the monks had their brewhouse or dairy. At on the theme of the Labyrinth and its long history as a tool for the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Thomas Cromwell, hav- meditation and prayer. Some people come simply for time out: ing seen Launde Abbey, bought the property from Henry to be quiet and to do nothing. VIII for £1500. He never lived in it as within the year he was Launde is also a place where people who are carrying in the Tower and executed. His son, Gregory, however, man- heavy burdens or making life-changing decisions can come. aged to hang on to the Abbey and died peacefully at Launde Part of the Warden’s role is to listen and in listening to help in his own bed. His tomb is in the chapel. people themselves listen and hear what God might already From the Dissolution of the Monasteries to 1957 when the be saying to them or what they might already know. property was given to the Diocese of Leicester, the Abbey A Warden is a guardian. Launde Abbey does not belong was a country house and much of what we see today is the to those of us who have responsibility for it at this time in its result of innovations by Elizabethan, Jacobean, Georgian and long history. In a way it does not belong to anyone, although Victorian owners, including the installation of a ha-ha at the the Church in Leicester and Peterborough has responsibility front, which means you can look out at sheep grazing in the for its financial and practical upkeep. Launde Abbey belongs field without a fence in between you and them. to all who need a place to come and be. It tries to be a place of The earliest inhabitants of Launde, the Augustinian openness and hospitality. It is a place in which those who live Canons, were really the parish priests of the era. They lived, and work are journeying alongside those who come to rest ate and prayed together but they were responsible for the awhile. All are welcome. Christian communities in the local villages and hamlets. One The Reverend Alison Christian – Warden, Launde Abbey of those was the village of Loddington, half a mile away. The www.laundeabbey.org.uk Warden of Launde Abbey is still responsible for Loddington JuLy parish church today. This is itself of interest because it was a plague church. At one time it stood in the midst of the village It’s only July but already there but the plague killed most of the inhabitants and drove away Is a quietness in the air as if the rest. When people came back they did not want to build Nature is resting after its busy time their houses on the ruins of the homes of those who had died And now is ready to display its show so the village sprung up at some distance. So Loddington As the sun lights up its glory church stands today in the middle of sheep field, without Heather Jacob vehicular access or even a path. It has no electricity (the organ

31 Glad Living — Just by avoiding purposeful intentions one can be enlightened. BOOK REVIEWS Shen Hui, h.5.

the attemPt of a ‘lived’ puppet to lead his own life is from the chains of volition, for when that is abandoned essentially the same as that of a ‘dreamed’ puppet to no bondage remains. lead his, and it is as real as any dream. Moreover these The purest doctrines such as those of Ramana attempts are the only reality either could ever know. Maharshi, Padma Sambhava, Huang Po and Shen Hui, But neither can ‘live’. And neither is ‘lived’ by an just teach us that it is sufficient by analysis utterly to entity. Both are puppets reacting to impulses comprehend that there is no entity which could have engendered by psychic conditions over which they have effective volition, that an apparent act of volition when no control. Neither is sentient objectively, neither is an in accord with the inevitable can only be a vain gesture entity, the apparent sentiency of both is a reflex of the and, when in disaccord, the fluttering of a caged bird Mind which is all that they are. against the bars of his cage. When he knows that, then at The I-notion which has intention is itself such a last he has peace and is glad. reflex. Its performance as inaugurator of pretended acts At a fair, when I was young, one could pretend to of volition is a phantasy, and it is precisely this phantasy drive little motor-cars round and round a track. They which constitutes suffering. In the absence of the had a steering-wheel which reacted to springs, but the phantasy of dreaming there is the bliss of deep sleep, vehicle was driven and steered automatically from and in the absence of the phantasy of living there is the below. Since one instinctively turned the wheel in the bliss of ‘nirvana’ or awakened life. direction the little car had to go, it was difficult not to Intention is the temporal cause of psychological believe that one was steering it, and even more difficult conflict, and purposeful intention is the temporal cause to stop trying to steer it and leave it to take one where it of physical conflict. Intemporally there is no intention, would, for that might have been disaster. Such, exactly, and without intention there is no counterpart to bliss, is our volitional way of living. the term ‘bliss’ being a conventional indication of the Non-volitional living is glad living. state of unconditioned being – which is devoid of any Being ‘lived’, as a non-entity, is subjective living, in element of objectivity. which suffering is no longer such, in which there is no Volition, therefore, is the psychic chain which holds the place for care and for worry, in which everything is as- phenomenal individual in apparent bondage, for volition it-is and as it must be. For it is ‘intention’ that is is the pseudo-subject attempting to act independently of responsible for dualistic conception and the ensuing the force of circumstances. The absurdity of this comparison of interdependent counterparts, seen as performance should be sufficiently evident. opposites, one of which is ‘good’ and the other ‘bad’. All the teaching of all the Masters of all the schools of Also it is noumenal living, and all that noumenal liberation, not only Buddhic, Vedantic and Taoist, but living is. It could also be termed Reintegration. Semitic also – as, witness, ‘Not my will but Thine, O From All Else is Bondage by Wei Wu Wei Lord’ – consists in attempts by means of knowledge, Reprinted by kind permission of Sentient Publications, practices, and manoeuvres to free the pseudo-individual www.sentientpublications.com © 2004

SPIRITUAL ATHLETES —The Marathon Monks There are many disciplines practised by the Tendai monks from the Enryaku-ji Temple on Mount Hiei in Kyoto, Japan. Yet for the ‘gyoja’, or spiritual athlete, the most testing of all is kaihogyo, the mountain marathon. The aim of the discipline is to achieve an awakening to enlightenment by a walking form of meditation. Kaihogyo, the ‘practice of circling the mountains’, is of two types. The first lasts for 100 days, running about 40 kilometres each day and performing services, prayers and chants at stations along the route, then returning to the temple to complete regular duties. The gyoja is given a pure white outfit, a hat and staff. In rainy weather, 80 pairs of straw sandals are provided as they tend to disintegrate quickly. By the 70th day, the gyoja has finally acquired the ‘marathon monk stride’: eyes focused about 100 feet ahead while moving along in a steady rhythm, keeping the head level, the shoulders relaxed, the back straight, and the nose and navel aligned. If the gyoja successfully completes the 100-day kaihogyo, he can petition to try the 1,000-day term. This is the ultimate challenge of endurance, to be completed over seven years, with increased distances, a seven-day fast and regular temple duties and rituals to be maintained. Since 1885, only 46 men have completed the 1,000-day challenge. (see The Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei by John Stevens, Echo Point Press, 2013)

32 BOOK REVIEWS

WHAT IS TRUTH? The second section is titled Truth in Dialogue and Brother John Martin Sahajananda comprises ten chapters covering a range of subjects, notably ‘Beyond Theism and Atheism’ in which the case isPck (www.ispck.org.in) 2012 for an intelligent dialogue with atheists is made with the What is Truth? is a collection of essays, stories, poems and hope that there is something both sides can learn and reflections written by Brother John Martin Sahajananda, a profit from in such an exchange. In ‘Diversity – Camaldolese monk in the Order of Benedict. Brother John Uniqueness and Unity’ Brother Martin seeks to show the is one of the spiritual directors of the well known Christian common experience of the spiritual journey in Ashram Shantivanam in South India founded by two Christianity, Buddhism and the Hindu tradition. In French priests, Jules Monchanin and Henri Le Saux, in 1950 ‘Bearing witness to the Truth’ he seeks to show the and continued by Father Bede Griffiths OSB, Cam. Father different levels of revelation in the prophetic and wisdom Griffiths made the ashram famous with his many books and traditions. And there is much more. articles on the mystical dimensions of the Christian and The backdrop against which much of Brother Martin’s Hindu traditions. Brother Martin continues in similar vein thinking and writing takes place is one in which he with clarity, deep psychological insight and considerable observes a general evolution, over millennia, of human provocation to any one-sided rational spiritual orthodoxy. consciousness. Such development he sees as being The Temenos Academy was fortunate in hosting a lecture reflected in the changing state of man’s relationship to the in the summer of 2012 in which Brother Martin spoke Divine and the institutions and beliefs through which he movingly of these themes as he has come to live and does this. He conceives this evolution, an essentially experience them. For those who heard that lecture, these spiritual evolution of consciousness, as phenomena that essays, developed over some years, are an expansion and apply to the whole human species. Again we will find continuation of those thoughts. echoes of the Perennial Philosophy in these ideas and it is The compelling nature of these essays arises from Brother this approach that allows him to escape the sometime Martin’s deep grounding in a mystical spiritual faith and narrow, exclusive and prejudicial confines of some above all from his own experience of the Christian faith as Christian thought which limits our ability to move it emerges with all its attendant challenges into the 21st forward, specifically in interfaith dialogue. It is also in this Century. These are not essays for the faint-hearted or the all-embracing vision of a spiritual development for ungenerous. Their power and essential generosity spring mankind that his essential generosity and openness shines from a deep mystical and psychological insight that seeks to forth and leaves much open space for a fruitful and reveal the central Truth, not only of the Christian Tradition generous dialogue with other traditions. but of spiritual realities more generally. This is a view This view of a gradually evolving and developing members of Temenos, who treasure the perennial spiritual and psychological consciousness allows Brother philosophy as an idea, will have no trouble in applauding. Martin to interpret afresh the question of the New Covenant As Michael Amaladoss SJ suggests in his introduction, this within the Christian tradition and make it central to his book ‘must be read, not conceptually, but with a symbolic vision. He recounts in ‘From Authority to Freedom’ how in imagination rooted in life experience of the divine’. This is the first covenant God gave, through Moses, the Ten the clear refreshing spring water our tired and flagging faith Commandments to the Jewish people, a Way of external needs so badly, not only to revive it, but for it to evolve. laws that was to guide the spiritual well-being of the people The collection is divided into two sections, The Truth of and their relationship to God. Jesus, which he addresses in a poem, ‘Blessed are those who Brother Martin goes on to describe how this covenant, in are led by Wisdom’, and five essays ranging from ‘From the face of all its rules and regulations, never really worked Authority to Freedom’, which charts the development from due to the intransigence and faithlessness of the people. It the God of authority to the God of freedom, to ‘The Prodigal was for this reason that God promised a ‘new Covenant’, Son’, which examines the case for a development of perhaps an Eternal Covenant, which was to be written ‘in spiritual evolution. the hearts of the people’ and revealed in perfection in the There are in addition some excellent short homilies on life of Christ. the Virgin Mary, the meaning of the Inner Jerusalem and He sees this ‘Way of the New Covenant’, as a way shorn the reality of Transformation. It is these essays in which we of external rules and shalt not’s, a way that moves away find the provocative and visionary ideas that make this little from external rules and regulations towards an essential book so valuable. and much longed for spiritual freedom to be. This is a

33 freedom for the development of the individual through THE LETTERS OF MARSILIO FICINO, personal experiment, inevitably through much suffering VOLUME 9 but one that leads to self knowledge. From this growing self trans: Language department of the school of knowledge comes the realisation that the saying of Christ, I economic science. am the Way, the Truth, and the Light, is also intended for the shepheard-walwyn. 2012 lived human condition. I quote him: ‘A person who lives according to the old Covenant says the Law is the Way, the This is the latest of a long-standing series of translations of Truth and the Light. A person who lives according to the Ficino’s letters held by the Library at Colet House. There is New Covenant says I am the Way the Truth and the Light a tendency to believe that those pursuing philosophy and and lives his life accordingly.’ He goes on to say that this lofty thoughts are isolated from the hurly-burly of life, but development was a revolution because it was the birth of a these letters indicate that even an intellectual giant such as human consciousness that was greater than religion. Surely, Marsilio Ficino had to be careful to secure his position in as we witness in the West the collapse of much of the order to gain the freedom to finish his seminal translations structure of the great religions this is a timely reminder of of the Greek Philosophers. These particular letters cover the our destiny and to a compelling personal vision of the brief period 1489-1491, but the short introduction gives a future. very good flavour of the turbulence that existed at that time. I have heard Brother Martin say that perhaps the The Church suspected that he was involved in magic and Christian Church has never really been able to be wholly predictive astrology and these letters certainly reveal an Christian. That will upset some, but I find it hard to extensive use of astrological language. They reveal the disagree with him. I have heard him say that perhaps a politics of his situation as much as his philosophy, if not secular age is the necessary precondition to wean more so; little gems are to be found here and there, such as individuals from the Old and encourage them to seek the existence of: their own freedom in an authentic, workable spiritual reality, as taught by Christ and as clearly outlined in this A company of noble minds, who do not desire freedom small book by Brother Martin. His approach to from care, because they believe they already have it. spirituality is a deeply psychological one and it feels Some of the letters contain terse summaries of his longer authentic and contemporary for this reason. Perhaps works. Thus in letter number 10 one can find a summary many of us are still stuck in the Old Covenant where we about the immortality of the soul, apparently because his take comfort behind the external rules that can sometimes discourses elsewhere were not easy to comprehend. Letter take the place of our own deep need for a personal and 33 has some sound philosophical advice under the heading necessary internalised reflection. It is this need for deep of divine worship, while letter 49 is in the form of a parable personal psychological reflection in order to see what about the wiles of pleasure, who conquers the ambitious, blocks us from loving and seeing more deeply that but is herself conquered by the goddess Pallas. Brother Martin outlines so well. Perhaps many of us have More than half the book is devoted to scholarly notes and not yet dared to take the steps necessary to walk the a rather beautiful facsimile copy of the original text in Latin. lonely path of the New Covenant towards a greater There is no doubt that without Ficino the Western World capacity for love in a deepening personal relationship to would not have the ready access to priceless, long the divine. There are many questions I found myself abandoned works of Greek Philosophers, works that we asking myself having read this excellent collection of now take for granted. Having said that, this particular Brother Martin’s reflections, many questions and some volume of letters is largely devoted to background clear, true compass points to the New. I have no hesitation information about the time in which he lived. It is a in recommending it. fascinating book for historians and is an object lesson on Sir Nick Pearson how to live in the world and yet not be attached to it. Temenos Academy, UK. Peter Miodownik

What to Do? ‘You want to know from all the discourses you have had with me so far, what exactly is the most important for you today? ... the gist of all that should be: Physically, you devote yourself to universal service, considering yourself everyone's servant. Devotionally, be magnanimous and give importance to the Supreme Power, keeping in mind its unlimited benevolence. Intellectually, you identify yourSelf as One with Param-Atman, who witnesses everything and shows Himself in all the forms you see.’ (Letter from HH Shantanand Saraswati, 15 February 1973) 34 bOOk reviews structures. As the Dalai Lama states: ‘in a real sense the by david Lorimer brain we develop reflects the life we lead.’ If we change Reprinted by kind permission of the SMN Network Review the mind, we can correspondingly change the brain and body. Hypnosis is another important area for consideration. It used to be used, and still is on some BRAIN WARS occasions, as an anaesthetic. The power of suggestion is Mario Beauregard illustrated by the case where a man visualised himself harper, 2012 – isbn 978-0-06-207156-9 as a pregnant woman. When he arrived at the hospital three months later, he had an expanded abdomen, one Mario Beauregard quotes the Danish philosopher Soren enlarged breast and was suffering from morning Kierkegaard as saying: ‘there are two ways to be fooled. sickness. Another study showed that subjects reported a One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to lowering of self-assessed pain while reduced brain believe what is true.’ A modern statistical equivalent of activity was found in areas of the pain network. I think this insight distinguishes between a Type I error when Mario is right in hypothesising that hypnosis can help we mistakenly conclude that there is an effect when lower the normal barriers that prevent us from using the there really is none, while Type II mistakenly concludes extraordinary intelligence within. In this respect, he that there is no effect when there really is one. This echoes the conclusions of Thomas Jay Hudson from over highly significant book discusses a whole range of 100 years ago. neuroscientific and consciousness studies and The last few chapters address consciousness at the demonstrates for anyone with an open mind that we do margins: psi, near death and mystical experiences, with indeed need a new model of consciousness that takes in which many readers will already be familiar. These are the whole range of human experience rather than trying discussed theoretically and illustrated with case to squeeze anomalous and transcendent phenomena histories to give the reader a feel for the phenomena. into a materialistic understanding. As Mario points out, Mario remains connected to neuroscience throughout much of what he discusses is anomalous only in terms of these discussions, but it becomes clear that the existing what he calls the false assumptions of scientific theories need to be expanded. Just this afternoon, a materialism... the way in which philosophical colleague pointed me to a debunking article by Oliver assumptions and peer pressure join forces to delay real Sacks, who mistakenly supposes that scientific progress in expanding the scope of a science of investigations must of necessity be naturalistic. This consciousness. equation was established by T H Huxley and others, but The particular strength of this book, which is was disputed by the likes of Alfred Russel Wallace. summarised in the articles section by the author, is that Throughout, it looks as if we are talking about it encompasses the whole range of issues and shows correlations rather than causes. how these are connected and why we need a new model The book ends with a forecast of a great shift in of mind. The key question is whether there is a consciousness. However, scientific materialism will not difference between our brains and our minds or easily give up its ideological stranglehold, and many consciousness. The materialist framework answers in will continue to insist that modern neuroscience will the negative, based as it is on the assumptions of sooner or later completely explain the nature of mind physicalism, reductionism and objectivism. These have and consciousness. It seems to me crucial that books like proved extremely powerful in the development of this should be read by psychology and neuroscience neuroscience, but they become a stumbling block if we undergraduates because most if not all of their teachers try to constrain the whole range of human capacity will not be familiar with the kind of evidence discussed within this framework. The placebo/nocebo effect, the in this book, and if they were would feel professionally subject of the first chapter, is radically at odds with the threatened. Conveying the scientifically based message deterministic tendency within science in general and of this book corresponds to the mission of the Network neuroscience in particular. It establishes downward as envisaged by its founders: that science must be causation from the conscious mind, which one finds distinguished from scientific materialism and that there reflected in other areas discussed such as neurofeedback is a genuine spiritual dimension to human existence. As and neuroplasticity. It turns out that the power of belief Rupert Sheldrake has indicated, liberation from is extraordinarily significant and that we can exercise materialist dogma would free up the spirit of enquiry conscious control over the development of brain and open all kinds of interesting questions for research.

35 In addition, Mario’s model corresponds to the renewal the mind which we study is the mind by which we study’. of values based on the deep interconnectedness of mind This almost sounds like a sentence out of Meister Eckhart. and nature. This transcends the exploitative mentality Mystics realise the paradoxical nature of consciousness as of economics as well as the mechanistic framework of the divine is reflected in the human and the human in the science. All this makes it very important that these ideas divine. It is clear that Larry is a regular reader of the Journal should be widely disseminated and discussed – this of Consciousness Studies, and he also draws on the work of book is a highly significant contribution and starting Mary Midgley. point. He identifies the special problems inherent in studying consciousness under three headings: first, as already LANDSCAPES OF THE MIND mentioned, consciousness can see anything but itself, even Lawrence Leshan if we can study the correlations between physiological and eirini Press, 2012 – isbn 978-0-9799989-8-0 conscious events. The next issue is the nature of observables, since there are no separate entities and the Larry LeShan, now 92, wrote his first paper 70 years ago observables are by definition nonquantitative. The third and this is his 20th book. He has been at the forefront of obstacle is the lack of a classification system of aspects or consciousness studies all that time, and this book follows types of consciousness. This leads Larry to conclude that up on some of the work he began in the 1970s comparing a science of consciousness must be constructed on the the outlooks of mediums, mystics and physicists and then basis of questions that can be answered. He goes on, ‘since producing in 1976 his book entitled Alternate Realities. In we cannot, in principle, separate “consciousness” from the meantime, he has also written about meditation, “external reality”, we must study the synthesis produced psychosomatic disease, the paranormal, the psychology of by the two.’ This is a point of which William James was war, ethics and evil. In this book he breaks new ground by already aware when he asks if hearing a rustle of leaves is proposing a taxonomy of consciousness inspired by Vico, a mental or physical event. We can ask what kind of world who was one of the first thinkers to realise that different pictures are formed by the interactions of consciousness disciplines required different epistemological approaches. and external reality. The roots of this approach go back to At the beginning of the book, he gives a hypothetical Vico, as already mentioned. In his earlier books, Larry example to show that we all live in multiple realities already identified the drawback that we have a basic depending on what we are doing and thinking. In fact he commitment to the idea of one true, valid concept of gets the reader into the gist of his argument by comparing reality that can explain the whole range of human mentalities in peace and war, showing that we undergo a experience; this is the quest for a unified theory of shift in our world picture or perception of reality, moving everything. By contrast, Larry insists that consciousness into the realm of fairytale and myth. We are constituted has no permanent structure or stable form: ‘consciousness not only by our senses but also by the way in which we takes on and has the same structure and dynamics as the use symbolism to organise and interpret the world. Larry world picture which is being perceived and reacted to at argues that the structure of the world picture and the that moment.’ Hence we cannot specify the structure of structure of consciousness are isomorphic and inseparable. consciousness per se or in itself (some theorists of pure He quotes Bacon as saying that perceptions are according consciousness might dispute this, but then pure to the measure of the individual and not according to the consciousness has no structure). measure of the universe. As another example, the worlds Larry proposes a taxonomy of world pictures, in which of the child and the adult are very different. each Kingdom ‘has its own definition of space, time, Max Planck was aware of this issue when he said that identity, causation, geometry and logic’. Within each ‘when you change the way you look at things, the things Kingdom there are a number of realms and domains that you’re looking at change.’ Larry fills in some of the history share the same definitions of basic factors, for instance in of consciousness studies, including the first modern use the case of fundamentalism. He comes up with four of the word by John Locke in 1690 ‘the perception of what realms: the first is the quantitative/discrete, which is the passes in a man’s mind’. By the 1920s, it seemed world picture of the human senses; secondly we have the impossible to identify and classify the elements of quantitative/continuous relating to field theory and consciousness, and behaviourism was on the rise. The relativity theory. The third realm is nonquantitative/ problem was that the classifications were based on the idea discrete, relating to myth, fairytale and dream; and the that science must directly observe its phenomena, but in fourth – non-quantitative/continuous – is the order of the case of consciousness, as G G Stokes observed, ‘the cosmic consciousness and bliss. These are powerful ideas instrument of research is itself the object of investigation; once they are analysed and elaborated.

36 Realms are defined by the characteristics of their still trying to explain everything in mechanistic terms that observables, and Larry suggests the following pattern: the are really only applicable to realm one. This is obvious as definition of real, the kind of entities dealt with, the kind of soon as one tries to understand a painting only in terms of prevalent algorithms or general processes, the questions the chemistry of its paint. A very basic question is that of that can and cannot be answered, definitions of space, time death: our bodies are clearly in realm one, while our minds and energy, and finally geometry. This gives each realm a exist in realms three and four; and when we find ourselves set of distinctive features, which are then explained in more in realm four we have the overwhelming experience that it detail. For instance, moral questions cannot be answered in is more real than the sensory world, which of course sounds the sensory realm. David Bohm’s implicate order would be nonsensical to those using exclusively this framework. As found in the second, quantitatively continuous realm. The Larry himself suggests, his taxonomy enables us to ‘think third realm is inhabited by stories and myths while in the more clearly about the different ways we organise and live fourth, everything in the universe is connected to in reality and about consciousness itself. We can learn about everything else. This is an insight often reported by near our world constructions and their interactions’ and how death experiencers, which physiologists are inclined to try using the wrong world picture can make it impossible to to understand in terms of sensory brain processes. This may find a solution. In some ways this is a modest proposal, but yield correlations but as an attempt at a complete it is nevertheless fundamental and deserves to be widely explanation, it is a category error. known and discussed, especially as it sheds light not only Larry gives a number of practical examples, including on science and consciousness, but also on medicine and the change in mentality occasioned by war. Planners of a sociology. This is a fitting culmination to 70 years of bombing raid will be in the first realm, while the victims will research. be firmly in the third. Repeated bombings reinforce the projection of evil on the other, and the enemy is unreliable by GEOMETRY IN NATURE definition and cannot be trusted to follow through on a by John Blackwood genuine negotiation. One can see this pattern in any long- Floris Books 2012 standing conflict. Terrorists and fundamentalists tend to agree that there is one way of arriving at the truth and that A beautifully illustrated book thematically related to Keith the world is divided into good and bad people – they of Critchlow’s work on the geometry of flowers, but course are the good, or the ones who will be saved. Larry considering a whole range of forms in Nature. The author provides an interesting table contrasting specific attitudes, has a background in Steiner education and is inspired by which also have implications for how we see and relate to the work of Lawrence Edwards. His starting point is that other people as well as providing a set of rules for action. A thoughts are inherent in the things we see. This is easy to similar classification can be applied to medicine: molecular understand in the case of mechanical design, but is an biology is firmly in realm one, while Chinese medicine with extrapolation for the rest of Nature. The reader is able to its concept of Qi is clearly in realm three, and Western science grasp a series of forms and how they are expressed in seeks to apply its own standards to a system of thought that Nature, for instance leaves, crystals, shells and butterflies. has a totally different basis. The author discusses the measurement and orientation of The idea that there is only one way of properly lines and different forms of curves as well as form in the understanding the universe, that it is causally closed and mineral, animal and plant worlds. All this helps the reader that the only valid truth is true objective observation is a to develop a sense of wonder at the natural world. powerful legacy of the Enlightenment. Many scientists are David Lorimer

SPIRITUAL ATHLETES — The Lung-gom-pa Runners Appearing to fly as they ran across the grassy plains of old Tibet, the Lung-gom-pa runners were said to be able to travel nonstop for forty-eight hours or more, covering a distance of 200 miles a day. The word Lung, pronounced rlun, signifies the state of air as well as vital energy, while Gom means meditation and relates to the runner’s ability to empty the mind of all subject-object relationships. Following a long initiation period of seclusion, meditation, chanting and pranayama practice, the goal of the Lung-gom-pa monks was to achieve spiritual enlightenment through the disciplined art of running. After the 1950 Chinese invasion of Tibet and the destruction of the monasteries, the training of the runners went into retreat.

37 Mouravieff & the Secret of the Source (cont. from p.28) 14. An enormous monastic complex, now closed. In 1990 a liturgy was references held in its Katholikon for the first time in twenty-six years. 1. Boris Mouravieff, ‘Ouspensky, Gurdjieff, et les Fragments d’un 15. Psalm 119 in the Western Bible. Enseignement inconnu’ (Synthèses No. 138, Nov. 1957 p.4) 16. As footnote 1, pp. 13-14 2. ‘…the Doctrine…is an ensemble of rules, treatises and commentaries 17. Gnosis magazine #16 (Summer, 1990 p.25) given by the doctors of the Œcumenical Church. These texts were in large 18. Nicholas Zernov, Moscow the Third Rome (London, UK: SPCK, 1938) part assembled in a collection called the Philokalia. In addition to these pp.41-53 sources, there are isolated writings by other ancient and modern authors, 19. Described in I.M. Kontzevitch, The Acquisition of the Holy Spirit (Platina, religious and secular.’ Boris Mouravieff, Gnosis: Study and Commentaries Calif: St Herman of Alaska Press, 1988) p.63 on the Esoteric Tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy; Book One: Exoteric Cycle, 20. Ibid. p.340 Trans. team under Robin Amis, inc. S.A.Wissa & S. Kadloubovsy (Bristol, 21. Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses (NY, USA: Paulist Press, 1938) p.30 UK: Praxis Institute Press, 1989) pp. xx-xxi 22. As 1 p.11, p.99 3. As Footnote 1, p. 12 23. Theophan the Recluse, The Heart of Salvation 4. Quoted in Merrily E. Taylor, ed. Remembering P. D. Ouspensky (New 24. P.D. Ouspensky, The Fourth Way (London, UK: Routledge & Kegan Haven, Conn: YUL, 1978) pp. 31-32 Paul, 1957) p.107 5. Ibid., p.11 25. Mouravieff, Gnosis 1, p.209. Mouravieff defines ‘to constate’ as ‘to 6. Kenneth Walker, A Study of Gurdjieff’s Teaching (London, UK: Jonathan establish a fact without applying any kind of personal judgement’. Ibid., Cape, 1965) p. 194 p. 207 7. As 1, p. 4-5 26. Theophan the Recluse, ibid. 8. Ibid., p.18 27. Kontzevitch, p. 206 9. P. D. Ouspensky In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown 28. The Orthodox tradition of inner stillness based on the Jesus Prayer, Teaching (HBC, New York 1949 p.47) often confused with quietism but actually quite different. 10. The Heart of Salvation: Life and Teachings of St Theophan the Recluse 29. G.P. Fedotov, A Treasury of Russian Spirituality (NY, USA: Sheed & (Bristol & Robertsbridge, UK: Praxis Institute Press, 1991) Ward, 1948) 11. Archimandrite Cherubim Karambelas, Recollections of Mount Athos 30. Quoted in Ignatius Brianchaninov, The Arena (Jordanville, USA: Holy (Brookline, Mass: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1987) p.121 Trinity Monastery, 1938) p.51 12. Unseen Warfare: Being the Spiritual Combat and Path to Paradise of Lorenzo 31. Theophan, ibid. Scupoli as edited by Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain and revised by Theophan 32. Mouravieff, Gnosis Vol. II (Neuchâtel: de la Baconnière, 1972) p.275 the Recluse, Trans. E. Kadloubovsky & G.E.H. Palmer (London, UK: Faber 33. Quoted in Taylor, p.33 & Faber, 1952) 34. As 1, p.28 13. Igumen Chariton of Valamo, The Art of Prayer, Trans. E. Kadloubovsky & 35. Ibid. Emphasis Mouravieff’s G.E.H. Palmer (London, UK: Faber & Faber, 1966)

Question: How is it that in spite of so much instruction and assistance we make no progress?

Answer: As long as we imagine ourselves to be separate personalities, one quite apart from another, we cannot grasp reality which is essentially impersonal. First we must know ourselves as witnesses only, dimensionless and timeless centres of observation, and then realise that immense ocean of pure awareness, which is both mind and matter and beyond both... Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That, p.205. © Acorn Press

SPIRITUAL ATHLETES Both outer running and inner running are important. A marathon is twenty-six miles. Let us say that twenty-six miles is our ultimate goal. When we begin, we cannot run that distance. But by practising every day we develop more stamina, speed and perseverance and eventually we reach our goal. In the inner life our prayer and meditation is our inner running. If we pray and meditate every day, we increase our inner capacity ... Our goal is to go from bright to brighter to brightest, from high to higher to highest. And even in the highest, there is no end to our progress, for God Himself is inside each of us and God at every moment is transcending His Own Reality. Sri Chinmoy 38 the LiFe OF the virgin mary

A monumental song cycle with poems by Rainer Maria Rilke and music by the 20th century master Paul Hindemith (To be sung in English)

der-shin hwang soprano James d’angelo piano

A preview performance prior to their engagement at the Three Choirs Festival

sunday, 21 July 2013 at 3pm Colet House 151 Talgarth Rd London W14 9DA Photo: Richard Beal Retiring Collection. All proceeds to the Study Society Appeal.

MacbethA Journey into Darkness

Experience the powerful emotional currents of some of the greatest poetry ever written

t Immerse yourself in four consecutive weekly 4 Sunday Sessions workshops exploring the hidden depths of one of led by Philip Marvin Shakespeare's tragic masterpieces who has been taking t Discover new layers of meaning within the play and Shakespeare groups for over by reflection within yourself 20 years. Particular emphasis t Understand the science in Shakespeare's art will be given to the practical DON’T FORGET THIS YEAR’S wisdom hidden within the play – t Enjoy the dynamic interaction with others in reading and reflecting on the text in a friendly and and its potential for opening up, SUMMER GATHERING supportive group setting for anyone, the truth within At Prue and Toby de Lotbiniere's home – Watch interpretations of specific scenes on film themselves . . . t Notton Fields, Lacock, Wiltshire, SN15 2NF ‘Fair is foul and foul is fair’ on 30 June at 11.30am Spiritual Shakespeare Series for meditation at 12 noon. 5.00 – 7.15 pm each Sunday afternoon from Sunday 29 September through to Sunday 20 October ENTRANCE FREE — suggested weekly donation £5 (£2 concession) or £20 (£10 concession) for the 4 weeks Please bring a contribution for a shared Refreshments available lunch and your own picnic utensils To avoid disappointment, please book in advance preferably by email, or by phone as below: to ease the clearing up afterwards. Contact Dorothy Smith for more information COLET HOUSE, 151 Talgarth Road, London W14 9DA T: 020 8741 6568 E: [email protected] www.studysociety.org on 01249 782597 or

Barons Court [email protected] Centre for Nonduality (100m) 39 A journey of self discovery

For anybody truly interested in embarking on, or further developing a voyage of self discovery, we make available a range of practical methods and approaches that can help transform theoretical knowledge into real experience and bring a deeper meaning to everyday life. All these activities are based around a unique East/West understanding of the philosophy of non-dualism which declares the essential oneness of the individual with the universe. Our Society was formed by P D Ouspensky and continued by Dr Francis Roles under the guidance of the Shankaracharya, HH Shantanand Saraswati, one of the heads of the Advaita Vedanta (non-dual) tradition. The Society is currently directed by Dr Peter Fenwick.

Meditation As our central practice we offer mantra meditation from the Advaita tradition. The practice of meditation leads you to a deep inner connection and puts everyday life into perspective. A remarkable record of questions and answers carried on with the Shankaracharya for over 30 years supports our practice and understanding. The Fourth Way Journey Introductory Group At Colet House, PDOuspensky’s Fourth Way Informal and friendly weekly meetings are System has for 60 years been continuously available to introduce you to the philosophy of reformulated and developed to keep pace with non-dualism and the Society’s activities. Non- current science and culture. It presents both a dualism is seen as the perennial philosophy at the profoundly practical psychology and an all- heart of all the world’s mystical and religious encompassing cosmology—all expressed in traditions. It is very simple, requiring no accessible Western terms and language. Together adjustment of faith or lifestyle and yet can have a with its basic training in attention, self-awareness profound and positive effect on how we view the and certain physical disciplines, this system of world and ourselves. knowledge leads towards a clear understanding of non-dualism. Whirling Dervishes ‘Turning’ is a potent method for experiencing The ‘Movements to Music’ inner stillness. Developed by followers of Rumi These Movements are a repertoire of ancient and in the 13th century, it was in 1963 that a Mevlevi sacred dances and esoteric movements from closed Sheikh started a group here with the permission communities, temples and monasteries in the Near of the head of his Order. Training to be Turner and Middle East and Asia. They are a means of takes place each year. You can also attend acquiring knowledge beyond language. These monthly guest ceremonies preceded by a Movements, originally collected by George Gurdjieff, meeting of the Rumi poetry and music group. have been taught at Colet House since the 1930s in an uninterrupted line of transmission.

We warmly invite you to contact us for further details. Colet House, 151 Talgarth Road, London W14 9DA

[email protected] ! www.studysociety.org ! 020 8741 6568