SELF-KNOWLEDGE

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Adhyatma Yoga And Advaita Vedanta

The highest spiritual wisdom experienced by the Seers of Truth has been passed down from ancient times to the present day through a line of traditional teachers. Its metaphysical side, Advaita Vedanta, establishes by reasoning a non-dualistic explanation of the universe; its practical side, Adhyatma Yoga, gives guidance on the life of thought and action, so that the purpose of life may be fulfilled. The essential teachings are:

The universe is a phenomenal expression of the supreme Reality, which is by nature Existence-Consciousness-Bliss Absolute.

Our innermost Self transcends the limitations of body, mind and ego, and is not other than the supreme Reality.

The purpose of life is conscious realisation of this identity, and this can be achieved while engaged in the duties of life.

Self-realisation gives unbroken peace, poise and bliss. It is the ultimate goal sought consciously or unconsciously through philosophy and religion, art and science.

The one Reality reveals and pervades all beings, and underlies the highest teachings found in the world’s religious traditions.

Shanti Sadan is a Centre of Adhyatma Yoga, founded in 1933 by the late Hari Prasad Shastri, where the teachings continue to be given and practised in the traditional way.

Information about meetings and events can be found at shantisadan.org/meetings

SELF-KNOWLEDGE

Spring 2023

Vol. 74 No. 2

Contents

The Meditative Mind

The Kena Upanishad

The Non-Duality of Shri Shankara

Through Non-attachment to Freedom

Spring Reflections—Prayer and Self-Knowledge

Light and Darkness

Ryokan—Friend of Peace and Freedom

Making the Best Choice

The Meditative Mind

People often ask about the state of mind brought about in meditation. Characteristic replies speak of tranquillity, one-pointed concentration, and a sense of unity with all. But more significant than mental states that occur in the stillness and withdrawal of our meditation period, is the development of a meditative mind. This is a mind that is steeped in higher values at all times, and can, without pressure or struggle, find rest, freedom and clarity as one’s natural interior base. Such a mind can instantaneously merge with the essence of the meditation text, without the need for inner preparation, because it is already at home in the higher values. Just as small children may be allowed to play outside, as long as they remain close to home, so the meditative mind is one that plays in the streets and gardens of the world, yet is ever close to its home in the higher consciousness.

A similar question about the inner development is raised in the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita. How does one whose mind is rooted in the higher idealism apply this deeper understanding to the normal activities of daily life, where one ‘speaks, sits and moves about’. The answer sheds light on the meditative mind. Such a person has the capacity at all times to lift their attention and seeming absorption away from the worldly situation and turn within to the peace of the higher Self, which has no bound or limit. Though there is full participation in life, there is no attachment to it—no desire to extend pleasurable connections and no hatred or indignation when things apparently go wrong. The unfulfilled desires that nestle in the heart’s core, have been neutralised and no longer have the power to force us into action.

Thus the meditative mind has brought about an inner clearing so that interference from unhelpful thought currents is instantly recognised and undermined through the recall and resort to the home base of purity and wisdom.

This does not mean that the meditative mind is established in us without a conscious re-education in the timeless and universal values that are designed to awaken what is best and highest in our own being. Students of higher wisdom may recall the three forms of mind commended by the Zen master, Dogen: joyful mind, kind mind, great mind. Joyful mind discerns the good in all circumstances; kind mind has a loving parental attitude to all living beings; great mind is free from partiality and is equanimous whatever happens, whether trivial or life-changing.

The meditative mind thus calls for a degree of insight and mastery over our thoughts and feelings. But this is not the mastery based on will-power alone, which involves tension and repression. The true mastery is based on love—love and attraction for that higher idealism which keeps our consciousness unenclosed and ever-expanding. It is the sublime thoughts of the deeper reality that underlies all appearances and all minds, which ultimately will prove more powerful than the casual and often aimless thought processes that usually rule our life.

All human minds have the innate capacity to become meditative. The seeds of self-upliftment are in each of us, but the glory of wisdom usually requires some study and assimilation on our part so that we may learn how it applies to our own inner life and possibilities.

The end of our quest is something more then the meditative mind. It is self-realisation. This is our awakening to the true nature of our own consciousness and being, the ‘I am’. Our I am is more miraculous than any psychic phenomena, more profound than any vision or visitation of the sacred. For the true self, when liberated from all limited ideas about its nature, reveals itself in and through the meditative mind as the absolute reality, which makes possible yet transcends all that is transient, limited, and seemingly other than our true nature.

The Kena Upanishad

ONE OF THE SIGNS of mature thought is the urge to discover the ultimate meaning and purpose of life. If this urge arises in us and persists, it is usually linked to our recognition that the goals which most people pursue—or would pursue if they had the opportunity—are insufficient to cure the restlessness of the human heart.

When this philosophical mood invades us, our response might not always be positive. The undermining of our confidence in life’s conventional goals, such as wealth, glory, power and expertise, may lead to scepticism. To feel that nothing matters destroys our motivation for taking anything seriously. We may even seek to disillusion others with our dim assessment of life.

On the other hand, if we are not swayed by this negativity, and if we can open our mind to the possibility of a deeper understanding, we will find that countless individuals down the ages have detected in life a higher purpose. The scriptures of the world form a testimony to their insight. But even without this connection with religion, the truth about life’s purpose is so vital that it can shine through any mind, in any domain of life or learning. The one factor common to all expressions of truth is the assumption that, as human beings, we can guide our mind in such a way that our consciousness expands and deepens. Life becomes a creative adventure when we recognise that certain ideas do have the power, depth and purity to guide us to a higher mode of life.

One of the most effective forms of Truth-communication is the collection of teachings known as the Upanishads—originally passed on by word of mouth, and later organised into short books or writings. To call the Upanishads ‘writings’ is misleading. It suggests that their subject-matter can be adequately passed on by means of words. But what the Upanishads ultimately shed light on cannot be expressed in words. Their subject matter is the supreme reality that underlies and makes possible the transient appearances. The insufficiency of words to describe this reality is not because it is vague and mysterious, but because it is sublime and transcendent, and one only without a second. There is thus no way the Real can divide and analyse itself for purposes of discussion.

But the Upanishads have not been revealed to us in order to expose our limitations or to tell us about a goal that is beyond our reach. Their words serve a unique purpose. That purpose is to impart the awakening knowledge of absolute Reality—That which ever was, is and shall be. We are introduced to the search for the supreme Truth in our own being—as the reality of what we are. For infinite Reality is the very nature of our being.

The Upanishads also specify where the Reality is not to be found, namely, in any of the objective or ‘seen’ aspects of experience—‘seen’ as in the normal seeing of the eye, and also ‘seen’ in the sense of appearing before our inward awareness as an object of thought. Reality is the ultimate conscious principle to which all appears, whether that ‘all’ refers to the world or to the contents of the mind.

To know what we are, we have first to understand what we are not. Therefore, the reality of our being is spoken of in terms that are apparently negative. It is called the Immutable, meaning it is not caught up in changes. It is the Imperishable, that is, not subject to death. It is taintless, meaning not marred by any fault or defect. Each of these negations is a remover of obstacles to self-knowledge, with the negative words producing a positive effect. Each negation is the removal of a barrier, so that our inner being, when contemplated as free from change, destruction and taint, becomes unified and simplified. And this philosophical sifting opens the way for the unimpeded realisation of Truth Absolute as Self. The hidden heart of negation is affirmation.

This possibility of awakening to the deeper reality is evident in the short upanishad called ‘Kena’. The Sanskrit word ‘kena’ itself is a question, meaning ‘by whom?’ or ‘by what?’, and the enquiry it initiates shows the value of asking the right questions, and also warns against mistaking our partial intellectual grasp of the teachings, for actual realisation.

The Upanishad starts with a question that seeks to discover the Power at the source of all our experience. The question is put by an enquirer to an enlightened teacher, and runs:

Willed by whom (kena) does the directed mind go towards its object? Being directed by whom does the life force (the prana) keep up its activity—its functions in sustaining our body— keeping us alive? By whom is this speech willed that people utter? Who is the effulgent being who directs the eyes and the ears?

One fundamental question is posed in four different ways, and we can see that the question is, to some extent, self-answering. There is an implicit denial of the idea that our individuality is an independent centre of power and intelligence. We may, out of long-established and unchallenged habit, take our seeming independence for granted. But from a higher standpoint, the idea is rejected, in favour of an unseen Power which is one in all.

On the other hand, the nature of this Power is not obvious, and we may doubt its existence. Yet there are good reasons why our mind cannot discern this superior and ruling presence. For, in contrast to the movement and content of our mental life, of which we are aware and can discuss and classify, the innermost Power neither moves nor alters, nor does it display any qualities; it simply is, and its nature is to be the consciousness that, by its mere presence, imparts light and life to the mind and the senses. It is thus like a subject, to which the mind and senses (and the world they reveal) are objects. Yet unlike the limited subjectivity of the mind, which is ever reacting to the data that enters it through the senses, the power of consciousness, interior to the mind, can never be other than the ultimate principle of consciousness, limitless, unchanging, ever present, ever illumined. The next verse continues to refer to this Power as if its existence and pivotal function in our life were unquestionable. For now it is directly declared to be the supreme principle, absolutely on a par with the ‘Inner Ruler’ (antaryamin) referred to in another upanishad, the Brihadaranyaka. This is how the Kena Upanishad phrases it in its second verse:

That is the Ear of the ear, the Mind of the mind,

the Speech of speech, the Life of life, and the Eye of the eye...

The verse goes on to suggest that one who is wise no longer cares to identify him- or herself with the transient and mortal aspects of self—the body, senses and mind. Instead, identity-feeling is withdrawn into the Power behind the mind. This will result in true independence, leading to conscious immortality.

However, this liberating adjustment is not straightforward, owing to the natural limitations under which the mind operates. And these limitations are the subject matter of verse three, which affirms not only the indescribable nature of the Power behind the mind, but also identifies problems that hinder the transmission of Truth from teacher to enquirer.

The eye does not go there, nor speech, nor mind. We do not know this Ultimate Reality (Brahman) to be associated with any limitations whatsoever. Hence we are not aware of any way to teach it.

If the teacher in the Upanishad is unaware of any method that will serve to awaken us to the true nature of reality, who else can help us? It now looks as if the teaching on the power behind the mind is itself being withdrawn for want of a method or process that can bring it to life. The solution comes in the next verse:

‘That (Brahman) is surely different from the known; and, again, It is above the unknown.’ Thus we heard from the ancient teachers who explained it to us.

What is here called ‘the known’ are the features of experience that appear before us, and the statement that the reality, Brahman, differs from the known, is another way of affirming the eternal difference between the ultimate subject, which is the pure and unchanging consciousness at the core of our being, and the realm of objects that it reveals and animates.

The sentence: ‘It is above the unknown’, is a challenge. For surely as regards knowledge, the entire phenomenal world may be viewed as comprising just two categories of experience: what we know, or know about; and what we don’t know, whether we are aware of our ignorance or not. (The unknown also includes the ‘unmanifest’ objects which as yet are potential and will be actualised and made ‘known’ in the course of time.)

But let us ask whether these two categories, known and unknown, really do exhaust the range of what can be experienced. Could there not be something like a third category of conscious experience, rooted in our own being? Such a principle would confirm the immediacy of pure consciousness as an obvious truth, and recognise its status as the ultimately real principle underlying and permitting everything. Its knowledge status might most suitably be characterised by the phrase: ‘more than known’.

Therefore, it is not a process of instruction that is needed to awaken us to Reality, for such a process would assume that the reality of our being-and-consciousness was right now under an eclipse and needed rectifying by means of active techniques. The awakening to Reality is the living appreciation and recognition of the simple fact that we have always known the ever-liberated, ever-achieved, non-dual, consciousness as our true Self because we are That.

It is the very nature of our inmost Self to know itself as eternal freedom. In the same way, it is the natural state of the Absolute (Brahman) to know itself as the reality in all, thus knowing itself as the all. And this Truth is at the heart of all the Upanishads:

that Atman (Self) is Brahman (the Absolute)

that Brahman (the Absolute) is Atman (the Self)

and this is not a pairing based on union,

but a oneness—a nonduality—based on identification.

If we insist on trying to know what we do not know, we will make what is immediate, remote; what is near, far; and what is simple and sublime, complex and grounded in distracting details. Conversely, if we try to know what we already know, we will confirm our identity with That Self, that Brahman, which is eternally more-than-known. In the words of the Kena Upanishad:

That which one does not comprehend with the mind, that by which, they say, the mind is encompassed, know That to be Brahman, and not what people worship as an object.

B.D.

The Non-Duality of Shri Shankara

An extract from H P Shastri’s Outline of the Advaita of Shri Shankara

LIMITATIONS are a darkness and obstruct the vision of Truth. They make Reality appear what it is not; where there is bliss they paint a picture of distress, pain, sorrow and disappointment. Our mind is a limitation and so are the senses and their objects. In the language of Vedanta, the aggregate of limitations is called Maya or avidya (nescience). It is not a self-controlling force. The Ruler and Governor of Maya is Ishvara, the Lord of the universe.

It is the highest duty of each and everyone to realize the identity of the inner Self with the Self of Ishvara and to realise the light of Truth under which limitations are seen as phenomenal and not real. There is no other way to freedom, independence and bliss for which the soul is searching. Like the deer in a desert, which runs after the mirage river to quench its thirst and eventually falls fatigued and unsatisfied, our soul looks for inner peace in education, in love-affairs, in military glory, in self-distinction of one kind or another, but eventually falls fatigued and suffers from neurosis as a result of which life appears bitter in so many respects.

The supreme authority on the great spiritual Truth called Advaita is the holy Shruti*. It is revealed by Ishvara Himself but it is written in an archaic language and is subject to many interpretations. It is not a keen intellect or a scholarly mind that can know of itself the truth of the innermost Self; it is one who has freed the mind from self-centred desires and actions, who has acquired tranquillity and equimindedness, who is magnanimous and infinite in compassion and forgiveness. Such an enquirer can ‘see’ the truth revealed in the holy Shruti.

One authority only has interpreted the Upanishads in a convincing way in the light of his own personal experience and with a dialectical skill surpassing that of any other philosopher: Shri Bhagavadpada Shankaracharya. His language is a model of beauty and simplicity and his thoughts are as spacious as the blue sky. Many scholars who claim to be followers of Vedanta have failed to understand the real meaning of the Shruti as interpreted by Shankara. Many personal opinions and interpretations are to be found in their writings—for instance, one writer defines Maya as ‘a description of facts’, while another interprets Brahman in terms of quasi-materialism.

This essay attempts to explain the spiritual truth of the world, the jiva (the individual), Maya, Ishvara, Brahman, the state of Jivan-Mukti (liberation in life), the ethical responsibility of a Jivan-Mukta and other fundamental doctrines of Vedanta. We have no private theories to advocate, nor do we claim to have fully grasped the meaning of Shankara’s dialectical philosophy. Notwithstanding these limitations, here is an attempt to interpret the Advaita Vedanta in simple language in the light of his writings.

We hope this introductory essay will help all true aspirants to understand the meaning of the Shruti about the nature of the Self.

The Sanskrit word for philosophy is ‘Darshana’ which literally means ‘sight’. It means the search after the ultimate truth of life in the world. Its main field is human nature, and its promptings are the secrets of the world. When human beings began to think, they began to philosophize. Our history is the history of the development of philosophical thought searching after ultimate reality.

At first, human beings began to think of nature in terms of aesthetics and we produced poetry and the rudiments of art; then slowly, as our thoughts went deeper and deeper, philosophy arose and occupied our serious attention. It was the beginning of the age of reflection. The beautiful songs of the Rig Veda containing descriptions of nature gave way to the metaphysical reflections of the Upanishads, and the Upanishads ultimately gave rise to the philosophy which is called Vedanta.

Shankara is the real architect of Vedanta. The brilliance of his intellect has dazzled the world. Some who do not understand the real depth of his philosophy, which proclaims the unreality of the phenomenal world and the reality of its substratum, the Spirit, or supreme Self, imagine that it implies negation of morality, benevolence, and active participation in the good of the world, and that it dampens the enthusiasm of the pure philanthropist. This is an erroneous conception. The life of Shankara, though short, was productive of the highest results in the field of social good, moral benevolence and creation of beauty, and it is a standing testimony to the great practical value of Advaita. Hume, Berkeley and Kant would have cause to regret the practical application of their philosophies, but the same cannot be said of Shankara.

It is sometimes objected that the doctrine of Naishkarmya (non-action), so ably demonstrated by Shri Sureshvara, the great disciple of Shankara, is a path of flight from the world. Vedanta is not a philosophy of negation and prohibition only; it is not a flight from reality. Shankara accepts the theory of the practical reality of the world, and emphasizes that life in the world is the only life which can yield the realisation of the spirit within.

Dharma (righteousness) is one of the chief pivots of the ethics of Vedanta. It is evident that truthful living, benevolent action, deep compassion, a balanced mind and search after the divine principle are included in the conception of right action. How can it be said that Vedanta negates morality and interest in the world? A good life is impossible without spiritual living and a moral and spiritual purpose. Without truth and a higher idealism, we cannot distinguish between right and wrong. The Advaita of Shankara is not opposed to good living on the basis of Truth, compassion and universal benevolence. It is discrimination between right and wrong living which leads us to the life of transcendence.

Another fallacy, which every deep student of Vedanta will recognize as such, but which has gained currency as a result of the writings of those who have misunderstood Shankara’s position, is that the Advaita doctrine is pantheism. The Advaita of Shankara makes it clear that the world is not Brahman but a modification of Maya superimposed on Brahman like a mirage superimposed on the desert. Vedanta is not an ‘ism’. It is the climax of truth and right experience. It is the highest limit of the search after spiritual truth. It is ‘the last word of the Upanishads’ and not the name of a philosophical creed. If it is to be given any name at all, it can be called the Adhyatma philosophy (the philosophy relating to the Self). The terms ‘pantheism’ and ‘monism’ do not apply to it.

Brahman as the cause of the world.

According to Vedanta, Brahman is the highest truth. In the Taittiriya Upanishad (3:1), Brahman is described as that fundamental Truth from which the world of being is born, by which it is supported and in which it is finally dissolved. There are long descriptions in the Upanishads to explain the genesis of the world (e.g. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1:4). A complete negation of the world from the point of view of experience cannot be attributed to Shankara. Over and over again in his commentary on the Vedanta Sutras, Shankara calls the Overlord of the universe the creator of the whole world.

In the Vedanta body of teachings, Brahman is the cause of the world. The orthodox view of Vedanta about the world is that the cause alone is real and the effect, being included in the cause, has no independent reality. Some of the classical philosophers differ slightly from this view and hold that when Brahman is said to be the cause of the universe, what is really meant is that the cause is the root and support of the effect and the effect can have no existence without the cause. According to their view, the relationship between cause and effect is one of inseparable identity.

Shankara rejects the theory of the independence of cause and effect. The world is not separate but is one with Brahman, its cause. As the effect does not exist before the cause, so the world has no existence separate from Brahman. According to this view, the unreality of the world is not postulated, as it is by the later philosophers of Vedanta. In that part of his commentary which illustrates the doctrine of the world and its connection with the Spirit, Shankara says that the objective world is not different from Atman (the Self) but is in fact the same as Atman. The existence of Atman makes the existence of objects possible and in the event of the non-existence of Atman, the objects too would all pass into non-existence. So it is clear that the world can have no existence without Atman.

It is unnecessary for a philosophical explanation of the world to treat it as an independent or separate entity. Shankara holds that Brahman is the cause of the world and the world is the effect of Brahman in the sense that, as an effect cannot exist without its cause, so the world cannot exist without Brahman.

Shankara’s statements throw doubt on the validity of the view that the world is unreal. The distinction is most subtle. The world does exist, but its existence is not different from Brahman. The relationship between Brahman and jagat (the world) consists in the inseparable sameness in essence of the two. It cannot even be called a relationship. One cannot imagine two infinities, let alone the relationship between the two. In the same way the separation of Brahman from jagat is illogical, and it may therefore be concluded that Brahman and the world are not two separable terms, for there is no relationship between them. It is for these reasons that the leaders of Vedanta have called this philosophy neither dualism nor monism. The best expression for it is Advaita, which is a unique word in philosophy.

The doctrine known as pantheism has two alternative forms. Either the Divine existence is reduced to the level of ordinary empirical existence, or else nature is deified and assigned the same position as God. It will be clear from the foregoing that to call Vedanta pantheism in either sense is a great error.

In all systems of Indian philosophy, not only in the Vedanta of Shankara, Ishvara (the cosmic Overlord) is placed above the world. The expression ‘neti, neti’ (‘not this, not this’) used in the Upanishad (e.g. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4:5:15) is indicative of this. Brahman is often said to be above speech, mind, name and form (e.g. Kena Upanishad 1:3-8, Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4:1:1-7). In the Katha Upanishad is the verse: ‘The sense objects are above the senses, the mind is above the sense objects; the intellect (Buddhi) is above the mind, and that which is above Buddhi is the great Self’. (1:3:10) The Bhagavad Gita (10:42) says: ‘This world exists only as a part of Myself, O Arjuna’.

To be continued

* Shruti—the revealed teachings on non-duality, as conveyed by inspiration of the heart, and indicated by words in the Upanishads, regarded as sacred scriptures.

Through Non-attachment to Freedom

A previously unpublished talk by Marjorie Waterhouse

WHEN WE CHOOSE to follow the inner path that leads to the ultimate self-knowledge, we may be told that true practice is to rise above the pairs of opposites (joy and sorrow, gain and loss, success and failure, etc.), to regard the material world and the realm of higher experience as one in essence though seemingly different in manifestation, to reject nothing, and therefore to be at home everywhere.

At the same time, this free and spacious outlook is qualified by another approach to experience, which encourages an attitude of withdrawal and renunciation, a recognition of the sorrow-breeding nature of phenomena, and a distaste for the objects of the senses. This latter approach is known as vairagya, and may be translated as non-attachment.

So here we have, apparently, two different teachings, each prescribing a particular attitude to life. There can be no surprise that the alert pupil will wonder how this seeming contradiction is reconciled. The answer is that the freedom one hears about at first is the state of the adept, while the rejection and the dissatisfaction which is to be encouraged is the training which prepares the way to that freedom.

The higher training has as its goal the realisation of non-duality. This is the vision that knows with intuitive certainty that all objects, despite their multiplicity, variety and particular uniqueness, are fleeting and ever-changing appearances of one imperishable, unchanging reality, which abides universally as their true self. This is the illumined understanding referred to in the Vedanta classics. As the sage Gaudapada expresses it:

All objects are in origin as limitless as space, and multiplicity has no part in them in any sense. All are by nature deeply still, full of serenity, mutually alike and indivisible—a pure, eternal identity.

The higher training and discipline has, as its goal, a return to this state of consciousness.

There is an intimate connection between immobility and bliss. Conversely, fear, restlessness and suffering have their roots in the conception of multiplicity and separateness. But the destiny of every mind is to transcend this duality and mature the growing awareness that in fact unity and oneness do exist precisely where it has been accustomed to see variety. This deepening understanding produces, on the one hand, a feeling of disillusionment, but it is also accompanied by a growing, if hidden, sense of satisfaction and security.

The words of Shri Gaudapada may seem difficult, and perhaps cryptic, but unless they are deeply pondered over, and, at least, conditionally accepted, vairagya simply doesn’t make sense. Even when, as seekers, we cannot know for certain that the ultimate essence of unity is bliss, and the essence of diversity is pain, unless we are willing to take the risk that this is so, on the word the enlightened teacher, there would seem to be no necessity for withdrawal from sense objects and from the world generally.

It is weariness of the flesh to restrict your mind, your critical faculty, your tongue, your ears and your eyes unless you do so with a definite purpose in view. In fact nothing which is done for the sake of conformity, and without intention, avails very much. The path to enlightenment is not a moving staircase; it is a clearing for you to walk on, and you do not make a step without conscious effort and purpose. The purpose of the illumined teacher is not to teach us the beauty of holiness and the ugliness of sin. The teacher is here to convince us that the world is unreliable in toto, and that the time has come for us to transcend it. For all phenomenal activity is subject to the three gunas**, and therefore can never be stabilised. ‘Arise and go’ is the watchword, not ‘Stay and build’.

Vairagya is the term used for the progressive states of the mind-force while in the process of dissolving itself into another and higher force.

The energy which we call ‘mind’, can only be properly classified as ‘mind’ while it is in a state of flux; while it is selecting and rejecting, expanding and contracting. The same principle applies to the world. Just as the world, samsara, is the visible play of the gunas*—good, bad and indifferent—so too, a state where there was complete stability might be heaven or it might be hell, but it would not be the world. Therefore, when it says in the Upanishads: ‘There the mind becomes no mind’, it does not mean that the mind loses the power of recognising and identifying objects. What it does mean is that the mind reaches a stage when it sees that the basic origin of every object is one and the same. In this condition, the mind is robbed of its characteristic power of selection and activity, and therefore ceases to be able to be properly called a ‘mind’.

We can now consider vairagya under the headings:

What is vairagya?

Is it always accompanied by a distaste of the world?

Is it a necessary preliminary to release?

Does it last when once obtained?

Vairagya is usually translated as non-attachment or dispassion, but some of the classical examples go to show that in its lower stages, vairagya can hardly be called dispassion, for it may manifest as an active dislike for phenomena in every shape and form.

The fact is that there are different species of vairagya, and they may conveniently be classified under their prevailing guna. Thus the tamasic is when the apparent dispassion is misapplied. The rajasic dispassion involves genuine striving and effort. The sattvic dispassion is effortless and enlightened.

The tamasic vairagya, that is, the vairagya which is born of ignorance and wrong thinking, manifests itself as active dislike and disgust of the world and phenomena. It is an induced state, where, for example, a man becomes a misogamist through being rejected by one woman. A good example is that of the man who told Swami Mangalnath that he had conceived a violent aversion for the pleasures of the world and for taking life for food. Swami Mangalnath’s comment was: ‘And when did you lose your teeth?’ This species of vairagya is intense while it lasts, but it passes. It is the lowest of the three categories and is often the outward sign of some form of unnatural inward restraint, and may at any moment break down and turn into its opposite, which is licence. It is built on the tacit recognition of the power of the thing it is denying, which, as you will see, is not the case with the other two categories. The lowest category of vairagya is therefore the tamasic vairagya, and it is a temporary condition, produced by some happening, such as a reversal of fortune, or—most important of all—a mistaken interpretation of the teachings. ‘A touch of pain, breeding dislike of that which gave the touch, is lost in the next succeeding touch of pleasure’ is how the sage Vasishtha describes it.

The next category of vairagya is the rajasic. This manifests as satiety—not dislike, a subtle difference but an important one. It accompanies the dawning of knowledge, being born of a growing surmise that what has hitherto been regarded as variety and therefore worthy of attention and capable of producing feelings of dislike or love, interest or fear, is a manifestation of one substance, appearing under different guises. It is called by Swami Vidyaranya the ‘sharp vairagya’, and he says it comes as a result of a resolve on the part of the intellect not to be involved any longer with happenings.

Whereas the tamasic vairagya springs from the emotions, the rajasic vairagya springs from the intellect. It is usually brought about by vichara, or enquiry into the teachings. Vichara leads to indirect knowledge, that is, knowledge which you have theoretically and mentally accepted, but which you have not, so far, verified in your own experience. This is the vairagya which was experienced by Prince Rama as described in the first book of the yogic epic, the Yoga Vasishtha.

If it is sustained, the rajasic vairagya leads, in due course, to the third category, the sattvic vairagya, born of awakened intuitive knowledge of the essence or reality underlying every object. Here there is a complete and automatic indifference to the world and all phenomena. Every object, conceptual and perceptual, appears like a straw—not important in itself, but only apparent by virtue of its substratum, and in itself incapable of awakening any emotion and unworthy of special attention. This psychological condition is a preliminary to the dawning of the superior or direct knowledge, and it heralds in the supreme experience. It is called by Swami Vidyaranya the ‘sharper vairagya’. Shankara says of this condition:

Here the individual gives up all waywardness, the attention being wholly given to the Self. As a result, there springs up the youthful life, which, although encased in the body and senses, is unaffected by childhood, old age and other bodily attributes, and is extremely blissful.

As against the first two, one of which is artificial and the other induced, this sattvic vairagya is direct. The other two spring from the emotions and the reason respectively, but the higher vairagya rises from the intuitive faculty. One category accompanied by emotional dislike, the second by satiety brought about by reasoning, the third is characterised by indifference or disregard caused by the recognition of something infinitely superior which fills the whole picture.

You might say that the tamasic vairagya is the vairagya of a person who is focusing on the foreground and nothing else, and who doesn’t like what is seen. In the rajasic vairagya, the aspirant looks at the foreground and the background, and chooses the background, to the detriment of the foreground; while the sattvic vairagya renders the foreground scompletely out of focus, and the background fills the whole picture.

I think the first two questions have been answered. They were: ‘What is vairagya?’ and ‘Is it always accompanied by a distaste for the world?’ The remaining two questions are: ‘Is vairagya a necessary preliminary to release?’ and ‘Does it last when once obtained?’

So long as vairagya is not confused with abandonment of the world, it is not only necessary, but a natural result of spiritual growth, and is the precursor to spiritual maturity. In the Yoga Vasishtha, the sage Vasishtha says to Prince Rama, whose vairagya is increasing, and who is manifesting a desire to have done with the world and its burdens: ‘O Rama, first reason with me, and then, if necessary, leave the world. I ask you, is the world separate from God? If so, you are at liberty to leave it.’

Vairagya is necessary, because, as Sheikh Saadi has said: ‘You cannot ride in two boats the same time, each sailing in a different direction, and yet enjoy the bliss of true knowledge. If you care for the supreme bliss of divine knowledge, you have to free yourself from the longing for sensual delights.’

To give reality to something means that you identify yourself with that thing. If you give reality to multiplicity, your condition will invite confusion and disappointment. But if you are graced with patience and continuity of purpose, you will be led—perhaps even forced—through the teaching and the compassion of the higher Power, to fix your gaze on the underlying reality, and the stage will be cleared for the final act.

Shri Shankara says: ‘Fire does not ignite wet fuel, but only fuel that has been dried by the sun. So too, this fire of knowledge does not touch the mind if it is wet with attachment, even though it may have acquired merit by the performance of prescribed duties. Only that mind which has been dried up by vairagya is kindled by the supreme wisdom.’ So the answer to the question is: ‘Yes, vairagya is a necessary preliminary to realisation.’

The remaining question: ‘Does vairagya last when once it is achieved?’ is an interesting one. As we have said, in the sattvic vairagya, the attention is increasingly fixed on reality itself. After realisation, one Substance—Chit—Pure Consciousness is perceived everywhere. In the foreground, in the background, to the left, to the right, above, below, and in the middle; and this entails equal vision.

There is a Zen parable which says that those who know nothing of Zen, mountains are just mountains, trees just trees, and men are just men. After one has studied Zen for some time, mountains are no longer mountains, trees no longer trees, men no longer men. For while the ignorant believe in the reality of objective things, the partially enlightened see that they are only appearances, they have no abiding reality, and pass away like the drifting clouds. But to one who has a true understanding of Zen, mountains are again mountains, trees are again trees, and men are again men. The Ashtavakra Gita says: ‘The cessation of action is as much an outcome of ignorance as the performance thereof. Knowing this full well, abide in the Self.’

In the Chinese Ox Taming pictures, which compare the training of the mind to the taming of a wayward ox, the final picture is of a rotund, smiling person returning to the world carrying a sack full of good things. The calligraphy attached to this picture explains: ‘No one knows his inner life, but he goes into the market-place, consorts with all the people, and he and they all become Buddhas.’

This would seem to infer that the outcome of the sattvic vairagya is recognition of reality which confers the lasting mood of universal acceptance and equal vision on the seeker of ultimate truth. When this occurs, vairagya disappears, for its work is done.

You may say, ‘Well, this may be a description of vairagya, but how do we produce it within ourselves?’ As an enlightened sage has said: ‘Bend all your powers to achieve an uninterrupted remembrance of God—whatever conception suits you the best, and subordinate everything to this. It is the way to get out of servitude, to go beyond yoga, and emerge into eternal freedom.’ As it is said: ‘Think of the supreme more often than you breathe.’ Once this mental idea begins to support itself on itself, the mind will become stabilised, tranquil and detached, and recognising the presence of the object of its contemplation in all it looks upon, will see all things as alike and equally good. This and no other, is the goal of the Yoga of Self-knowledge.

M.V.W.

** The three gunas. A metaphysical doctrine that views all experience, inner and outer, as the phenomenal manifestation of one all-encompassing energy with three modes of expression: sattva, rajas and tamas. Sattva accounts for the beauty and harmony in nature, and peace and wisdom in the mind. Rajas denotes the unceasing movement in nature, and the creative, passionate urges in the mind. Tamas signifies the stability and fixity in nature, and sloth, stubbornness, and other uncreative aspects of the human mind. All three gunas are present everywhere, but one usually predominates. The cultivation of sattva conduces to progress on the path to enlightenment.

Spring Reflections—Prayer and Self-Knowledge

LET US consider the nature of prayer—where God is usually worshipped or prayed to as if separate from our Self—in the light of the non-dual teachings. For prayer is a practice common to all the great religions, and it is considered by many to be essential for safe and wise living.

First, what is prayer? Put simply, prayer is a talking to God. Expressed in a more sophisticated way, prayer is a communication made by the human mind, generally through words, to a great being or presence that is thought to be all-knowing and all-powerful, infinite and eternal.

The impulse to pray arises from the conviction that the Supreme Being has the power to help us in any situation. Implicit in this is the belief that God knows our inner condition as well as the outer circumstances, knows us from within, better that we know ourselves. Prayer would be pointless without this belief in one who hears our prayers and knows our heart.

But who and where is this great being that we refer to as the Infinite, God, Allah, the Highest? If such a Power is aware of what is transpiring in our own mind—if it knows the motions of our thought and our sincerity—then it makes no sense to regard such a being as essentially separate from us. As the Sufi poet-sage Rumi says: ‘Thou art an inmost ground of consciousness, witnessing our every thought.’ The great reality must somehow be present in the mind itself.

This assertion, that the divine presence we pray to, is within our own being, is in harmony with the teachings of Christ, who, on the one hand, commends prayer to ‘our father which art in heaven’, yet also declared: ‘The kingdom of heaven is within you.’ Non-duality directly teaches this essential inwardness of the supreme power as the inner ruler present in everything, including the human mind.

Before awakening to this teaching, we may be convinced that we are reaching out to a deity that exists somewhere else. But this supreme power, to be conscious of our thoughts, must abide in close proximity to them, pervading our intellect, whether the mind recognises it or not. Once we accept that there is this transcendent yet immanent awareness in our own mind, and which some writings refer to as ‘God within’, or the divine presence, we need to turn our attention to our own being and ask the questions, ‘What actually is the self? What am I? What is this consciousness in me, when truly realised? Can the essential consciousness in me really be different from the divine consciousness that is the knower of our thoughts and prayers? Can there be two consciousnesses in me: my individualised consciousness and that consciousness through which God knows me?’

St Paul has said: ‘For now we see through a glass, darkly’— our knowledge of truth is incomplete and distorted—‘but then’—meaning when we see things as they truly are—we shall see reality ‘face-to-face’, so to say. He continues: ‘Now I know in part; then I shall know even as also I am known.’ But exactly how are we—and our thoughts and prayers—‘known’, and by whom? There is within us a supreme principle of knowledge to which all mental processes appear. The Upanishads identify the ‘inner ruler’ as not other than the changeless consciousness that witnesses the passing thoughts. Not only is it the ‘knower of knowing’ as regards the individual. It is the only conscious principle in the entire range of experience—for ‘there is no other knower but this’. Identified as our true Self, Atman, it is also Brahman, the absolute. To turn to That in love and trust is a way to Self-realisation.

The dark glass is the unpurified mind, functioning as if consciousness itself were individualised, finite and dependent on the mental faculties. But our consciousness is never really conditioned or limited in this way. And this is the great truth that dawns on the seeker when the mind has been rendered serene, and finds pure satisfaction in self-contemplation.

This revelation of our own consciousness as one with the all-pervading consciousness is indicated in the following text for meditation:

THE DAWN OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF UNIVERSAL UNITY

LIGHTS MY SOUL.

HERE THERE AND EVERYWHERE IS MY SELF.

The true object of our love, worship and prayer is close at hand. It is not an object of consciousness, but is that immediacy of consciousness which makes knowing possible.

B.D.

Light and Darkness

Bhagavad Gita Chapters 16 and 17

The Bhagavad Gita teaches that the Supreme Being, Brahman, God, is the support and inner controller of all manifest beings, and is also the transcendent cause of all beings, and is yet also the ultimate Reality which has no connection with any cause and effect. The Gita shows how we may approach that Being, our true Self, intellectually, emotionally and practically, through reflection, loving identification and dedicated action.

After such subtle and sophisticated teachings, it comes as a challenge and surprise to find that towards the end, in the sixteenth and seventeenth of the Gita’s eighteen chapters, there are passages resembling the most direct and uncompromising kind of moral instruction.

The sixteenth chapter begins with a list of qualities that lead to inner illumination and well being, and those that have the opposite consequences.

Among the qualities to be cultivated are fearlessness, purity, steadfastness in knowledge and practice, charity, self-restraint, self-sacrifice, study, austerity, rectitude, harmlessness, truthfulness, angerlessness, renunciation, serenity, non-calumny, compassion, control of inordinate desire, kindness, modesty, steadiness, vigour, patience, fortitude, cleanliness, absence of hate and conceit. The opposite begins with ostentation, arrogance, anger, insolence and ignorance.

We may find a long list of ‘‘dos and don’ts” unappealing. However there are valuable psychological insights to be found in this text. The next verse in chapter sixteen says that there are two kinds of beings in the world, which may be called the divine and the demonic: so far the divine has been described at length, and now the demonic is to be spoken of.

This teaching makes clear the true significance of our moods and behaviour. Small acts of kindness and goodwill, or of selfishness and ill-will, can mean the difference between a good day and a miserable one. And they add to the quality of our whole life, whether that life is essentially ‘divine’ or ‘demonic’, progressing towards inner freedom and illumination or psychological bondage. Profound philosophical insights are of little value if they are not reflected in the simplest of actions. Vitally, the divine and demonic natures are not fixed. At any one time we may be manifesting one or the other, ultimately helping or harming ourselves.

The importance of our core beliefs about the nature of the world is made clear, because this too can be changed. At the root of the ‘demonic’ view is the belief that there is no higher intelligence and purpose underlying the universe; everything is determined by physical laws and biological impulses. One might object that apparently demonic behaviour is sometimes associated with religious beliefs. But this happens where the belief is that aspects of the world, or sections of humanity, are excluded from the scope and care of the supreme Being. One verse says:

Given over to egotism, power, arrogance, desire and anger, these malicious people hate Me [the Supreme Being] in their own and other bodies. [16:18]

What is brought out with great force here is that to harm others, in thought or action, is really to harm oneself in the highest sense. Hatred is the will to negate and destroy something or someone. The object of hate is made entirely ‘other’: nothing is shared in common with it. It is to deny the presence of the supreme being in the object, and in the one who expresses hatred. Hatred and anger grow from dislike and irritation, so it is wise to note with care the first stirrings of such sentiments within us.

The Gita states bluntly that the ‘gates of hell’ are lust, anger and greed. We understand that suffering and harm comes from misguided pleasure-urges, anger and wealth-power desires. Manifestations of these tendencies are starkly apparent in the world. Positively, we may recognise them, around and within ourselves, and replace them with thoughts of light, goodwill, and higher consciousness.

Here it is said that we should take as our guide the Shastras, that is the revealed texts, understood to be the record left by the illumined guides and teachers of humankind. Non-duality in theory and practice emphasises the importance of individual enquiry and discovery, balanced with an open-minded and respectful attitude towards the teachings on those points where the mind unaided cannot find ultimate answers. In this sense, the traditional writings have their place in non-duality.

It is interesting to note that philosophers have struggled to find a foundation for ethics, a reliable definition and standard of what is right and wrong, good or bad, on purely rational grounds. Most ethical theories are variations on utilitarianism (‘the greatest good for the greatest number’) or attempts to find morality as an intrinsic part of our psychology, the way reason seems to be built into our view of the world according to Kant. But utilitarianism is dogged by circularity in its view of what is ultimately ‘good’, and there is little consensus regarding the substance of Kantian ethics or their practical consequences. It is reasonable to conclude that what is ultimately good is a metaphysical question that the limited intellect cannot answer unaided, and to accept the guidance of the revealed texts until inner illumination dawns.

At this point in the Gita the pupil is prompted to ask a question, which begins the next chapter, the seventeenth. Having heard that the traditional texts should be our guide, his empathy is aroused and he asks, what of those who make sacrifices and worship, but not in the ways prescribed in the scriptures? What kind of faith is that?

The question, and the answer, are framed in terms of the gunas, which are said to form the fabric of the phenomenal world. Tamas, rajas and sattva resemble the present understanding of inertia, energy and natural laws respectively, and extend to our psychology as well. Each has its place, but needs to be balanced. When Tamas is over-dominant, it manifests in qualities like stubbornness, inflexibility, indolence, mental darkness. Excess rajas produces love of power, sensation and greed. Sattva brings balance, harmony. Ideally, sattva leads to its own transcendence, but it can be binding if, for example, there is love of learning and aesthetics for their own sake.

The answer to the question begins by repeating the importance of our core beliefs, or shraddha, in Sanskrit. Shraddha is often translated as ‘faith’, but it is concerned with what we do in fact believe, not what we or anyone else suggests we should believe. It is said that our nature is according to our faith, shraddha; our core beliefs make each of us what we are.

The nature of each is according to their shraddha (core beliefs, ‘faith’). A person is formed of faith. As their faith is, so are they. [17: 3]

According to the non-dual teachings, shraddha is not fixed and beyond our conscious control. On the contrary, it can, and should, be reformed and refined, through the process of listening to, reflecting on, and assimilating the philosophy, and expressing its implications in our action.

The teaching goes on to say that sattva leads to love and worship of truth; rajas to what was called in chapter sixteen ‘the demonic’, and tamas to darkness and delusion. Expressions of excessive rajas are said to include extreme austerities prompted by pride and ambition. Sattva, rajas and tamas manifest in the choices we make about food; how and why we offer charity and self-sacrifice; the austerities we adopt; and the gifts we make. These are all opportunities to frankly observe what our choices reveal about our deeper nature, and to make conscious adjustments.

When we make acts of giving, austerity or sacrifice, we may feel that we would like to have some appropriate words to say or think about at the time. Students of non-duality sometimes choose to focus on OM, which symbolises Truth on all levels. The word ‘That’ (or Tat in Sanskrit) indicates what remains in our immediate awareness when all that is transient and contingent is put aside. And the Sanskrit word Sat means Truth, Reality, Rightness. Thus ‘OM, Tat, Sat’ or equivalent words that we find meaningful, may be a helpful and pleasing focus whenever we are consciously giving, dedicating or offering of ourselves in search of Self-realisation.

P.H.

Ryokan—Friend of Peace and Freedom

RYOKAN (1758-1831) is one of many Japanese poets inspired by the teachings of Zen Buddhism. He lived at a time when Japan had closed its doors to foreigners, cautiously guarding itself from the threat of conquest by the European seafaring powers, as well as the greater conquest of minds brought about by those set on converting the world to Christianity or Islam. The policy of isolation, enforced by the strong Tokugawa government, was accompanied by improved law and order, which permitted a degree of safe travel within Japan itself. This was important because it allowed poets, like Basho and Ryokan himself, to take to the road without being caught in the crossfire of clan rivalries, although bandits were still a danger.

Japan had long since distinguished itself as a land where poetry was appreciated, and poetic composition was practised at all levels of society. The first anthology, the Manyoshu, published before 800, formed a reference text and quality guide for poets thereafter. Another stimulus for poetic expression was the Chinese language, which extended creativity and formed part of the scholar’s curriculum. The accomplished poet was expected to compose in both languages.

With this background, it is not surprising that this interest in poetry penetrated most of the Japanese regions, including the north-western coastal ports, like Izumozaki, where Ryokan’s father held the hereditary title of headman; and we learn that the elder himself was a writer of haiku poems. This small town, with its sizable fishing fleet, looked out on the island of Sado, which was the birthplace of Ryokan’s mother, and which is mentioned in one of Basho’s most celebrated haikus, expressing vastness, grandeur and transcendence of individuality:

Rough sea

Extending toward Sado Isle

The Milky Way

From an early age, Ryokan (then named Eizo) was a lover of literature, preferring studies to sports, though disinclined to any future academic role. His poems hint that he was subject to the usual diversions of teenage life, yet, as the eldest son, he would normally have succeeded his father as headman as well as in his business activities. However, for reasons that have not been clearly determined, in 1775, aged 18, Ryokan cast aside all prospect of a life of worldly cares and responsibilities, and left home to study at a Zen temple in the neighbouring town of Amaze, evidently without seeking his father’s consent.

His commitment to the quest for illumination was taken a stage further when, in 1779, the Zen master, Kokusen, head of the Entsu-ji monastery in faraway Kyoto, stayed briefly in Amaze as part of a preaching tour, and so impressed the young student that he decided to follow him back and join his monastic community. It was now that Eizo was given the monastic name of Ryokan, meaning ‘Goodly Tolerance’, and pursued the life of meditation, study and service under the enlightened teacher, Kokusen. In later years, Ryokan looked back on the enthusiasm, fortitude and dedication of those early days, when he would often be first to arrive at the lecture room or the early morning service; the monastic training also enabled him to bear calmly any conditions of cold, hunger or sickness that challenged him later in life. He tells us:

Many a time in my youth, I sat down for long meditation,

Hoping to master by practice the art of quiet breathing.

What virtue I now have in me to foster my heart’s peace,

I owe it to the hard discipline I underwent in my youth.

Ryokan must have been a receptive student, for we find that after ten years, Kokusen awarded him a certificate—a lively inscription written in the dashing style of a master calligrapher:

To Ryokan, good as foolish, who walks the broadest way

So free and untrammelled, none can truly fathom him,

I grant this certificate with a stick of mountain wood.

Everywhere he will find quiet rest as inside the walls.

The wording suggests that Ryokan was now in a position to pass on his knowledge.

However, there is some uncertainty about his subsequent development, suggested by his own statements in various poems. For one thing, Kokusen died in 1793, and, prompted by this loss, Ryokan tired of monastic life: ‘One fatal day, I left the temple at my own whim.’

Some poems give the impression that he felt guilty and inadequate in withdrawing from the ordered safety of the monastery, yet in other verses, he exalts in his freedom. For example, here is a statement suggestive of relief and certainty:

One day by a stroke of luck

I penetrated my master’s path.

Suddenly I took a giant leap

And that was goodbye to temple life.

Enough of their rice. No more numbing routine.

Ah, how happy I feel.

But Ryokan knew well that the expressions of the mind prompted by emotion, are unstable because ever-changing, and the majority of his poems are quiet celebrations of the positive joy at the heart of experience:

Riding the changes each new day brings

I live out the years soaring calm and free.

By now, Ryokan was in his late 40s, and though he had the physical stamina and mental strength to go on living in partial homelessness, it was time for a change. He returned to his home region, where friends helped him to secure a permanent refuge, away from the hustle and bustle of worldly life, yet within reach should problems arise. He was granted the use of a small cottage, scenically situated on the western slope of nearby Mount Kugami. Called Gogo-an, it belonged to the temple higher up the hill. Here Ryokan was to live for thirteen years (1804-1817). The accommodation was sparse and minimal—a single room where he could sleep, cook, warm himself, and keep a small store of provisions and favorite books. The majority of his poems were composed while he was living in this way. They record the transient beauties of nature as the seasons come and go, his own activities with brief allusions to his state of mind, and more general reflections on the life that conduces to peace and wisdom. His simple and secluded existence, while living at Gogo-an, is the subject of many poems, and the poetry itself was an outlet that brought him much relief in hard times—which usually meant cold, hunger and sickness.

After begging all day,

I return home and close the brushwood gate,

Preparing a fire with branches that are still covered in leaves.

...A wind from the west brings an evening squall,

Driving rain, which softly brushes the thatched roof.

At times like this, I lie down and stretch my legs.

What is there to worry about?

What is there to trouble me?

And again:

Utterly devoid of movement, this small house of mine,

All day long not a single human eye ever glances in.

I sit alone at the window, absorbed in deep thinking,

My ears bent to the quiet fall of scattering leaves.

Most of the poems convey his sensibility to the natural world around him and are the fruits of a mind that has consciously uncluttered itself from superfluous thoughts. Here is a short poem dedicated to the deity of compassion, Kwannon:

The wind has stopped

And still a blossom falls.

A bird sings

And the hills grow yet more silent.

The power of Kwannon’s marvellous wisdom. Ah!

His own compassion is also reflected in many verses:

If the sleeves of my robe were only wider

I’d shelter all the beings in this up-and-down world.

We recall that Kokusen referred to Ryokan as ‘good as foolish’. The reference is to Ryokan’s refusal to indulge in the cleverness of self-interest, and his innate trust that losses and mishaps, which worldly prudence might have averted, were to be accepted as manifestations of divine providence. As he writes:

Desire nothing and you’re content with everything;

Pursue things and you are thwarted at every step.

It was while living in this spirit on Mount Kugami that Ryokan, who possessed so little, was the victim of a burglary, to which he responded with calm acceptance rather than indignation or self-pity. He marks the occasion with the following poem:

Making off with my backrest and cushion,

The thief has struck my tumbledown hut.

How could I refuse him?

All night by the window I sat alone in the stillness.

Drip drip of fine rain

Filling the forest of bamboo.

The act of writing a poem linked to our own situation is itself an act of detachment. It requires us to step out of our emotional haze, and organise our thoughts as their guide and master. This is where poetry unites with the spirit of Zen, which is concerned with accepting the reality of the present moment and not wasting thoughts and feelings on fruitless speculation.

The same rejoicing in the here and now is at the root of another phase of Ryokan’s daily doings: his games with the children he encountered on his begging excursions. As a frequent visitor to the villages and towns in the vicinity, he got to know the local children, who first regarded him as a figure of fun, but came to realise that this tall, thin eccentric monk, with his worn-and-torn black robe, was himself a provider of great fun, through enthusiastically joining in their games, and having at the ready at least one silk ball used for competitive bouncing. And just as children show a boundless capacity for losing themselves in their games, oblivious of the passing of time, so too did their visitor lose himself in these childlike frolics. Adults found it difficult to understand such ‘foolish’ activity, while Ryokan himself would not and could not explain.

It is true that Ryokan was technically a ‘beggar’, but he looked on these food-raising excursions as treading ‘in the footsteps of the Buddha’ and there are strict rules attached to this form of activity which Ryokan observed scrupulously. His begging bowl itself was a holy artefact, a symbol of the free and spontaneous life he was living.

A few chrysanthemums still about the darkening hedge,

Wintry crows wheel above the cluster of silent trees,

Distant hills and mountain crests aglow with the sun,

Time for me, perhaps, to embrace my bowl and go home.

As he was nearing 60, and feeling the strain of the hilly landscape, his friends arranged for another change of home, settling him in a room at the foot of Mount Kugami, in the grounds of the Otago Shinto shrine. This was to be his home for a further ten years. The change was a kindness to him and to those who wished to visit him and take advantage of his wisdom as a Zen Buddhist holy man and poet. People were also eager to have samples of his calligraphy, bringing sheets of paper for this purpose. He complied with these requests, while being keenly and ironically aware of the acquisitive side of human nature.

Meanwhile, advancing age and ill-health led him to acquiesce to a final move, which brought him to the nearby village of Shimazaki, where he lived in a renovated storehouse—effectively a small hut—attached to the home of a friend. It was not ideal, because he was compelled to forfeit his beloved solitude and mingle in the world of human affairs at a time when his natural impulse was towards simplicity and withdrawal.

Nonetheless, Ryokan’s last years were sweetened by his encounter with a new friend. This was a Zen Buddhist nun named Teishin. Aware of his poems, she sought him out at his new home, and it was at once a meeting of heart and heart. A profound and unbreakable bond was formed, based on their shared love of the higher experience, and also their shared delight in poetry. Although Teishin was not free to be a permanent carer to the one she called her Master, she was there at the time of his final illness, reciting to him the following poem:

To life or to death

I should cast a cloudless eye,

Faithful to our vow.

Yet at this last leave-taking

How can I restrain my tears?

She tells how Ryokan responded by quoting the verse:

Maple leaves scatter

At one moment gleaming bright,

Darkened at the next.

Teishin lived on until 1872, and her poetical interchanges with Ryokan are contained in her book: Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf.

Let us end with some practical advice given by one whose understanding was matured through lifelong practice and reflection:

Even if you’ve read a thousand books,

You’re better off sticking to a single phrase.

If anyone asks you which one, say:

Know your own mind just as it is.

Ryokan

A.H.C.

Making the Best Choice

OUR CHOICES in life are invariably limited by the force of circumstances. But suppose there were no constraints, and that society was such that we were entirely free and independent. It is then that we would have to face up consciously to the question which we alone are in a position to decide: What should be the guiding principle of my life?

To some, the answer is obvious. The ideal course would be based on free indulgence in sensuality, where liberty is synonymous with licence. They reject any other aim as the vain pursuit of some vague or transcendent end, whereas they maintain (or they think that they would maintain) that the pleasure they believe in is real and immediate.

But this is clearly a point of view which cannot stand up to scrutiny, still less to being put into practice. It is in fact a guaranteed formula for disaster in life. There are at least two good reasons for this. The first is that the pleasures which are maintained to be the object of life are in themselves transient and ephemeral. In the very act of trying to follow this plan of life we find that the objects which seemed to promise happiness have turned to ashes in our mouth. The joy that they offered is much more unreal in the long run than the higher ideals which we scornfully reject.

The second reason why our hedonistic plan is doomed to failure is that it contains the seeds of great pain and suffering. As the Bhagavad Gita says: ‘The pleasures born of the contact of the senses with their objects are ultimately only sources of pain; they have a beginning and an end. No one who is wise delights in them.’ Leonardo da Vinci wrote in his personal notebook that pleasure and pain were like two Siamese twins joined back to back; where one is, the other is not far off, and at the next turn of circumstances it will become apparent.

The pursuit of happiness in sensory experience per se, whether it is induced by drugs or in any other way, is doomed ultimately to failure. One has to remember the advantages in not having total permissiveness. Total permissiveness includes freedom to destroy oneself, and there is such a thing as mental and spiritual suicide as well as physical suicide. This is to induce in oneself a mental darkness which blinds our higher spiritual, moral and aesthetic faculties. One may be free of all outer constraints; but if this is merely used as an opportunity for the individual to destroy himself, or at least to put himself under a greater bondage than existed before, it is a mockery of freedom.

The lower instincts of the mind may drive us towards sense pleasures, but the instincts are only one part of our personality. We also have reason, humanity, fellow-feeling and idealism. We cannot ignore these higher aspects of our nature and we must satisfy their needs also if we are to live as whole human beings. So long as we ignore them, there will be an inner conflict, giving rise to a constantly nagging sense that we have not realised the potentialities of which we are capable.

The problem of good and evil is not something which is imposed on our nature from outside by society or by institutional religion; it has a much more profound basis in the human personality itself, and it arises fundamentally from our need to realise our full stature. So long as we do not do so, we will feel a sense of moral inferiority arising from the fact that our life does not feel worthy of what is truly possible for our development. We may complain about circumstances and blame the outer world, but at heart our dissatisfaction will be with ourselves.

We can say, in agreement with the philosopher F. H. Bradley, that the one aim which a human being tries to follow throughout life, which is the basis of all our conduct, is the aim of self- realisation. To realise oneself, and to feel that we have achieved significance, is the fundamental drive in the human personality. When we ask what is the good life, we are asking what will achieve this aim.

‘How can I fully realise myself?’ is, in fact, the same question which the saints and the philosophers discuss when they speak of the summum bonum of human life. The answers may be very different, but they all aim fundamentally at fuller self-realisation. Even in sensuality we try to assert ourselves in enjoying the sense objects. It is not the objects themselves that we want; it is to possess them and make them our own as a means to satisfy this craving for self-realisation.

But this is to misread this inner urge; we cannot realise ourselves fully in this way, because in doing so we have to trample on the higher part of our personality, and the realisation which we do attain is unsatisfying and temporary and leads to suffering. The instincts are only the raw energy in the mind, but capable of being harnessed to become a great creative force within the personality. And the great Teachers remind us that our most important development is the development of character.

Our character is not absolutely fixed. It develops itself and it changes. Have we really got free will? It is a difficult question. Some will say that we are completely free; some will say that we are entirely bound by circumstances and by the law of causation. The answer which is adopted in practice, based on common sense, is that we have a degree of freedom.

To some extent our freedom is limited by our own character. Our desires, our prejudices, our preconceptions, all limit our freedom of choice. But this character itself can be modified. We modify it in fact by every decision that we take in life, however insignificant that modification may seem. In this way we have a degree of freedom and we can increase that freedom by developing our own character. The non-dual classical text, the Yoga Vasishtha, speaks of the past karma in the form of the residue of past thinking, past habits, past prejudices in the personality, and the present endeavour in action and thought, as being like two rams which are continually fighting with each other. Sometimes one seems to overcome, sometimes the other; but all the time the present endeavour is changing the situation, changing the character.

In this sense we do have freedom; we can decide now what lines we will live on, what direction our life will take. Our personality represents that Self which is trying to realise itself continually, and by developing it we can work towards that freedom of thought and action which we desire. True Self-realisation in action is that which realises the whole Self and not merely a partial aspect of it.

We have therefore to harmonise the conflicting elements within our own being and to create something worthwhile out of them. In this sense the problem of good and evil, of what course of action it is right for us to take, arises not only in society, but even for one who lives completely isolated on a desert island. All of us have this dilemma.

But why is it that the good life enables us to realise ourselves more truly than the bad life? The reason is that the bad life is disharmonious and anarchical. It is the life of a personality at war within itself. It is against reason and its only policy is a policy of revolt, revolt against authority or against what is right. As such, it is really only a protest. It is essentially destructive. It aims to get rid of its guilt by destroying what is good; but in trying to silence conscience and to subvert reason it is trying to destroy another part of the same personality of which it is a part; it can never finally succeed.

The soul of each and every individual knows intuitively what is right. Morality is the quest for harmony within the personality; it is the search for that which will satisfy the whole of our personality and not merely one aspect of it. It is the realisation of the whole Self, so that all our smaller ends are taken up and embraced in larger ends. In the Bhagavad Gita it speaks of these two attitudes as the life of the lower self and the life of the higher self; and from the yogic point of view ultimately the life of the higher self, is the means to the highest Self-realisation.

How is this realisation to be achieved? How is the raw energy of the instincts and lower urges to be harnessed and used? The secret lies in the will. Will is the faculty by which Self-realisation is achieved in action. It is the most creative faculty of the human personality. By means of will and imagination used rightly, we can transform our personality and can create first inwardly, and then in the outer sphere, forms and influences of beauty and value. In fact, even the ordinary person in all their voluntary thought and action, is trying to achieve a form of Self-realisation. Every time we use our will we are trying to assert ourselves in some form or another. But the attempt to impose our will on outer objects is a mistake. The right field for the exercise of the will is within our own personality.

By making the inner changes there and transforming our character into a powerhouse of light and peace, we will then be in a position to create the highest thoughts, and thought is a much more potent agent and influence in the world than direct action. So long as the moral struggle within the personality is not won, and inner peace has not been restored, any outer efforts will ultimately serve only to reflect the inner discord. This is the lesson of history’s conquerors, like Napoleon and Alexander. These were people of tremendous will-power, energy and activity, but they had not harmonised their own personalities, and their energy merely became enslaved to the power urges and ambitions of their own lower minds.

Therefore the will is to be used to transform and redirect one’s own raw instincts in the personality, to channel them creatively and not destructively. The aim is to control the mind and render it concentrated and tranquil so that it can be receptive to truth, in a spirit of impartiality, even if that truth goes against one’s fondest wishes. This is true enlightenment. It is not to create an artificial state, but to allow the mind to manifest the highest of which it is capable. As Lorenzo says to Jessica in the fifth act of The Merchant of Venice: ‘Such harmony is in immortal souls, but whilst this muddy vesture of decay doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.’ The harmony is already there, but it is drowned in the discord of the conflicting desires and passions of the raw mind. The aim of the non-dual teachings is to enable the individual to silence this discord and to reveal the inner harmony.

What then are the first practical steps in using and training the will so that it can become an agent to transform the personality? The first step is to have a daily meditation period. To sit in meditation and to practise, first of all, deep breathing; take eleven deep breaths, silencing the mind and concentrating on the breath. Deep breathing has a great effect in calming and silencing the mind. If distractions come, then to lead the mind gently back to the practice, and then to focus the mind on a text. One such text is:

OM. I AM THE MASTER OF MY MIND.

THE SOURCE OF PEACE AND LIGHT IS WITHIN ME.

OM

The word OM which is used at the beginning and end of the meditation text in Yoga is a symbol of God, of the Highest, of Truth, but without any connotations of any particular creed or religion. It is a universal name of God. So to focus the mind on the meditation text for ten minutes or longer if one can, and then, after the meditation, to review one’s personality and life objectively. To take one fault that one finds in oneself and to resolve to overcome it; then to meditate upon the opposite virtue for a few minutes.

It may seem that these are very small and trivial steps, but in this way the course of the mental life can begin to be changed and we can make the first moves in transforming the personality into an ally instead of a battlefield. Great transformations start with small steps, and it is much more important to make daily sustained efforts rather than making superhuman exertions which do not last very long. Let us conclude with some lines on this same topic from the Katha Upanishad: ‘One is the good, another is the pleasant; these two, serving different ends, bind human beings. Happiness comes to those who choose the good; those who choose the merely pleasant forfeit the true end.’

A.M.H.