Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 77

Poem 77

As it acts in the world, the Tao

is like the bending of a bow.

The top is bent downward;

the bottom is bent up.

It adjusts excess and deficiency

so that there is perfect balance.

It takes from what is too much

and gives to what isn't enough.

Those who try to control,

who use force to protect their power,

go against the direction of the Tao.

They take from those who don't have enough

and give to those who have far too much.

The Master can keep giving

because there is no end to her wealth.

She acts without expectation,

succeeds without taking credit,

and doesn't think that she is better

than anyone else.

Commentary

Oscar Wilde in his play The Importance of Being Ernest has one of his characters declare with respect to the pure and simple truth of things that "the truth is rarely pure and never simple."  In a politics that prizes soundbites over nuanced and careful statements, it is hard to know what the truth of any particular situation is.  Soundbites simplify things far too readily and easily and in doing so warp the truth beyond all recognition.  There are at least two sides to every story as the cliche runs.  Finding that elusive balance with respect to life is a task each one of us has to face in the course of our existence.  Understatement and exaggeration are often much abused by those in power to convince their followers.

It takes much discernment, a process of deliberate and even critical reflection upon one's perception of life, to arrive at balance, to arrive as it were at a "viewing point" where one can calmly assess the journey up to that point and at least some of the pathway that lies before us.  I often like to call this "vantage point," my "still point," my "centre of gravity" and even my "centre of equanimity."  The same with any crisis in our lives, or at the time of a big decision, what we most need is the power of discernment a skill much advised by St Ignatius of Loyola and the Jesuit Order which he founded.

And so let us return to the image in our first stanza above, namely the balanced distribution of force throughout the action of a bow and arrow.  I especially like the last two lines of this first stanza that run:  It takes from what is too much//and gives to what isn't enough.  Indeed, it is hard to see any such balance at work in the world, especially in the financial sectors.

Forcing control really never works out in the end - it may in the immediate future, but never in the long-term future.  Most oppressed peoples do eventually, often after much suffering and blood loss, manage to attain their freedom.  Micro-management in a work situation is often used by very poor managers who like to over-criticise and over-supervise their "underlings" and they proceed as if they have all the answers.  There is much room for the balance of the Tao in most work places.

Again, our third stanza proceeds by way of hyperbole and exaggeration.  There is much paradox in the sentiment that the Master or Mistress "can keep giving" as "there is no end to her wealth."  She is also exceedingly modest and when she succeeds at anything she never wishes to take any credit for her good action.  Again, this strikes the present writer as complete wishful thinking.  Yet, in the context of the whole poem, and, indeed, in the context of the whole book, we are ready to cut the author some slack and say, "Well, yes, I could possibly go along with a little of that, but it is completely contrary to my experience."

In conclusion, then, when we meditate, we should be open to balance and perspective as we proceed. Here's praying that both of these qualities, balance and perspective, will rule in our lives.  Namaste, friends and thanks for reading.

Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 54

Poem 54

Whoever is planted in the Tao

will not be rooted up.

Whoever embraces the Tao

will not slip away.

Her name will be held in honor

from generation to generation.

Let the Tao be present in your life

and you will become genuine.

Let it be present in your family

and your family will flourish.

Let it be present in your country

and your country will be an example

to all countries in the world.

Let it be present in the universe

and the universe will sing.

How do I know this is true?

By looking inside myself.

Commentary

Random stones on a random street, Prague, February, 2016

One of the abiding questions that has always intrigued me is how progress is measured.  As a teacher I am well used to setting examinations and correcting them.  As a student myself of one thing or another for the most of my life I have obviously subjected myself to such assessments, too.  Further, most workplaces insist on certain levels of self-assessment these days.  It can be quite easy to measure specific things without a doubt, like temperature, air pressure, blood pressure, water pressure, traffic speed, acceleration and so on.  Likewise, our measurements of such forces have become more refined and more precise as society progresses.  We can ask many questions with respect to progress and measuring it.  One such question, among many, we can ask is whether we can accurately measure intelligence? The answer is in the affirmative, but first we have to agree on what we mean by intelligence. With the ground-breaking psychologist, Daniel Goleman, most educationists and psychologists agree that traditional IQ tests are pretty restrictive and restricting and are only measuring a very narrow range of native intelliegence.  Goleman and others now recognise some nine forms of intelligence, and indeed there may be more.  Furthermore, there have also been many geniuses who failed miserably at school, not because they were unintelligent or stupid, but essentially because they did not learn in the restricting ways most school systems require.

That leads us on to whether we can measure our emotions and feelings.  How can we measure compassion and loving kindness, or even our love for one another or for a particular friend or sweetheart or our attraction to this, that or the other piece of art or sculpture or architecture or music?  There are so many immeasurable things - indeed, we often call them priceless as we cannot fix any monetary value to these works of art, to these cultural entities - that we humans are caught up in by the sheer accident of our birth. 

Girl with here dog, Prague, February, 2016

The further question, a big existential question for this writer here, is how do I measure my spiritual progress at all?  I have read many philosophy, theology and spiritual books in my time - certainly since I was 18 and went to college - and am still reading them, and yet at a certain level I feel as far away from my goal as I ever did at the age of 58.  Progress along the spiritual path is often very hard for me to measure at all.  Sometimes I wonder if I have really made progress at all? One day I feel that I have comprehended this or that deep truth, experienced this or that spiritual delight, and then, to my utter disappointment, these small comprehensions and minute illuminations seemed to have slipped away overnight into the ether upon waking the following day.  It's as if I was back at the beginning again and had to struggle on and find new and more compelling experiences and insights. (I am, of course, here reminded of T.S. Eliot's great spiritual insight that "We shall not cease from exploration//And the end of our exploring//Will be to arrive where we started//And know the place for the first time." In other words, I often take a little encouragement from these profound words, and realise that my knowledge has deepened rather than increased! "Little Gidding")

Classical Musician, Prague, Feb, 2016

As I sit here now I remember all the people who impressed me in my life with their spiritual commitment or  insights.  I think of my mother for her spiritual strength, a woman who never let life get here down, who quite simply was willing to begin again and again everyday, literally to start the struggle to survive and to provide for her family over and over on a daily basis.  Further, I think of the kindness of the old people I knew as a child who lovingly gave us a few coins for doing this or that message for them and I recall their kind words. I remember the older boy, Lar Cranny, who brought me to the children's hospital when I was badly bitten by a dog when I was a boy of 6 or 7 years.  Poor Lar, who became a teacher like myself, is now dead, R.I.P., having been tragically killed in a motor accident some years ago. I remember how my father refused to be victimised by the illness of polio through which he lost the use of his right arm and how he kept going for us his children.  I recall the wisdom of our teachers at school and college.  Those who influenced me spiritually I can list here as Rev Dr. Paddy Wallace, a wonderful visionary and prophet, and Rev Dr. Michael-Paul Gallagher S.J. who taught me how to meditate, Rev. Dr. Brian McNamara, S.J. who taught me how to wrestle with even the most complicated of theologies and Rev Dr John Macken who taught me to appreciate the way of "wise ignorance" or what St Augustine called the "docta ignorantia."  John had that gift in abundance and his gentle scholarly soul led me through many intricacies is post-graduate theology.  I tried to internalise all the lessons these wonderful people have taught me in my life, and yet as I go on, I find life is still somewhat of a struggle, that the journey continues.  I recall here, Robert Frost's famous answer to the question as to what he had learnt from life as being simply, "It goes on!"  Yes, life goes on, and that is surely both its beauty and its challenge at one and the same time.  All we hold dear would be so much superficial dressing were it not for suffering and death, two realities which raise the value of human life in its fragility to the nth power as it were.

Love is.... Prague, Feb, 2016

What keeps the heart going?  What keeps us from giving up? Each of us must, of necessity have some aim or a goal in life; have some reason to get out of bed in the morning; have some courage to keep going no matter what the cost; have some hope in the face of despair - maybe that's what Jean-Paul Sartre meant when he said that life begins on the far side of despair?; have some reason to live and some reason to die. We have to put down roots somewhere, otherwise we will wither and die all too quickly.  That's why commitment to values, to religions, to deeply held beliefs even outside the religious fold, to goals and visions to give us courage to keep going are so important in the human prject of making sense of our little brittlr lives.  That's why our Taoist poet above calls upon us "to be rooted in the Tao," to work at getting a spiritual centre, a Still Point of being to give us focus in our lives so that we can carry on.

It often seems to me that spiritual progress can be somewhat cyclic and that it can lead us further down (depth psychology or depth spirituality) into the profundity of mystery or further up (height psychlogy or height spirituality) into the sublimity or heights of mystery. In that cyclic journey it can seem that one is returning to the same place. (See quotation from T.S. Eliot above)  I think here of the analogy of the spiral staircase - as one is either going up or down, it can often seem as it one is going around and around in the same space and yet that is the deception.  One is in fact moving - either up or down - while all the time on the journey, it may seem as if no progress is being made.

Here, I would like to finish with a very siritual poem - one of my all time favourites by a contemporary Irish poet, whom it has been my privilege to meet many times in my life, namely Brendan Kennelly - which sums up for me the heart of all great spiritualities and in our particular sense what our Taoist poet has been expressing so well in the above stanzas.  

Once again, I invite the reader to read the above Taoist poem as reflectively as possible and then do the same for this equally beautiful and equally spiritual modern poem:

Begin

Begin again to the summoning birds
to the sight of the light at the window,

begin to the roar of morning traffic

all along Pembroke Road.

Every beginning is a promise

born in light and dying in dark

determination and exaltation of springtime

flowering the way to work.

Begin to the pageant of queuing girls

the arrogant loneliness of swans in the canal

bridges linking the past and future

old friends passing though with us still.

Begin to the loneliness that cannot end

since it perhaps is what makes us begin,

begin to wonder at unknown faces

at crying birds in the sudden rain

at branches stark in the willing sunlight

at seagulls foraging for bread

at couples sharing a sunny secret

alone together while making good.

Though we live in a world that dreams of ending

that always seems about to give in

something that will not acknowledge conclusion

insists that we forever begin.

— From The Essential Brendan Kennelly

Swans, Prague, February, 2016

Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 48

Poem 48

In pursuit of knowledge,
every day something is added.
In the practice of the Tao,
every day something is dropped.

Less and less do you need to force things,

until finally you arrive at non-action.

When nothing is done,

nothing is left undone.

True mastery can be gained

by letting things go their own way.

It can't be gained by interfering.

Commentary

Pair of swans, Bull Island, January 2016

Once again, this current poem rehearses all the old themes.  However, that need not distract us, as such is the way all religious writings work, and indeed all great literature works. Themes will be repeated, but almost always in different ways, in different contexts and with different words.  T.S. Eliot underlined that same point with respect to the themes he returned to often in his own oeuvre. 

The Taoist oppositional tension is returned to in Poem 48 above, but this time the opposition is that between addition and subtraction.  Indeed, as a teacher of basic mathematics at secondary school level here in Ireland, I am aware that philosophically these are two inextricably related operations and that subtraction can be looked upon as adding a negative number.  This, in my opinion,  is a good example of how inextricable opposites are in actuality, and that to vere to either extreme is to do some damage to the actual reality of the healthy tension or balance of opposition.  Those of you who have some knowledge of mathematics will know that another example of oppositional operations are those of multiplication and division where division can be seen as the operation of multiplication by a fraction.  Now, to return to poem 48 above, our author is talking about adding to knowledge bit by inexhaustible bit and so on ad infinitum, and yet, he or she sees that, in a way, a lot of unnecessary and weighty information will have to be dropped or subtracted. Indeed, there is much to be learnt here by twenty first century humankind who perdure in a world in which we are literally awash with information.  Indeed, we might quite plausibly push our metaphor further by saying that we are constantly being hit by a tsunami of information on a daily basis in that same world.  One only has to google a topic or a question on that topic to know that one can get literally hundreds and thousands, or more even, of possible answers. Scholars tell us that we are in an era of information overload, and that what is needed is interpretation or analysis skills of that data.  We may be awash with information but we are literally bereft of secure ground on which to anchor our ship of interpretation, and we are often equipped with poor critical and analytical skills to engage profitably and critically with the data.

Unity, Bull Island, January, 2016

A parent remarked to me recently that her second son "carries the weight of the world on his shoulders" while her eldest does not "sweat the small stuff" at all.  Undoubtedly, what the younger lad needs to do is to "let go" or to "subtract" or "take away" or to "get rid of" the small stuff.  This is what our Taoist poem is about above, that is, the subtraction of all that weight from our shoulders, all that heavy unnecessary knowledge.  Knowledge must lead us to the truth, that is, in any deep and reasonable understanding of epistemology, knowledge must not drown us in a sea of confusion, but rather philosophically enlighten our paths to the truth.  This is what we are about in counselling and in psychotherapy.  As a part-time counsellor in my own school, this is one way in which I see my role.  In fact, I will be working with the second boy I have adverted to in the opening sentence of this present paragraph.  That is to say, one of the things I will try to elucidate for the young man is his path to self-discovery by enabling his to throw off some of that weight - how to enable him to subtract or take away some of the load he is carrying.  Admittedly, these weights may not be burdens of knowledge, but they most certainly will be burdens of negative thoughts which are themselves negative information. My task will be to enable the young man to get a handle on what is brdening him, to equip him with the tools to let go of the load he is carrying.  Indeed, in that task, I am a mere channel through which the client is enabled to unburden himself of his load.

Avoiding Passivity

Most people who engage with spirituality, or who involve themselves in meditation practices, or what is more popularly called practices of mindfulness these days, are aware of the criticism levelled at such practitioners that they are passive actors in a world that requires a greater active involvement.  Again, paradoxically, stillness of soul and centeredness of being lead to a more directed and profitable engagement with the world. Such so-called passivity is exactly what was condemned by the Roman Catholic Church as the heresy of quietism which elevated contemplation over actual mental engagement or meditation on scriptural or other spiritual texts or even oral prayer.  When I studied the history of mystical theology and spirituality many decades ago we learnt that this practice of quietism was condemned by Pope Innocent XI in 1687. This quietist heresy (or that heresy which led the mind into sheer passivity, according to officialdom) was seen to consist of wrongly elevating "contemplation" over "meditation," intellectual stillness over vocal prayer, and interior passivity over pious action.  Once again, such concerns are merely fuelled by considerations of control and power (closely linked to the ego, no doubt) rather than with, on the one hand, the paradoxical powerfulness of silence, meditation and contemplation and, on the other, the directedness of still-pointedness and focus in meditation or mindfulness.

Once again, by way of concluding these few words, I should like to invite the reader to peruse the above poem again and to let whatever word or phrase offer itself to you as a mantra for a five minute period of still-pointed or focussed meditation or mindfulness.

Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 19

                                                                              19

Throw away holiness and wisdom,

and people will be a hundred times happier.

Throw away morality and justice,

and people will do the right thing.

Throw away industry and profit,

and there won't be any thieves.

If these three aren't enough,

just stay at the centre of the circle

and let all things take their course.

Commentary

The Tao Te Ching, like all serious books of wisdom, works by way of paradoxes and the setting up of oppositional tensions between ideas.  Why? Well, quite simply, wisdom, like truth,  is "rarely pure and never simple.” (That quotation on truth comes from The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde).  John Keats implies this same understanding when he says that we humans must make sense of life's deeper mysteries by what he termed a process of "negative capability" that he described quite paradoxically as that attitude of mind "when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason."  One could say that this encapsulates something similar to what Eastern spiritualities and practices, especially Zen, mean by the practice of contemplating koans.

Sand on Donabate Beach, summer 2015

With that simple introduction, let us reflect on the above stanzas of Poem 19.  Holiness and Wisdom which parade themselves as proclaiming the answers to big questions are mere sham and pretence.  Real wisdom and holiness don't parade themselves in front of others and belong to a natural and real humility.  Morality and Justice, when likewise paraded before others inasmuch as they signal a superficial application of both virtues, are also mere sham and pretence.  A society where "industry" and "profit" are all that count will inevitable invite more people to commit crime out of sheer frustration at being at the bottom of the heap.

The writer of these stanzas calls the reader back to the centre point or the still point of being where the meditator, the contemplator or the disciple will achieve a state of equanimity, an attitude of mind that is untroubled by life's vagaries.

I will finish this brief post with my usual invitation to the reader to reflect on the above stanzas in a meditative way and allow a phrase or word from those stanzas to stir the spirit within.  Happy meditating.

NAMASTE

Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 16

16

Empty your mind of all thoughts.

Let your heart be at peace.

Watch the turmoil of beings,

but contemplate their return.

Each separate being in the universe

returns to the common source.

Returning to the source is serenity.

If you don't realise the source,

you stumble in confusion and sorrow.

When you realise where you com from,

you naturally become tolerant,

disinterested, amused,

kindhearted as a grandmother,

dignified as a king.

Immersed in the wonder of the Tao,

you can deal with whatever life brings you,

and when death comes, you are ready.

Reflection

Once again, the writers of the Tao Te Ching return to an old and constant theme, namely the achieving of a state of emptiness.  The writer of the above poet recommends that his hearers and readers empty their mind of thoughts.  The intention is to slow down the racing thoughts, to still the mind and eventually with practice to empty it of the distractions of continuous and interrupting thoughts.  The whole effort of meditation then is to allow the meditator to become an observer of life and of the thoughts that come and go, and in so observing to get beyond them to a state of stillness or emptiness or serenity.  Some modern traditions call the meditator the Witness.  This stillness or emptiness or serenity allows the meditator to be objective and to watch unmoved and not to become taken in by the turmoil of the lives and minds  of those who chase the impulses and ambitions of the ego.

Another word for meditation is contemplation.  In some traditions, like that of the spirituality associated with the Roman Catholic Church, these two words represent different approaches to prayer.  Here, I am using them synonymously and interchangeably.   There are many metaphors used for the path to the state of Enlightenment: striving to reach the Still Point; attempting to experience true emptiness; the return journey to the source or walking the path to serenity.  In our dying and death we will certainly be entering the portals leading to Serenity if we have the courage to embrace it.  We have all originally come from the one and the same source, whatever that may be, whether we call it by the name of God or any other appellation, and indeed we will all return to it at the last breath of our mortal lives. Realising that both our source and destination are the same for every sentient and conscious being, we readily leave aside all confusion and sorrow, become way more tolerant and compassionate to both self and others, objective, amused even, and kindhearted as "a grandmother." 

I have already mentioned many times in these pages the old quotation that Plato attributed to Socrates, namely that all true philosophy begins in wonder.  It is not very unusual then  - given the links between what we may term the perennial or practical wisdom side of philosophy on the one hand and spirituality and religion on the other -  that the Tao Te Ching should declare that once the disciples of meditation have immersed themselves in this basic attitude of wonder that they will be able to much more easily deal with whatever "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" life throws at them.  Moreover, our Taoist poet maintains that "when death comes" these disciples of the Way/Tao will be ready.

By way of conclusion, I once again invite the reader to peruse the above poem and allow a word, phrase or line to present itself as a mantra for a five or ten minute meditation period. 

Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 10

Can you coax your mind from its wandering

and keep to the original oneness?

Can you let your body become

supple as a newborn child's?

Can you cleanse your inner vision

until you see nothing but light?

Can you love people and lead them

without imposing your will?

Can you deal with the most vital matters

by letting events take their course?

Can you step back from your own mind

and thus understand all things?

Giving birth and nourishing,

having without possessing,

acting with no expectations,

leading and not trying to control:

This is the supreme virtue.

Commentary/Reflections

One of the central problems experienced by the neophyte meditator is that of all the mental distractions that race through the human mind when one attempts to still it.  This is what the poet means above by his term "the wandering mind." In that field of thought called philosophy of mind, there is an interesting question: Do our thoughts think us or do we think our thoughts?  That question never really engaged me early in my life even though I had heard it discussed in that area of philosophy concerned with the nature of the mind. However, it did hit me very strongly and existentially when I had a major breakdown, or indeed a break-through really, at the age of forty - that is, at the time of the typical midlife crisis brought to a point where Yeats says, "the centre cannot hold."  It was then that I experienced my mind being literally hijacked by my thoughts.  The centre could not hold whatsoever: the hub of control had totally disintegrated and the spokes of identity had shattered and scattered into chaos.  Thoughts ran riot in my mind and there was no controlling them.  The nerve-centre of my identity, or if you like, the core of my self had undergone a meltdown.  

Good mental health essentially means that the person is on the way to establishing an identity that is individuated (Jung), integrated (Storr) or actualized (Maslow et al).  In other words the person is as fully their real or true self as is possible: metaphorically we are a series of spokes (character qualities and traits) centred around a hub called the "Real Self" rotating on a unique path. None of us probably ever reaches the acme point in that process. Spiritually, the parallel term in Eastern philosophy would be "the enlightened mind."  The poem above is as deep as can be and has many layers of meaning as the language struggles to express the spiritual quest of life. Quieting or stilling the mind is a wonderful metaphor for getting under the chaos that our unstilled mind can be.  Spiritual writers speak about the task of achieving a Still Point below that agitated surface of existence.  In the above poem, this task is expressed in the words "original oneness."  Each couplet is another way of expressing the search for this elusive Still Point.

If a true pilgrim of the way or a faithful disciple of enlightenment achieves a position of leadership s/he will be able to "love people and lead them without imposing their will."  In other words, their ego will be firmly under control and integrated into their personality. They will have no need for petty jealousies, for "getting their pound of flesh," for settling old scores, for one-up-man-ship of any kind or for any sort of micro-management.  They will be visionary leaders able to bring their staff with them while allowing everyone the freedom to grow and to succeed on their own terms without interference.  Stepping back and not wishing to control things is central to good spiritual and indeed psychological development. We all learn quite quickly that the only people we can change are ourselves, never ever anyone else.  Some of us only learn that lesson painfully and the ego-ridden person makes that mistake all too often. And so, in light of these comments, the following lines from the above poem are worth repeating and reflecting on here:

Can you deal with the most vital matters

by letting events take their course?

Can you step back from your own mind

and thus understand all things?

Another way of saying this is that the person further on the road to enlightenment is getting ever more detached from the non-essential things of life; is getting nearer to that elusive Still Point of being; that primordial state of being our Taoist poem calls "the original oneness."

Journal of a Soul 23

Humpty Dumpty Has A Great Fall

Sunset, Malahide, Co Dublin, June 2013

When we are stressed, things begin to shatter and scatter all over the place.  It is as if the windscreen of our view on the world has shattered into a million pieces.  We might even recall the apt words from W.B. Yeats' poem The Second Coming: "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."  Yeats was, of course, referring to a global crisis or disintegration of civilization in the wake of the First World War. The next line, which most people do not quote, strongly confirms  this truth: "mere anarchy is loosed upon the world." However, perhaps the idea of personal disintegration is as horrible an experience or fear as that of the more global disintegration of the outer world.  Yeats had summed up wonderfully in these first quoted words the experience of either inner (micro or personal) or outer (macro or global) disintegration.  One thing is sure, disintegration is a horrifying experience as anyone who has experienced any form of break down or falling apart will aver.

Putting Humpty Dumpty Together Again

We humans are at base a contradictory and paradoxical sort.  We are, on the one hand driven by greed, envy, anger or ego to conquer, desecrate, rip apart and destroy both things and other sentient beings, and, on the other hand, we are inspired by justice, generosity, pity or love to help, consecrate, embrace, lift up and bind together both things and other sentient beings.  Those of us who are by nature optimists believe that the second human impulse to the good vastly outweighs the former, the impulse to evil.  In other words we are here brought back to the inevitable mystery of squaring good with evil.  Freud spoke about these in terms of The Desire to Live: Eros and The Desire to Die: Thanatos.  Indeed, in speaking so, he was commenting on the basic paradoxical nature of the human condition.

Meditation Helps Put Humpty Together

I better begin this paragraph with a caveat which I will write is capitals here: THERE SIMPLY IS NO EASY ANSWER: THERE IS NO PANACEA.  Meditation is no panacea, no instant quick fix.  Rather it is a help, a sort of brush to help us clean up the breakages of our life - excuse the rather awkward metaphor here.  There is a centre of agency, a Still Point, a Seat where the Observer or Witness sits and from which we calmly review the scattered and broken pieces of our life.  As one who tries his best to pull himself together, I find that time spent in meditation helps me to "get my act together,"  a very common metaphor indeed, but nonetheless very true.  Meditation has to be practised on an on-going and regular basis to give one equanimity and peace of mind where things somehow hold together or cohere for us as we go through our daily tasks.  One won't feel 100% most of the time, if ever, but certainly  you will not be in the failure or no grade stakes where everything shatters completely.

My shadow, June 2013

Michael A. Singer in The Untethered Soul (See last post for details of this book and a link to his home page) suggests that we must move from "an outer solution consciousness" to "an inner solution consciousness" (p. 16).  He goes on to stress that there is a part in all of us that can "actually abstract from your own melodrama.  You can watch yourself be jealous or angry..." (p.16)  I admit that this is far easier said than done.  If one has fallen apart there is no amount of meditating that will bring you back together.  You may have to have medical intervention first, as I did, before I had gained enough stability to sail alone and embrace meditation as a repaired yacht might sail anew into the wind.  I have dealt with students with ASD and OCD where CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) had not a hope of being deployed until the lads had been brought to stability by psychiatric intervention.  Hence,  my caveat in the first few lines of this paragraph.  However, once this caveat has been accepted, reality and commonsense being equally embraced, meditation, then and then only can and does work wonders.

Pointed Questions on the Road to the Still Point or Observer's Seat

Singer refers to one of his teachers Romana Maharshi (1879-1950) who used to recommend that the way to attain inner freedom was to "continuously and sincerely" ask the question "who am I" as you meditate. (p. 23)  In this way, I believe, that such questioning will bring one ever nearer the Still Point of Being or the Observer's Seat (my metaphor for SP).  To finish this post I'm going to use the questions I will use for my meditation session immediately after writing this post:

• Who am I that sits here?
• Who is the thinker of these thoughts?
• Who is the feeler of these feelings?
• Who is feeling this sadness that now inhabits my soul?
• Who is experiencing this confusion?
• Who is feeling this fear?
• Who is feeling this love?
• Who is the one who asks these questions?
• Who, O who is this "I"?

And so on, ever inward to the Still Point... ah but the journey is so long and so slow... caveat, caveat... caveat...

Journal of a Soul 22

The Real Me?

Malahide, Co Dublin just after sunset, June 2013

I ended my last post with a host of questions as regards who the real me is:  "Is the real me or true self the angry me, the selfish me, the happy me, the compassionate me, the helpful me, the moody me, the joyful me, the suffering me, the moaning me, the selfless me, the generous me, the mean me etc?" 

A short book, entitled The Untethered Soul: A Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael A. Singer (New Harbinger Publications, 2007) suggests that there is an "inner voice" or even "voices" inside our heads that are constantly in conversation with us.  Now I readily admit here that there are authors, too, like R Carter (and unlike Singer) who argue that there are multiple selves as well as multiple voices.  (See Multiplicity: The New Science of Personality that argues the case for multiple selves, not just multiple voices. London: Little, Brown, 2008).  Now, without going into any lengthy arguments, I will dismiss the second proposal here by saying solely that it is extremely counter-intuitive and very much lacking in common sense.  

Let me quote Singer more fully here, and then make some comments on his fundamental proposal or principle on which his whole approach to self and spirituality is built:

There is nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind - you are the one who hears it.  If you don't understand this, you will try to figure out which of the many things the voice says is really you.  People go through changes in the name of "trying to find myself".  They want to discover which of these voices, which of these aspects of their personality, is who they really are.  The answer is simple:  None of them.  (Op.cit., p.10)

Singer is a Yoga Master and Meditation Leader acknowledged worldwide. What he is saying here is that in meditation the "I" (The Real Self, not the Ego!!) becomes the Observer, the Seer, or what Ken Wilber calls the Witness or what the Jesuit Anthony de Mello calls the Centre Point of Awareness and others the Still Point.  In that Still Point, the great monk meditator Thomas Keating says we sit like underwater observers looking up at the bottom of the surface of the river as boats (thoughts and distractions) float by above our heads.  We do not get distracted by any of these thoughts and feelings - those many, many boats.  No, we just observe them, and in observing them we acknowledge them and just let them drift off down the stream in such a way that we never become obsessed with them.  We just let them go.  Singer says that we are the One (the Real Inner Me) who hears whatever voice comes up from our preconscious or unconscious; the One who acknowledges it; observes it; lets it go.  If images come up, we are the One who sees them; visualizes them; acknowledges them; lets them go.  Again, let us finish this post by listening once again to the wise and practical words of this great teacher, Michael Singer.  As we enter any period of meditation, no matter how long or how short, we might do well to momentarily recall the substance of the following words:

You are the one inside [your head] that notices the voice [or voices] talking... That is the way out.  The one inside, who is aware that you are always talking to yourself about yourself, is always silent.  It is a doorway to the depths of your being to be aware that you are watching [or listening]. (Ibid., p. 13)

My meditation Candle

The thing that appeals to me here is the principle of the Observer or Witness who is very much a centre of Unity, a one-pointedness, always a singularity, never a plurality.  It is the singular vision or the singular hearing of the Witness that gives unity to the Self.  Hence my introduction above that insists that any psychology which proposes a plurality of selves is destined to end up not alone in sheer confusion cognitively for the poor searcher (or patient or client) but also in sheer mental disintegration or schizophrenia for the same poor soul.

Meditation or mindfulness, coming as it does from that one-pointedness of awareness, is, from my reading and  from my practical experience, the key, not alone to healing the myriad manifestations of anxiety we experience in our modern world,  but is also the main avenue in providing us with no little meaning in our lives.

You may read about Michael Singer and, indeed, read about and perhaps even buy or get a loan of his small but powerful book:  Singer.