Time and Eternity
Inner Dialogues on the Nature of Spiritual Experience
By
Paul Brocklehurst
Dialogue
2: What happened to me when I first heard about it
Dialogue
3: Models of reality, detachment & love
Dialogue
5: Meditation, enlightenment and disillusionment
Dialogue
7: Philosophy, Language and Darwinism
Dialogue
9: Maps, detachment, Samadhi, sex and suffering
Dialogue
10: Personal experiences - faith
If I was to ask you, "What do people believe concerning the nature
of time?" ...I think you would probably agree that most people believe
that time continues in a linear way and that, although the past has already
happened, the future has not yet happened and thus remains undecided....
Well, some years ago I came across another way of understanding time
which is different and has been almost completely ignored. This alternative
model is cyclical... it is a model in which it is understood that the
"time-line" is in fact a very big circle. In this model, time itself
has no beginning and no end; the future and the past are joined and so if you
were able to travel in an imaginary time-machine far enough into the distant
past, it would gradually become apparent that you were also, simultaneously,
arriving in the future. Ultimately, if you went far enough in either direction,
you would end up back in the present..... a bit like if you travel in an
aeroplane around the world, you end up where you started.
When you say the future and the past are joined, that
would imply a perfect circle. Do you really mean that?
A perfect circle, yes, I do mean that. It's worth emphasising that
this model is not describing the sort of cycle we experience, for example, with
seasons of the year... in which the same seasons recur, but with different
details to previous years. With respect to time itself, it means a perfect
circle. So, according to this model, whatever has happened in the past is bound
to happen again, identically in every way, eternally. This includes the whole
history and geography of the world and all that is in it, including
ourselves... down to the finest detail. This identical repetition is sometimes
referred to as "eternal recurrence".
What are the implications of this cyclical model of
time?
The main implication, of course, is that the future has already
happened. It is already determined (or "pre-determined"). Nothing can
be avoided, nothing can be changed, and nothing can be "improved".
It's a bit like a continuous-loop tape recording that just keeps on playing,
but never gets worn out.
This means also, that from the perspective of the entirety of time,
there is no final destination to arrive at and there is no ultimate purpose to
anything. We, as individuals, are nothing more than puppets of destiny...
actors in a predetermined, eternally repeating drama.
Such a model has profound social implications. In particular it implies
that ultimately we cannot hold people (or ourselves) responsible for their
actions.
I think most people
wouldn’t have a problem with the idea that things repeat, but the idea that the
repetition is completely identical is a bit hard to swallow! Most people would
say that we can learn from our past mistakes.
Yes,
but that is something different. …of course there are repetitions of events within
the cycle of time. Throughout the course of our lives we see numerous similar
patterns of events recurring in all sorts of ways, and we can learn from these
patterns and change our actions accordingly... but those are not repetitions of
the cycle of time itself.
By
asserting that cycle itself recurs, (and clearly this would require a time span
of many millions of years) the model implies that, from one cycle to the next,
there cannot be even the tiniest difference in the details of the
repetition...... every breath of air, every blade of grass and of course, we
too… would return and perform identical actions to what you have performed
innumerable times before… including having this discussion now! In fact, it would always be the same one
cycle.
Is there any way that we can actually experience time
as cyclical?
No, in fact I would say that we can't directly experience time at all.
All we can directly experience is what is with us here and now. So, this is
only a model, a way of interpreting what we perceive, just as the traditional,
straight-line model of time is also just a way of interpreting what we
perceive.
So, if it's only a model and if it can't be proved,
why do you think it is so important?
Because it allows us to interpret things in different ways.
In fact, both models fit our
subjective experience of events following on from one another. But the model of
cyclical time provides a more satisfactory explanation of how it may be
possible for people to experience certain things, including for example
premonitions and intuitions about future happenings, in a way that is simpler
and more satisfactory than that provided by the traditional model of time.
With the model of cyclical time, comes the possibility that these
aspects of human experience are as much affected by future events as by past
events and that our premonitions and intuitions are actually a form of memory
of the future.
But people's premonitions are often wrong.
Of course, just like memories of the past, these
"future-memories" too are incomplete and subject to distortions and interference.
They are thus not completely reliable. Nevertheless, the model of cyclical time
opens up the possibility that they not completely unreliable and,
provided we are cautious in how we interpret them, they may be able to provide
us with a lot of valuable information.
But perhaps more importantly, the model of cyclical time provides
answers to some of the deeper questions that human beings ask and it can help
us in other ways too.
Such as?
It can also help us to overcome feelings of arrogance and guilt, and the
tendency to blame. And it can enable us to develop unconditional love.
But is there not then a danger that, if we start to
believe the model of cyclical time, life would seem completely pointless and
worthless? I mean, if all we ever do is go round in circles...
No. Because from moment to moment, you would still continue to perceive
things in much the same way you always did.
When you focus on a small section of a very big circle, it appears very
similar to a straight line. It has a beginning and an end. Similarly, from a human, worldly perspective,
life naturally appears like a journey... with a beginning and an end. There is
always the subjective feeling of progress.
The new model just puts things into a somewhat different perspective.
From moment to moment, things still seem to matter. You still feel at least
partially responsible for what happens, and you'll still get angry and feel
guilty sometimes. But these feelings can no longer possess the same
significance or power that they once did.
------------------------------------------------
I want to ask some questions about yourself and your
own experiences. First of all I would like to ask how your understanding of
cyclical time and pre-destiny has affected the way you feel as a person?
Before I came across these ideas, I had always felt as though life was
very serious and I felt burdened by responsibility. My life also seemed very
precious and I was constantly driven by this anxiety that I mustn't waste it by
indulging in any form of trivial pursuit. I felt as though I had an important task
to do and a limited time in which to do it.
As I started to really understand the implications of the theory of
cyclical time all these feelings disappeared, and for the first time ever I
felt like I had space and time to relax and enjoy life. For a while there was a
sort of euphoria. It was just so nice that I no longer felt afraid of making
some terrible mistake or doing something terribly wrong. Instead, I found
myself in possession of an ever increasing faith that whatever is destined to
happen, in my life and in the world, will happen... Nothing that I can do will
change it, so there is no point worrying. My perception of myself as having
some sort of mission to save the world, completely disappeared. Instead, I
found myself just wanting to share the exciting new discovery with all my
friends.
And how did your friends respond?
Although I personally felt so much lighter and happier, most people
viewed the changes in a very negative light. My partner, with whom I had lived for
ten years, left me and prevented me having contact with my children, and my
parents and quite a few of my friends also seemed quite convinced that I'd gone
mad.
I've been told that one of the most disconcerting things about me was
that I no longer seemed worried or concerned about anything, and it appeared as
though I had become irresponsible. I guess my great enthusiasm to share this
new understanding of time may have also contributed to the less than positive
responses from my family and friends. At the time I had a naive expectation
that as soon as I told people about it, that they too would respond with the
same delight that I did. It came as quite a shock to me to realise that most
people were extremely hostile to such ideas, and I found it difficult to
understand why.
Now that I look back on those experiences, I can understand that I must
have seemed like some sort of religious convert and I'm sure my zeal and
enthusiasm served simply to turn people off. I doubt if anyone really listened
to what I had to say, and even if they had, I had not developed my
understanding of cyclical time and its ramifications sufficiently to be able to
explain it in a balanced and convincing way.
My attempts to explain these things to my friends and family did, however,
at least serve to make me acutely aware of the immense differences in our
outlooks on life. I began to realise that I had effectively been living in a
different world and to all intents and purposes, spoke a different language. I
started to really appreciate that what was useful to me was not necessarily of
any benefit to them at all. I guess these rather unexpected and unhappy
experiences prompted a major re-evaluation of my ideas about the role and
usefulness of spiritual knowledge.
Did you ever doubt your own sanity?
Well, I'd always doubted my sanity.
Previously, in my life I had always felt that there was an element of
madness inside me. It was as though I'd been possessed by this giant ego, and
no matter how I tried, I couldn't be free of it. Everything I did and said was
overshadowed by the feeling that "I" was the one who was doing it,
"I" was the one who was thinking it, or saying it. I had got to the
point where I hated the sound of my own voice. It was as though no matter how
hard I tried to act with humility and regard for other people, I was completely
unable to shake off this constant self-referencing and whatever I said always
sounded either arrogant or guilt ridden.
Then, all of a sudden it was like the demon that had possessed me had
gone! The ego was gone! And with it had gone the ugliness that I had always
felt the need to suppress and hide. I felt like, for the first time I could
speak with a sort of straightforward honesty.
I actually felt more sane, or perhaps, should I say, less insane than
ever before. It seems ironic that my
partner and, for that matter, most other people seemed to interpret the changes
completely the other way round.
At the time, you were also involved with a cult. What
effect do you think this had on the way people perceived you?
Probably an entirely negative effect. It was actually an organisation
called the "
I persevered with the Brahma Kumaris for nearly seven years, always
hoping that they would reformulate some of their philosophy to make it more
palatable to Westerners. Finally I decided that they had become more of a
burden than a benefit to me and so I left.
Looking back on things, I think a lot of people avoided me because of my
connection with them. But then, who knows? And anyway, ultimately it must have
been destined to have happened in that way. I must say, I don't have any
regrets. Indeed, the experience of those years spent in connection with the
Brahma Kumaris was very valuable and educational to me in many ways.
One of the interesting things I learned when I was with the BKs, was
that people can be willing to join up to an organisation, outwardly identify
with its philosophy and even teach it to other people, and yet even after years
of membership, not have the slightest understanding of its true implications.
Indeed I gradually became aware that for the majority of people in the Brahma
Kumaris the theory of cyclical time had almost no impact on them at all,
despite it being completely central to the BK philosophy. Most of them were in
the organisation because they liked it there and I guess that was all that
mattered to them.
Was that a surprise to you?
Yes. Somehow, in my naivety, I had always presumed that if people
identify with a group that propounds a particular philosophy, and they even go
round teaching the philosophy to other people, that the philosophy would at
least have some impact on them. But I suppose that unless the ground is ready
and all the conditions are right, the seeds simply don't germinate.
So what in particular do you think it was about you
and your life that had allowed these ideas to germinate so easily?
For me it was the right medicine at the right time.
I remember very vividly the experience when I was first told about the
theory of cyclical time. It was like someone had given me the one piece of the
jigsaw that enabled me to fit together all the other pieces that I already had.
It was as though there was only that one piece missing, and without it I had
been unable to move any further forward. I think I'd had all the other pieces
for several years. Some of them I had acquired in my teens when I spent a lot
of time experimenting with LSD and similar substances. Then more pieces came to me when I was about
twenty and first found out about Buddhism and Zen, and first started doing
meditation. Then I went for a period of several years where nothing much seemed
to happen; except that I was aware of a sort of pressure building up inside me
and a feeling that something big was going to come, but I didn't know what.
Then one day I was contacted by the Brahma Kumaris. I attended a talk
they were giving in
I knew, as soon as I read about it, that this was the piece of
information I had been missing. However, I didn't realise immediately quite
what sort of impact it would have. As it turned out, this last piece of the
jigsaw was a bit different to the other pieces.
In what way?
How can I put it? ...Most of the new things we learn in our lives sit
quite happily on top of the understandings we already have; so over the years
we build up an ever-more-detailed understanding of the world and how it works.
Now, although at first, the philosophy of cyclical time seemed to fit
very nicely into the understanding I already held, gradually I became aware
that it was affecting the foundations. It was as though they were becoming
dislodged and my whole world view was starting to fall apart.
What exactly do you mean by "foundations"
I mean my basic "core-beliefs" that had been provided by
language, culture and my early childhood experiences.
So, in one way, cyclical time was like the final piece of the jigsaw,
yet in another way it was like the last straw! Things were both slotting
together and falling apart, both at the same time. And that's exactly how it felt. On the one
hand there was great joy, and at the same time a sort of agony.
-------------------------------------------------
In our conversations so far I have noticed that you speak
of the concept of cyclical time as though an understanding of it is fundamental
to spiritual awareness. Yet, apart from the teachings of one or two Hindu sects
and also Nietzschian philosophy, the concept seems to
be entirely ignored. Do you believe that an understanding of cyclical time is
really essential, or can one see things from a spiritual or eternal perspective
without it?
All Societies in the world today make use of the concept of time; and in
all of them, the traditional (straight line) model is the default model. This
means that even though someone may never have thought about it in any depth,
their whole inherited worldview is likely to be built around this model.
Although the straight-line model is a hugely useful and practical model of time
for the ordinary activities of daily life, the danger is that its usefulness
causes the side-effect of making people believe (consciously or unconsciously)
that it is in some way ultimately correct.
If one adopts that traditional model of time and yet fails to see its
limitations, it becomes impossible to appreciate and have faith in the innate
perfection of all-that-is and one remains unable to go beyond value-judgments
or to develop an attitude of unconditional love.
Ultimately I would say that it is not necessary to understand cyclical
time; indeed, one doesn't really have to have any particular model of time at
all. But if one does make use of a model of time (and all of us do), it's
important to recognise the fact that it is just a model and therefore
not universally valid or accurate. The
best way to avoid falling into the trap of believing in the model's ultimate
validity is to have an alternative model that puts it into a more limited
perspective. Perhaps therefore, the main
usefulness of understanding the model of cyclical time is that it does put the
traditional model into perspective.
So are you saying that time isn't really cyclical
after all!
On the deepest level, I don't believe that time really exists at all. Or
rather, it only exists in our minds as a concept or model or perhaps, as
Immanuel Kant believes, an "apriori intuition". We use this concept
or model of time to make sense of our experiences. All I'm saying is that it's
useful to have more than one concept of time and there are occasions when the
concept (or model) of cyclical time is more useful than the model of time going
in a straight line. Out of the two concepts or models, the model of cyclical
time is the only model that helps us understand the spiritual perspective. However,
I'm sure there are other models that could also play a similar role.
You mentioned in our first interview that the model of
cyclical time provides answers to some of the deeper questions people ask. What
implications would you say that it has with respect to our understanding of the
mortality or immortality of the soul?
I would suggest it renders some of these questions irrelevant... This
life that I am living now, I will live again and again, forever. So in that
respect, it can be considered that, despite its mortality, the body itself is
eternal. This gives new meaning to the idea of resurrection! But as to whether or not the soul really
exists as an individual entity and whether or not it continues to exist when
the body dies and whether or not it experiences other incarnations.... it says
nothing about that. What is important is that the theory of cyclical time
reminds us that this very moment is eternal.
But what if someone is suffering? And what if
someone's life has involved mainly suffering? Surely the idea of it recurring
eternally is not very welcome!
It may not be very welcome at that moment, but nevertheless, an
understanding of cyclical time can help one interpret such experiences in a
more balanced way.
It's useful to remember that if pain and suffering become really
intense, the natural tendency is to detach from the physical senses and enter
directly into that world of past and future memories. When the detachment
becomes sufficiently complete, all these memories can be seen from an accurate
perspective and one finds that amongst them is a necessary balance of all experiences.... both
joyful and sorrowful.
Indeed the entirety of everyone's experience always comprises a perfect
balance of happiness and sorrow, and nothing that we or anyone else does can
change these proportions. This is true not only for ourselves, but for
everyone. Sometimes the happiness is more manifest, sometimes the sorrow, but
ultimately the two are always balanced in the way they need to be.
So are you suggesting that when one becomes detached
and becomes aware of the eternal perspective, suffering comes to an end?
No I'm not; although it's true that one doesn't suffer while one is
detached.
The eternal (or spiritual) perspective is a perspective from which one
sees processes in their entirety and gets a feeling for how they fit into the
overall picture. And with this comes the awareness that things cannot be other
than how they are.
In a way, life becomes a bit like a film. The best films have something
of everything in them, not just love and happiness; on the contrary there's
love and hate, sorrow and happiness, seriousness and fun, war and peace. It's
the contrasts and the way they are woven into one another that make for a great
film. The same is true of life.
But perhaps more importantly, when I view life from a spiritual
perspective, and recognise how all the bits fit together, there is an
experience of satisfaction; there is no desire for anything to have ever turned
out differently to how it did. Thus I could say that, when viewing life and the
world from a spiritual perspective, I am truly at peace; although that doesn't
mean that there is no war going on or that there is no suffering.
You have to remember this spiritual perspective is not a perspective
that one is constantly consciously aware of. Even though an understanding of it
may remain with me, when I get tied up in performing actions and interacting
with society, I naturally adopt the more limited viewpoint ... in which
dualistic feelings like love and hate, happiness and sorrow feel very immediate
and real. So, in everyday life I still get angry, frightened or sad. All these
emotions are a part of everyday life, they come and go just like the weather.
What about love?
When interacting with other people, feelings of both love and hate will
always come and go. However, when I become detached and the spiritual
perspective arises; immediately I am reminded that we are all puppets of
destiny.... victims. I become acutely aware that we're all in the same boat,
all subject to the same desires and also the same unhappiness, fears and
disappointments; we all spend a large part of our lives doing the best we can
with the limited information that is available to us.
The overwhelming feeling from
this perspective then is one of compassion and a huge degree of respect and
appreciation for everyone, respect and appreciation that remains constant
irrespective of who they are or what they have done. You could call this
"unconditional love" or perhaps a better term is "unconditional
positive regard". It is a completely different order of love to that which
one experiences when one is busy interacting in the world.
From the physical perspective, probably the closest that people ever get
to such an experience is the sort of love they have towards their children, but
even that is partial and falls short of true unconditional love; whereas, when
observing from the spiritual perspective, one finds the same feelings emerging
fully and equally towards everyone.
To the extent that one is able to remember the experience of the
spiritual perspective when returning to a more physical, active mode, one is
also able to maintain the feeling of unconditional positive regard or
unconditional love towards the individuals one is interacting with. This
ability to remember is greatly enhanced when one is in possession of a cyclical
model of time.
--------------------------------------
Today I want to ask you about free-will.
You've spoken several times about free-will as though
you have no doubt that it simply doesn't exist. Yet I'm sure most people's
subjective experience is that they do have free will. If it doesn’t exist, why
do most of us find the feeling of free-will so convincing?
I think this is because often, when our attention is focussed on the
short-term, we are only consciously aware of a very limited number of factors.
For example when performing an action we are often strongly aware of desire to
perform the action and the effort-made to do so, but generally not so conscious
of the factors that caused that desire to arise in the first place or of the
factors that caused the desire to be acted upon. It's only when one takes a
more objective look at one's actions that the contribution of these background
factors becomes apparent.
In the days when I first became involved with Zen, I practised a
meditation exercise that involved passive observation. This meant paying attention both to external
sensory stimuli like sounds, sights, smells and touch, and also to internal
stimuli like thoughts, desires and emotional feelings. I sometimes used to
spend entire days just sitting watching these as they came and went.
One of the first things I became aware of was that the way thoughts and
desires arise is largely determined by my understanding or beliefs.
A typical scenario would be that after sitting for a while, doing
meditation, my legs would begin to ache. The thought would then arise in my
mind that I don't want them to ache, and then another thought would arise that
I could get up and move around and the ache would disappear. But then yet
another thought would arise, that if I do get up and move around I will not
reap the full benefit of the meditation.
The thought that getting up and moving around would make the ache
disappear was probably based on previous experiences of doing just that.
Whereas the thought about the benefit of staying put was based upon an
understanding that I had arrived at, probably as a result of reading some books
about meditation.
So I would continue sitting and sometimes the ache would go away, but
sometimes it would get worse. Then more thoughts would arise. For example the
thought might arise that perhaps the people who wrote the books which advocated
the benefits of not moving, were wrong; and maybe, if I don't move I might get
a deep-vein thrombosis; maybe I might even die! Then these thoughts would be
countered by even more thoughts.... If I
do move, I'll never know whether what those books said about the benefits of
staying put was right or not.
And so it would go on.... argument and counter-argument inside my head.
And I would sit there, observing these thoughts and observing the pain in my
legs and weighing up the pros and cons. Sometimes I'd sit it out to the end,
and sometimes I'd give in and get up and move around. The whole scenario
occurred because I had two conflicting beliefs or understandings. One was that
remaining sitting would harm me, and the other was that it would bring me
benefit.
But those beliefs must themselves have come from somewhere. .....In part
from the books I'd read and the people I'd spoken to about meditation; in part
from what I'd learned in college about deep vein thromboses; and in part from
past experiences of sitting it out and feeling like it had done me good or
harm. Ultimately whether I either stayed put or got up was determined by the
sum total of all the beliefs and experiences and indeed, everything upon which
those beliefs and experiences were based.
In fact ultimately, what I do is determined by the entirety of
everything. To pick out just a particular thought or a particular belief as
being the cause, means to ignore everything upon which that thought or belief
rests. Similarly, to come to the conclusion that I got up because I wanted
to... because I exercised my free-will, this is just short-sighted.
Why are people so short-sighted?
I think primarily, because they are busy... There are so many things
going on in our lives that we don't normally spare the time to look more deeply
at things. In general, only the most immediate causes enter our conscious
minds. So, as I mentioned, I'm often aware of making a decision to perform an
action, shortly before actually performing it. The reasons why I made the
decision often remain unconscious. Therefore without looking any more deeply
into it, it's convenient for me to presume that I performed the action of my
own free will.
The tendency to presume the same of other people's actions is even
greater, as we are likely to be even less aware of the deeper reasons behind
their actions. So we have this innate tendency to simplify things and presume
that if deeper reasons aren't clearly and immediately visible, they don't
exist.
Most of the time most of our actions are fairly inconsequential and so
it appears not to matter if we attribute our actions to our own free-will and
other people's actions to their free-will. But the danger is that this style of
attribution becomes such a deeply ingrained habit that we forget that an
infinite number of deeper reasons for people's actions always exist. This can
be a problem if someone then performs actions that have negative consequences, in
that it can lead us to presume that he or she is simply not a good person. The
tendency then is to start to divide people up into good people and bad people,
the consequences of which we all know only too well.
Ironically, as a culture, we cherish our belief in free-will. Somehow
people have come to believe that free-will is what makes human life so special,
and that without it we would be unable to rise above our vicious
"animal" instincts. To my mind, this is perhaps the greatest delusion
of all.
Do you think it is possible for society to function
without a belief in free-will?
I believe there have been Societies in the past that have done so. Of
course, it is impossible to say with any certainty what people's beliefs really
were, but there appears to be some evidence that, for example, in ancient
Indian Society the primary belief was in pre-destiny. However over the last few centuries, Western
values and beliefs clearly have had an evolutionary advantage in the
world. But this may change. As
conditions in the world change, a time may well come when the balance will
shift once again in favour of cultures embodying a belief in pre-destiny. Such changes can potentially happen very
quickly. After all, it's not all that long ago that people thought the world
was flat.
------------------------------------------
What you said earlier this week, about there being no
benefit in using force to make yourself sit and meditate, seems to be
contradicted by the story you told yesterday about your experiences of sitting
and observing your thoughts. Surely the time you spent practising
"zazen"[1]
clearly had a profound influence on your understanding of the nature of
causality and free-will?
Yes, you're right. It certainly did have a profound influence on my
understanding.
I think what I was trying to say earlier this week was that experience
has taught me that meditation happens naturally provided there is some free
space and time in one's life. Back in my twenties, I never allowed myself any
free time. Even when I started doing meditation, I treated it like an extra
activity that I had to do in addition to all the other things I was doing. In those days it never occurred to me that I
could have created that time and space simply by doing less in my life
generally; and even if it had occurred to me, such an approach would have made
me feel guilty.
So I guess, back then, zazen was definitely the most appropriate way
forward for me and, as you say, it did involve a lot of force. It wasn't until after I'd lost my belief in
free will that I found myself able to enjoy just "sitting quietly doing
nothing"[2] without
feeling restless and guilty!
You mentioned once that you don't think profound
spiritual experiences are really necessary or even of all that much value. Yet
the way you described what happened to you when you first read about cyclical
time, it sound like you had a sort of spiritual experience there and then. Are
you sure you are not undervaluing the importance of such experiences?
I think spiritual experiences can be very valuable in that they do allow
a direct insight into the way things are. But problems arise when we start to
interpret them, as they tend to be interpreted in the light of whatever
understandings we possess at the time.
Every interpretation is bound, to a certain extent, to be a distortion
of the original insight; and there's a significant possibility that we may come
up with interpretations that are completely unhelpful.
I remember vividly the moment of coming into contact with the idea of
cyclical time. I wouldn't classify it as a spiritual experience in itself. It
was more of a "realisation" on an intellectual level. Nevertheless,
it made me extremely excited and in the heat of that excitement a lot of quite
amazing things did happen. In particular I remember feeling very strongly that
everything was synchronised and that there was an underlying unity and purpose
to all of the individual objects and events around me. I also had a series of
very vivid dreams, some of which later came true.
For me, those intense experiences were a bit of a mixed blessing. They
gave me a lot of faith and confidence in the accuracy of what I believed. This
in turn had quite a positive impact on my ability to engage and interact with
other people. But they also filled me with all sorts of unreasonable
expectations.
In fact, that wasn't the first time such experiences had happened to me.
The first big experience was in my early twenties, when I first started
reading books and finding out about spiritual things generally, There was a
point then too, where I was quite overcome by the thought of having found what
I was searching for, and in the excitement of the moment I had a powerful
experience of the underlying perfection and rightness of things. The result, on
that occasion, was that I developed some very firm beliefs and expectations
about enlightenment that took years to shake off. In particular, there was this idea that
enlightenment involved a process by which one moves gradually further and
further away from suffering.
Up until then my life, especially my teenage years, had, for one reason
or another, been characterised by really quite intense unhappiness. So this
newfound belief in the possibility of enlightenment and freedom from suffering
gave me a strong hope that, if I made a lot of effort and applied myself to
spiritual study and practices, gradually, my suffering would start to
disappear. I expected life would get better and better, I would feel better and
better and then one day, I would feel completely light and free... and
enlightened.
What actually happened was almost exactly the opposite. Just after experiencing
all these wonderful feelings (it must have been around the time of my
twenty-first birthday) I joined a Zen Buddhist organisation and so also adopted
the way of life that went along with it. This meant that I started to meditate,
I stopped eating meat, smoking cigarettes, taking drugs and drinking and also
made a whole series of other changes that effectively meant a complete reversal
of the hedonistic lifestyle I had lived up until then.
Although my health improved and the stutter that I had always had became
markedly less severe, life itself nevertheless seemed to be getting more
difficult and I actually felt worse than ever. I remember approaching one of
the senior monks at the Zen centre I was attending and telling him this. He
suggested that really, I was just becoming more fully conscious of how much of
a mess I had always been in. He assured me that this was a temporary stage and
that it would pass.
It didn't pass. For the next ten years, things just got steadily worse.
In fact it seemed as though the harder I tried, the more difficult and painful
life became. I would find myself going though cycles of intense effort-making
in which I would stick rigidly to some sort of discipline; then I would get
exhausted, disheartened and frustrated by the inevitable lack of success or
positive results; and then I'd give up and either rebel in some hedonistic way
or just simply feel depressed. The process was one of ever increasing
disillusionment. It seemed as though nothing made any real difference and
nothing ever worked in the way it was supposed to. Gradually every hope and
expectation was being dashed, and I was becoming increasingly unable to feel as
though I could rely on any of the ideas I'd come across to help improve my
quality of life. The harder I tried to change things, the worse they became.
Would you say that you were experiencing something
like "the dark night of the soul"?
Yes, that's actually how I finally came to see it. In fact it was
probably the idea, of the darkest hour being followed by the dawn, that kept me
going. Then when I met the Brahma Kumaris and came across this new
understanding of time I thought I could see light at the end of the
tunnel. And I thought that it had all been
worthwhile after all. I could see how all the agony I'd been through had
prepared me and made me receptive to this new understanding. I thought that
finally I had arrived and the suffering had ended.
As it turned out, I was just setting myself up for an even bigger
disillusionment than the
It took a few months for the honeymoon period to wear off. Then, as I mentioned previously, my family
fell apart; and almost all my friends disappeared. As if that wasn't enough, I
also felt like I too was starting to disappear or fall apart. The idea of
cyclical time had dislodged some of the foundations of my identity. All the things that I had believed in and
based my world upon had been cast into doubt. I remember asking myself over and
over again, "Is there anything left that I can be certain about?" And
the only answer that I could find was "uncertainty". The world seemed
to be full of paradoxes and it felt as though all that was left was a drifting
empty shell. I'd lost the feeling that I
had any control. I felt like all I could do was watch and see what happened
next.
It sounds like a nervous breakdown.
Yes, in a way I guess it was. Although I managed to avoid any contact
with psychiatrists or anyone else who might have wanted to "cure" me
or return me to my previous state. The thing was, I could still act like a
normal person. Yet now, always, it felt like I was just acting a part, just
responding to circumstances. I no longer felt like the writer of the script.
Although I said I was no longer sure of anything, there was something
inside me that was quite convinced that I had moved forward and no matter how
empty I felt, I didn't want to go back. This feeling was reinforced by my
association with the Brahma Kumaris and also by the fact that many of the ideas
that I'd come across earlier, in Buddhism, now started to make a lot more
sense. In particular, the concept of Anatta, or "no-self" seemed
quite accurately to sum up my experience.
I also started to appreciate aspects of the story of Buddha's path to
enlightenment that I had previously completely missed... His experiences too
were also of ever-greater disillusionment. Every method he tried also failed,
until finally, his disillusionment was total. Even the word
"dis-illusionment" itself sums up the process.... the stripping away
of one's illusions, until finally there are no more illusions left. That's what
enlightenment is all about. It's a stripping-away, and so perhaps it's not
surprising that the feeling is of loss, not gain.
I think, if I'd not come in contact with this Buddhist perspective, I
may well have failed to maintain faith that what was going on inside me was OK,
and I may well have started to believe what everyone else was telling me...
that I was going crazy.
As the years have gone by, I've started to find my feet again. I've
started to learn, for the first time in my life, to live with faith and to
surrender to destiny. It's an entirely different way of living. In fact it's an
entirely different life. It really feels
like I've been born again. And despite being now in my mid-forties, I still
feel very much a beginner. I'm not sure that the disillusionment is complete,
or even that it ever can be complete, at least not while one is still alive and
functioning in the world. But things have calmed down a lot now.
So does this mean that you're now finally enlightened?
I'm certainly very
disillusioned!
If I was to use the term enlightenment at all, I would probably use it
to refer to the state in which one knows that whatever maps one uses to make
sense of things, no matter how useful they are, the sense that they make is
ultimately illusory. In other words, enlightenment, to me, lies in knowing that
one is being deluded by everything that appears to make sense. In that respect, I am tempted to say, yes, I
am enlightened, but by definition, I know that I must be deluded in so
thinking. It's a paradox.
Contrary to what most people seem to believe, I don't believe that
enlightenment (or whatever you choose to call it) is a stable state. My feeling
is that there is a problem with remembering the insights gained from the years
of one's spiritual quest when one finally returns and re-engages with the
physical world and its activities. At least it appears that one cannot enjoy
living an active and successful life and also simultaneously maintain a full
conscious awareness of the eternal for very long. It's only when one is still
suffering or still engaged with the suffering of others that one is able to
keep hold of it.
To an extent, my own experiences back this up. At the moment, I find
myself poised between two lives... I can still empathise quite strongly with
people who are busy on some sort of spiritual search and, when I'm mixing with
such people, spiritual insights that are relevant re-emerge. But as I get on
with my life, and things are finally starting to look up a bit on a worldly
level, I'm already noticing that the memories of all the spiritual insights and
revelations of the past years are drifting away and becoming dreamlike. The way
things are going, I can foresee a time when they no longer seem real at all and
I will have finally arrived at a worldly, un-spiritual perspective.
Doesn't that make it all seem a bit pointless?
Well ultimately, unless one still has to confront and deal with a lot of
suffering, there's no real reason why the spiritual insights or awareness
should remain. There's no reason why they shouldn't be transient, just like
everything else.
It's so easy to get taken in by the idea that one day you will reach an
understanding that is altogether more satisfactory than the one you have now.
Such ideas are very similar to the ideas children sometimes get that, when
they're grown up, life will be better. The reality is that it simply isn't
true. Each stage of life has its own merits, and the different stages
complement each other. They're all OK.
Whatever state one is in, enlightened or not, there is no state that is
fundamentally better or worse than the one we find ourselves in right here and
now.
---------------------------------------
Over the last week, several more questions have arisen
that I would like to ask you about. In particular I want to ask about the
extent to which your understanding overlaps with a Buddhist understanding.
First of all, it could be said that your
interpretation of enlightenment is a rather watered-down one. Do you really
think that what you've been describing is the same experience that someone like
Buddha underwent?
Yes I do. Of course I can't be certain about what Buddha experienced,
and it's something that there will always be argument about. But it seems very
plausible and his story seems to back it up.
As I understand it, the core of the Buddha's story is relatively
straightforward. It's the story of a man who, when he realised how much
suffering there was in the world, decided to dedicate his life to finding a way
to put an end to it... once and for all.
Buddha lived in a Hindu culture in which the received wisdom was that,
really, suffering is an illusion and the root of this illusion has to do with attachment
to sensory objects and pleasures. There was also a socially accepted way of
dealing with this "illusion" of suffering; which was to go off into
the jungle and put oneself through all sorts of ordeals involving abstinence
from anything or any activities that might bring sensory pleasure. This
generally involved abandoning one's home and family forever. This may seem a
bit of an antisocial approach, but then, if one believes the received wisdom,
that suffering is ultimately an illusion, then the suffering caused by
abandoning one's family must also be an illusion, so from that perspective it's
not an issue.
Buddha acted according to the understanding he had inherited. He tried
everything he could think of and went through all sorts of ordeals; with the
result that he ultimately brought himself to the point of death. He must have
come to know the spiritual perspective very well. But then, after seven years
of isolation in the jungle, he did an about-turn.... and decided to go home.
Are you implying that he gave up?
Well, sort of. I'll try and explain...
On the way home, people saw Buddha, and asked him for words of wisdom.
He told them what he had discovered....
the essence of which was that in everyday life, there is
suffering. He had realised that suffering is an intrinsic part of everyday life
and there is no way of staying alive and avoiding it.
Buddha must have finally come to understand that, from a purely
spiritual perspective, yes Hinduism is right, suffering is an illusion. But,
despite its illusory nature it doesn't go away.
He must have realised that no matter what you do, the short-term,
physical, worldly perspective in which we experience suffering keeps on
recurring ...it is every bit as eternal and real as the spiritual perspective!
Thus no amount of meditation or spiritual practices can ever finally put an end
to our experiencing of the physical perspective. Neither can near-death or out
of body experiences. Even death itself can only provide a transient relief. The
experience of this physical life, with all its suffering, is eternal; its
recurrence cannot be avoided!
So he realised that suffering is unavoidable?
Yes, but paradoxically, when one finally understands suffering as an
unavoidable part of an unavoidable life; one also finds the strength to face up
to its inevitability. When one finds this strength, one also discovers that
it's not entirely bad and that there is always a way through it. And at least
one's suffering is then no longer compounded by the suffering of trying to
avoid that which cannot be avoided.
Buddha's enlightenment involved the realisation that his previous
belief, that the spiritual perspective was somehow more valid or of a higher
order than the worldly perspective, had been a mistake. Yet it was on the basis
of this mistake that he had left his wife, family and kingdom. He only became
sure of his mistake after exhausting every possibility. But when he realised
beyond any doubt that it really was a mistake, he decided to return home.
Hence his teaching of "the middle way"?
Yes.
So these are, in essence, Buddha's "four noble truths"
And, as you said, the
eightfold noble path is indeed a sort of "middle way" in which one
tries to maintain a balance; both fulfilling worldly responsibilities and also making
space and time for spiritual study.
The four noble truths always sounded a bit depressing
to me, I mean, it's not exactly very life-affirming!
I think one thing that gets missed by people studying Buddhism is that,
although Buddha was trying to get across the understanding that in life there
is suffering, he could equally have pointed out that there is happiness...
There are both.
But what about the concept of moksha? Surely it's always interpreted as meaning
final and ultimate liberation from samsara, (the cycle of suffering)?
That interpretation is a misunderstanding. It arises because people
believe that time goes in a straight-line: they then automatically presume that
if something is "eternal", it must never come to an end. The reality
is that liberation (moksha) is eternally-recurring; but just like everything
else, it is also transient. In other words, it eternally comes and goes.
I think that a lot of people want so much to believe
that enlightenment involves doing away with suffering once and for all, that
they're unlikely to accept that that is how it is.
You're probably right.
Sometimes the term "ultimate unexcelled enlightenment" is used
to describe what Buddha experienced under the bodhi tree. My feeling is that
really the ultimate unexcelled enlightenment that he experienced under the tree
consisted of the realisation that there is no ultimate unexcelled
enlightenment. It's another paradox.
Anyway, at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what Buddha said
or what I said. The issue needs to be
settled individually by each one of us ...by putting our own personal beliefs,
whatever they may be, to the test. Otherwise one can argue about it till the
cows come home.
My next question is concerning Karma. Earlier on, when
you were talking about free-will, you mentioned about the importance of having
the time to look more deeply at the causes of things. If, as you say, there is
no free-will and we are not responsible for our actions, is the idea of
accumulating good or bad karma invalid?
Yes it is. Nevertheless, it still seems to be widespread amongst many
Buddhist and Hindu sects. There is also a second problem with this idea; in
that it involves placing value-judgments on one's actions; when, in reality, an
action can be good from one perspective, and bad or harmful from another.
You mean that, for example, things that bring benefit
in the short term often store up problems for later on, whereas things that
bring benefit over a longer period of time are often quite unpleasant in the
short-term.
Yes, exactly. And also repeated experiences of success often lead to
carelessness, which ultimately leads to failure.
Looking at things in these ways, one could say that every action and
every result is both good and bad depending on how you view it. So the idea
that "good" actions can be weighed against "bad" actions is
nonsensical.
Sometimes seeing things in terms of karmic accounts or karmic debts may
have some short-term pragmatic usefulness, for example as a means of keeping
other people under control and making sure that they abide by a fixed set of
rules.
Maybe that also explains why so many religious
institutions propagate that sort of interpretation of karma!
Yes, maybe. But for one's own
personal spiritual development, I think it is very counter-productive.
What you say implies also, therefore, that there is no
ultimate good or evil?
That's right ...The concept of
ultimate good or evil simply doesn't make sense.
I guess that even after an understanding of cyclical
time has taken root; it takes quite a while for all of its ramifications to
really sink in. It looks like the whole idea of karma and causality needs to be
reassessed.
Yes, it does. It's a major task.
You mentioned earlier that if one investigates the
causes of anything, one ultimately has to come to the conclusion that whatever
happens at any particular moment of time is caused by the sum total of
everything that has ever happened in the entire universe up until that point.
But what about the cycle of time itself? How did that come about?
If you believe that time only progresses in a straight line, then you
are likely to presume that, if one looks far enough back in time, there must
have been an original cause, a "causa prima" ...something like the big bang or the word of
God or whatever you believe to have been the first thing that ever happened.
But from the perspective of cyclical time, there can be no original cause for
anything, including time itself.
So, are you saying that, like everything else, the
cycle just eternally "is"?
Yes. This is true both of the cycle itself and of everything in it.
Perhaps the closest you can get to an original cause of a particular event is
the actual event itself, last time round, but then ultimately that's just
another way of saying that things happen simply because they happen and not for
any other reason. Alternatively, you can say that things happen because of
everything that ever was, is and will be.
But despite what you say, you've implied that, as a
tool for everyday life, the conventional linear concept of causality is still
very useful. How so?
Because there are many events that repeat on a daily basis and form
regularly recurring patterns. With
events of this kind, we can use a traditional understanding of causality to
help us predict things and possibly change them if desired. In these instances,
to use the concepts and language of causality in a traditional way is
completely appropriate and indeed essential for our survival. But when it comes
to the big metaphysical questions... Why is there suffering? Why am I here? The only sensible answers are,
because there is and because I am. Otherwise the questions just go on and on
and one is never any wiser.
In Buddhism it is believed that one of the major
causes of suffering is "attachments". Yet if you adopt the approach towards
causality that you have just outlined, does it mean that attachments are no
more a cause of suffering than anything else?
That's right. Although attachments may appear to be a more immediate
cause of suffering than some other causes, singling them out and ignoring why
they came about in the first place is a bit like singling out
"free-will" and ignoring the factors that led to us willing
something.
My feeling is that this tendency, in both Hinduism and Buddhism, to
single out attachments as the cause of suffering, has lured many people
into a mindset whereby they feel that they need to deny themselves everything
that they're attached to. Yet, my own painful, personal experiences have taught
me that it is completely hopeless trying to avoid the objects of attachment,
and that by trying to deny oneself enjoyment of what one desires, the desire
just mutates and emerges in a different way.
Then why do you think Buddha himself continued to
emphasise the importance of non-attachment, even after his enlightenment?
My understanding is that when Buddha talks about "going beyond
attachments" he's really talking about understanding them, seeing them
accurately for what they are and thus no longer being deluded by them.
Well, I've always understood attachments as being
associated with the belief that such and such a thing will make me happy. Some
are short-term, like attachment to chocolate and sex, and others are
longer-term, like for example, attachments to status, roles or to other people.
That's probably how most people understand them... as arising from
whatever they believe brings happiness. And I think most people who have taken
the trouble to really observe and analyse attachments also already understand
that the happiness an attachment brings is only temporary and that when the
object of that attachment is taken away or dies, suffering ensues.
Yes.
However, what most people don't understand is that, on a deeper level, all
beliefs are themselves a sort of attachment!
How do you mean?
Well, for example, if I believe chocolate makes me happy, the idea of
happiness has become "attached" to the idea of chocolate. Equally, if
I believe that in the long run chocolate makes me unhappy; I've also created an
attachment.... between the idea of chocolate and unhappiness. Even concepts and words themselves are
attachments. For example the word "fire" represents an attachment of
the sensory experiences of red-colour and hotness and movement. Attachments are
really just fixed-associations. We "attach" one idea to another idea,
one word to another word, and in so doing we construct our models of reality
and make sense of the world. They are like the cement that we use to bind our
experiences together in a meaningful way.
When Buddha speaks of freedom from attachments, he's really referring to
no longer being entrapped by our models of reality and causality. The
"avidya" (Spiritual ignorance) that he speaks of refers to the
deluded belief that these attachments have some sort of ultimate validity and
are more than just pragmatic rules of thumb.
So, actually, the truth is that attachments themselves
aren't a problem provided we can see them for what they are.
Yes... You could say that the real problem is attachment to attachments!
----------------------------------------
I have to say, I've found your approach to
spirituality to be very philosophical and thought based. Yet thought and philosophical
analysis are often portrayed as incompatible or even antithetical to spiritual
development. What are your feelings on this?
A lot of philosophy is tied up with looking for causes for things...
ultimate causes, and so I would agree that in that respect a philosophical
approach can cause one to become trapped chasing one's own tail. But it's only by making that mistake that one
can fully realise the pointlessness of the exercise. So I would say that, at
least to a certain extent, chasing one's tail is a valid and perhaps necessary
thing to do. Indeed, my experience has been that one of the best ways to
develop an awareness of the limitations of thoughts and philosophies is to
follow them through to the point where they become paradoxical and no longer
make sense.
You mean one can use thought to go beyond thought?
Yes. It's as though it's only when one perceives how a theory or thought
disproves itself that one can really be disenchanted by it. And only when fully
disenchanted by it, can one finally start to use it in a purely pragmatic way.
This sort of approach may not suit everybody, but it seems to have
worked for me.
I guess the Zen Buddhists who use koans are also
practising a similar approach, so you're not the only one!
If you are the sort of person who has burning questions... "Why
this?, why that?" that won't leave you alone, what else can you do?
Apart from the spending a lot of time chasing one's tail, the other
problem connected with thoughts and philosophies is, as I've already mentioned,
that they can be so convincing that we can be fooled into believing they
represent some sort of ultimate reality.
As I've said before, all words, thoughts and philosophies are maps and
therefore even when they do fulfil a useful role they are always bound to be
oversimplified and distorted. But provided one knows this, and doesn't fall
into the trap of becoming too convinced by them, they aren't an obstacle. The
problem is that they are so convincing and it is often very difficult to see
through them.
So, are there any thoughts or philosophies that you're
still enchanted with?
I'm sure there are still lots. But nowadays they tend to be more subtle
and not so easy to notice. As I've got older I've become increasingly aware of
the way even the language we use in everyday conversation is itself full of
inherited beliefs and judgments about how the world is. It's often only when
one looks very closely at particular words and sentence structures that these
beliefs and judgments start to become apparent.
The one philosophy that I am, however, quite aware of being enchanted
by, is Darwinism and Darwin's theory of natural selection. In fact, the notion of "survival of the
fittest" has intrigued me ever since I first came across it as a child;
and it still intrigues me now. ...If one
could ever come up with something that could be called an ultimate truth; that
would be a good contender!
I would imagine that a lot people would probably consider
that to be about as antithetical to a spiritual outlook as you can get!
That's probably because of the innate tendency in the West to interpret
spirituality primarily from a Judeo-Christian perspective. We are still so attached to the notion that
the things that exist must have been caused!
But even
Well,
His "circular argument" is of course widely known and often
cited as the major objection to the theory of evolution. Yet it seems to me
that its tautological nature is its main strength. In a way,
You're suggesting, then, that a Darwinian viewpoint is
a spiritually enlightened viewpoint?
Well, I might be deluded, but potentially yes. I can't help but think
that he was really something of a mystic.
The wonderful thing about Darwinism is that it provides a framework that
somehow helps us to accept that things are the way they are.... not just
people's physical attributes, but their behaviour, ideas and beliefs too. It
even enables us to recognise that suffering plays an important role and is an
intrinsic part of life. Moreover it
doesn't make value judgments; it doesn't blame and there is no mention of
shoulds and shouldn'ts or rights and wrongs.
Most people never look closely enough to realise that
Having said all that, just not to get completely carried away by
But
No he didn't. And so therefore the idea of predetermination appeared to
him to contradict his theory. Instead, in order to explain why or how species
evolve in the way they do, he used to notion of "random variation".
Interestingly, many people intuitively feel random-variation is an unconvincing
or insufficient explanation for how something as intricate and complex as an
eye or a complete human being could evolve.
---------------------------------
You
mentioned how your experiences of the past few years have led you to a better
understanding of the concept of anatta. How exactly have those experiences
influenced your understanding?
I see Buddha's
doctrine of anatta as something of a response to the way he perceived people as
misinterpreting the concept of atma and paramatma. [3]
I think
the most common understanding of the soul (or atma) amongst the people that I
meet nowadays is that each of us is a soul... I am a soul, you are a soul...
and we inhabit our bodies and operate them, just like a driver drives a car.
Yes, and I would guess
that this was also probably the way most people perceived the soul in
My first realisation
with respect to the soul was the one that I mentioned last week... that I'm just
an observer. I'm not the one who initiates my actions or thoughts. So my
understanding of the soul changed from considering it to be an active thinker
and doer, to being a passive observer of thoughts and actions. In other words,
I'm not "the driver of the car".
I just observe thoughts arising and my body performing actions. This
realisation was quite straightforward and unambiguous. In fact, I think that
anyone who is single-minded enough about observing their thoughts and actions
will eventually come to the same realisation.
Do you
see it as a decision maker?
No, I stopped seeing
it in that way too. After all, what is a decision? ...it is just another thought that arises. A
thought like... "I will do this" or "I won't do this". A
decision "arises" just like any other thought.
So you
don't think you can attribute any aspect of agency to the soul at all?
That's right.
Then
where do the thoughts come from?
They're just eternally
there. Nowadays I've started to consider that they are a bit like radio waves.
And we are like radio-receivers that can pick them up. Depending on what
wavelength you are tuned into, you pick up whatever thoughts are on that
wavelength.
Have you ever gone to
say something, and someone else who's with you has said exactly the same word
or phrase at exactly the same time?
Yes
often.
Yes. It's a very
common experience that if you're with someone who's on a similar wavelength to
yourself, like perhaps your life-long partner, both of you will experience
exactly the same thought at the same time, and sometimes even put it into words
simultaneously.
Some people seem to
more or less always operate on just one wavelength, whereas some are very good
at tuning into other wavelengths and thus are very good at perceiving other people's
thoughts and feelings. Some people are so good at it that they could be
described as psychic. When you spend a length of time with people like that,
you quickly come to appreciate that the thoughts that are arising in your mind
are not at all private or unique to you. Similar experiences often occur when
meditating together with a small group of close friends.
So where
do the thoughts come from?
They just arise from
themselves or, if you prefer, from the entirety of everything. Remember what I said
last week about looking for causes?
OK, so the first
change in my understanding of the soul was the realisation that we're not the
originators of our thoughts, decisions or actions.
The next change in my
understanding was concerning the concept of myself as a separate individual....
I'm called Paul, I'm
44 years old and I can remember many things from my past, even as far back as
my early childhood. These "memories" are themselves thoughts that
arise from time to time in my mind.
Having had so many
experiences of how the same thoughts that arise in my mind also often
simultaneously arise in other people's minds, how can I be so sure that these
memories from my childhood? How can I be sure that they are my
memories?
The answer is that I
can't!
Surely
some memories are corroborated by so much other evidence that there is little
doubt that they refer to experiences that you had through this body at some
time or other in the past?
But memories like that
probably account for only a small minority of the memories that arise in my
mind. As for the majority... who knows whether they refer to actual physical or
sensory experiences that originate from this physical body? Maybe I'm picking
up thoughts that refer to someone else's physical experiences, or maybe I'm
picking up abstract thoughts about potential events that never really took
place at all.
This is quite an
important thing to grasp. It's important because my whole self-identity is (or
at least was) based upon these memories. I used to think that all my memories
were of things that I had done or experienced in the past.... things I'd seen with my own eyes, or done
with my own body. Now, I'm aware that these memories are not so unique to me.
Many, if not all, of them are clearly shared with other people. They're not
really my memories at all!
Although, when I'm
busy performing actions and experiencing sensory input through my body, I feel
very strongly that what I am experiencing is unique to me as an individual
distinct from other individuals; when I become detached from the physical
senses and enter the world of thoughts and desires, although I still feel very
strongly that I am the one who is experiencing these thoughts and desires, I no
longer believe that the thoughts and desires that I'm experiencing are unique
to me. In fact, on the contrary, when I enter the world of memories and
desires, I've entered a world where it is no longer possible to see myself as a
separate individual.
This is a subtle
thing, and easy to misunderstand. Thoughts and desires arise just like they
always used to, but the conviction that they are "Paul's" thoughts
and desires has completely gone away. To see Paul as a separate individual is
still meaningful from the perspective of the body and the immediate sensory
experiences of the body, but when I retreat into my thoughts and desires, it no
longer makes sense to see myself as a separate individual at all. In fact, the
collection of unique qualities that people call "Paul" really refers
only to the physical body and its attributes. I, the soul, the experiencer, am
something else.
Our interpretation of
ourselves as separate individual souls or atma fits quite well with experiences
arising from the immediate, here-and-now perspective that we adopt when
attending primarily to information coming from the physical sense organs. But
when we are detached from the body and its physical senses it is only inherited
cultural norms and perhaps a bit of inertia that enable us to continue to think
that we are separate individual experiencers. If those cultural norms were not
there, we would probably all come to the conclusion that, in fact, there is
only one experiencer. And we are all
it!
So instead of understanding the Sanskrit word
"paramatma" as "supreme soul" in terms of a separate,
supreme-individual, one can understand the prefix "param" as meaning
"beyond" and thus param-atma as meaning as "beyond the
(individual) soul". The word refers to the awareness gained in the
spiritual/eternal perspective that there is only one "observer" and
you, I and everyone else are expressions or "incarnations" of it. In
other words we are all incarnations of the same one soul.
However, in Buddha's
time, the word Paramatma had become strongly associated with an idea quite
similar to the Christian idea of "God the Father"... a sort of
spiritual father figure, a "Supreme Soul" that is separate from us
and that watches over us. So there was the idea that... all of us are
"souls" and, up there somewhere, is the "supreme soul".
When Buddha told his disciples that they are "anatta"
"not-souls", he really meant that they are not separate and distinct
individuals in the way many Hindu's had come to believe.
You mean
that by replacing the word paramatma with anatta he was emphasising the fact that
we are all one, despite the fact that there are many different bodies through
which the one observer can observe?
Yes, I think it was
his way of avoiding the confusion surrounding the word paramatma.
So where
does that leave the doctrine of reincarnation?
Our language is not
really adequate to express this in an unambiguous way. You could say that we're
all just different incarnations of one soul or experiencer. You could call that
soul "God", although, like "Paramatma" the word has acquired
so many connotations that to do so may confuse things rather than clarify them.
On a practical level, it means that you are just another incarnation of me. In
fact everyone is just another incarnation of me. There is only me. Or if you
prefer.... there is only you. However you describe it, there is only one
experiencer.
But my
common-sense tells me that I'm inside my body experiencing one set of
experiences and you are inside your body experiencing another set of
experiences. If I could climb inside your body and experience your set of
experiences as my own I'd be tempted to believe you, but I can't.
You already are inside
my body!... I am you! Nevertheless it's true that one can't experience being
inside both bodies simultaneously. When the "Experiencer" feels like
it is located within a particular body, it is overwhelmed by that body's
sensory information... touch, hearing and sight etc. Because the physical
sensory experiences are unique to that particular body, they make the soul feel
individual and separate. But as I said
earlier, the thoughts and desires are shared between bodies, so it's only when
these come to the fore and we start to experience from a more out-of-body
perspective that the feeling of separateness starts to dissolve away.
So what
about the concept of a round of birth and death? ... I mean the concept of souls taking a
series or round of incarnations, one after the next? That doesn't seem to fit
with what you're saying.
You're right, it
doesn't.
The idea of
incarnations being only able to follow on from each other in a linear way, one
after another, is an illusion arising as a result of trying to understand
something spiritual from a physical, bodily perspective. From that perspective,
even when one's grasped the concept of cyclical time, it's hard to imagine that
incarnations of the same soul can overlap or be simultaneous, so it's
understandable that people jump to the conclusion that there must be at least
as many different souls as there are individual bodies existing simultaneously
on earth.
To really clarify this
we need to go one step further with respect to the model of cyclical time that
I proposed earlier. The problem is that even the model of cyclical time
portrays our experiences of events as progressing in a linear way, one
after another. Although this sort of representation is fine when one is just
looking at an individual incarnation, it falls down when one is trying to make
sense of the simultaneous experiences of more than one incarnation. To
understand this one needs to imagine the axis of rotation of the cycle of time
is slightly different for one incarnation compared to another. Thus if one were
to try and visualise time with respect to many simultaneous incarnations, it
would appear like a three-dimensional sphere, rather than a two-dimensional
circle.
Are you
saying that time is really spherical, rather than cyclical?
No. What I am saying
is that, when trying to understand the way different incarnations are related
to one another, a spherical model of time is even more useful than a cyclical
model. But, remember, time itself probably doesn't exist.
A spherical model is,
however, harder to conceptualise than a cyclical model, and therefore it can
lead to more confusion than it solves. It's important not to forget that, just
like with the two-dimensional cyclical model, every aspect of the sphere is
eternal and unchanging.
------------------------------------
After mulling
over what you said in our last discussion, and trying to make sense of it, I
was left wondering about animals and non-living things? Is it the same
Experiencer that experiences them too?
Before I go any
further, I must emphasise that these explanations I'm giving are flawed. They
are just maps, and by definition cannot be completely correct. So let's not get
too carried away by them. If anything, try to consider them pragmatically, as
tools that you can make use of, so as to be better able to cope with the
experiences, situations, dilemmas that arise in your daily life.
One of the important
implications of the understanding that there is only one experiencer is that it
really brings home to us the awareness that "whatever I'm doing to others
I'm actually doing to myself". This way of understanding the soul provides
us with the most unambiguous and clear-cut interpretation of the principle of
karmic-return. In that respect it is undoubtedly very useful and definitely an
improvement on the idea of karmic-debts that we spoke about last week.
But when one starts to
look more widely, at animals, plants and "non-living" things there is
a danger that one starts expending a lot of energy delving into realms of
philosophy that are so abstract in that they have little or no pragmatic
application.
Having given that
warning, I would say that yes, there is only one "Experiencer" and he
(or she) experiences through everything... humans, animals, plants and even
inanimate objects.
There is nothing that
the Experiencer cannot experience through; because ultimately, the Experiencer
and the objects of experience are not separate... they are one and the same
thing!
But that
makes a nonsense of the concept of detachment!
It does rather. The
thing is, although I've spoken of what happens when one "detaches"
from the physical body, really the word "detachment" is only accurate
insofar as it corresponds to the feeling of becoming separate from the
body. But really detachment is nothing more than a subjective feeling.
Do you
think, then, that it is possible to arrive at a spiritual perspective without
feeling "detached"?
Yes I do... It can
happen in an opposite way too.
When I was younger, I
had a series of experiences that involved, if anything, a heightened awareness
of my body. One such example was connected with driving... I used to have a
rather old Volkswagen van. I travelled all over
Over a number of
months, as I continued to drive, the van felt increasingly like an extension to
my own body. I could "feel" the workings of the pistons, the valves,
the brakes, wheel-bearings and other parts. I could tell if something was
getting too hot or was wearing out. In fact I became so sensitive that I could
honestly say that I experienced a sort of pain when one of the parts started
malfunctioning. It was as though my nervous system had expanded beyond the
confines of my body and had successfully incorporated the van into it.
This
sounds like the sort of experience that people sometimes have when they're
tripping.
Yes, I'm sure it can
happen in many situations. One doesn't need to have taken drugs.
Anyway, imagine that
same process taken even further... to the point where all "external" sensory
information starts to be interpreted as coming, not from outside, but from
inside the body.
The thing is that,
just as I am able to experience the underlying unity of all beings as a result
of "detaching" from my physical body; the same spiritual awareness is
likely to arise when my attention is so fully focussed on the body and its
senses that my perception of what comprises "me" expands, ultimately
towards to the point where it includes or "embodies" the whole world.
Really, although the
processes of "becoming detached" or "becoming an
embodiment" may feel like opposite processes, when one goes to the extreme
of either detachment or embodiment, the end-result is the same. It is impossible to distinguish between them.
Examples like that of
my experiences with the Volkswagen van also serve to highlight the
arbitrariness of what we perceive as constituting the body.
A bit
like a "phantom limb" experience?
Yes. The reality is
that there are no clear-cut boundaries with respect to the space we occupy. Our
self-perceptions are flexible and able gradually to adapt to whatever is most
useful according to the situation. Similarly, the distinction between that
which is living and that which is non-living is also arbitrary. It has no
universal validity.
On the broadest level,
all of reality is essentially "one". When we're first born, this is
how we perceive. As we grow up we learn to divide it up, and having divided it
up we tend to perceive it in a divided way that from time onwards.
To a limited extent
you can see the arbitrariness of these divisions when visiting other countries
or cultures. There are also some drugs, like LSD, which can completely redraw
the boundaries between the divisions or even remove them entirely. Thus one of
the abiding memories I have from my teenage experimentations with such drugs
was of the powerful reminder they gave me of the undivided way in which I used
to see myself and the world when I was a very small child.
Do you
think we can get back to that state?
Yes, but only for
short periods of time.
The problem is that
the state in which one's perception is undivided (it's called samadhi in
Sanskrit) is an innocent state in which one is completely devoid of any desire
to protect the physical body. One is therefore vulnerable and dependent. That's
fine for babies, as they're looked after by their parents. However Society is
not so accommodating when it comes to adults; and by and large, it only fully
supports individuals that are perceived as useful to it. In
In general, an adult's
chances of survival in an undivided state of consciousness are low, so perhaps
it's not surprising that such a state rarely remains for very long.
Is
"samadhi" not perhaps just another word for what you previously
called the "spiritual perspective"?
Yes it is. Although it's
associated more often with the experience people arrive at through a process of
"embodiment" it is exactly the same as the end-product of detachment.
However, because of the association this word has acquired with the process of
embodiment, people tend to see samadhi as arising when one is completely
absorbed in activities that one enjoys.
Like
during tantric sex?
Possibly. Or more
often, when carrying out acts of religious devotion.
Nevertheless, despite
its associations, I think the reality in this day and age is that a spiritual
perspective probably most often arises out of a feeling of detachment,
especially detachment resulting from extreme suffering.
Suffering
to the extent that one loses the will to survive?
Or rather to the
extent that one looses the will to anything... life or death!
A few years ago I was
talking to someone who had been held as a political prisoner and repeatedly
tortured. He described to me how, during the torture, he often wanted to die.
But wanting to die didn't change anything. It was only when he arrived at a
point even beyond that... the point where he no longer cared if he lived or
died, that the torture ceased to have any effect. From the description he gave
me of his experiences during those moments it sounded like he was entering
samadhi. He said that the torturers had learned to recognise when this was
happening and always gave up torturing him at that point, as they knew he was
no longer suffering. Unfortunately for him, the state never lasted, so as soon
as he'd come back down they started on him again.
There seems to be a
general principle with regard to the spiritual perspective, no matter whether
it is achieved through detachment or absorption... It arises when one loses or
gives up the will to any specific outcome. Not when one wants to die, but
rather when one is beyond caring about oneself. Indeed, it is a state in
which the (individual) self is no longer perceived, so from the perspective of
the individual, samadhi is itself "death".
Yet,
from what you say, equally it could be considered the ultimate, undivided
experience of life!
Yes.
People often equate
samadhi with enlightenment. But, as you've pointed out, it's really just
another word for the "spiritual perspective". This means, therefore,
that it's not synonymous with enlightenment; at least not with the definition
of enlightenment that I have discussed.
The experience of samadhi may arise in one's life; it may last a few
minutes, weeks or perhaps even months; but one grows out of it, at least one
does if one survives. Whatever the case,
it's not sensible to regard samadhi as a goal or an end in itself; but rather,
as I've explained, its real value lies in its ability to precipitate the
development of a new and more compassionate understanding that one can then
make use of upon returning to the more limited perspective of everyday life.
I understand what you are saying, but nevertheless I feel
uneasy about this idea that one can arrive at a spiritual perspective through
focussing one's attention on one's own physical body or on other objects or
people. In fact, your description of "embodying" the world sounds, if
anything, more like the height of attachment.
...the antithesis to anything spiritual!
Well, in a way, it is
the height of attachment.
I used to have the
same difficulty accepting this. I remember reading in the Bagavad Gita the
passages where
Well
yes, exactly. I mean, you see people who become completely devoted to all sorts
of dubious cult leaders and gurus, many of whom quite clearly have anything but
spiritual intentions!
Yes, it's true. But
then, one day, I realised that, with respect to spiritual development, it
really doesn't matter whom you're devoted to. All that matters is the strength of
the devotion, or in other words, the extent to which your attention is focussed
on the object of devotion.
You
can't mean it's exactly the same devoting yourself to, say, Jesus as it is to
Adolf Hitler?
I do mean that! It
makes no difference at all, provided the devotion is so strong that it causes
you to lose the (limited) awareness of your own individual body. In
The thing is, the
perspectives or states of consciousness we adopt are a bit like time, in that
we progress through them in a cyclical way... If you go far enough in one
direction, you end up arriving at the same place as if you had gone in the
opposite direction. So it really doesn't matter which way you approach a
spiritual perspective. Both bhakti and gnan are equally valid paths and can
both lead to the same spiritual experience.
Earlier
you said that total "absorption" and total "detachment" are
one and the same thing. Well, is that not effectively just another way of
saying that total "attachment" and total "detachment" are
one and the same thing.
Yes... So attachments
are not really the antithesis to spiritual life at all. Provided one is
wholehearted enough about them!
We are touching on a
more a general principle here that is perhaps worth mentioning... that, from a
spiritual perspective, opposites are not really opposite!
You've
implied that opposites only appear as opposites when we are only looking at a
part of the overall picture.
Yes. Whereas if you
take a holistic (spiritual) viewpoint on anything or if you follow anything to
its logical conclusion, you find that you've gone full circle and you can see
how "opposites" come together... So, for example, the beginning and
the end are "not two" separate events... they're one!
Is this
where the term "Advaita" [4]
comes from?
Probably.
This
reminds me like the Daoist principle: that extreme Yin becomes Yang.
Or even, extreme Yin is
extreme Yang!
I think you could also
express this principle mathematically... with "Zero equals Infinity".
What
about space and time themselves?
Well, this whole
discussion also brings up some interesting points about the relationship between
space and time... In many ways space and time also behave as opposites to one
another, even though we may not be accustomed to thinking of them as such.
How do
you mean?
It's as though they
represent two opposite ways of looking at the world. Thus, when we look
externally, through our sense organs, we interpret the world primarily in terms
of space. Whereas, when we look internally, through our minds, we interpret it
primarily in terms of time. Yet, go to the extreme of either of these ways of interpretation,
and the one transforms into the other and it becomes impossible to distinguish
between time and space or between what is inside us and what is outside.
Ultimately the internal world and the external world are also one... not two.
So are
you saying that space and time are just different ways of looking at the same
thing?
Yes.
Let me put it another
way... Sometimes we see the world primarily as processes (which occur in time)
and sometimes primarily as objects (which exist in space). If we interpret it
primarily in terms of processes we tend to consider ourselves to have a
spiritual insight, whereas if we interpret it primarily in terms of objects our
outlook is generally considered to be physical or materialistic. But in
reality, whether one is looking outwards or inwards and whether one tends
towards seeing "objects" or "processes" it's the same one
world that one is looking at.
---------------------------------------
I'm sure
many of the people you meet and have spiritual discussions with simply don't
believe what you say; especially with respect to time and free-will. Yet you
clearly have great faith in your understanding. Today, in our last discussion,
I want therefore to ask you about faith and the role it plays in your life.
When I was a child at
school, once a week we used to have a lesson in "Religious Knowledge"
as it was called at that time. We used to have this teacher called Mr Gosling,
who was a rather stern elderly man that most of the boys really didn't like. He
was one of those Old Testament type Christians who seemed to be convinced that
we, the pupils, had been led astray by some sort of satanic conspiracy.
My own feelings
towards Mr Gosling were somewhat ambivalent. I was a scientist, through and
through. I had no time for religion and considered him to be completely
misguided. But at the same time, I was actually quite jealous of him. He truly
believed in all the stuff he taught us. I could see it in his eyes; he had a
sort of sparkle of conviction.
I was just so
impressed by the way he could stand at the front of the class, confidently
teaching us stuff that we all thought was utter rubbish. Of course, for the
rest of the week, our syllabus included Biology, Chemistry and Physics, which,
as far as I could see, made a complete mockery of everything he said. He must
have known this to be the case, yet nevertheless, he was undaunted. I used to ask myself... How could he do it?
How could he remain so confident?
I could see that,
although he might have been completely misguided, the usefulness of his faith
was unquestionable. I used to compare his situation to mine... I couldn't speak
about anything with any certainty at all; I was nervous, shy and insecure. I
wished I had faith, I wished I could believe in something in the same way that
he could.
The only explanation I
could think of for his faith was that he had been brought up in a world devoid
of contradictions. He'd probably never learned science at school, and so to him,
Christianity was so deeply rooted that nothing else could budge it. In fact,
his name was quite apt. I started to think of him as being like one of Lorenz's
grey-lag geese, imprinted with the first thing they see when they hatch out of
their eggs. Mr Gosling had been imprinted with Christianity and it had stuck
with him from that time onwards.
But you
had faith in science. Was that not a similar sort of thing?
Of course looking back
on it now, I can see that it was. But I didn't see it like that at the time. To
me it wasn't a question of faith... I just knew that science was correct and
religion was wrong! All the evidence proved it to be so.
No doubt Mr Gosling
felt the same way about Christianity as I did about Darwinism; but whereas his
faith led him to believe that he was part of some Godly plan and that if he did
his best he had a place in heaven waiting for him, my faith led me to believe
that I had to compete to survive; and if I wasn't sufficiently fit, I would
fail. Unfortunately, it appeared to me
at that time, that every indication was that I was not very good at competing
and that I did not have a happy future to look forward to.
I can
understand why Zen Buddhism had such an appeal to you!
Yes, it's hard to
express how much of a relief it was, finally, to find a spiritual philosophy
that didn't contradict my scientific beliefs. But what I didn't realise until
much later was that all beliefs, including a belief in natural selection, are
taken entirely on a basis of faith. I had been so much indoctrinated to think
that science was different and that scientific experiments and methods could be
used to "prove" things to be true.
It wasn't till I was
with the Brahma Kumaris that the coin finally dropped.
How do
you mean?
It happened one day
when I was in
But instead of giving
an explanation, Baba responded, "Just have blind faith!"
I'm not sure how the
girl responded to that, I think she was a bit disappointed. But as I heard him
say it, it suddenly occurred to me that, really, all faith is blind! There is
only blind faith! Everything we believe in, we take on trust. We may think
things can be proved or have been proved, but it's just not true. Faith arises
blindly, and then afterwards things may come along that appear to prove or
disprove it; but even if such things do come along, our beliefs take a lot of
disproving before we finally let them go.
Are you
sure about that?
Well take for example
those two foundation-stones upon which our understanding of ourselves and the
world is based.... space and time. As I pointed out in our first discussion, we
are completely unable to prove that they exist. And if we can't even be certain
that they exist, what can we be certain of?
Ok. All
the same, I think most people would consider blind faith inferior compared to
faith that has been built up on the basis of experience and experimentation.
Yes, you're right,
most people do. I did too.
It's only when I started
to really look at how faith works and empowers people, that I lost the tendency
to criticise people's blind beliefs. Nowadays my attitude is that if a belief
works, it might as well be true. It's only when the context changes and a
particular belief becomes a serious hindrance that one needs to look more
deeply, and even then it's not helpful to chop and change too often.
The same could be said
of falling in love. It's a sort of
madness or psychosis really, but it's a useful one. Without it, people would
find it almost impossible to open up to each other enough to discover what
really lies inside. Faith, likewise, enables us to take steps into the dark
that we would not otherwise take.
Where does
this leave enlightenment? Does that mean that an enlightened person, or as you
put it, a "dis-illusioned" person has no faith?
One's faith moves to a
different level.
I described
enlightenment previously in terms of a process of dis-illusionment in which one
gradually abandons any belief in the ultimate validity of whatever models one
has. But that doesn't mean that faith
disappears. It simply means that it ceases to be attached to any particular
model or object. Instead one is left with just "faith" - per se...
faith that "What is, is" and that "What will be, will be."
And do
you now have that faith?
Sometimes.
----------------------------------------------------------
How if...
How if, some day or night, a demon were to steal after
you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you:
"This
life, as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and
innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it but every pain and
every joy and every thought and every sigh. And everything unutterably small or
great in your life must return to you, all in the same succession and sequence,
even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and
I myself.
The eternal hourglass of existence is turned over and over
and you with it, a mere grain of sand."
From The Joyful Science, by Friedrich
Nietzsche
[1] Zazen is a form of highly disciplined, structured meditation practiced in Zen monasteries.
[2] There is a Zen saying, "Sitting quietly doing nothing, spring comes and the grass grows". Thus meditation is sometimes referred to as "the art of sitting quietly doing nothing"
[3] Atma is the Sanskrit word
for soul; paramatma is translated variously as Supreme soul, or God, and anatta
is a Pali word which translates as not-soul or no soul.
[4] Dva means two... so
Advaita means "not two" .