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.