After attending the circle at Santa Clara on this topic last night, I came away with a feeling of wonder. What if the circle is actually its own entity? We may be listening to each member of the circle when they share with words or stillness, but what if we are really listening to the circle? The circle felt beautifully complete, with deep sharings, exploration of edges, and counterpoints. If the circle were a person, that would be one heck of a wise person! And how beautiful that one cannot listen to a circle without also deeply listening to the individual. And how doubly beautiful that this circle can only emerge as a result of a process, and can never be replicated in the same way again!
Reading the comments here, I feel that our circle wasn't limited to just one physical space - every one of the commenters here are part of a bigger circle, and we are literally dotting the circle that is the shape of our planet. Thank you for making this possible.
Dear David,
Thank you for that feedback -- we have updated the author's bio. :)
In Service,
Somik
Dear David,
Thank you for that catch! We have corrected the typo. :)
Regards,
Somik
Jodi, unfortunately, when this was written (in 1979), it wasn't politically incorrect to use the male gender for generalizing humanity. This is true for many thinkers and writers who wrote earlier than a decade(for instance, Martin Luther King Jr, Mahatma Gandhi and others). Kudos to you for taking the time to rewrite it in a way that made it more resonant for you.
AtoZ, Catherine and Thierry, thank you so much for your comments!
AtoZ, I agree with you on many counts, and will focus on the differences. Darwin's ideas have been interpreted in the mainstream as "survival of the fittest," but when we are talking about the social sphere, an alternate hypothesis is "survival of the kindest." From at least my limited personal experience and evidence I've recieved from others, it seems to me that those who are kind to others, don't manipulate others, and love unconditionally get back what they give. So do those who don't. Perhaps you can validate if you feel like harming those who are kind to you (my bet is you are inclined to reciprocate). A much broader principle than Darwin's seems to be, "What goes around, comes around." Even our planet is shaped that way :).
Catherine, I can tell you where that monk story came from, but I am not sure that you would find that satisfactory. I find it much more helpful to test how far I can go than get wowed by legends of others. In that sense, I am totally with you. I find it helpful to locate my edge, and then test if I can go beyond it.
To me, nonviolence is a practice that does not have prescriptive solutions (like being vegetarian or staying away from physical violence). It is far more subtle. If I take an act of violence, and claim that my mind is nonviolent, how do I know that I'm not fooling myself? One useful test I've found is this: Is my action a reaction beyond my control, or did I select that option amongst several as the wisest thing to do, grounded on the principle of seeing unity with all?
Most of the time, my answer to this question has been the former, but the latter is an important aspiration.
AtoZ, I half-agree with you. I totally agree with you write that protesting with physical nonviolence while hating those we protest against is not really an example of nonviolence. Gandhi's nonviolence was at the level of the mind - even a thought of negativity or hatred against another had to be watched carefully and not allowed to take hold. For that thought is the grandfather of action.
On trying nonviolence with animals, in India's age-old tradition of monks, we have heard of monks who have offered themselves to hungry animals out of compassion. Turns out the animal refused to eat em at times, and at others they did. Made no difference to the monk.
The reason one would practice nonviolence, according to MLK and Gandhi, is not to strategically manipulate others, but to fill oneself with love and transcend the "us vs them" duality. Gandhi himself wrote that he was mistaken when early on, he proclaimed nonviolence as a weapon of the weak and the coward. Later on, after he had experimented with it, he remarked that nonviolence is a weapon of the bravest of the brave. Cowards should resort to violence, according to him, so that they get brave enough to try nonviolence.
In my mind, the action is secondary - it is the thought that is primary. The surgeon's knife performs violence on a patient but with the intent to heal. Sometimes in life, we may be called upon to resist with our bodies. The real test of nonviolence is whether, whatever action has been in front of us, was carried out without a trace of hatred. That is what the ancients refer to as "fight like a yogi." Practically speaking, most of the time, when I uproot hatred, a larger repertoire of actions becomes available that do not involve physical violence. Of course, I remain open about this, as it is an ongoing experiment.
Yoghio --> I would be inclined to agree with your comment if Swami B was saying, "The joke is on Jesus." However, it seems to me that he is saying the exact opposite, "The joke is on the persecutors of Jesus, who inspite of their huge efforts, could not suppress him."
I once asked a monk, "Sir, we all like to think we are following Karma Yoga (Finding unity through action), but how do I know that I am not fooling myself, and just performing egoistic action?"
The monk replied, "When all your projects fail, and you still have the ability to laugh with authenticity, then you will know that you are following karma yoga."
The humour that allows us to develop a deeper awareness of who we are is no less a path than others in the journey of self-development
Great reflection, Susan!
For some who've asked me about follow-up resources on Prof. Ron Howard's talk last Wednesday, here is the mail I sent out to those who attended.
Really loved reading the comments, especially PK's note, pointing out that we have the good and the bad in us. Also enjoyed Manasi's comment:
It seems to me that knowlegde conventionally is the pursuit of certainty rather than a willingness to open into the mystery; and very often is the product of an intellect than seeks constant validation of it's usefulness.
Unconventional knowledge is then the pursuit of uncertainty of the subjective kind (as if there's any other). :)
The biggest paradox is that life is an unfolding joke meant for my entertainment, and yet, I forget to laugh. When we watch a comedy, a spectacular failure is thoroughly enjoyed, both by the audience, and the actors who enjoy making the audience laugh. Yet, as an actor in life, I forget that I am my own audience, and the spectacular failures are the whole point of my drama for myself, and I ought to be ROFL. Now that's funny by itself! :)
This passage resonated with my understanding of the fundamental principle of the field of decision analysis - a decision cannot be judged from the outcome. The quality of the decision can only be determine by the kind of effort that goes into it. It is foolish to use the quality of the outcome (that is apparent to everyone) as a proxy for the quality of the decision, for if we knew the outcomes resulting from our actions, we wouldn't have decisions to make. And yet, this conflation is the oldest mistake in the book of humankind.
Easwaran's article also refers to the indefatigable life force, that can be experienced whenever we serve selflessly with love. We are connecting to something bigger than us that nourishes and takes us forward. We cannot satisfactorily answer why this is the case, or what is really happening, but we can certainly experience this lightness and strength. The experience is nothing like the explanations we may have for it. :)
Loved reading this. To fully practice this recommendation, there are some steps in between, and perhaps the most important one is to discover abundance within. Once that abundance is discovered, many cheeks are available. The practice helps us move from a cost-centric (look what you cost me) to a value-centric (look how inexhaustible I am) perspective. As Jesus said somewhere else, "Seek and ye shall find," why not seek abundance instead of victimhood.
On the interplay of kindness and sorrow, the story that has inspired me the most comes from India's ancient epic, "The Mahabharata." A powerful emperor decided to give away his wealth to his citizens in the largest giving ceremonies of those times. In his court, everyone was astonished at how much he gave away, leading some to declare that this was the greatest giving that mankind had witnessed.
"Pooh!" came a voice. As everyone turned to look, it was that of a squirrel, who spoke cynically, "Hah! This is not the greatest giving at all." The squirrel had a body that was half golden and half brown. The angry courtiers asked the squirrel to explain himself.
The squirrel then told his story. "There lived a teacher in a village, who had been unable to get alms for many days. One day, he finally managed to get a little rice and rushed home delighted. He told his wife to make a meal that they would enjoy with their children, after having starved for many days. Just when they were about to begin their meal, there was a knock on the door, and a hungry traveler asked for a meal. Immediately, this teacher welcomed the traveler, and gave the family's entire meal which the traveler hungrily consumed, leaving nothing for his hosts. That night, the entire family perished of hunger. I was in their kitchen, and one morsel of rice that lay on the floor touched my body, immediately burning it to a golden color. Since then, I have been searching for another great giving so that the other half of my body may also turn to gold, but I have been unsuccessful in finding such a giving."
Whenever I feel generosity is wanting in me, that teacher greatly inspires me to take one more step.
This passage reminded me of a chat my wife and I had with a monk. We expressed a desire to meet with spiritual teachers and film Q&A with them so others can also benefit from it. The Dalai Lama came up, and this monk said, "The Dalai Lama says a lot of insightful things, but that is not what is really important about it. What is important is that he says it."
In the spiritual and intellectual realms, two opposite standards apply. In the former, the purity of the individual and the presence is what connects and makes all else irrelevant. In the intellectual world, I remember the distinction my professor made between a regular bow and a crossbow. An opinion is like firing an arrow from a regular bow. The distance the arrow goes depends on the personality who shoots it. Whereas, an argument is like a crossbow. Even a child can fire it and it will go the same distance. An argument lives on beyond the personality. Is there any contradiction between these two?
I don't think so. The same professor always had great presence when decimating my argument, and I never once felt humiliated. Rather, there was so much gratitude for the new clarity gained. Ironically (or not), I have noticed that those who develop spiritually also end up purifying their intellect of noise, and it is not surprising that many great spiritual teachers have also been great logicians.
And then of course, there are the saints, in whose presence I forget my questions (or, to put it more accurately, my questions are rendered irrelevant). :)
You can find more articles by the author at this website.
Catherine, Vivekananda is asking us to recognize that it is nature that is playing its game. When we help beggars and the infirm (and most of the time, we find ourselves moving on), it is because we have received some privileges and find ourselves in a position to be of service. His point is not to build up ego as saviors of those who need saving, but to develop gratitude that we found ourselves in a position to help, and in so doing, we opened ourselves up to the greatest lesson of all - that when we help others, we literally and actually, help ourselves. The joy you get when you've made someone's day is indescribable. And you wouldn't, unless someone was in need of help allowing you to play the role of helper. Therefore, the gratitude to those who play the role of the needy.
I liked this passage very much, as also listening to all the comments. One thought that came up for me was that nature is not that benign as it seems. When the lion is hunting deer, there is no sign of mercy - the deer is just food. If the lion were to show mercy, it would not be a lion. We see the brutality and cruelty in nature whenever its time to eat. In that, the human condition is unique from the animal one - that we construct stories of morality to guide our decisions, instead of responding instinctively. In that we have a choice - to answer the call of nature, or wait a bit, and ask, "What is our nature?" There are layers, and we can choose to be true to our base nature, or dig deeper.
This piece is profound in its pointing out a big tragicomedy in life. Whenever we act without reflection, without understanding nature, the results take us further away from nature and create many more problems. And when we try to understand nature, most of the problems we face disappear, and those that remain have simple solutions.
In a chat with my father-in-law, he shared a story. Malaria is on the rise in India, and has increased after efforts to spray and destroy the parasites. It turns out that the sprays, instead of killing the mosquitoes carrying the parasite, ended up killing the fishes in the swamps where mosquitoes breed. If left alone, the fishes would be eating up mosquito larvae. So, with an intervention that did not try to understand what was so, matters became much worse. Tragicomedy abounds. Now, it turns out, using fish to control malaria was a traditional solution in India, until modern science brought with it DDT :). Worked temporarily, more expensive, and now the mosquitoes are resistant to DDT. We're going back to observing and harmonizing with nature, according to this BBC article.
It seems to me that understanding nature properly must be preceded or accomplished by understanding our own nature, for there doesn't seem to be two natures here. I believe Kimura learned more about himself as he learned more about the nature of raccoon dogs.
My takeaway is that if we make the spirit of abundance our starting point, then our mind might clear up to discover it in our universe, and we might get closer to our true nature, where boundaries don't reach.
This passage made me wonder what the biggest contradiction of my life was. After the meditation, it became clear. "I" am the biggest contradiction. At a deeper level, we are an undifferentiated whole, and this undifferentiated whole finds no meaning without "I." The "I," funnily enough, finds no meaning unless it goes back toward realizing it is a part of the undifferentiated whole. What a contradiction!
I was reminded of a wise monk who, over a hundred years back, reflected on the human condition and refused to think of it as an illusion (the usual translation for maya). Instead, he emphasized that it is a contradiction. Thinking about the difference b/w these two words, it seems to me that illusion is a condition we can find ourselves helplessly facing. Contradiction is created in our minds due to the lines we've drawn on the undifferentiated whole. In other words, contradiction is about decisions we make, and so, if we draw lines differently, we can always go to a plane where the contradictions don't exist. The path of waking up seems to be one of drawing fewer and fewer lines, and therefore, facing fewer and fewer contradictions.
Finally, the notion of love as a tool to break contradictions resonated with me. Love, if one were to look at it scientifically, gets us to forget the lines we've drawn, however momentarily. The moment we forget the lines, we also forget the contradictions that arose from those lines, and therefore, experience greater oneness with the undifferentiated whole.
I loved reading Patsy's comment - a very powerful observation that as we grow older, our physical experiences are more difficult than our emotional ones. Made me think that we are wired to learn, even if we do our best not to.
I liked Tagore's emphasis on the "should" as opposed to what we "do" have, and find that to be the genesis of all creation. If we were merely satisfied by a clear understanding of what is happening as it really is, and not as we want it to be, we would end up being indistinguishable from the unity we often find ourselves in, and which, many traditions claim, is our ultimate goal. Tagore is a rebel poet - and he says, how boring! We are Gods, here to create, and that involves limiting the limitless, the only way in which the limitless can express itself.
Of course, Tagore's creation is not a mind running astray, rather, it is the expression of stillest mind possible, that does see things as they truly are, and out of a mischievous twinkle in the eye, decides to create. My professor once expressed this idea without ever reading Tagore, when he announced to our group that we were all Gods. A colleague asked, "Then, why are we here?"
He responded, without a grin, "Because, you see, it is boring to be God." I laughed at first, and then stopped.
I loved reading this. Just today, I got a "reject" on a paper I'd submitted. It was fascinating as I started looking within for signs of depression, or feeling like a loser, and there were some rumblings, but as I went deeper, noticed a space with compassion - found myself agreeing with the reasons given for the reject. The reviewer did not have enough context, and I should have submitted a preceding paper before submitting the current one. Also true that there are all these other sensations which, if not observed carefully, would take me down a path I would call a mistake.
Loved the part about not needing to destroy someone else to win, and not needing to destroy oneself when conceding. Love comes from that space, and leads to acceptance.
It is amazing that to realize that life does not become all hunky-dory with awareness and equanimity. Things happen beyond our control. However, what does change is my ability to open into a deeper and more authentic space, where happiness, love, etc. and their opposites are decisions, not conditions.
I was explaining patience to someone this week, and this passage does a much better job! I loved the poetic approach. Especially these lines: "Patience is a kind of love. A love that is its own explanation in bewildered circumstance. It is an old, old woman placing a wrinkled parchment hand against the cheek of a reckless child."
Patience seems to be both a decision and an outcome. As a decision, it is the old woman knowing deep within that all is well, and the reckless child will be fine and beyond anyone's control. It is the old woman's harnessing of her deepest wisdom and picking an alternative from a space of freedom, not desperation. When such decisions have been made over and over, through committed practice, patience becomes a state-of-being, where there isn't a second thought given to it. We are not doing it, we are it.
Patience is the manifestation of withholding of judgment. I loved this too, "Patience is a kind of trust. A trust that does its part and holds the rest lightly in an open palm."
The sibling of patience is acceptance. A wise one once told me that the real sign of progress was in the level of acceptance one displayed of others, where one was equanimous with what is in front.
How do I know if I'm being a dullhead accepting what should not be accepted? I've found that wholesome acceptance has been accompanied by love, at a level that is unmistakeable. Dullheaded acceptance, on the other hand, has no expansion associated with it; rather, I've noticed fear.
Loved the previous reflections.
Very grateful to read the reflections here. I found myself wondering that when I envision a better tomorrow and work toward it, am I not lusting for it?
The author says, "Lust extends much wider than the sexual sphere, and essentially means attachment to something that is not present, or is not the appropriate thing right now."
The answer seems to emerge from the last few words of the line - "is not the appropriate thing right now," suggesting awareness and discrimination. Indeed, if I act out of a desire to change the future with a specific idea of what it should be, then I am lusting for that which is not here, and many wise people have cautioned us against working with attachment. Then, must we give up envisioning the future?
It is in our nature to create, and creation involves envisioning that which is not. However, the best creators cannot explain how they create, and usually have some vision of where they want to go, but no vision of what the end result is going to be. Their life (like the rest of us) makes sense looking backwards, but not when looking forward.
Being aware of what needs to express itself through me seems to be an important distinction that can help me check if something is appropriate or not, for awareness is the first step toward discrimination.
It was great to have Neil open today. He spoke vividly about how baseball hitters are able to get into the zone, where they can see the seams of the ball (which is hurtling down at breackneck speed toward them). Getting into the zone is about being able to slow down our minds and take in a much bigger view of what is happening in front of us.
Pavi shared a succinct observation - between the stimulus and the response lies a space. When we slow down, we begin to notice this space, and realize that we can choose our response. To me, this is the freedom that mystics and saints talk about. To realize that I create my own reality, not at the level of philosophical platitudes but at the level of practical reality, is a great realization. To keep that realization at every moment is an ideal to aspire for. Much happiness can be determined in our lives by doing so.
I liked all the different examples in which my ego plays out. I could find myself raising my hand several times. I would add that feeling guilty about the past is another big activity for the ego. Who is guilty and about what? I have deviated from my self-image and am devastated. This is one of the biggest time-sinks we can engage in. Every time I've been in this mode, all it has taken is one simple question - who is feeling guilty? And immediately, the foolishness of the time spent feeling sorry for myself becomes evident.
Nair's ending comment reminded me of Randy Komisar's book, "The Monk and the Riddle," where he talks about living the "Whole Life Plan," instead of the "Deferred Life Plan." It is easy to get into the deferred mode, but I find it is not that hard to live my whole life plan. It may take a little time and effort, and we may need to plan so transitions may be skillful.
The idea of leadership being about service is not new, although it is perhaps the most forgotten idea. We find that Plato talks about it in "The Republic," when he talks about a good leader being one who protects those he/she is chosen to lead.
Leadership studies are strangely not well-known, with in-your-face charismatic leaders taking the limelight from the media. Yet, inspiring and lasting organizations have consistently shown servant leadership, be it SouthWest Airlines, Toyota, or Semco. Semco has in-fact instituted a model where those who are led will appoint their leader, a controversial upside-down practice that is really, in my mind, an enlightened practice.
Finally, my most inspiring manager was this man who would always ask me to work less and would try to make life easier for me whenever he met me. Every time he asked me to work less, I used to work double that of what I had planned - it was as if my heart couldn't control the joy and it had to find expression in creativity. And when I've had other managers who've had expectations on how much I should work, the heart has gone into a transaction mode.
Nipun writes about this phenomenon in this post. (read toward the end about affection)
Pancho,
Thanks for sharing about Meher Baba. I remembered a time when I was a kid, and was visiting my grandfather, he took me to a spiritual club he was part of in Kolkata, where they were discussing Meher Baba's philosophy. It struck me as incredible that someone would not speak for 30 years. At that meeting, someone claimed that Gandhiji had met Meher Baba on a ship when returning from the west, and was so impressed that he laid down one day of the week (was it Monday?) as his day of silence.
Old memories came flooding back..
On Jul 21, 2022 Somik Raha wrote on Error Of Perception, by Ramana Maharshi: