I didn’t decide yet whether to travel anywhere, but should make up my mind soon, if I want to get away before the high season starts; I’m also not sure how much I may be needed at home during the summer months.

So, when I went on a long walk in the woods today, I decided to leave my mind free, rather than listen to a podcast or music, in case insight came.

None did, which is typical. When I’m walking in the woods, it’s hard to think about plans, or arrive at practical decisions. What I was thinking about, if anything, was that I’m quite happy to be doing what I’m doing. So is it actually necessary to go anywhere during this period? A time will come when I feel a pressing need, no doubt.

I thought also about my conception of the universe and the place we occupy in it. Today I was in three bookshops looking for a Hebrew translation of the Tao Te Ching, as D wanted to give it as a gift to someone. It seems to be a popular book here: all the sales assistants I spoke to knew it, and the first two shops had run out of copies. The second shop sent me to another branch of their chain, where she discovered that two copies remained. “It’s wonderful,” said the shop assistant.

The shops also carried a translation of the complete writings of Ramana Maharshi and D asked me to get that too, so I got it. On the cover, it has the Sanskrit word “Aham” (I).

So on my walk I also thought a little about Ramana. I have never felt drawn much to his method of self-inquiry. I’m probably more attracted to “affirmation”, the way of the mahavaykas. But it isn’t exactly that. My practice is more one of attempting to integrate the realisation of the error in our perception. Ahankara makes us conceive of ourselves as separated and limited, whereas in truth we are of the same substance as the universe, which expresses itself through us, as it does in every other being/element (sarvani bhutani). This oneness, this unity-verse, is worthy of devotion: not that of the individual + an object of worship. Devotion is a bhava, a state. The state of existence is itself wrapped up with the innate inclination to be worshipful. Bhakti, which is love, is the glue that holds everything together. That’s my approach, basically.

I did not find a proper guide in it, and sometimes I wish there would be one. Maybe I am myself the best guide, but so far I’m not impressed wtih the results.

Spirituality is an important human impetus. It provides meaning to our lives and helps us to see beyond the horizon of our known world. Without it, existence would be flat and two-dimensional. With spirituality, we regain a sense of wonder at a universe that seems to transcend our finite understanding and diminished view.

Unfortunately, everywhere we look, religion, which often serves as the vehicle for spirituality, appears to be polluted. Churches with dangerous, predatory bishops. Corrupt or violent ayatollas. Murderous hindutwa extremists. Rabbis with hands soaked in blood. Buddhist monks urging genocide; avaricious gurus, vile gun-toting adherents of every creed. Whereever you look, among established faiths and new ones, our sources of inspiration are sullied by these associations. Even putting aside all the extremists, most of our religions are infected with a patriarchal world-view, homophobia and archaic values that need to be left in the trash can of history.

The urge is to shrug off all religion, to throw the baby out with the bath water. If we wish to take the time and the energy, we can do so. We can work through the core material with which religion and spirituality deal and chalk out a way for ourselves. We can ask the right questions, and maybe find solutions that we can live by – perhaps drawing these from an eclectic mix of the world’s spiritual teachings or divining new ones.

However, if we don’t have the time, the wisdom, the capacity or the inclination to follow that lonely route, we may need to adopt a religion or a spiritual guide, and not allow the the obvious and super-abundant pollution to touch the sources of our inspiration: to protect the weak candle of our belief from the foul wind; to let the beauty of a faintly heard bhajan wash our soul; or let the adhan wake us, for “prayer is better than sleep”.

Reflections after reading a paragraph of Ismail Hakki Bursevi’s translation and commentary upon Ibn Arabi’s “Kernel of the Kernel”

” That is to say, if he has not… drunk the glass of love, and has not found annihilation in the ipseity of God, when he says “He”, he will be speaking according to his own conjecture, imagination, understanding and relativity. He brings the Being of God into imagination, and gives it a form. Because he has not divested himself of being and reached Absoluteness. Consequently, he puts God under a condition, according to his conjecture and imagination and draws around him a limit; thereby he will have immanenced Him and invented Him. And thereby he has worshipped a creator which he himself has originated.”

This is a perfectly vedantic commmentary, relating to the dangers of false understanding and imagination of the Absolute, and the need for complete self-annihilation (nirvana) before approaching or presuming to be absorbed in the divine essence.

Yesterday I watched the documentary, “The Pirate Bay – Away from Keyboard”. The latter phrase is the way, according to Peter Sunde, of saying “in real life”, because for those who spend their lives on the internet, the internet is real life. Well, of course it is. But is playing a game real life? Being immersed in a novel, or in TV, like the character in “Being There”, or in a hallucinatory drugged state? Or in a psychosis?

It is, actually, just in the same way as what we call reality is engineered by our imagination. Reality is there, but it is warped into something different. For example, we could say that, from a position of higher understanding, the universe is all in sync; in harmony; in a state of cooperation. Whereas, in the consciousness of an ordinary, conditioned individual, there is instead, competition and rivalry. The big fish eat the little fish; entailing the necessity for constant defence against adversity. This is not just a matter of seeing the world a little differently. It is a fundamental difference; a night-and-day difference. So yes, by the measure of reality, it is likely that we are in a state of psychosis. And a person who sees the world according to a different paradigm from our mundane perception of it would be labeled psychotic. And who can say who is right? We only know that owing to the strict behavioural rules of society and of the human-created world, it is difficult for a person who perceives and understands in a completely different way to function.

In such a world, where one has little chance of ever seeing the real outside of our human-created mould, we might just as well live in a fantasy that is provided by television, by the internet, by the game-makers, or psycho-active drugs; so long as is does not interfere too much with our ability to function, for part of the day, in the “away from keyboard” world constructed by human society for the purpose of eking out a livelihood, consuming, procreating, etc.

There is, however, the unfortunate fact that our human activities are destroying the biosphere. Here again, we find that humans have found a way of incorporating concern for the biosphere into their carefully constructed world of illusion. They believe that if they live according to certain constraints, they will minimize the damage. Thus the founders of the Pirate Bay, despite their disregard for other human conventions, incorporated vegetarianism into their lifestyle. It is fairly easy to integrate “environmental awareness” and other values into our carefully constructed fantasy world.

Whatever the outcome of the environmental crisis we are facing, it is likely that the omnipotent and omniscient pan-consciousness behind the world of appearances has long ago taken human activity into account, and that all of our actions take place against the background of this consciousness.

The real question for us, for human beings, is whether we must reconcile ourselves to living always and forever in illusion, or whether we can follow Ibn Arabi in seeking a reality that is not conditioned by imagination?

Flight to Tel Aviv: I have been reading Sapiens, and reached almost the of the book now. I have just finished reading his discussion of happiness; in which he writes particularly of the Buddhist understanding of the concept. It is close to the one I find in Yoga philosophy, though I would phrase it differently. I think that happiness is the state normally found when consciousness rests in the present moment and is not in a condition of resistance to it. In other words, the mind is at peace. In a moment that we are caught off-guard by beauty, such as when one opens the curtains to behold a golden sunrise, the mind is “enraptured”, if only for a moment, perhaps. Something comes between our thoughts of the past, our memories, regrets; and our plans hopes and desires for the future, so that we know peace, for a fleeting moment.

Similarly, when we satisfy a desire or fulfill a dream, we touch on our peace by being focused on the pleasure, rather than thinking of the past or the future. Conversely, if the present moment is full of pain, and we resist the pain, we amplify it. But if, on the other hand, we are able to feel pain but also accept it, then we can still be at peace. Buddhists would say that we should simply observe the comings and goings of painful and pleasurable thoughts. The issue I have with this is that it then becomes a mental process, and is based on the division of subject and object. But here there is a problem. Except through an analytical process, it is not possible to achieve true equanimity while there is this rational discrimination.

July 1, 2020

Well, it is subtle. I’m not sure that the Buddhist attitude is so different. There is a slight difference in attitude between saying that the self (or anything) is “empty of a separate existence” and saying that “the (individual) self (atman) is the self of everything (brahman)”. My axe to grind is that our observation is flawed, because it fails to take into account that there is a substratum in which the existence of one “thing” is the existence of the whole, so that the objects or separate selves are only superficially separate. And so our observation of the universe is flawed at the most fundamental level: it does not take into account the most important factor. So even Sapiens, as a book, though it speaks of our speciesism and our failure to take into account the environmental concerns, does not see as a basic truth that it is simply impossible not to take into account the connection between the self and the other.

It is not exactly that the self (me) and the table are “connected” or (heaven forbid) one and the same, but that we share a common basis, a common existence, that gives “life” to both of us. The table is “illusory”, so long as I do not take into account the observational fallacy and the underlying common existence; because otherwise what I see is only part of the truth, and part of the truth equals a total lie. Not practically, because I am in fact using the table in order to rest this notebook on and write these words, but philosophically, existentially. Existentially, it changes everything: my stance, my attitute, but also, something much more fundamental and beyond our subjectivity. It is the way in which the universe functions. A universe of separate objects would never actually work, could not exist.

Harari speaks, for example, of the absence of an intelligent designer.He speaks of a lack of purpose behind the universe. This is inaccurate. There is no designer who stands outside of it – that’s true, but there is, absolutely, intelligence and good design in the universe. The universe is a manifestation of intelligence. A human who tries to design a better variety of corn, or an automobile, will fail miserably if he is unable to take into account the natural “laws” of physics, chemistry, or biology, which are his palette. And, anyway, to the extent that he fails to take into account the full environmental impact of his “creation”, he will cast a fly in the ointment, a spanner in the works, of the total design.

Harari is right that environmental “destruction” is a misnomer. It is actually “change”, but, in so far as this species is concerned, destruction of the biosphere will be the end of the road. Some other species may come along, perhaps, to take our place, and the place of countless other species that we have made extinct. Or not. The real universe, that which exists behind this one, is like a child’s magnetic toy that constantly recombines in new ways. You knock down the cathedral you have so carefully constructed, and the pieces recombine to make a spaceship. Nothing is destroyed, but conditions are changed. Does it matter? It matters greatly to homo sapiens. The species can only function within a certain habitat.

Our failure is in not understanding how to coexist within our habitat in a sustainable way. We don’t have to worry about the universe not being able to put right any mistakes that we make. It will, but not necessarily in a way that is favourable to our species. Since, despite our bluster and self-importance, the universe will go on anyway without us. Not entirely without us, because we will continue. Just not in a form that is recognisable to us.

The question is whether or not our progress towards self-destruction (or change) is inevitable? It may be inevitable according to our nature as human beings. But Harari points out that civilization is cultural. The culture can be changed. The energies that drive us can be harnessed in completely different ways. We can change the way in which we live on the planet if we want to, so the apocalpyse is not inevitable.

I knew two persons in the Sivananda Centers, perhaps more, who related to others quite differently to most people I have known.

They related to other human beings with an unusual manner of superiority. They were aware that they were wiser than others, because they were more practiced and had attainments on the spiritual path. In the case of Swami S., this may have been delusional. In the case of Swami B., there was greater surety, perhaps due to his age; there was also more honesty, and even a kind of humility. His attitude also towards Swami S. was one of confident superiority. Swami B. had the assurance, and the feeling of responsibility that goes with being a teacher; specifically, a spiritual teacher.

I have always admired such confidence, but at no stage have had any inclination to emulate it.

There are other kinds of superiority that humans adopt; usually from privilege of some form. The attitude of spiritual superiority is different, though it can also be accompanied by the other kind, due to a person’s background. Many teachers happen to be Brahmins, upper class, academically qualified, etc.

And there is that other kind of superiority that manifests itself from not wanting anything that the world has to offer, and similarly being indifferent towards the consequences of one’s actions. There is the famous example of Diogenes and his meeting with Alexander. (On being asked by the emperor if there was anything that he might do for him, Diogenes hesitated and said there was indeed one thing, that Alexander would move a little to the side, so as not to deprive him of the warmth of the sun’s rays.) And there is the story of the martyrdom of Sarmad, who could not recite the full kalima even to save his own life.

If there is any kind of confident superiority that I would aspire to, it is the latter kind, since it is the cultivation of a kind of confidence that becomes unshakeable, making one indifferent towards whatever the world can throw. It is also the most attainable; it does not depend upon any material worth, learning, or any other form of privilege. It requires only that one remains confident of the way, come what may. It depends upon not contending, not promoting oneself; treating everyone with respect and no one with any special respect on account of position, influence or status. One can keep one’s own council and act with equanimity in the face of praise and blame, favorable circumstances or adversity.

All this is Vasudeva.

What I have to admit, from the beginning, is that I know nothing, and yet I know too much. I know nothing, on the basis that I’m poorly read. I have read neither Das Kapital nor Mein Kampf, and little of the great western philosophers. But also because the state of our knowledge, in the first quarter of the 21st century, is also very poor, compared to what it will be fifty or a hundred years later. On the basis of what we knew, in the 20th century, we have committed terrible errors and vicious crimes against humanity. On the basis of what we currently know, it is clear that we are destroying our biosphere.

I know too much because my knowledge interferes with my ability to see the world afresh. I have adopted biases that determine how I relate to my world. The prejudices that we acquire are far ranging and pervasive. Knowing this is not necessarily the answer to the problem. Sometimes knowing more can expose one to different ideas that can knock down our suppositions. A person with a narrow grasp of the underlying philosphical bases behind the mechanisms that drive our society is less likely to question them than a scientist who knows them better. Knowledge can be dislodged or challenged by new knowledge. On the grand scale of things this is what happens.

Either are in the playing field or the market of ideas, or one attempts gradually to deconstruct what one thinks one knows, without taking the route of adding new knowledge to challenge the old knowledge. These are opposite tracks. My tendency is towards the former, reduction by reduction, rather than through accumulation. But it is a path where one must forever be admitting one’s own weaknesses and deficiencies; a path of humility and humiliation. A Taoist path.

Yesterday Ilan sent in an article that debates the matter of what constitutes truth in an era of fake news; he looked at the matter of truth through the prism of various historical thinkers, eventually concluding before a matter can be admitted as truth, it must be open to wide discussion, that no authority could have the ultimate say. Instead the truth of a matter would be determined after being debated by the best minds. In such a process, my opinion counts for very little. I cannot “compete” in an arena where the qualifications depend on knowing the history of philosophical thinking and I would not contest the opinions of others in such an arena. It is true that I know a fair bit about the philosophical thinking of Eastern philosophical systems, perhaps, but there too I do not think it is worthwhile to contend. The area that is more interesting is that of learning and knowing from observation; discovering through silent communion with the universe, meditation. I have always thought that the keys to understanding are there to be discovered directly and must not depend upon academic learning. There are scriptures and holy books that claim to hold the keys to salvation and enlightenment. There are philosophers who have pursued truth through reason. There are scientists who have tried to discover the physical laws upon which our universe is constructed. All of these have their value and their place in our human civilization. But, without much basis other than belief or intuition, I continue to hold that the truth of our existence is there to be discovered by every denizen of the cosmos directly, without recourse to scripture, philosophy or science. Not every kind of knowledge, of course, but the particular knowledge of the identity of the self in relation to the universal. I think that the basis of this belief is present in the scriptures themselves. And it does not contradict reason. It cannot be negated by science, as far as I know.

This thinking is very democratic, because it extends the possibility to every one of us to understand, independently, our position in the universe, if we put into it enough effort. It only depends on our willingness to give all we have to the project, and not be afraid.

The knowledge of the self in relation to the cosmos, the nature of the self, our true identity, the nature of the other, the meaning of our lives, the inner purpose and the relation of this purpose to that of the universe, the act of observation, what constitutes happiness, the reason for our restlessness, the ability to confront and understand suffering, the movement of thoughts, moods, desires, attraction and repulsion, emotion, indifference, and the relation and mutual influence between our minds and our bodies, the ways in which we affect the world and interact with it and with others; our dreams and the subconscious, the obvious and the latent, the sources of our inspiration and energy, the ability to tap into the energy of the universe; the question of our mortality, the observation of time and its subjective velocity; the nature of experience, the various states of consciousness, the integrity of our knowledge or its partiality, the understanding of what is truly important and what is of less importance, the question of what is real and what illusion; the question of self-mastery or subservience to basic instincts, the question of belief in God or the supernatural, the matter of empathy, the ways in which egoism manifests, our aesthetic sense, the ways in which we lie to ourselves; attachments, the nature of peace, and many more questions, qualities, understandings, are all matters that we can resolve for ourselves without any necessity to go to a book or consult with a teacher. They are matters that can be understood through direct experience, aparoksha anubhuti.

So I was thinking that spiritual teachers so often see a version of reality that corresponds with their natures. Describing reality in one manner inevitably leads to the disparagement of alternative ways of describing it, which seem to have a different or opposite vision. It is not so different from the flaw in our everyday vision, according to which we define objects by their function or usefulness to us. In many languages gold or silver have come to mean “money”, while our word “salary” indicates a measure of salt.

In Islam, God has 99 names or attributes. But it would be an error to define God by any single one of them. In order to be able to see reality, we must discard all limiting notions and theories about it. Understanding can come only through a spirit of openness.

They always say in Hinduism that if we want to describe a faint star in the sky to a friend, we point instead to a brighter star and say that the star we mean is just to the left of that one. But in reality the attributes we use are not very helpful and bring us no nearer to understanding. To say that God is peace, or harmony or love inevitably conjures up notions that have little to do with what is actually meant. These are simply impositions from our egoistic human experience.