Sadhana, the realization of life

"There is a bond of unity between our two eyes which makes them act in unison."  Sadhana; the Realization of Life by Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali poet, mystic and writer known for his elegant, lyrical writing style; he also is known for his Nobel Prize win for literature in 1913. Written in his philosophical prose style, Tagore's  book, Sadhana, the Realization of Life, addresses many aspects of the Self and the world. He writes for example, that opposites do not bring confusion; in reality they bring harmony. Rhythm can never be born of disharmony, or of  "the haphazard struggle of combat."

This principle is the chief mystery of all unities. Unity in Tagore's mind could be viewed as: the one which appears as the many. And while seeming to be opposite, it is the truth, a paradox of sorts. He writes of a great poem, as a compilation of most pleasing sounds, yet if one stops to hear the import of those sounds, something more emerges; 'the inner connects to the outer [meaning].'

In the following poem below Tagore writes a bit of this and other ideas further discussed in prose style in his book, Sadhana. The poem is 'a thing of beauty which transcends grammar, laws' and becomes unto itself.

I

By Rabindranath Tagore

I wonder if I know him
In whose speech is my voice,
In whose movement is my being,
Whose skill is in my lines,
Whose melody is in my songs
In joy and sorrow.
I thought he was chained within me,
Contained by tears and laughter,
Work and play.
I thought he was my very self
Coming to an end with my death.
Why then in a flood of joy do I feel him
In the sight and touch of my beloved?
This 'I' beyond self I found
On the shores of the shining sea.
Therefore I know
This 'I' is not imprisoned within my bounds.
Losing myself, I find him
Beyond the borders of time and space.
Through the Ages
I come to know his Shining Self
In the 'If ' of the seeker,
In the voice of the poet.
From the dark clouds pour the rains.
I sit and think:
Bearing so many forms, so many names,
I come down, crossing the threshold
Of countless births and deaths.
The Supreme undivided, complete in himself,
Embracing past and present,
Dwells in Man.
Within Him I shall find myself -
The 'I' that reaches everywhere.

Pissing In the Wind

"The shadow gone autonomous is a terrible monster in our house..."
The Shadow by Robert Johnson


As children most us learn that you can't spit into the wind or throw sand into the wind; you get back the same result: it flies into your own face! But somewhere along the way to adulthood we seem very often to forget this truth. Many of us seek to level our relations with others by these very means. There are relatively few facts in the world; most are about nature herself. For example, day follows night and night evolves again into day; there is the sun and the moon and all the seasons exerting their force and pull upon earth and its inhabitants.

There are airplanes, and then there are pilots; drivers who drive cars; wind and ice which foils them, sometimes with injurious or deadly results. We like to think of our self as master of all, in control. The sad fact of physics is that often we aren't. For many this provokes a deep anxiety or unconscious dread. We are protective, even defensive of ourselves and our positions. This often leads to a sort of self blindness, not unlike that experienced by the Emperor in the Hans Christian Anderson story, The Emperor's New Clothes. Regular readers here will recognize the theme...
Simple acknowledgment of our desire to make things safe for our self in relations with others goes a long way to enlightening the mind.

In the spiritual life, we seek to find a unity with these unacknowledged parts of ourselves, parts which often riotously erupt at sometimes the most inopportune, the most inconvenient moments. For some the solution, at least temporarily, is to squelch or sequester these emotions, this energy out of sight and effectively, out of mind.
"In the cultural process, we sort out our God given characteristics... we begin to divide our lives." This process Robert Johnson calls, 'shadow making' in his book, Owning Your Own Shadow.
Without some measure of self-regulation, routine social interactions would become potentially very messy on a very regular basis. However these now "forgotten" traits don't often slink away; instead they lay in wait for another time. Lying in the darkness of the anterior mind, the shadow strength builds. In some it provokes deep depression or anxiety, in others a general mental disorder.

There is the sorting process which we think of as culture, by which the facets of the accepted and unaccepted self are rendered either active or passive; the active parts we think of as personality and the inactive become unknown, or from time to time emerge as 'bad manners' which culture seeks to rope in and regulate.
Yet this sorting process is "quite arbitrary," Johnson observes. For the spiritual growth of a person in mid-life, the two must reconnect for a balance, for unity to arise.
The Hindus for example, acknowledge the presence of the gods of creation and destruction simultaneously. In Hinduism, the balance of these natural forces is called Ananda.
In the west, the word we use to describe this same process is religion, from the Latin, it means to re-relate, to put back together again, to restore. It is in this move towards restoration that our spiritual selves find rest, peace and balance of the whole.

The Parting of the Way

"As to the sage, no one will know whether he existed or not."   --- Lao Tsu

The book, The Parting of the Way, by Holmes Welch, is a short examination of the Tao and its historical development. Today many would find that the Tao, and Zen Buddhism, especially, are quite similar.

In fact today many practitioners of Zen are also observant of some practices of Taoism. Of its founder, Lao Tzu, believed to be also the writer of the Tao Ti Ching, Confucius remarked, " I have seen... But when it comes to the dragon, I am unable to conceive how he [Lao Tzu] can soar into the sky riding upon the winds and clouds. Today I have seen Lao Tzu, and can only liken him to a dragon." Taoism is an important part of Chinese spiritual understanding for multitudes over a span of more than a thousand years.

In fact, some suppose that the principle text of the Tao, the Tao Ti Ching, is the most translated Eastern religious text; others have remarked upon its ethos to the Christian story. Welch writes, "In recent years there has been a growing interest [in the West]in Buddhism, especially in Zen," owing much to Taoism in its development as a distinct denomination within the practice of Buddhism.

Some have proposed that the Tao Ti Ching was a "manual" fashioned for the practitioner of tso-wang, an early form of yoga practiced in China. This text is not to be a manual on breathing practices leading to trance, yet it gives allusion to the Taoist practice of meditative trance. Ultimately the impact of the Tao Ti Ching, according to Welch, lies in the demonstration of how such power that "trance states give over the material world, and also how such trance states can be the basis for the metaphysical realm.

'In Trance, the ruler returns to the roots of his nature, perceives the Unity of the Universe, the non-existence of absolutes, and the non-existence of contraries. One must be empty of desire to achieve trance, and the Power that it gives. "How does this Power work? It makes possible to act without action, to bring things about without interfering, to act by bypassing the contraries of every event.
Those who try by other means--by [exterior imposition of] morality, by fear or punishment-- only spoil what they do as fast as they do it." Welch writes that different language translations have inserted their ideas into the work, some more mystical.

On the other hand, translators such as Northrup, says Welch are metaphysical. Northrup was interested in comparing the Asian texts with religious texts of the West. Some call this "comparative religion," with an interest to learn both the sameness and uniqueness of humankind universal.

Northrup believed that all Asian religions are founded on the Aesthetic component of mental functioning. Reality in this way is directly sensed, experienced, unlike the west which tends towards intellectual exploration. In this view, by experience, it is then possible to paint ones' experience from the inside, viewing the outside.


Later Taoism developed ideas of immortality. From Buddhism, the Chinese also developed a concept of the soul. While the Buddha himself did not historically believe in a "soul" as is supposed in western thought, anatta reduced persons to five "heaps of matter" which included interior aspects of the human person.

As to the personality, classically the Chinese view is that a personality is composed of those anatta aspects as a composite. At death part of one ascended to heaven, part descended below and part, the life breath, simply faded away, not to return.

The schools of Buddhism which historically became most practiced in China were those schools that taught and believed in an immortality of the soul. Immortality to these practitioners had to be both physical and metaphysical. Gradually both these ideas were adopted by the Taoists.

These ideas came into place after the Han dynasty. Over time, historical Taoism developed a strong theocracy to administer to the social hierarchy of the faith, and of everyday matters of the people. The historical wizard-shaman of the Tao was born in this time. In contrast to the corruption of the Imperial court, the Taoist structure rapidly came to be seen as more stable, more helpful, and more beneficial to the people. Its practice in the early period spread wildly.

Yet Lao Tsu did not urge his values on anyone; however, he said that, "everyone under heaven says our Way is greatly like folly." He also, while not urging his views upon others, noted that while they are "good and right," if we do not follow them, we invite disaster.

In the time of the Song or Sung dynasty, the Jade emperor came into great importance among the people. This was a time of strife and war with invaders from the north. The Jade emperor was a god believed to be with a vast court containing many persons and complex rituals. Once a year it was thought, that all the gods came to pay court to the Jade emperor, giving homage and accounts of their administration. If they did well, they received rewards, if not, they were punished.

The deities were many, and as diverse as those gods of the sun, the moon, the neither worlds, the hearth, etc. Since the time of the Sung or Song dynasty hence, the pantheon of Taoist deities has been relatively stable with a concept of heaven and hell included in the theology as well.

The Tao today continues to share with Buddhism deities such as Kwan Yin, goddess of mercy, Kuan Ti, god of war. Few persons are exclusively Taoist or Buddhist in much of China today. Sharing its patrimony with other religions of China, Tao values are: honesty, kindness to all creatures, speak truthfully, do not gossip or slander others; be not boastful or hypocritical, do not take bribes, nor covet another's possessions, nor his wife; respect the elders. This is consistent with the simple mind, the Confucian teachings, and many Buddhist denominations.

Truly, any or all of these values mentioned here could be placed in a Christian Sunday sermon as well, without notice. They function as core human values. We are, it seems, more alike than we are different.

Tarsius and the Council of Nicaea

"Be still, and know that I am God." Bible, Psalm 46:10

While many have heard the word Nicaean (Nicean) and may know it has something to do with christian religious experience or spirituality, historically exactly what it is, many fewer can say today.

The councils of Nicaea were convened in response to controversy about theological ideas around the nature of the Christ. These meetings were ecumenical councils. The second Nicaean Council took place in Constantinople about 786 BCE lasting until civil unrest disturbed the councilors so much they took early leave. These councils are considered the councils of the undivided church of this time. The imperial secretary, Tarsius figures importantly in this second proceeding. He later became the Patriarch of Constantinople.

The first council of Nicaea took place some centuries earlier in Alexandria Egypt about 325 BCE. Present at this council notably were the patriarchs of Egypt, Libya, Syria, Persia, Palestine and also Greece and Thrace among others. Manuscripts of the proceedings have been discovered written in Arabic describing a number of significant events which took place here. There were a number of decisions made: notably that Bishops must know the Gospels by heart, not cursorily; that they must be exemplary in character and the still widely used, Nicene Creed was devised and agreed upon. If you learn nothing else, read and understand this creed, for it is all that Christianity proposes and all that it believes. Here it's in its original, unedited form:

We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten of the Father, that is, of the substance [ek tes ousias] of the Father, God of God, light of light, true God of true God, begotten not made, of the same substance with the Father [homoousion to patri], through whom all things were made both in heaven and on earth; who for us men and our salvation descended, was incarnate, and was made man, suffered and rose again the third day, ascended into heaven and cometh to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Ghost. Those who say: There was a time when He was not, and He was not before He was begotten; and that He was made out of nothing, ex ouk onton; or those who maintain that He is of another hypostasis or another substance, not the Father, or that the Son of God is created, or mutable, or subject to change, those the catholic* church anathematizes."
Source-- www.newadvent.org/cathen/11044a.htm

In the previous era of Christian unity, the convening of ecumenical councils was an important way for Christian leaders from far off lands to come together, discuss the Gospels and their meaning and come to unified conclusions regarding the spirituality and practice of the Christian faith. At this early time in history, the Bishop of Rome, todays Pope Francis, was widely regarded as the bishop who presides in love and charity, as St. Ignatius of Antioch termed it, and thus the Bishop of Rome (the Pope) takes precedence in the order of Bishops. At the time, there was an order of precedence among the ancient bishops' seats: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem; the order was recognized by all in the era of the undivided church.

After centuries of rising tension, Christianity finally broke apart in 1054 CE. The reasons included abstract theological differences involving issues like the understanding of the Holy Spirit and practical disagreements over the extent of the Western pope’s authority over worldwide Christianity.
After the breach, the rival primates hurled mutual excommunications at each other. For nearly 1,000 years, the two churches did not interact on any level.

* Catholic is defined as: whole, universal, undivided

A passion for Life

"You are the secret of God's heart."

There's a spirit awaiting your presence. Enter into it. Find what you may about life, love, yourself. Make your motto courage. "Know that love and tenderness are not powerless; patience and tolerance can produce tremendous change.
Yet these energies have to be used, not in submissiveness or resignation, but in passion," writes Deepak Chopra in his book, The Path to Love.

A passion for life is a passion for wholeness, for unity. It is the recognition that the world contains all things, side by side. Passion is the freedom to choose, to live in experience the things that are essential to a human existence.
This passion for unity is a passion for the male and female contained within the self. Like the marriage of Siva and Shakti, both the male and female are within, and both are vital.

"For men this may be the advent of tenderness, nurturing and trust. Having a woman always to supply these qualities is not enough. Male attributes of force and violence have become grotesquely exaggerated in this world because men leave the feminine energies to women...Vulnerable may be then seen as a human quality, not a weakness that makes a man only half a man. Competition based on ego will diminish...the ability to cooperate increases...Spiritually man is the complement of woman... By welcoming Shakti, a man truly is Siva."

In the Judeo-Christian tradition woman is made from man's rib, therefore at creation, the two are one. They join again in marriage and become one,  flesh of my flesh, reads Christian scripture. It is to be seen that in spirit, and in the ultimate reality, man and woman are alike, whole and unified, each with their unique emphasis. He and she joins to form 'we'.
 The world has not claimed there to be too much tenderness, too much friendship or love. The continued separation of creation, forces into opposition that which is destined to be together. Alienation becomes the tragic result, resulting in various self-destroying behaviors.

Chopra writes further, "A woman needs to allow herself however much time it takes to use Shakti energy to accomplish what has been reserved for the male ego. Shakti runs in everyone, but women have been given their femaleness [and unique creative ability] to accentuate the difference between themselves and Siva."

The ways of Shakti are the solution for many.  Allowing these spiritual realities to suffuse the self is the key to a whole, unified way of life, befitting of a human person.

The Marriage of Shakti and Siva
"Our minds," says Chopra, 'are conditioned to seeing male and female as polar opposites. It is totally inadequate to call Siva male and Shakti female since these terms limit God, who is limitless [in creation].
Siva and Shakti have been married together since the dawn of time. They are the divine whole that chooses to express itself by taking the appearance of male and female. You and I may do the same thing: my body may be male, my inner identities, spirit; thus by taking on Shakti, my whole soul includes both Siva and Shakti." paraphrased

Qualities of Siva and Shakti:

* Siva is silence. Shakti is power.

* Siva is creative. Shakti is creation.

* Siva is love. Shakti is loving.

"These qualities are not opposites, they are complements. The Vedic teaching is that out of the "divine sexual act, the world was born; therefore the feminine as the birth giver, is the natural vehicle of power... The silence of Siva who has no need to intrude, conquer, overcome, or aquire. 
Although he is called the 'destroyer of worlds' in the Bhagavad-Gita, what is meant is that Siva absorbs the universe back into himself at the end of creation. 
Siva, one of the three primal gods of India, along with Brahma and Vishnu conceive a particular form of the divine. Siva is best understood as a silent awareness that permeates everything. The creative potential of Siva is greater than any single expression, even that of galaxies or the world itself."

How can this be? It may be seen through a practice sometimes called second attention working through the sixth sense, intuition, sometimes also called sight or gift. In reality there are continuous signals everywhere which may be perceptible at any time through an intuitive or meditational process.

"The Indian mind is not linear,' writes Chopra. 'It finds no contradiction in making Siva the destroyer and all knowing creator.'
'Siva wants to be known. It is the god's greatest sign of love. Entering into passion, you express your own nature and nothing less."

What About the Soul?

"Humankind are creatures in which spirit and material meet together and are unified in a single whole."-- Ratzinger

The word soul conjures for most things like: immutable, essence, animating, spiritual; also leader, fervor, exemplification or personification. Some say there is no such thing while others say it is as the wind--known by feeling, not by sight.
and while a majority of the world's people may admit themselves to the notion of an afterlife or an idea of reincarnation, what about the soul?

In the west, the soul is given often as a separate entity from the body. However within some of the great religions (great in terms of world wide adherence), be it Judeo-Christian, Muslim or Zoroastrian, some forms of Buddhism and Hinduism and others, there not only is a well developed sense of reincarnation but also of the corresponding soul, which ascends.

In recent times there is increasingly talk about a soul but a clear confusion, even avoidance of what it means. It seems more frequent that people wish to talk around it whenever possible. Ratzinger writes: Some Christian denominations try to persuade that it is actually a Pagan conception and somehow not within the Christian realm. This thinking is indeed at odds with the basics of Christian thought for it involves the splitting of the body from its spirit; in this way there cannot be unity for all manifestations of creation joined with the Creator for which we may take part.  Paraphrased

While the concept of the soul may be present in many, many cultures, within the Christian tradition, it is a part of faith, a part of the way of the Christ. He who has come into the world, has come both in a body and a spirit so that we may know the Creator and our part in the creation. Humankind are creatures in which spirit and material meet together and are unified in a single whole.

And if we are to set aside the notion of soul as some would do, then the body is alone, robbed of its dignity and without exaltation as both a creator and the product of Creation itself. It bears no part in the Creation of the world.
Many times people have fallen to speculation that a body has indeed fallen from its spirit, that the spirit roams about unattached. Indeed in Chinese folklore, for example, these spirits are often referred to as hungry ghosts who roam about looking to attach them self to matter. Many times as a result, the living are abhorrent to enter a cemetery for fear of possible entrapment by these spirits. And for those who say the disembodied soul is an absurdity, perhaps they have not understood the teachings on the matter of faith, as it were.

In at least the Christian tradition, the people of the Lord are known as the Body of the Christ; within this body there is the one Lord, whole and unified.  They are the people of the Christ; believers who cannot be lost as spirits, for theirs is contained within the greater body of this Christ!

When Scary You

There are times when others behave or speak in ways that are out of our comfort zone; in ways that we don't ordinarily think about or observe, and we may feel frightened or threatened. 
Remembering that it is someone who, them self, is feeling frightened and acting out that anxious mind isn't always the first thing we think about.
It is likely, after all, that when we are uncomfortable, threatened-- feeling small to your big, the first response is to lash out, to even up the situation. So we become loud, stubborn, overbearing, competitive.

And meeting others on level ground can be initially difficult when what we most want is to beat and retreat. However standing and announcing that they are scary right now may be just one way to break thorough to a truth that is otherwise hard to know.
 Dealing with others on a level playing field transforms you and the interaction into something less intimidating and more manageable.
You are now much more an equal; think about it-- people who aren't feeling bigger or smaller in comparison to others rarely are antagonistic. That is a spiritual truth all can ponder.  

Feeling frightened or seeming scary isn't just limited to yelling, belligerence or overtly acting out; silence, other non-communication or when the person is speaking calmly, but not making a whole lot of sense, is admittedly scary too.

Regardless of the form of "scary" which you may perceive, meeting others on level ground makes all the difference in a relationship with others. What is this meeting on level ground about? Zen teacher, Diane Rizzetto writes that it is about measures of self worth. She notes that many of us, many times place people below or above ourselves. We move about our daily life with a sometimes unconscious "measure stick."

Like Thomas Merton noted, we categorize and classify others, and sometimes dismiss them. Dag Hammarskjold observes that by avoiding those occasions of comparison, we are more humble, not better nor worse than any other. We then meet as equal, equally human. Some use these measures to avoid uncomfortable feelings they have; though we are neither better nor worse as human beings, we often have the impulse to place personal responsibility elsewhere, to fault find; looking at our self with the mind of not better nor worse can over time lead to a greater self acceptance and feeling for others because in relationships, we don't need to convert others or clone our self. It's one step off the spinning wheel of suffering.

The Dharma, The Tao, The Way

The terms Dharma, Tao and the Way are familiar spiritual descriptions, often tossed around which come from several spiritual traditions, both East and West. Yet as the well known Indian physician and author, Deepak Chopra writes in his book The Path To Love, what may seem as separate is really not so, through interbeing. He discusses these traditions as long living in the human world, that they are in his view, rather more unified, that they inter-be as one.

"Dharma" is also translated as "law" or "righteousness." In India, today someone who follows the family tradition of work, worship, and social behavior is said to be in his "dharma." Modern Western society is not dharmic in any of these ways, since our children feel free to choose very different occupations from their parents', along with new codes of behavior and new places to live. In both East and West the rootedness of a dharmic society has been undermined in this century.

However, Dharma is more than social convention; it is a living force that can bring you through the many threats and challenges of life. Your ego [western term, from the Latin meaning self or I] does not believe this for it cannot find dharma; ego is not guided by love, and dharma is intimately tied to love. In the West, the closest concept to dharma is grace [one, whole, universal], the loving presence of God that keeps humanity under divine protection. When Jesus spoke of God seeing the fall of a sparrow, he was referring to dharma. In China, the same concept emerged as Tao, the middle way, which was seen as an invisible but real power that organizes all life. Being in tune with the way is the same as living within dharma. The Christian term the Way is likewise. Jesus exhorted his disciples to "come follow me."

"Every spiritual tradition has taught that success in life depends upon finding the Way and ignoring the distractions of external things. Your Ego, however, insists that your survival depends upon paying total attention to the outer world. Its primary tactics--vigilance and defensiveness--are the very antithesis of surrender in the way. Your ego, a perception of which, causes you to believe that separation is necessary..." In reality separation is not ever necessary; it is something chosen or not.

Being in dharma however, "heals separation by making us [inter-being] a reality," not as a 'unit of two,' but as a whole, oneness, a universal spirit. Chopra explains further, "You are acting in dharma whenever you allow rather than oppose. Allowing results in statements such as these:

* Is there something you need?
* How can I help?
* I see what's going on with you.
* Go ahead.
* I understand what you mean.
* You're right.

"Unity makes another person's viewpoint completely clear; you understand someone who is outside yourself." What makes this possible is the realization of inter-being, that what you value, esteem, follow isn't something outside yourself, it may be only outside of your ego. Thus "following your dharma in the deepest sense means not only obeying the laws set down by society or adhering to rules of religious conduct--there is no fixed formula for finding the Way..." Set spiritual guideposts for yourself, thus making this newer, broader meaning of dharma essential.