Quest Magazine

Explorations: All Holiness is One

Originally printed in the January - February 2002 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Michelson, Helen. "All Holiness is One." Quest 90.1 (JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2002):26-27.

Helen Michelson

Here are some thoughts that came to me after consecutive trips to Greece and Ireland.

In ancient times, every spring where the faithful came to worship the everlasting source of life had its goddess or nymph. These springs have continued to bubble through the centuries and indeed have absorbed the essence of the souls who worshipped there. The names of those revered have changed, but the feelings of love and reverence remain.

The guide book says, "Olympia . . . the site of the original Games.Not much to see except some rather uninteresting ruins." From this drab description I was hardly prepared for the surge of awe I felt when inthe presence of an antiquity that most certainly predated the Games and probably the ancient Greeks themselves.

I looked out over the wide plane in the western Peloponnesus, a valley silver green with olive trees, and at the distant brown hills. It must always have looked like this, I thought, for there is nothing but the rocky earth that will grow crops only with a great deal of effort, and yet it is a land that draws one like no other. I missed seeing the field of wildflowers in the springtime, described to me by my much-traveled British companion, but never mind, I was here at last.

I was prepared to feel transported by the sight of the ruins all about me–the colossal stumps from the Temple of Zeus, the gentler remains of Hera's lovely sanctuary, and, through a tumbled archway at one corner, the stadium with its grassy slopes–and columns everywhere, some stacked haphazardly, some left where they had fallen eons ago.Thank God (or the gods) for the Greeks, I thought, they leave things alone. They allow you to think, to imagine, and maybe to remember.

Fascinated, I felt drawn back through time, an intruder, for women were forbidden to enter the sanctuary of Olympia in the old days.

Overwhelmed and feeling the need to be alone, away from the hum of tourists, I wandered from my group and presently found myself before a grove of trees. This is a holy place, my inner self said. I knew that a sacred spring bubbled in the grove, secret beneath mossy stones, and that it had been here long, long before the Games. I was certain it had always been here. The first mortal who had found it dedicated it to the Goddess, the nameless Goddess, the mother of the earth, the source of life, a dedication made long before the Greeks created their Olympus of anthropomorphic deities. And through the years it became a sanctuary and drew the faithful. That is what I felt–centuries of accumulated, almost tangible, emotion: love, wonder, reverence, devotion.

The sound of voices and the scuffle of feet on the gravel path brought me back to the present. Someone clicked a camera shutter, and I thought, I will, too, because I must have a record of this place. I took a whole roll of film, but not one picture came out. Not one. It was the only roll of my entire trip that was blank, suggesting that there are some things not to be photographed.

That evening, back on board ship, I leaned on the railing and held a glass of wine while I watched Apollo spread his golden streamers over the gnarled fingers of the Peloponnesus, grabbing at the sea. "Here's to you, Poseidon," I whispered, holding out my glass. "For I know you and all your cronies still inhabit this antique land," and I poured the wine, as a libation, into the Aegean.

In Ireland a year later, I was lucky enough to be hiking near Maam Cross in Connemara, one of earth's wilder, windier, and more magnificent spots. We had climbed all morning through shine and showers and finally reached a high, rocky pass dedicated to St. Patrick–rather bleak Stations of the Cross stepping along close to the rock wall. Nearby was a spring, forever deep, cold and windswept, surrounded by its pathetic offerings: a bit of candle, a few coins, a tiny statue, a scribbled prayer, some shells. My eyes filled at the sight, and again I felt the surge of understanding, of the love and veneration left here over the years by the poor, dear bits left by the faithful. This source surely predated St. Patrick, when some woman, perhaps, left a sprig of flowers, a little fruit, a dish of milk, to a nameless Goddess.

I spoke of it later to our young Irish guide, and he, in typical Celtic fashion, accepted the mystical as an everyday fact of life. "Sureand I don't believe in leprechauns, but they're there anyway." He nodded his head as I told him my similar story in Greece. "Ah," he said, " the Goddess has her secret sanctuaries on this planet. They were recognized by the ancients and occasionally by one of us, too," and he looked at me. "All the gods are one, now aren't they? All holiness is one."

Helen Michelson, a third-generation New Yorker, says that after September 11 her essay on the everlasting springs seem other worldly."But on second thought," she adds, "perhaps not. Springs–symbolic, mystical, and often actual sources of life–will continue to flow long after this, our latest holocaust, has been laid to rest, hopefully with compassion and sanity. For, as the Dalai Lama said, anger is the real enemy." And she writes us: "Yesterday I went into the city for my first look at the Pile, as those who have been digging there so lovingly call Ground Zero. There are really no words to describe the shock, the devastation is so great and vast and overwhelming, but I was glad I went. Everyone who has the opportunity should make the pilgrimage. And that's what it really is. On my return trip uptown on the 7th Avenue bus, I passed a little cafe called La Belle Vie. Yeah, right, I thought. At the next stop a gaggle of little school kids, screaming and laughing and jostling each other, scrambled aboard, and I changed my mind. Maybe la vie can be belle after all, if we work at it."

Speaking from the Right Heart

Originally printed in the January - February 2002 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Ravindra, Ravi. "Speaking form the Right Heart." Quest 90.1 (JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2002):4-7, 23.

Ravi Ravindra

Theosophical Society - Ravi Ravindra is Professor and Chairman of Comparative Religion,Professor of International Development Studies, and Adjunct Professor ofPhysics at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He is interested in understanding whether it is possible to go beyond a Hindu-Christian or an East-West encounter to a human-human one. I had been asked by the editors of an encyclopedia to write an article on Krishnamurti. I prepared the outline, made extensive notes,and had a special interview with him to make sure that what I hadwritten reflected his thought accurately. I asked him whether"intelligence beyond thought" was the central thing he spoke about. Heagreed, but without much feeling. Suddenly, he was animated: "Take the risk, sir. Say what you wish. If you speak from the heart, I'll agree.Take the risk."

What is the risk in speaking from the heart? Vulnerability, above all. There are first of all concerns about "what would they say?" The carefully polished image of myself that I wish to project for others to see may be tarnished if they see me as I am. I may be exposed. This is,to be sure, a sort of conscience that keeps the usual social interactions proceeding more or less smoothly. But the real difficulty lies in the fact that we do not know what is deep down in our heart. Many sacred texts say that the Highest resides in the deepest part of each creature, as in the Bhagavad Gita (15.15) when Krishna says, "I dwell deep in the heart of everyone." We do not know Krishna, the highest God, and a part of ourselves knows this. This ignorance bothers our conscience, making us vulnerable, for the awakening of conscience is the opening of the heart.

Although it has become acceptable in the last few decades to speak in terms of levels of consciousness, one rarely comes across a discussion of levels of conscience. Even in the great traditions, one can see different emphases. The insight-and-truth traditions, such as the Hindu-Buddhist, have elaborate descriptions of various levels and states of consciousness, whereas in the faith-and-love Biblical traditions, the emphasis is much more on the various levels ofconscience, although it is not so labeled in these traditions. Examples can be found in two well-known traditional texts: The Tibetan Book ofthe Dead and Dante's Divine Comedy, both of which deal with the journey of the soul after death and with the cultivation of the right quality of life. The former addresses levels of consciousness; and the latter, those of conscience.

This major difference between the Biblical and the Indic traditions—of emphasis on conscience or on consciousness—is related to another important difference between these two streams of spirituality. In Biblical traditions, the root cause of the human predicament is an assertion of human self-will as opposed to the will of God, as revealedin his commandments. "Nothing burneth in hell except self-will," says the Theologia Germanica (chapter 34). And the whole exquisite agony ofthe cross—the way of the Christ—is in his last words in the Garden of Gethsemane: "If it is possible, let this cup pass me by. Yet not my will, but thine be done" (Mark 14.36; Ravindra, 151 -2). In Indic traditions, on the other hand, the root cause of the human difficulty is ignorance, which in its turn gives rise to suffering (dukkha) and to illusion (maya). In Biblical traditions, submission of our will in obedience to the will of God is called for; in Indic traditions, the requirement is for the sword of gnosis to cut the knot of ignorance.

Another fundamental difference, intimately related to the preceding is that, in the Indic traditions, holding on to an ultimately separate individuality is a mark of ignorance, whereas in the Biblical traditions a lack of individuality—even in the presence of God—marks a lack of responsibility. In one case, the traditional emphasis is on the oneness of all, whereas in the other case, the emphasis is on the uniqueness of human beings from all other creatures and of each person with respect to every other. Both oneness and uniqueness are derived from the same root;but their meanings diverge radically.

Traditions that hold the ideal of oneness are insight oriented and have developed a great deal of wisdom about various levels of consciousness. These levels have always to do with degrees of steadiness of attention and gradations of clarity of perception. The traditions extolling uniqueness are faith-and-obedience oriented and have a great deal to say about individual responsibility and moral conscience corresponding to the quality of virtuous conduct or the degrees and the gravity of sinfulness. Levels of consciousness are emphasized in one case, whereas levels of conscience are stressed in the other.

It is possible, but neither generous nor insightful, to convince oneself that half the sages in the world have misunderstood the matter and only the other half have found the truth. Of course, once certain modes of expressions are used in a cultural and linguistic context, a traditional momentum develops. Only the modes and terms used by the great teachers in that tradition seem appropriate to its followers. This attitude is not so harmful by itself, but the trouble arises when the dogmatic section in any tradition insists that Truth can be expressed only in one form.

All the great teachers have said in one way or another that the experience of approaching God or Truth or Nirvana or Brahman or the Ultimate cannot be expressed in the language of the lower levels. They have all affirmed that a radical transformation of conscience-consciousness, a spiritual re-birth, is needed for us to experience the Real. The sages have articulated significant truths indifferent ways, often constrained by the abilities of their pupils and the specific language of their community, emphasizing what they themselves found helpful. The importance of the specific language context cannot be overemphasized.

In some cases, for example in French, Spanish, and Sanskrit, there isonly one word corresponding to both the English words consciousness and conscience. This fact alone should alert us to the possibility of anintimate connection between the two. The awakening of conscience is the feeling preparation for an enhancement of consciousness. It is not possible to come to a higher state of consciousness without coming to a higher state of conscience. On the other hand, those who are in touch with higher levels of consciousness naturally manifest largeness of heart. Inclusiveness and compassion bespeak a sage as a particular kind of fragrance does a rose.

The best of any tradition is an expression of the highest insights of its sages, and therefore at depth the tradition is always right. But it is also true that the tradition is almost always misunderstood, especially when taken externally and partially, with exaggerated emphasis on rational speculation or on sentimental devotion.We can see this historically: if the traditions had not been misunderstood, Krishna, the Buddha, and the Christ would not have thrown down such forceful challenges as they did before the official guardians of their traditions.

One sees not only that the traditions are continually betrayed, but that the traditions themselves betray the Truth—as is implied by the fact that the word tradition and the word treason come from the same source. Whenever a scholastic interpretation freezes a tradition into a rigid formulation, however liberating it had once been and however hallowed by time, the words of Krishna apply: "For one who truly knows,there is as much use in all the Vedas [sacred texts] as there is in a well when there is a flood of water on all sides" (Bhagavad Gita 2.46).

From the perspective of practice and experience, we may too quickly imagine that we can speak of or know the highest reality or the deepest truth. It is very easy to be lost in fantasy. The soul has many levels of depth, many levels of realization, as it also does of ignorance and thus of conscience. In the felicitous expression of Meister Eckhart,"our soul is as infinite as God." Wherever we are, we can always attempt to be in touch with what is more deeply true.

So, in trying to speak from the heart, we need to keep in mind the unending depth of being. We need to become freer both of ourselves and of the tradition—the scaffolding of our position, rationality, and law—+and take our stand only in what is vaster than what our egos or our concepts can contain. Brahman, which literally means the Vastness, is everywhere, but especially experienced in that depth of the heart where attachment to remaining small can be sacrificed. "Through the heart one knows truth," says the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (3.9.23) and later with deeper emphasis, "Heart is the supreme Brahman" (4.1.7).

Whoever speaks from the heart runs the risk of being considered an outlaw and a fool:

Make no mistake about this, if there is anyone among you who fancies himself wise—wise, I mean, by the standards of the passing age—he must become a fool to gain true wisdom. For the wisdom of this world is folly in God's sight. Scripture says, "He traps the wise in their own cunning," and again, "The Lord knows the arguments of the wise are futile." [1 Cor. 3.18-20]

St. Paul speaks of being in one's right mind (Coomaraswamy), but it could equally well be the right heart; for the right mind, or the higher mind-heart, belongs to a different level of substantiality and comes into existence only by a delicate combination of the attributes usually associated with heart and mind, of conscience and consciousness, of love and truth, of compassion and wisdom. Since "mind" and "heart," as we commonly use the terms, do not permit the necessary finesse of levels of heart and mind, it is useful to retain traditional words, such as buddhi in Sanskrit or nous in Greek.

According to a simile used in the Katha Upanishad (1.3:3-4), thehuman body is like a chariot whose steeds are the senses; mind or discursive intellect (manas) is the reins; soul or contemplative intellect (buddhi) is the charioteer; and the Self or Spirit (Atman) is the owner of the chariot. Buddhi is the integrated intelligence that stands between the human mind and the Spirit, between what is below and what is above, between the individual and the cosmos.It is the will that can orient a human being towards the light of the Spirit and give direction to the mind and the senses.

On the other hand, if the senses get unruly, like the steeds of a chariot, they affect the mind, which in turn leads to dissipation and fragmentation of the buddhi. The buddhi has an amphibious character. It can dive into and stay in the lower world of matter, or it can soar in to the higher realms of the Spirit. In the first case, a person is led into conflicting desires, illusion, and darkness. That is sin; that is what causes sorrow. In the other case, there is the possibility of movement towards light—towards understanding, integration, and unity.

The term buddhi, which denotes the subtlest and the highest faculty in human beings, is not translated easily (see endnote). The verbal root budh means "to wake up; to rise from sleep; to heed, attend to; to perceive, notice, learn, understand, become aware of; to have insight into, understand thoroughly." Buddhi thus means "returning to consciousness; presence of mind, intentions, purpose, design; perception, comprehension; intellect, understanding, intelligence, talent; discrimination, judgment, discernment." In the Sankhya Karika (23), buddhi is defined as adhyayasaya, "determination, resolution, mental effort, cognition, awareness."

Buddhi is above manas, which is the mind as thinking faculty involved in ratiocination and comprising the totality of human emotional and intellectual possibilities. This is why it is termed mahan (the Great One). It is also known as prajna (wisdom, discernment), dhi (intuition, imagination), khyati (knowledge, power of distinguishing objects by appropriate names), smrti (memory,remembrance), chitta (comprising the functions of both the reasoning faculty and the heart, namely observing, thinking, desiring, and intending). It is the integrated intelligence above thought.

Other spiritual disciplines also speak of this faculty. St. Gregoryof Sinai (quoted in Writings from the Philokalia 38) said, "A true sanctuary . . . is a heart free from thoughts, made active by the Spirit." And Nicephorus the Solitary (24 -5, 33) said, "God appears to the mind in the heart, at first as a flame purifying its lover, and then as a light which illumines the mind and renders it God-like . . . . The mind, when it unites with the heart, is filled with unspeakable joy and delight. Then a man sees that the kingdom of heaven is truly within us."

The truly right heart-mind is without measure, unlimited, naturally ordered, and full of truth, as Patanjali puts it in the Yoga Sutras(1.48). The deeper one can dwell in the right heart, the closer one is to the Unconditioned Real. If I could speak from there, Krishnamurti would agree. Unaccustomed to the depths, the mind wishes to swim on the surface.

Ibn 'Ata' Allah, the thirteenth-century Sufi sage, spoke from the heart when he said, "The Real is not veiled from you. Rather, it is you who are veiled from seeing It."

NOTE ON THE TERM buddhi. In translating the parable of the chariot in the Katha Upanishad (1.3:3-4), Radhakrishnan (623) renders it as intellect; Aurobindo (49) as Reason; Zimmer (363) as intuitive discernment and awareness; Zaehner (238) as soul. Zaehner's authority for his translation is based on verse 2.41 of the Bhagavad Gita, in which it is declared that the essence of the buddhi is will, which in the Christian tradition inheres in the soul. In other connections, these authors and others translate buddhi as wisdom, consciousness, or awareness. It is useful to retain the Sanskrit word buddhi because any rendering into English is problematic. I think the closest one-word translation is soul, as distinct from mind as well as from Spirit or Self. In the tripartite division of psyche made by Plotinus, integrated or purified buddhi is the highest element, which is directed to the contemplation of the Nous and the One; before purification, buddhi corresponds approximately to the middle element, which may be attracted upwards or downwards. The importance of buddhi and buddhi yoga in the Bhagavad Gita and its parallels in Greek thought are discussed by Armstrong and Ravindra.

References

Armstrong, A. Hilary, and Ravi Ravindra.	"The Dimensions of the Self: Buddhi in the Bhagavad Gita and Psyche in Plotinus." In Yoga and the Teaching of Krishna: Essays on the Indian Spiritual Traditions, by Ravi Ravindra, 72 -98. Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1998.
Aurobindo Ghose.	Eight Upanishads. Pondicherry: SriAurobindo Ashram, 1965.
Coomaraswamy, Ananda K.	"On Being in One's Right Mind."In What Is Civilization? by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, 33 -41. GreatBarrington, MA: Lindisfarne, 1989.
Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli.	The Principal Upanishads.London: Allen & Unwin, 1953.
Ravindra, Ravi.	Christ the Yogi. Rochester, VT: InnerTraditions, 1998. Orig. pub as The Yoga of the Christ. Shaftesbury,Eng.: Element Books, 1992.
Writings from the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart.	Trans. E. Kadloubovsky and G. E. H. Palmer. London: Faber and Faber, 1973.
Zaehner, Robert C.	The Bhagavad-Gita. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969.
Zimmer, Heinrich R.	Philosophies of India. New York:World, 1961.

Ravi Ravindra is Professor and Chairman of Comparative Religion,Professor of International Development Studies, and Adjunct Professor of Physics at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He is interested in understanding whether it is possible to go beyond a Hindu-Christian or an East-West encounter to a human-human one.

Climbing Trees and Initiations

Originally printed in the January - February 2003 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Bland, Betty. "Climbing Trees and Initiations." Quest 91.1 (JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2003):2-3.

By Betty Bland

Theosophical Society - Betty Bland joined the Theosophical Society on April 30, 1970. She helped to establish the Mt. Gilead, North Carolina Study Center. Mrs. Bland served as President of the Theosophical Society of America from 2002 to 2011. I recently watched a man trimming tree limbs that overhang power lines. He works for the power company as the foreman of an off-road crew of workers who climb trees in wilderness areas where trucks cannot go. It is an amazing sight to see a grown man run up the side of a tree as if he were running up the stairs in his own home. What would seem an impossible task is not so hard when one has the right strength, skills, and tools such as shoe spikes, safety belt, and ropes and pulleys—besides, of course, the requisite power saw hanging from his belt.

I commented to him about his skill, and he replied that he was just getting really good at it. He has climbed trees this way for twenty years, twenty to twenty-five trees a day, five days a week. The performance that looked so easy became so only because of much hard work. He was not so skilled at first, but developed his prowess over time. Time is that universal commodity that carries us along our path. As this new year edges into our awareness, we note its entrance and naturally reflect on beginnings. Every beginning is an ending of something old as well as the commencement of something new. A beginning is a kind of initiation, one among the many that we experience in a lifetime. Some initiations are a function of time, such as our passage from youth to adulthood, and again into middle age and old age. Other initiations are a result of our successfully traversing the gauntlets that life presents to us. In fact, if we have committed ourselves to the spiritual path, life is one long series of initiations. Every trial and every problem to be solved are chances to learn and opportunities to pass the test. If we fail, we can be sure the problem will arise again in a new way, against which we can struggle and strengthen our ability to finally overcome. Somewhere among the daily lessons, we gain insight so that what might have seemed insurmountable becomes merely a pebble on the way.

Some people think that spiritual initiations can be bought and sold, or at least bestowed on believers through incantations or rituals. This is a ridiculous pandering to our prideful nature. The credulous want to know the exact number of initiations they have passed and their own level of attainment—to put them a notch above others. Not long ago someone told me that this life was the last time they would have to be born into this world, having already achieved the fourth initiation. I was impressed at how far advanced they indeed must be—and yet I saw them struggling with the same kinds of issues that dislodge my own self-installed halo.

Chutzpah of this kind afflicted some members of the Theosophical Society in the early decades of the last century. Unfortunately a number of new aspirants were so excited about the ideal of human progression and perfection that they became carried away with their own self-importance. Such hubris, among other things, prompted the adepts to command that this "cant of the masters" must be put down. Today I hope that we have reached a level of maturity that will help us avoid that pitfall. Why should I mention a tree-climber at the beginning of a discussion about initiations? Like the tree-climber, we have to work to develop our strengths, which are developed only through concerted effort. Life skills, spiritual will, and the critical tool of ego-less wisdom are not imposed on us from outside. They are hard won through serious introspection, mindful living, and acts of kindness. We have to do our homework. There may be certain events, influences, or people that catapult us into setting our evolutionary course, but it is the self-induced and self-devised efforts of each soul on its obligatory pilgrimage (as H. P. Blavatsky indicates in the third fundamental proposition of The Secret Doctrine) that finally win the prize.

The razor-sharp abilities required to become an adept, a superhuman on the higher rungs of the evolutionary ladder, are not easily gained, nor do they puff up one's own self-importance. Rather, they bring us through the wilderness to the treetop—to the ultimate goal of service:

There is a road, steep and thorny, beset with perils of every kind, but yet a road, and it leads to the very heart of the Universe: I can tell you how to find those who will show you the secret gateway that opens inward only, and closes fast behind the neophyte for evermore. There is no danger that dauntless courage cannot conquer; there is no trial that spotless purity cannot pass through; there is no difficulty that strong intellect cannot surmount. For those who win onwards there is reward past all telling—the power to bless and save humanity . . . . (HPB, Collected Writings 13:219)

As we move along in this new year, let us hone our skills for the service of others. Let us make this a year of true initiation.

Mysticism, Self-Discovery, and Social Transformation

Beatrice Bruteau

The Kingdom of God is "within you"? or "among you"? Why not both? Why not necessarily both? We tend to think that the inner life is one thing and worldly, or active, life is something else entirely. But they imply one another. To make meaningful efforts to improve the world, we must first correct ourselves, and if we have succeeded in reaching some degree of spiritual insight, we will see that we must take care of the rest of the world.

So, is mysticism the cure for social ills? If the chain of reasoning I am going to present here iscorrect, that is what it comes down to. We behave the way we do because we value the way we do, and we value the way we do because we take reality for granted the way we do. When we come to realize that we have made a fateful mistake in the way we have taken our reality for granted, then this entire structure has to shift. And indeed it cannot make any notable shift in what even now we consider a desirable direction until this fundamental reorientation has taken place.

We preach "Love your neighbor as yourself," and many of us manage to do that to some degree, and afew people do it to a large degree, but our cultures, our "civilizations," are not characterized by it because our overall perception of one another is not "there is another like myself," let alone "there is 'myself' in another guise." We don't see the neighbor as "self" but as another outsider, stranger, foreigner, potential or actual enemy. This is the origin of social ill.

What social ills do we suffer from? War, tyranny, oppression, deprivation of social, civil, personal, or human rights. Even poverty, disease, and pollution are related to the way our social relations are structured and functioning. The over-all pattern can be generalized as powerful people dominating less powerful or powerless people.

Why do we have this structure? The sociologists tell us that the basic value is social status. Allother values are in service to this one. Strength isn't valuable unless it is admired and obeyed. Beauty is worthless if it doesn't give you preferment. Wealth has limited value in itself; mostly it buys social standing and respect. Some forms of social respect cannot be obtained by any means under our control but depend on the accidents of birth, which determine sex and race. Whole populations suffer from the deprivations, material and emotional, deriving from such categorizations. But even here human beings have made the choice to give advantage to one category or another.

Again we ask why? Why do human beings want high social standing? Why does the value have to lie in the contrast? Why do we have to be "better than" someone else? There are biological, evolutionary, and economic points to be made here; humans aren't the only social animals to organize and value themselves this way. Breeding rights have a lot to do with it, quick response through recognized authority in case of crisis and danger, covering all the needed tasks by established castes, and so on. But the human situation is amenable to human understanding and freedom and so requires discussion in a more extensive context.

Briefly, then, and here we come to the nub, people want social standing because of our sense ofselfhood and self-worth. Those biological, economic, and other social dimensions go a long way towarddefining who we think we are and what value we have. In particular, the dominant class and the dominant persons in our society and our personal life determine—or try to determine—this definition and this value for us. If they don't let us hold influential positions in our society, or vote, or take certain kinds of jobs, or obtain education or health care, or own property or travel freely, or be named respectfully— or any number of other instances of injury, deprivation, slights, or contempt you can easily cite from around the world —then the self-image and the self-respect of the despised group is severely diminished. Only by such means can the dominant individuals and classes maintain their positions of advantage and their sense of their own value. You know you're good when you're better than the others. And you know you're worthless when you can't fulfill yourself freely and creatively.

So behind this social struggle is the real culprit: the assumption that our selfhood actuallyis defined by our social standing, the belief that the contrast value of the different ranks of social respectability is the only way to find value. If we were to change the way we deeply experience and thus conceive our selfhood, all this superstructure could — would have to — change.

That's what mysticism does. It liberates us from this way of defining and valuing ourselves. It enables us to experience that we are not merely finite beings with a very insecure hold on Being. It convinces us, and repositions us, with respect to Ultimate Reality. We discover, in a way we cannot doubt, that we are related to Infinite Being. There are various ways of saying this in different theological settings, but the crucial point for our self-discovery and its consequent social transformation power is that we are secure in being. We do not have to grasp at aids to our existence, do not have to make ourselves bigger and better than others, do not have to try to acquire value, because we already possess absolutely secure existence and immeasurable value.

How can we come to such a convincing, liberating, repositioning experience? We can't command it, but we can believe in it, and we can practice to put ourselves well in the way of being open to it. There is a negative way, then a positive way, and again another negative way.

The first negative way, removing false beliefs. Many, if not most, of us were brought up to believethat our worth and any approval we might receive were highly conditional. Our value depended on ournatural endowment and our accomplishment. These constitute our "descriptions." The kind of thing you tell (or hide from) people who ask you about your- self. A useful exercise is to make a list of these descriptions and then imagine yourself with alternatives to them, or simply without them. If you try this, you will discover that the "real you" is quite independent of all these descriptions. You are still you whether they are present or not. Along with this, you will become able to release yourself from other people's evaluations of you. Their beliefs about you will no longer "stick to" you.

A popular form of meditation is useful here. You simply relax deeply and gather yourself into yourcentral being, beyond the descriptions, and savor the freedom, peace, security, and sense of reality that you find there. To help you stay focused you use a word or short phrase that brings you back to this peaceful, confident, happy center. Say it as you breathe, or say it only when you need to refocus.

The positive way opens at this point. In your central being, being the real you, free of thedescriptions, you notice that you transcend those finite characteristics. There is something aboutyou that is unmodified, ineffable. This is where you are embedded in the Ultimate, the Absolute, theUnconditioned. Consider that the Absolute Being must be Unconditional Love—that is, communication oflife to all without stint and without favoritism and without the possibility of withdrawal from thiscommitment. If this is so, then you yourself must be so loved. Your existence, your consciousness, and your capacity for joy testify to it. So give yourself permission to believe this, and open yourself to the gift of experiencing it. Especially if you think that your soul may have been culturally conditioned to feel insecure, make an intention to let yourself feel secure in the warm embrace of this Unconditional Love.

If you have your own private way of thinking, of imagining, affectively relating to this Ground of Being, whether styled "God" or not, whether personalized or not, enter into this consciousness with full confidence and even fervor. The power of love is your real being, just as it is that of the Ground, so you can express yourself ardently. You can yearn mightily for a full experience of your union with this, your Source and your Meaning. Give yourself the opportunity to develop your meditation practice in this way.

As you do this, you will find that the second negative way is also a positive way into the Heart ofReality. You have no description; the Absolute has no description. As you rest your centered consciousness in the embrace of the Unconditioned, your mind will grow empty of contents and your sense of your reality as personal consciousness will become intense. It is not what we are conscious of that matters but that we are conscious at all. We are conscious of consciousness itself, consciousness that continues to exist even when it is not conscious of anything in particular. This is a revelation of our true personhood and a first intimation of our immortality and incomparable value. This consciousness is the Absolute Consciousness alive in us.

Now, two important conclusions follow this experience. First, your value is a value in itself, not bybeing compared with anyone or anything. You are good, not because you are "not-evil" or because you are"better than." You are good because you are you, the expression of the Absolute Good. Nothing can change this or destroy it. Put it this way if you like: God loves you; you don't have to do/be anything to deserve/win it, and there's nothing you can do to lose it — or avoid it! It is the bottom truth about your situation in existence. When you realize this, you have been repositioned. You look out on the world of descriptions from a totally new point of view.

And second, whatever is true of you is true of everyone else without exception. (It may well be true beyond the human race.) This means that you now experience the others as somehow "your self." We don't have a proper language for it. You feel that their "insides" must be even as yours, at the deepest level beyond the descriptions. So you are in a position to practice compassion and forgiveness and to offer unconditional love in your turn as the expression of the Absolute to another expression of the Absolute. You are no longer deceived by appearances, by descriptions. You are no longer tempted to judge. You find making comparisons and taking them seriously laughable. Each one is a person, a being that exists in the heart of the Ultimate Reality and is endowed with immeasurable value in just being that person — just as you are.

And now your social behavior will be accordingly different from what it was when you believed you were your descriptions. You can't hurt anyone, for you value them too much and you can feel their hurts. You can't even neglect anyone. You are eager to share, to be helpful, to enjoy others, to let them be themselves safely with you. You wouldn't dream of trying to dominate them.

Is this the "Kingdom of God"? both "within us" and "among us"? Yes, and just as fast as we relate to one another this way, the Kingdom will be present. It consists of our interrelations so it can't be here until we do this, but when we do it, it is here. It isn't an intervention from outside, it's our own being, our own loving, our own behavior. It's all of us together.

How does it show? The first thing that is clear is that as persons we are all equal, so our socialrelations will reflect that. Every person will be respected as a most precious and honorable being. Social status is one of the descriptions lost on the way into the Heart of God. People still have various talents, though, and we appreciate all of them and arrange to let people develop them and share them. There is sufficient variety — and intelligence — that we can get all the really necessary tasks done. We won't have to devote energy to deceiving others into doing things to make us rich, so we will all be able to relax and enjoy one another's gifts in peace.

Politically, we won't need wars, hot or cold, military or economic, so we will save a bundle to spend on making life better for a multitude of folks who have been short-changed for ages. Creative skills will be liberated all over, so there will be a great deal of happy activity, invention, discovery, knowledge, art, playfulness. As people realize that they are securely loved, have enormous value in themselves, they can stop putting so much energy into self-protection, compensation, self-augmentation, competition, and release it into creative exploration. Doing what we naturally like to do.

Culturally, we will share and appreciate the diversity in goodness.{es.} Others don't have to be wrong in order for us to be right. The world is large and wonderful, and God is beyond anybody's set of doctrines. But we can find benefit in learning how one another think and feel.

Economically, we will work together to preserve the planet and distribute the good of life to all. Itcan be done. We're intelligent. We can find ways to make abundance and share it. As long as some of usdon't have to have a whole lot more than the others.

Sounds great. Can we get there from here? What can we say? It's not impossible. Only we can do it.Nobody's going to come down from heaven and force it upon us. We can talk about it, explain how it could work, set up models on small scales, work out scenarios for larger scales. We just have to remember to start at the bottom, with people discovering that they are valuable in themselves right now. Until we are convinced of that we will not be free enough to get very far with such an enticing program. Trying to force programs of sharing a little, by redistributive taxation and voluntary charity and responsible development and so on. But to really turn the system around we will have to do the necessary transformation at the deep level.

However, to the extent that any of us do go through that transformation of self-discovery we will findthat we can't avoid expressing that discovery in our thoughtful behavior. We will work at trying to spread such a repositioned consciousness in a liberating way. Even this can't be done by imposing on others and trying to "convert" them. The way to the change has itself to be consonant with the change. Good example that encourages others to copy it is the best, together with explanations such as I've tried to give here in very condensed form.

There is, in spite of the terrible state the world is in, a lot of effort in this direction, a greatdeal of wisdom-practice going on and being taught. Anyone can get into it, make such discoveries in their own way, share with their neighbors in their own way. We need to be in touch with each other, not in competition with one another in this effort as we are in other organizational, ideational, economic enterprises. Let's not claim that our insight, our practice, our tradition is the only right one, or even the best or most.

The Alchemy of Experience

the view from Adyar

Originally printed in the January - February 2003 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Burnier, Radha. "The Alchemy of Experience." Quest 91.1 (JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2003):28-29.

By Radha Burnier

Theosophical Society - Radha Burnier was born in Adyar, India. She was president of the Theosophical Society Adyar from 1980 until her death in 2013. She was General Secretary of the Indian Section of the Society between 1960 and 1978, and was previously an actress in Indian films and Jean Renoir's The River. LIFE IS A CONTINUAL ALCHEMICAL PROCESS. All the experiences in life that each one of us goes through have the potential of facilitating a transmutation of consciousness. In fact, life means transmutations which often surpass our imagination and concepts. At the physical level, invisible forces are forever converting forms and substances in mysterious ways. For the most part, we are unaware of these dynamic changes that differentiate life from inertness or nonbeing.

The birth of a frog is an example of the omnipresent alchemical process. After studying the various stages, scientists have described it as follows: The frog lays its eggs in what looks like foam; each egg divides itself into two, then into four, and so on. It forms a little mouth; there after a depression appears that gets shaped into the intestinal tract. In a few weeks, in ordered progression, legs, tail, and every other part of the body take form. The process has been filmed, and when seen in rapid motion it appears as if some cells are pulled out, some pushed in, and the whole body shaped by unseen hands into what will become the little tadpole and later the frog.

Esoteric literature says that there are indeed unseen hands, those of the minor intelligences popularly called "fairies," aiding this creation. But there is also a mind at work behind such wonderful developments, which proceed as if by a plan. These developments cannot be explained away by attributing them to genes, for then the question only regresses: what endows the genes with this power?

In millions of trees and plants, transmutation is also taking place invisibly all the time. We see what goes on outside: growth, flowering, fruiting. Unseen water, minerals, and other nutrients absorbed by the plant are transformed into sap, into energy, into the essentials of physical living, such as growth, reproduction, and reconstruction when it is necessary.

The transformation of the humble worm into the beauty of a butterfly is much admired. But few know what takes place inside the cocoon, which is fantastic, for the worm's organs and tissues are discarded and anentirely new structure develops, a phenomenon that scientists do not really understand. The organs do notdisintegrate as in a dead body but, through the activity of the white blood corpuscles, which normally attack harmful bacteria when they invade the body, the tissues of the organs are devoured inside the caterpillar itself. As the old ones are eaten away, new organs come into existence. As in the case of the frog, this transformation also proceeds step by step, again indicating a plan and a mind at work.

The realization that living is an alchemical process, at both the physical and the subtler levels, makes all the difference to how we live our own lives. Each one of the experiences we pass through should have a share in the total process of transmuting consciousness, the goal of which is delineated in the divine plan that guides all transformation.

Inner transformation sometimes makes itself known, but more often it proceeds invisibly. After Annie Besant experienced poverty, ostracism by society, and finally separation from her dearly beloved child, she arose full of that love for all and that ardor for service that made her so outstanding a spiritual figure. Krishnamurti shed bitter tears when his brother died, but the suffering was transmuted into a profound understanding of loss, death, and attachment that made him radiant with happiness within a few days of the event.

These were perhaps exceptional cases, but just as every day the material taken from the soil by theplant is transmuted into life-giving sap, even ordinary experiences are transmuted into soul-enlarging wisdom when there is real attention in the present. The Dhammapada says that unawareness is a form of death. Awareness is a process of constant renewal, without which life is not life.

Radha Burnier, President of the international Theosophical Society, is also international head ofthe Theosophical Order of Service and the author of several books, including Human Regeneration. This column was adapted from the Theosophist 120 (July 1999): 844-5.

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