Quest Magazine

Originally printed in the July - August 2003 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Cianciosi, John. "The Radiant Mind." Quest  91.4 (JULY - AUGUST 2003):124-128.

By John Cianciosi

The mind is at the center of all experience and thus it is the most important factor in determining the quality of life. Although we may talk of a world out there, in reality, the only world we can experience directly is in our own mind. As it says in an ancient Buddhist text, the Dhammapada: "Our life is shaped by our mind, we become what we think. Suffering follows an evil thought as the wheels of a cart follow the oxen that draw it, while happiness follows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves."

But what is this thing we call mind that animates the body and means we are alive? I know that I must have a mind for I perceive a distinct difference between my present state and that of a corpse, which is simply matter devoid of consciousness or mind. Is this mind my thoughts? Western culture is heavily influenced by the French philosopher Rene Descartes' famous equivocation: "I think, therefore I am." But what happens if I stop thinking—does my mind disappear? What of all the feelings, emotions, desires, and aspirations that are so powerful and yet undeniably transient? Where do they come from, how do they arise, and where do they go?

These are fascinating questions that many of us will have asked at one time or another. But it is difficult to arrive at satisfactory answers, and science does not seem to be much closer to unraveling the mysteries of consciousness.

THE CREATIONS OF THE MIND

In the teachings of ancient traditions such as Buddhism, there is great emphasis on the practice of introspection, or looking deeply within to discover answers to these questions. This approach has lead to deep insights into the real nature of mind.

The Buddha said that the mind in its original or fundamental state is radiant or brilliant. However, it becomes tarnished, so that the radiance is obscured, by the defilements that arise in it. This tells us that the underlying nature of the mind is bright, still, silent, and peaceful. It is empty of all the multiplicity of thoughts and concepts. There is only a bright, vibrant state of knowing. On the other hand, the defilements are visitors that come and go—they are creations of the mind.

Thus, that original radiance is obscured when the mind gets entangled in its own creations, the jungle of thoughts, memories, hopes, fears, and the countless other possible mental states. Some of these creations of the mind are wholesome, positive, and even beautiful, while others are negative and ugly. Nature allows us to create anything—the good and the bad, the refined and the coarse, heaven and hell.

Some people create a tangle of awful, negative, nasty, and mean thoughts, full of anger and resentment. The original radiant and pure mind is completely obscured by these defilements. It becomes worse when, having created these states of mind, one proceeds to act on them through one's speech and body. This is how all cruel and inhumane behavior arises. War starts in the minds of people, and cruelty comes from cruel intentions that originate in the mind.

But nature also allows us to create that which is good and beautiful. If we rise to the occasion by applying our mind in the right way, we can create compassionate, kind, and loving thoughts. In this case, the original radiance of the mind is also obscured, but by positive and wholesome creations. These thoughts and intentions lead to action that is kind and benevolent, conducive to the well being of oneself and others.

Nature allows both possibilities. So in the world we find both saints and monsters—people whose lives are a blessing to the world—and those who only live to bring misery and suffering.

Of course, the vast majority of us are just ordinary people with both good and bad tendencies. Thus we create and experience a variety of mental states and emotions, some of which are positive while others are negative. However, few of us can actively direct what we create in the mind. At times, it is as if the mind has "a mind of its own." In a sense it does. It is driven by the power of past conditioning, by habit and instinct. That is why we tend to recreate old patterns and react in similar ways to particular situations and people, even when we don't want to. On many occasions we may want to respond in a positive way, but instead find ourselves dwelling in petty or negative states of mind. Obviously, we are not yet masters of our own creations.

THE MEDITATIVE PATH

When we appreciate that the mind is the source of all that we create, then we will recognize the importance of meditation or mental cultivation. Through the practice of meditation we can empower ourselves by developing the mental qualities that allow us to shape our own destinies. These qualities enable us to choose what we create in our own minds and thereby influence the world we live in. Furthermore, if we are persistent and sincere in our practice, we can also experience directly the radiant mind that underlies creation.

Although there is an increasing interest in the practice of meditation, it is not uncommon for people to seek short cuts to quick experiences of altered states of consciousness. Personally, I do not see much benefit in such approaches because those experiences rarely translate into insights that people can actually live. Often, they only cause more confusion. As one teacher put it, "If you expand a deluded mind, all you end up with is expanded delusion!" Though a slow process requiring considerable training, the practice of meditation actually empowers us, and leads to insights that bring about real changes in our lives.

Meditation is an inner journey of introspection and training that involves both systematic mental exercises and a general meditative approach to ordinary life. I have come to call this whole process "The Meditative Path". There are two fundamental qualities that we need to cultivate in order to progress along this path—awareness and concentration.

AWARENESS

Awareness, which we might also call mindfulness, is the state of "the mind being fully present." An aware mind is not just conscious in the ordinary sense, because we can be conscious without being fully aware, without clearly knowing what the mind is involved with, or where the attention is at that time. We often go through life with only a modicum of attention to our present experience, operating mainly on automatic pilot and just reacting to situations out of habit. That is why it is so hard to change, even when we want to. Freedom of choice eludes us.

However, we do have some awareness, or moments when the mind is fully awake to the present experience. It is important to recognize the subtle but profound difference between just being conscious and being mindful, or having consciousness with awareness. Have you ever been driving in a car when you suddenly think, "Oh! Where am I? I've gone past my turn off!" What was your mind doing before that moment of awareness? You were conscious, but your mind was not fully present—not awake, clear, and mindful.

In meditation, we want to cultivate that fullness of mind that lets us be truly sensitive to the present moment. Stop for a moment and consider, "What am I feeling now? Where is my attention now?" Awareness makes this type of introspection and exploration possible. It is an essential element in the practice of meditation, and only through the development of this quality can we cultivate concentration and insight.

It should be noted that being aware is not the same as being alert. Alertness is a heightened state of attention that is usually associated with some degree of stress arising from fear or excitement. There is an "edge" to it that is not conducive to a state of peace. However, awareness involves no stress and is not driven by fear or excitement. The mind is fully awake in the present but it is relaxed and balanced—not on edge.

Being aware does not require that we keep our attention on one thing or that there must be no thinking. Even as the attention moves from one thing to another, we can still remain aware, because awareness flows with the conscious experience. It acts like light and it illumines the experience so that it is clear in consciousness. Thus, with awareness we clearly know what we are thinking, feeling, intending or doing. Therefore, it is something that can be maintained at all times and we can strive to develop it even while going about our ordinary daily activities. In fact, whatever we do will be done better when we are fully present. By bringing more awareness into our ordinary life, we can transform it into a meditation practice. Awareness allows us to clearly see our internal world, the creations of our minds, and gradually the door to understanding and freedom opens to us.

CONCENTRATION

However, for us to experience the radiant mind or have the power to direct the creations of our minds, it is essential that we also develop concentration. This is the ability to direct and hold our attention on one thing for a desired period of time. If we think of awareness as light, then we might think of concentration as a laser, or focused light. The strength of concentration is determined by how fully we can focus and how long we can sustain that attention.

It is concentration that gives us the ability to go beyond concepts and thoughts so as to realize the radiant mind. Concentration also enables us to direct our mental creations for it is said that true masters can think what they want to think when they want to, and not think when there is no need for it.

Again it is worth noting that we all have the ability to concentrate to some degree. However, most people in ordinary life have learned to concentrate by forcing the mind to remain focused on some task. Concentrating in this way is usually stressful and tiring. Thus we do not enjoy doing it and avoid it when possible. We must be careful not to use this forceful approach in our meditation practice. Rather we should use gentle effort to teach the mind, encouraging it to abandon its endless "thinking about" and incline towards a state of stillness and silence which is refreshingly restful.

MINDFULNESS OF BREATHING

There are a great many meditation methods, using different meditation objects, that can be utilized for training the mind and cultivate both awareness and concentration. The method I am most familiar with uses the natural flow of the breath as the object of meditation. Often referred to as "Mindfulness of Breathing," it is one of the most widely used meditation techniques.

The theory and the basic technique of this meditation method are simple and easily understood. However, developing the skill and experience required for achieving deep concentration will take much practice, under suitable conditions and wise guidance. Training the mind is not easy, but it can be done with patient, gentle effort, and dedication. Even a journey of a thousand miles can be successfully undertaken, and it begins with a few humble, but important steps. Thus we must start by making time for practicing meditation, and then try to do it regularly.

In "Mindfulness of Breathing" we do not interfere with the breath. We simply let the body breathe as it wants and when it wants. Our effort is directed at cultivating mental awareness and concentration rather than teaching the body how to breathe.

The basic instructions are as follows. Find a quiet place, and sit in a posture that feels reasonably comfortable and balanced. Try to keep your back erect, but avoid tension in the body. Allow your eyes to close gently and let the body breathe naturally through the nose.

Leaving everything aside, bring your attention inward and experience the body as it sits still. Spend a little time relaxing any unnecessary tension in the body and then turn your attention to the breathing. Arouse the awareness that simply knows when the breath is flowing in and when it is going out. Try to sustain that knowing by encouraging the mind to relax with the breath—peacefully breathing in, peacefully breathing out.

Allow everything else to fade into the background as you continually arouse interest in the flow of the breath. While the attention remains on the breath, your awareness will know it. When the mind drifts away to something else, just note this fact with awareness, and gently but firmly bring the attention back to the breath. Continue training the mind in this way with patient and vigilant effort for the duration of the meditation.

In the early stages of your practice, you will find that when you try to remain attentive to the breath, the mind will still be quite busy, thinking about one thing or another. At this level of awareness, the experience of the breath remains superficial and sporadic. However, you can sharpen your awareness if you continue to practice on a regular basis and make an effort to thin out the jungle of thoughts. By continually letting go of the various distractions that arise, and encouraging the mind to embrace only the breath, gradually the experience of each inhalation and exhalation becomes more prominent in consciousness. The meditation deepens as the internal chatter quietens and the quality of the breath is increasingly clear to the mind. Awareness gradually becomes more sharp and continuous, and concentration becomes more focused and sustained.

Have you ever been to the beach and walked slowly out into the sea? As you walk in, the water gradually covers your feet, ankles, knees, waist, and so forth, until you are completely immersed. We can think of progress in meditation as being a similar experience: a gradual immersion into the sea of serenity as the mind becomes increasingly attentive to the breath.

Eventually the mind embraces the breath as its sole object of attention. It is content and happy to experience each breath, savoring every peaceful moment as a timeless "now". There will no longer be any internal commentary about the breath, let alone anything else. Within that resounding silence, we begin to experience the joy of just being without doing.

With the deepening of the meditation experience, the breath will naturally become increasingly subtle and fine. Eventually, in very deep meditation, the mind begins to perceive the breath not as a physical object but purely as a mental image, which usually manifests as light. A present-day meditation master, Venerable Ajahn Brahmavamso, describes this transition in the following way.

When you are passively observing just the beautiful breath in the moment, the perception of in breath or out breath, or of beginning or middle or end of a breath, should all be allowed to disappear. All that is known is the experience of the beautiful breath happening now'Here we are simplifying the object of meditation, the experience of the breath in the moment, stripping away all unnecessary details, moving beyond the duality of in and out, and just being aware of a beautiful breath that appears smooth and continuous, hardly changing at all.

'Now the breath will disappear, not when "you" want it to, but when there is enough calm, leaving only "the beautiful." 'Disembodied beauty becomes the sole object of the mind. The mind is now taking its own object. You are not aware at all of the breath, body, thought, sound, or the world outside. All that you are aware of is beauty, peace, bliss, light, or whatever your perception will later call it. You are experiencing only beauty, with nothing being beautiful, continuously, effortlessly.

As this description indicates, at this level of meditation the mind is so still that it is beyond creating concepts and labels. There is only the experience of mind as knowing, radiant, and unobscured.

The Buddha gave the following simile to illustrate this process. On a full moon night, although here is a bright full moon in the sky, it can be almost completely obscured by thick clouds. However, when those clouds are dispersed, then the brilliantly shining disc of the moon becomes clearly visible. In this simile, the clouds represent the creations of the mind — thoughts, emotions, perception of the body and the physical senses. The shining full moon, of course, refers to the radiant mind released from all obstructions.

In all contemplative traditions, when practitioners reach such deep levels of meditation, they often describe an experience of radiant light. Naturally, they may interpret that experience differently according to their beliefs; but the experience is the same. This is because the fundamental nature of the mind is that radiant state before the arising of concepts. In it there are no characteristics that would make it male or female, white or black, young or old, Christian or Buddhist, yours or mine. These are labels, concepts and constructs that can arise only when the creating process begins in the mind.

From the Buddhist perspective, this mind is not a by-product of the body, nor does it arise and cease with the birth and death of the body. Furthermore, this fundamental nature of mind underlies the process of consciousness in all other living beings, whether animal, human, or celestial. This is why an enlightened person, such as the Buddha, will naturally have boundless compassion for all forms of life.

We could even say that, as living beings, the radiant mind is our inheritance, regardless of whether or not we have directly experienced it. Therefore, we may want to protect this inner treasure from being tarnished by defilements. Using the awareness we have developed through our practice, we can clearly recognize the various creations of the mind. If we are vigilant and wise, we will encourage those positive and wholesome states of mind that are conducive to inner peace and happiness. Only in this way can we bring peace and harmony into the world, because what we create in the world is simply a reflection of what is in our minds.

Originally printed in the July - August 2003 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Fox, Michael W. "Theosophy, Biosophy and Bioethics." Quest  91.4 (JULY - AUGUST 2003):136-140.

By Michael W. Fox

THEOSOPHY IS ALL TOO OFTEN REGARDED BY the general public ass some esoteric cult or ab­stract intellectual discipline—and is dismissed accordingly. This is regrettable, since it has much to offer every religion in its affirmation and every secular school and profession, from law and medicine to agriculture and economics, in its clarification of human place and purpose. 

Here, I look at Theosophy through my own prism as a veterinarian and bioethicist, deeply concerned about the suffering of all senti­ent life and the future of earthly creation. Through this prism the light of Theosophy can be divided into three rays—biosophy, biophilia, and bioethics—connecting mind and heart with the life-creating Reality of all in all. 

Biosophy (life wisdom and wise living) was rudimentary but evolving dur­ing much of our existence as gatherer?hunters. Relative to urban consciousness today, our ancestors had a profound understanding and respect for various plants—their nutritional, medical, and psychic properties—and a reverence for fellow creatures, and respect for their spiritual and imaginative powers.

This understanding and reverence was the knowledge base and ethico-spiritual foundation for all sustainable human communities, from the farming villages of pre­industrial Europe, the Americas, and Africa to the Australian and Amazonian gatherer-hunters, the fishermen of Poly­nesia, and gardeners of South-East Asia.

 From biosophy grew biophilia, a love and appreciation for plants, animals, and one's bioregion that gave one identity, physical and spiritual sustenance, a sense of power of place, and the template for a unique culture, art, music, poetry, and religion. And from this understanding and love grew our ethical and moral sensibility that I call bioethics, because it includes all life and not just human rights and interests.

As a species with the power to transform Nature—to turn forests into fields for genetically engineered cows to pro­duce an analogue of human milk—we possess a degree of autonomy and power unequalled by the rest of the animal and plant kingdoms. 

Our place and purpose on Earth and in Nature are becoming increasingly unclear, ill-defined, and confused. If this were not so, then the legal, medical, and agricultural professions, among others, would not be facing a world in crisis to the extent that we see today and desperately seeking solutions. It is an exten­sive crisis because we have evolved techno­logically at such a rapid pace that many hu­man-caused diseases, and anthropogenic climatic perturbations, are global. They are threatening our future security and the beauty, biodiversity, and vitality of the Earth—so vital to our physical and spiri­tual well-being.

Theosophy in these times is of great practical, social, and political relevance. It does not offer to save our souls from sin and punishment like some Chris­tian, Islamic, or other fundamental­ist cult. Rather, it views so-called sin and punishment as distur­bances of cosmic harmony and the inevitable restitution of the harmony in their wake. Theosophy gives no other col­oration. The enlightened Self is the god of forgiveness in our own awareness, humility, compassion, and understand­ing. It is not external to our own being. This rediscovery of the Self is the way of Theosophy.

It could well be that many who instinc­tively subscribe to Theosophical principles have never heard of Theosophy. These people are deeply involved in such issues as environ­mental and animal protection, sustainable agri­culture, social justice, political egalitarianism, and holistic preventive medicine. If some of the basic principles of Theosophy were to become more available to the public, especially in our educational curricula from grade school to graduate school, human progress would be enhanced. Through greater under­standing of our place and purpose in Nature and the cosmos, the realization of human potential and its ac­tualization is enhanced. Without such understanding, we continue to suffer and to harm others.

The Theosophical Society's first Object is to promote understanding and brotherhood among people of all races, nationalities, philosophies, and religions. But we will never enjoy the true brotherhood of humanity if we do not express our kinship with all subhuman in­terdependent life with reverential respect. We need to protect the natural world that sustains us all, and share those resources equitably. This desire is met by embrac­ing the bioethics of biosophy and through biophilia, which are dimensions of Theosophy that have gained greater clarity and significance in these times and in ways this essay explores.

Theosophy is a quest and discipline as ancient as our first conscious breath. As a veterinarian and ethologist I have often wondered whether other animals share with us some divine understanding or God-realization. Perhaps they do not seek such conscious awareness be­cause unlike we humans, they are not aware: not aware of being separate, and therefore have neither need nor desire to feel connected by way of divine understanding.

From a parientheistic perspective, all creatures are in God and of God. So are we humans, but we are not al­ways aware of this because we do not feel and act as if we are part of the One Life. If we did, then we would avoid harming animals, each other, and desecrating Nature. Because of the way we structure reality, we mis­takenly believe that we are separate and independent from the whole, so we objectify "things." This is a lega­cy of Aristotelian rationalism and Cartesian dualism. This belief is as erroneous and as harmful to us spiritu­ally as the belief that animals are irrational, unfeeling, and devoid of souls and any inherent spark of divinity. These two beliefs, combined with the third one that holds that animals and nature were created primarily for man's use, have led to the desecration of the Earth and to the holocaust of the animal kingdom.

The founders of the Theosophical movement realized that our health, spiritually, emotionally, and physically was determined by our awareness of the quality of our relationships with animals, plants, the soil, and the whole of Nature, as well as with each other. Theosophi­cal classics proclaim with one voice that all life is one and even its humblest forms enshrine divinity.                                                                                                  

From millennia of living close to Nature as gatherer-hunters and much later, and as agrarians and sheep/cat­tle farmers, our ancestors developed religious traditions based on a largely symbiotic relationship and a spiritual communion with the natural world. Various animals and plants became totems, intermediaries, or interlocu­tors between the expanding dimensions of human con­sciousness and the Absolute. Through close association, careful observation, and empathic inductive and deduc­tive reasoning, we were able to harness and direct some of these powers and forces of creation to satisfy our own expanding curiosity and multiplying needs and wants. We now have reached the point where we can geneti­cally engineer animals, plants, and micro-organisms. Through this technology we have the power to direct the entire evolutionary process and change the face of creation forever.

From an esoteric perspective, our evolving intelli­gence has taken us to a new threshold and a new hori­zon with two paths. One is a path of reverential and co-creative participation—the one that Theosophy has always signposted. The other, a path of rational egotism, was signposted by the likes of Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes, and Ayn Rand, as well as by contem­porary economists, scientists, industrialists, and legions of other rational instrumentalists. This path has lead to a technocratic dystopia, rather than some hoped-for sci­entific-industrial utopia, where the means to the mean­ingless end of materialism is total overconsumption. There are no sacramentalists, parientheists or Theoso­phists anywhere on this path that encourage and lead humanity to make enlightened, empathic, and ethical choices. Beware of the reductionists, the logical posi­tivists, the moral relativists and dualists, as well as the therapists who are not environmentalists, and the doc­tors who are not priestly healers of the soul and the Earth.

Theosophy, biosophy, bioethics, and the scriptures of all the world's major religions advise and instruct a wise and gentle use of these demigod powers. Secular materi­alism —whose theology dismisses reverence for trees and animals as pagan pantheism—uses these powers to recreate the natural world into its own image of in­dustrial utility, directing the evolutionary process of earthly creation to satisfy man's own pecuniary ends. Secular materialism is the mutant `runeme' or belief system that turns Homo sapiens into Homo technos: tech­nocratic man.

Homo technos treat all of Earth's creations as a collec­tion of potentially exploitable objects and resources, rather than as sacred entities and processes. He rules over a dysfunctional, technologized world where the life-support system of the planet—its atmosphere, climate, oceans, forest lungs, and life-sustaining soils and ecosystems are becoming dysfunctional and starting to deteriorate. As biological diversity is obliterated by industrialism, so cultural diversity is lost in the homog­enizing process of global consumerism. The global econ­omy, security of nations, and integrity of communities are now beginning to disintegrate. More technological 'fixes' are sought. Crime, violence, and a host of dis­eases, physical and mental, are spiritual disorders, symp­tomatic of our diseased condition; of our not living in right relationship. The sickening condition of the natu­ral world mirrors the human condition, and is a product thereof, The death of Nature will be the death of the human spirit. Only Homo technos may survive, and to what end except the loneliness of an arrogant narcissist and the terror of never being able to trust life; to love Nature as provider.

Technocratic man is now busy creating a global indus­trial technopolis. As he unconsciously but determined­ly mutates into Homo technos, he makes science his re­ligion, and the technocracy his authority, parent, and provider. Through GATT, the World Bank, and World Trade Organizations, the biosphere or natural world is being turned into an industrialized wasteland. This is not the technosphere that visionaries like Teilhard de Chardin saw in the evolution of Homo sapiens into Homo cosmos or Homo pan sapiens.

But a technosphere that is in harmonic co-creative resonance with a restored and healthy biosphere is still within our creative capacity, provided we have the will and time. It is the only way to help ensure human well-being, world peace, and an ecologically sound, sus­tainable, and equitable global economy. We can create this future now only by basing all of our relation­ships on the bioethics of reverential respect for all life on Earth. Humility, compassion, and ahimsa (non­violence) are the essential heart-mind principles and bioethical criteria for right livelihood that Theosophy has long recognized and promoted.

We then treat animals humanely, giving them citizen­ship legally and morally because they are part of the same life community and creation as we, and are thus worthy of equal and fair consideration. And we revere, respect, protect, and restore nature for Nature's sake—the natu­ral world, biodiversim ecosystems, the oceans, lakes, rivers, forests, swamps, savannas, and all the myriad and diverse wonders of divine conception and manifestation.

Theosophy gives the key to new ways and new days by pointing us away from the nemesis of Homo technos, and toward the way to heal ourselves by healing the Earth Soul or anima mundi. It is difficult to have sympa­thy for self-inflicted human suffering when it is humans who bring so much evil into the world and are the only source of evil in nature. But there must be empathy, otherwise there can be no understanding, reconciliation, or healing. Nor should we become so preoccupied with the spiritual that we neglect the physical and our everyday responsibilities, or vice versa. And we should not look to more laws and punishments, or scientific and medical breakthroughs, to help improve our condi­tion when the basic problem is spiritual and ethical.

Regrettably, the mechanistic and reductionist ap­proach of western conventional (allopathic) medicine focuses on the physical plane. This narrow approach to the "diagnosis"(interpretation) and treatment of human disease and suffering, though highly profitable for the multinational pharmaceutical industry, has done little to prevent human suffering. Nor can it be expected to since it is part of the diseased state of mind that is un­able to realize, from a more empathetic and holistic view, that the origin of much human suffering is the re­sult of our not being aware of our connections with all things. We all suffer and cause great harm to all sentient life when we act without any respect, feeling or sense of these sacred connections. We bring suffering and sick­ness upon ourselves when we harm the environment and fellow creatures. The good healer teaches panem­pathy, and reverential respect for all life, even life that we may fear.

The patron of animals and nature, St. Francis of Assisi, had a sacramentalist resonance with God's creatures and creation which moved him to interpret the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth in a deeply empa­thetic, transcendental or gnostic way. This way was anathema to Rome's patriarchal and Aristotelean church of Thomas of Aquinas. He threatened the pow­er and authority of Rome by teaching that divinity was not simply in their churches but everywhere in nature and in a life of compassion, simplicity, and service. Yet for political reasons, the pagan heresy of St. Francis, the first Christian, if not the last, was accepted by the Church of Rome.

Just as St. Francis, as a panentheist, was radical to the theocracy of his time, so must we, as Theosophists, be­come radical to the technocracy of our time. As Sr. Francis lived his truth, so must we discover and live ours.

A Muslim friend of mine used to observe, "All ani­mals are Muslim because they are obedient to their Creator." Animals are thus superior to most of us, and they can be our teachers, healers, guides, companions, and source of delight and wonder. They enrich our lives, giving us a reference point that immediately takes us out of our egosphere and humanosphere into the biosphere and the noOsphere or realm of great mystery and reve­lation that St. Francis knew and shamans enter. St. Francis said that through communion with animals and nature we find God, and that by the ways of animals and nature, divinity is revealed to us. I call this the way of biosophy—the path of curious naturalists who combine biophilia with bioscience. It is also the primal path of Theosophy, its most ancient root. Nature, animals, and plants were the source of human sapience, of our self-definition and self-realization; of our awareness of a creative process beyond our comprehension—the mys­terium tremendum; and they were a source of artistic and musical inspiration, physical sustenance, and even miraculous healing powers.

A TV news bulletin on February 17, 1995, an­nounced that a Maryland Senator wanted to legislate caning as the "way for delinquent teenagers to see the light." That we have regressed to this level of responding and relating to each other, and have such a dim, moralistic view of the "light"—of enlightening others through punishment and not by example—is a sad and significant commentary on the human condition in these times. But what examples of right livelihood does the adult world set for younger generations? Can we not have greater empathy for disturbed teenagers who are not unaware of the corruption, violence, and inhuman­ity of a dysfunctional adult world in which they are expected to participate and play some meaningful role that their education barely helps define?

It would seem that we are, collectively, stuck at a stage somewhere between the morality of a demanding and dependent infant, and the shameless sexual impul­sivity and self-centered arrogance of adolescence. Such a condition may be a fair if harsh characterization of an overly consumptive, materialistic society where nothing but matter—money and things—matters. Breaking free from these conditioning constraints and self-limiting values of industrial, consumer society is difficult when we are dependent upon it for our material sustenance. Mistakenly, some believe they have found spiritual sus­tenance in fundamentalist religious cults, while others seek enlightenment in world-negating and escapist "new age" trivial pursuits, that are at best a short-term fix and distraction for lost and suffering souls.

Theosophy is one school or way that should be in ev­ery school. It is like a coming home for the pilgrim soul. It puts our lives in focus, and through its clear lens our perceptions are enhanced. This heightens our awareness of our feelings, awakening our empathetic and intuitive powers of healing and understanding. Also our appreci­ation and enjoyment of life is intensified. Theosophy enables us to realize our full potentialities, giving a deeper sense of purpose and meaning to our everyday lives, relationships, experiences, and "coincidences." And it is good for the animals and all of Earth's creation under our domination.

For students whose education is broken into "disci­plines," like biology, theology, philosophy, social studies, humanities, and the arts, Theosophy can serve a vital integrative function. Linking biosophy, bioethics, and aesthetics with a diverse curriculum of subjects from the arts, sciences, and humanities, Theosophy could and should be the cornerstone of an enlightened and enlightening educational system. Prevention is the best medicine, and such an education would be good medicine and our best investment for the future. New ways and new days through Theosophy are possible for us all in our personal lives, as well as in our profession­al lives, and for generations to come. I can think of no better quest.

Michael W. Fox serves as chief consultant and veterinarian for India Project for Animals and Nature, (IPAN). He is author of The Boundless Circle (Quest Books, 1996). This article is adapted from The Theosophist 120 (July 1999): 850-6.

VOLUME 91, NUMBER 4

Contents

The Urgency for a New Perspective
By Radha Burnier

The Radiant Mind
By John Cianciosi

The Extended Mind
By Rupert Sheldrake

Theosophy, Biosophy and Bioethics
By Michael V. Fox

By What Knowledge is the Spirit Known?
By Ravi Ravindra

Viewpoint: The Zen of Water Skiing
By Betty Bland

Originally printed in the July - August 2003 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation:Ravindra, Ravi. "By What Knowledge is the Spirit Known?." Quest  91.4 (JULY - AUGUST 2003):142-145, 149.

By Ravi Ravindra

Two kinds of knowledge are to be known . . . the higher as well as the lower . .
And the higher is that by which the Undecaying is apprehended

— Mundaka Upanishad

WITH ALL THE PROGRESS in scientific and medical fields, have human beings morally or spiritually advanced? Is it reasonable to assume that future Nobel Prize winners in science will be more spiritually advanced than the past ones because more scientific knowledge will be available to them? What sort of scientific facts or spiritual information will or can lead to this transformation in the nature of human beings? Is a quantitative extension of our infor­mation about the universe likely to lead us to a more spiritual life?

All traditions assert that the spirit is higher than and prior to the body-mind, which is sometimes called the "body," for simplicity. One of the ideas which is common to all the great religious traditions of the world is the assertion that in general human beings do not live the way they should and furthermore, the way they could. The Christian perspective claims that we live in sin but we could live in the grace of God, and the Hindu-Buddhist way of saying this is that we live in sleep but we could wake up. All the traditions suggest ways by which human beings could move towards a life of grace or wakefulness, a shift which is a qualitative transformation of being. Here, I will focus largely on the Indian spiritual traditions, more particularly on the theory and practice of Yoga, the way of transformation.

Yoga begins from a recognition of the human situa­tion. Human beings are bound by the laws of process, and they suffer as a consequence of this bondage. Yoga proceeds by a focus on knowledge of the self. Self-knowledge may be said to be both the essential method and the essential goal of Yoga. However, self-knowledge is a relative matter. It depends not only on the depth and clarity of insight, but also on what is seen as the "self " to be known. The Chandogya Upanishad in­structs spiritual seekers in identifying the self with pro­gressively more and more spiritualized self.

A change from the identification of the self as the body (including the heart and the mind) to the identi­fication of the self as inhabiting the body is the most crucial development in Yoga and is considered a matter of great progress. Yoga identifies the person less with the body than with the embodied. Ancient and modern Indian languages reflect this perspective in the expres­sions they use to describe a person's death: in contrast to the usual English expression of giving up the ghost, one gives up the body. It is not the body that has the spirit, but the spirit that has the body.

The identification of the person in oneself with something other than the body-mind and the attendant freedom from the body-mind is possible only through a proper functioning and restructuring of the body and the mind. The Sanskrit word sharira is useful in order to steer clear of the modem Western philosophic dilemma called the "mind-body" problem. Although sharira is usually translated as "body," it means the whole psycho­somatic complex of body, mind, and heart. Sharira has the same import as flesh in the Gospel of Saint John, for example in John 1.14, where it is said, "The Word became flesh." The important point, both in the Indian context and in John, is that the spiritual element, called Purusha, Annan, or Logos ("Word"), is above the whole of the psychosomatic complex of a human being, and is not to be identified with mind, which is a part of sharira or the "flesh."

Sharira is both the instrument of transformation as well as the mirror reflecting it. The way a person sits, walks, feels, and thinks reveals the connection with the deeper self, and a stronger connection with the deeper self, will be reflected in the way a person sits, walks, feels, and thinks. Sharira, which is individual­ized prakriti (Nature), is the medium necessary for the completion and manifestation of purusha (the inner spiritual being), which itself can be understood as in­dividualized Brahman (literally, "the Vastness"), whose body is the whole of the cosmos, subtle as well as gross.

Sharira is the substance through which each one of us relates to the spirit, according to our ability to respond to the inner urge and initiative. The development of this relationship is the spiritual art. To view the sharira or the world, as a hindrance rather than an opportunity is akin to regarding the rough stone as an obstruction to the finished statue.

The most authoritative text of Yoga is the Yoga Sutras, which consists of aphorisms of Yoga compiled by Pa­tailjali sometime between the second century BCE and the fourth century CE from material already familiar to the gurus (teachers, masters) of Indian spirituality. Patanjali teaches that clear seeing and knowing are functions of purusha (the inner person) and not of the mind.

The mind relies upon judgment, comparison, dis­cursive knowledge, association, imagination, dreaming, and memory through which it clings to the past and future dimensions of time. The mind is limited in scope and cannot know the objective truth about anything. The mind is not the true knower: it can calculate, make predictions in time, infer implications, quote authority, make hypotheses, or speculate about the nature of real­ity, but it cannot see objects directly, from the inside, as they really are in themselves.

In order to allow direct seeing to take place, the mind, which by its very nature attempts to mediate between the object and the subject, has to be quieted. When the mind is totally silent and totally alert, both the real subject (purusha) and the real object (prakriti) are simultaneously present to it. When the seer is there and what is to be seen is there, seeing takes place with­out distortion. Then there is no comparing or judging, no misunderstanding, no fantasizing about things dis­placed in space and time, no dozing off in heedlessness nor any clinging to past knowledge or experience; in short, there are no distortions introduced by the organs of perception, namely the mind, the feelings, and the senses. There is simply seeing in the present, the living moment in the eternal now. That is the state of perfect and free attention, kaivalya, which is the aloneness of seeing, and not of the seer separated from the seen, as it is often misunderstood by commentators on Yoga. In this state, the seer sees through the organs of perception rather than with them or as William Blake says, one sees "not with the mind but through the mind." Blake speaks about the transformation of perception that this re-ordering allows in "Auguries of Innocence":

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

It is of utmost importance from the point of view of Yoga to distinguish clearly between the mind (chitta) and the real Seer (purusha). Chitta pretends to know, but it can itself be known and seen, that is, it is an object, not a subject. However, it can be an instrument of knowledge. This misidentification of the seer and the seen, of the person with the organs of perception, is the fundamental error from which all other problems and sufferings arise (Yoga Sutras 2.3-17). It is from this fun­damental ignorance that asmita (I-am-this-ness, egoism) arises, creating a limitation by particularization. Purusha says, "I AM"; asmita says, "I am this" or "I am that." This is an expression of egoism and self-importance and leads to the strong desire to perpetuate the special­ization of oneself and to a separation from all else. The sort of "knowledge" that is based on this misidentifi­cation is always colored with pride and a tendency to control or to fear.

The means for freedom from the ignorance that is the cause of all sorrow is an unceasing vision of discern­ment; such vision alone can permit transcendental in­sight (prajna) to arise. Nothing can force the appearance of this insight; all one can do is to prepare the ground for it. The purpose of prakriti is to lead to such insight, as that of a seed is to produce fruit; what an aspirant needs to do in preparing the garden is to remove the weeds that choke the full development of the plant. The ground to be prepared is the entire psychosomatic organism, for it is through that organism that purusha sees and prajna arises, not through the mind alone, nor the emotions, nor the physical body by itself. A person with dulled senses has as little possibility of coming to prajna as the one with a stupid mind or hardened feel­ings. Agitation in any part of the entire organism caus­es fluctuations in attention and muddies the seeing. This is the reason that Yoga puts so much emphasis on the preparation of the body, as well as of feelings by right moral preparation and of the mind by immersing oneself in the views from the real world, for coming to true knowledge. It is by reversing the usual tendencies of the organism that its agitations can be quieted and the mind can know its right and proper place with respect to purusha: that of the known rather than the knower (Yoga Sutras 2.10, 4.18-20).

If the notion of the spiritual and the corresponding possibilities of enlightenment, freedom, or salvation are taken seriously, then what is spiritual is almost by defi­nition, as well as by universal consensus, higher than what is intellectual. The intellect is contained in being, as a part in the whole, and not the other way around. It is a universal insight and assertion of the mystics and other spiritual masters that spirit is above the mind. Of course, many other words have been used other than "Spirit" to indicate Higher Reality, such as God, Brahman, the One, Tao, the Buddha Mind, and the like. Furthermore, it has been universally said that in order to come to know this Higher Reality in truth, a trans­formation of the whole being of the seeker is needed to yoke and quiet the mind so that, without any distor­tions, it may reflect what is real.

Paraphrasing Saint Paul, it can be said that the things of the mind can be understood by the mind, but those of the spirit can be understood only by the spirit (1 Corinthians 2: 11-14). It is this spiritual part in a person that needs to be cultivated for the sake of spiri­tual knowledge. In some traditions, this spiritual part, which like a magnetic compass always tries to orient itself to the north pole of the spirit, is called "soul." This part alone, when properly cultivated, can comprehend and correspond to the suprapersonal and universal spir­it. Any other kind of knowledge can be about the spirit but cannot be called knowing the spirit.

Of course, to be against knowledge, scientific or oth­erwise, is hardly any guarantee of transcending the lim­itations of the mind. Ignorance is not to be commend­ed. For almost all the sages of India, the ultimate cause of all sorrow or bondage is ignorance. As the Buddha is quoted in the Dhammapada (243) to have said, "avilia paramam malam" (ignorance is the greatest impurity). To recognize that a certain kind of knowledge is lower, and that the Undecaying is apprehended by the higher knowledge of a radically different sort does not deny the necessary role of the lower knowledge. But does a quan­titative extension of such knowledge and information necessarily lead to wisdom or spiritual life?

In order to understand the sages and the scriptures spiritually, we need to undergo a change of being or a rebirth or a cleansing of our perceptions. How can progress in intellectual scientific knowledge lead to the sort of insight and transformation which takes one beyond the intellect? An intellectual and physical (that is, scientific) understanding neither requires any trans­formation of our being nor can it lead to such a trans­formation. Neither scientific knowledge about people who have spiritual knowledge nor theoretical knowl­edge about the spirit makes one a sage.

At the end I return to the importance of humility and wonder in the presence of the Great Mystery. In my long experience in academic life I have been struck by the difficulty of freedom from arrogance of knowledge, a major obstacle to spiritual life. I wonder if this dark­ness of intellectual conceit worse than ignorance is what a sage in Isha Upanishad (9) has in mind in saying, "Into blinding darkness enter those who worship ignorance and those who delight in knowledge enter into still greater darkness."

It seems to me that it is a matter of spiritual progress when one becomes free not only of the knowledge which is inevitably from the past, but also from the need to know which is so often permeated by a fear of the unknown and a desire to predict and control—an attempt to squeeze the Vastness into one's mental categories. In this freedom one can wonder and stand before the Mystery. In a way one then knows something, but it is not anything that can be expressed in a way that our ordinary mind can categorize and argue about, it is not anything that can be measured as progress in a quantitative sense. It is closer to an insight into the suchness of things, as in the following remark of Albert Einstein in his book Ideas and Opinions:

There is the cosmic religious feeling of rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.

To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, mani­festing itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong in the ranks of devoutly religious men.

Ravi Ravindra is Professor Emeritus at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada. His most recent Quest Book is Science and the Sacred: Eternal Wisdom in a Changing World. Among his many other works is Heart without Measure: Work with Madame de Salzmann.