Beyond Left and Right

If the current struggle between the various factions of humanity proceeds without resolution we will lose ourselves in destruction. These divisions can only be resolved by meeting on a higher plane. Outer differences, if paramount and left to themselves, lead to endless conflict. Only by transcending these differences can any kind of peace and reconciliation be found, and only those who can transcend the outer differences will be able to move on. Those who cannot will be left behind. This doesn't mean that differences are ignored or negated but they are seen in the light of something greater. The differences will remain but be seen as subsidiary to deeper truths.

It is a glib truism to say that humanity is one. Ultimately, everything can be conceived of, and sometimes even experienced, as one but the oneness does not override the differences and not all differences are equal just because of the oneness. Differences are important and while some are just different, others reflect higher and lower states of understanding and insight or a greater or lesser proximity to truth. So when we see differences between human beings we have to take two things into account. Are these differences just on a horizontal plane, different expressions of a similar consciousness, or are they indicative of a wider or narrower exposure to reality or even a rejection of it? Naturally, most people are attached to their own expressions of difference but the person on the spiritual path must exercise detachment and discrimination, the one to see himself and his preferred difference objectively and the other to see exactly what difference is most open to truth.

A major difference of the modern world is between what manifests in the political sphere as left and right. The split goes more deeply than this but that is how it appears most obviously. In fact, this split goes right back to the metaphysical level of truth and love, even if both of these are heavily contaminated by the time they come down to the level of the human mind. But still, the left is motivated by a perception of love, however imperfectly it responds to it, and it is not really concerned with truth, and similarly the right focuses on truth and is far less bothered about love. The question is, which comes first, truth or love? In one sense they arise together because they are both part of the same reality but this is by no means the whole answer. In fact, truth does come before love in what you might call a non-temporal sense and the claims of truth do override those of love even if in God's reality they never conflict. Love must be built on a bedrock of truth. Look at it this way. Truth is represented by the number 1 while love is represented by 2. Truth must always come first.

Increasingly these days the left has abandoned truth. Always secondary in their eyes, it now appears to be actively hated. The right has not abandoned love to the same extent but it is certainly not a priority. Of course, in reality the left only appears to be motivated by love but that is its excuse. Nor does the right have much contact with truth. These are followed more as ideas than realities, still less lived realities. Nonetheless they are theoretical motivating forces, and that tells us that if there is ever to be any reconciliation between these opposing forces it can only come like this. Those on the left will have to give up all their beliefs except love while those on the right will have to see all their beliefs in the light of love. Both must go beyond their limited point of view and understand just what motivates the other. At the same time, the left must know it exists to complement the right not for its own sake and the right must realise it does need complementing.

What is playing out now is a battle between truth and love though really it is between misconceived truth and misconceived love. The only way to resolve this battle is to go beyond form to reality. Then you will see that reality is truth and love, both together, but truth comes first. Those who feel that love must come first fail to see that love can only exist because of truth and that the primal love is actually love of truth. Love is the wife of truth and the wife honours and obeys her husband just as he loves and treasures her. This is metaphysical reality.

The Dissolution of Form

 In the End Times a major principle is dissolution meaning all Form built up sometimes over many centuries crumbles. Organisations created to sustain a culture and civilisation are taken over and rotted from within. They are infiltrated by forces actually opposed to the ideals behind them and, to use an expressive modern term, worn as a skinsuit, subverting their original intention. Churches are a major example of this but the phenomenon is widespread.

This tendency to dissolution works out in many ways and one of them is the self-destructive tendency of modern Western nations. I said in a comment on a recent Bruce Charlton post that in the past all nations or groups sought to preserve themselves but Western nations now are encouraged to destroy themselves, and led to believe that doing this is a virtuous act. The inspiration behind this can only come from the forces of chaotic evil, as defined in Bruce Charlton's post, and it demonstrates how these forces are supplanting necessary evil which, though evil, does not completely deny real good.

Non-Western nations and peoples might enjoy watching this, thinking the wheel of fortune is about to turn in their favour, but in fact once the West crumbles they will be left wide open to chaotic evil themselves. It is interesting to note that when I lived in India 40 years ago many people there were of the opinion that British colonialism had been a net benefit to the country, but now the almost universal belief seems to be, especially among the younger generation, that the colonial powers were just rapacious predators. Such people are usually ignorant of real history and motivated by a mixture of resentment and misplaced national pride not to mention the after effects of over 50 years of Marxist propaganda. The reality is that even if Western colonialism started off as a desire to seize the spoils of undeveloped nations, it became from the 19th century onwards the means whereby the non-Western nations could move forward out of their spiritual stagnation into the era of the consciousness soul as defined by Rudolf Steiner. This represents the fullest development of self-awareness and individualisation and is a necessary precursor to a more positive spiritual awareness. It marks the separation of the ego from its environment and has led to many of the ills of the modern world, but without passing through this stage the soul cannot become consciously aligned with divine reality and a full creator in its own right. It is somewhat akin to leaving the Garden of Eden and the meaning behind the old saying that it requires separation to lead to completion.

That is the justification for the colonial enterprise which had a spiritual purpose, much as those in the colonised countries may not wish to acknowledge the fact now. Ironically, their resentment at their colonising shows they have absorbed its lessons and become more individually aware. The next phase for them is to show maturity and acknowledge the benefits they have received. This is not so much in the form of Western medicine, science, technology, political systems etc as a new form of consciousness, one which marks a break with being largely embedded in nature and provides a launching pad to a higher spiritual awareness. Clearly, I am not saying there was no one in the colonised countries who had not already made this break in their own way but neither the masses nor the culture as a whole had until influenced by the West.

I've got somewhat off track here but only to point out that what first manifests in the West will then spread everywhere. That is the nature of these end times. We are witnessing the breakdown of form as happens in old age and, as in old age, we can either cling to the old mode of life for as long as possible or fix our mind on higher things. The destroyers of form may be doing the work of the end times but they are still in themselves part of chaotic evil. Those who seek to preserve ancient form, and not just as outward structure but in order to preserve the spiritual content it once had, are doing noble work because it is good to avoid collapse for as long as possible. However, they are probably doomed to failure because of the nature of these end times though this is not a doctrine of pessimism anymore than to acknowledge that summer turns to winter. Instead, it should lead us to move our attention away from this world into the underlying reality behind it. Then at some time in the future new forms will arise, forms better able to express that reality, but first we must endure the dismantling of the old whose time seems to have come. 

In these days many people are turning to Tradition to rescue them from the desecrations of modernity, and it is good, even vital, to seek the wisdom of the past at such a time. However, the traditional forms do not have the power they once did and cannot be revived, certainly not to their former glory. We should all learn from Tradition but we cannot restore its ancient structures which are without exception subject to the energy of end times dissolution. Sometimes it is hard to separate form and spirit but that is the lesson of the present time.

Why Leftism is Wrong in One Sentence

Leftism collapses the vertical to the horizontal. That's it. That is its great error or sin as you might well call it since it deforms reality. This is why it can only really infect human consciousness in a time of materialism, and why when it contaminates spirituality, you get a false spirituality that reduces the transcendent to the immanent. It is why it favours egalitarianism over hierarchy and the female over the male, the male being associated with the transcendent.

This world must be seen in the light of it being the outermost part of a far greater reality or else as the furthest removed from the centre. When seen as real in its own light, as it is now, it becomes very hard for anyone sensitive to truth to function in it properly. Its values are false, its priorities absurd. Such an attitude strips meaning from life and real purpose from human endeavour. To renounce the world in such circumstances is only right for what you are renouncing is not the world as God's creation but the world as its own be all and end all with material ends and goals supreme. The material has no meaning apart from the spiritual, but this is the crazy situation in which we find ourselves in the 21st century. All human societies and cultures are focused exclusively in the material, and practically all religions and spiritual approaches, where they do exist, function in that paradigm and defer to it. It is the master and they must obey their master if they wish to be allowed to exist.

It is coming to the point at which a serious person must reject everything in the world. Not just the obvious evil but the public attempts to contest or resist that evil. These are not as bad as the evil itself but they are the products of it in that they arise in response to it. Hence, they still bear its mark. The only true good can have nothing to do with any of this as it must exist absolutely independently. The world has now separated itself from the divine. To encounter the divine in anything like a pure form you must separate yourself from the world. You don't have to run off to the desert or remote northern islands (the world is in those places nowadays anyway), but you must separate yourself psychologically, spiritually even, from the world. It is a fact that no church or spiritual group can help you now. You are on your own or with a few like-minded companions.

But that is the point of living at this time. You are being tested in the fire for your spiritual integrity. So many people use the spiritual to further themselves. They are not bad people so much as people who wish to have a foot in both camps. They see the reality of the spiritual but they only see partially and they still see through worldly eyes. You must train yourself to see with the spiritual eye, the eye of the heart. Only then will you see truly.

Christianity with its democratisation of spirit has given a false idea of the spiritual path due to its idea that all you need to be saved is to believe. I realise this is a simplification of what Christianity really says but it is a common idea both outside and within the religion. It fits in very well with the modern ethos that we are all equal, an ethos, by the way, that is only encouraged by the elite to keep the masses subjugated and pull back all those who might seek to separate themselves spiritually from the mass. It may be true that all you need to do to be saved is to believe but the how, why and what of that are essential. It is not mere human belief but belief that comes from the whole person and consequently transforms being. And then it requires belief in the real as perceived by the inner eye not some manmade spiritual idol of which there are many, including many in the Christian faith. 

Ultimately, only those willing to walk into the fire will be saved. Today those truly on the path are called to a kind of inner martyrdom but to be so called is a gift so if you are one of those in that position be grateful, though know it will involve suffering for that is what purges the soul and renders it a fit habitat for God into which he may enter.

The Pain of Exile

 Every person who has any real spiritual sensibility suffers from being in this world, and the more sensibility you have, the more you suffer. As much as you may love certain aspects of this world, you know it is not your real home. For that matter, the 'you' you appear to be in this world is not the real you either. You know there is a greater self somewhere beyond the one you experience in the here and now.  There is always this existential ache but you are fortunate for it is this that drives you to seek out deeper levels of truth than what the world has to offer, even in most of what it provides in terms of religion.

Your spiritual pain has another purpose too, one beyond the impetus towards personal growth. This world is sunk in darkness and separated from its source. The suffering of those who are aware of the soul helps lighten some of that darkness by aiding in reconnection. This is because it is a transmuting element that opens up the world through you as a part of the world to the higher spiritual that you can sense. Therefore, whenever you may feel particular pain or anguish know that you are bringing light into the world through that pain because you are, in however small a degree, piercing the shell of materialism that surrounds the totality of human consciousness. You are letting some light into the world. While you are in the world you are part of it and as a part that is somewhat conscious of higher reality you help to bring that reality into the world as a whole. In this way your pain helps in the healing of the world which may be a small comfort but should be some consolation. You are serving a purpose beyond yourself.

Those who have a foot in both worlds can act as channels between the two in a manner that benefits and uplifts, though they may not know it, many souls on the cusp of spiritual awakening.

Why pain, why suffering is the cry of humanity to God. Usually there is no answer and that causes the faith of many to fail. But if you looked on the fact of pain and suffering as evidence that this is not your natural state, and used it as a motivation to seek that state, you might be better reconciled to it. I am not saying this justifies or fully explains suffering, but the deepest love comes from the knowledge of suffering which breaks open the self. God himself suffers through his incarnation in matter and yet he joyously gives himself so that his creation might grow and become more like him.

The topic of initiation is one which the modern world, egalitarian, democratic, materialistic, has quite forgotten. However, in many traditional societies it was an important concept which could be applied on a variety of levels from the everyday, the movement from boyhood to manhood, for instance, to the deeply spiritual. Fundamentally, initiation means the transition to a different mode of consciousness and it always involves a kind of death. In other words, there is no initiation without suffering and the further one progresses on the spiritual path, the truer this is. The suffering comes about as part of the outgrowing of a previous phase of being and indicates you are being prepared to move to a higher phase. Suffering leads to death which in turn leads to rebirth. There is no proper initiation without suffering so let those who do suffer spiritually understand that this is a sign they are being prepared for a new and higher state of being.

The Solar Principle

By No Means Equal was published a couple of years ago and I've noticed since then there have been many more books and articles questioning the validity of the modern egalitarian ethos. I would love to think it was because of my book but I'm not that deluded, especially since it hasn't sold very much. The fact is this is an idea whose time has come. The flaws of egalitarianism are just becoming more and more obvious, and in every sphere too. Most people approach this from a political perspective but the real issue is a spiritual or metaphysical one and everything else follows on from that. As always, get first principles right and correct understanding will generally follow. Get them wrong and one mistake leads to another. Don't we see that everywhere now?

Sometimes Christianity is blamed for inspiring this ideology and there is some truth in that even if traditional Christians would point to Masonic influences, the French Revolution, Marxism etc, all the usual suspects. And they are not wrong. But a Christianity emptied of its transcendent qualities can also be blamed and there always was this seed within in it even if it took many centuries to grow fully. Christianity is not specifically a religion of spiritual aristocrats which is at once its strength and its weakness. Christianity is a religion of love and it's very easy to think that love means equality if that's what you want to think. It doesn't but it can be misunderstood as doing so. Christianity externalised the Mysteries, making them potentially accessible to everyone. This is its glory but also its flaw. I'm not saying it was wrong to do this. That clearly is not the case but it is something that was right which carries certain risks.

A previous post referred to the collapse of the vertical to the horizontal that takes place during the end times. This is almost the perfect visual image of egalitarianism. The pole that points to the transcendent is chopped down and lies flat on the ground with the result that hierarchical values are abandoned and replaced with those that promote and sustain equality. But the attempts to enforce a spurious equality lead to the loss of individuality and freedom, and also to the curtailing of growth beyond the material. With an irony that would be amusing if it weren't so destructive the insistence on diversity in the modern world is leading to an increasingly bland conformity. There is probably less real diversity now than there ever has been, partly because of the pressures applied by modern technology, but also because the obsession with equality forces everyone into the same box.

The question of equality is something about which it is futile to argue or debate. Those who believe in it do not do so for rational or intellectual reasons, still less those of common sense. They are ideologically committed, and the real question is why do they wish to deny reality? For some it is because of resentment, for others the search for power and for many now it is because that is what good people are supposed to think. But ultimately it is because of the rejection of the solar principle in man. What I mean by this is that divine spark that lies hidden in the darkness of the self and which, when discovered, tended and brought to full flame makes of man a god. We completely neglect this essential principle now and even many of those who would say they believe in it substitute man-made imitations, more in keeping with their worldly beliefs, for the true inner light. 

The solar principle is the connection to transcendence within the human heart. And yet though it exists within it must also be conceived high up above us, us as earthly man, like the sun which is its symbol. Normally it is obscured by clouds of delusion and ignorance but when these part it shines with majesty and glory. No egalitarian can ever find it because egalitarianism never leaves the earth, the flat ground. The solar principle can only be seen by those who take their eyes off the earth and look up to the sky.

Sex in the Universe

 Sex is the basis of the universe. It is the foundation to everything as the One becomes two in order to manifest and know itself more fully. Call this spirit and matter, God and Creation, subject and object, it amounts to the same thing. The two are always trying to return to oneness and it is this that provides the creative tension necessary for anything first to be and then to develop and evolve. 

Sex means metaphysical sex of which the physical is a lower order reflection in matter. Sex is the most powerful thing in the world but it points to something much greater than itself which is why it can lead to the greatest elevation and, when despoiled or corrupted, the greatest degradation. But even then it is never evil, just the perversion of a supreme good.

In the human sphere sex appears as man and woman which is the expression in creatures, created beings, of spirit and matter. Each have both within them but there is a polarity to each which is different. This points to an important truth, one rejected in our time but understood though often misused in the past. These two are complementary but they are not equal and opposite. In any complementary pair one is ontologically prior, the other appearing as its reflection in duality. In this case, it is spirit which precedes matter and, by extension, the male precedes and therefore should lead the female. If that is not the case as now when feminism has denatured humanity then societal breakdown will ensue and end in chaos which is the degeneration of form to raw material. Male and female represent the vertical and horizontal axes of life, one pointing to transcendence and higher reality and the other to this world and material being, nature, earth, the body. Both are part of the whole but the masculine principle must dominate or spirit will be pulled down into matter where it will be lost in a psychic miasma (see much contemporary spirituality which is all to do with feelings and healing rather than proper self-transcendence).

Only the hero can become divine. That is to say only the fully developed self can transcend self. Popular (feminised?) Christianity ignores this truth thinking that because anyone who believes can be saved then all are equal in Christ. All may be one in Christ but that does not mean that all are equal. There is hierarchy in heaven, and salvation is not theosis. The idea that everyone is saved and when saved equal comes from prioritising the immanent at the expense of the transcendent. It collapses the vertical to the horizontal. The vertical needs the horizontal to express itself and to know itself as subject needs object, but it must always be the dominant principle. 

When the feminine asserts itself over the masculine which it will often seek to do in a fallen world of competing egos, then what is pleasing to emotions overrides what accords with truth. Nurturing virtues, essential in themselves and in their proper place, become over-emphasised and expressed where they don't belong and where they do active harm such as, for example, by undermining justice and responsibility. So-called compassion (which is not love) is weaponised to pull down higher truths, by definition beyond the mundane, to the point where they can be understood by all. But they are destroyed in the process. The tyranny of the masses becomes the arbiter of truth. This is the law of the horizontal applied to the vertical.

The moon transforms the light of the sun and makes of it something very different, mysterious and beautiful, but without that light it has nothing to transform. The Creator has given us signs in the heavens through which we can understand how the dynamics of human interaction should work. If we ignore them we are straying from the path of truth and that means we fall into darkness and illusion. This is our state today.

To say that the increasing domination of the feminine over the masculine leads to loss of connection to transcendent truth is not to condemn the feminine itself but the ego-driven feminine. Obviously, there is an ego-driven masculine too which seeks power for its own ends rather than power in the service of truth. However, there is a difference between corrupted truth and an outright lie. The masculine should rule but for the sake of the masculine and the feminine not for its own sake, and that way lies proper harmony. If the basis of the universe is sex then the expression of that is love. In a fallen world the two sexes become rivals, each drawn to the other but also seeking to dominate the other. It is not right to say the sexes should cooperate as that is far too feeble a word to express the creative harmony that should exist between them, but they should certainly not compete. Each sex must be true to its essential metaphysical Form in which the male represents the reality of being and truth, and the female that of change and becoming. Then they will find true creative fulfilment.

In the end master metaphysician James Brown summed it up thus.

This is a man's world
But it wouldn't be nothing
Nothing without a woman or a girl.

Arrival in Yercaud

 The reminiscences of my time in India in the 1980s are a sidetrack from the main theme of the blog but some of their contents do occasionally overlap with that theme and I enjoy the trip down memory lane so here is another one following chronologically on from the last.

We had arrived in India in April and it was now November. The seasons in South India are described as hot, hotter and hottest and I don't remember which is when but I have the feeling that the cooler weather was on its way now as one might expect at that time of year. This was certainly the case in Yercaud which is a hill station in the Shevaroys 5,000 feet above sea level so has a very different climate to the plains down below. That was one of the reasons the British developed such towns as Simla in the north and Ootacamund in the south, but there was a commercial element too because many of these hill stations were situated in tea growing areas though Yercaud, being slightly less elevated, was better suited to coffee. Coffee estates are more visually interesting than tea estates which resemble nothing so much as neat rows of suburban hedges. Coffee requires both sun and shade so growers plant trees interspersed with the coffee and in Yercaud these were often orange trees giving two crops on the same piece of land as well as two lots of very beautiful and sweet-smelling blossom. 

The van with all our possessions got to the town of Salem at the foot of the Shevaroy Hills without mishap which was somewhat surprising given its rickety state. There didn't appear to be any signs to Yercaud but there was only one road that led to the hills so we followed it. It was a lovely drive made more interesting because as you climbed the vegetation changed from typically tropical trees and plants to more temperate zone types. The air became cooler and fresher, and the light sharper. There were monkeys in the trees and scampering on the rocks by the side of the road like these fellows.

Brother, thy tail hangs down behind

Where did I leave that banana?

Roughly half way up the hill our van broke down. I was surprised it had got this far given its condition, but the driver was unperturbed and soon diagnosed the problem. The trouble was he had to go back to Salem, a good 10 miles away, to get a spare part for the engine. Luckily, there were buses plying this route and he got on one leaving Michael and me with the van. Michael then decided he had better get up to Yercaud to make sure the bungalow we had rented was ready for us and he got on a bus going the other way. These buses came by about once an hour and there was very little other traffic so I sat there by myself looking out over the hot dusty plains spread below and watching the monkeys until I got sleepy and stretched out on the parapet that bordered the road, presumably to stop cars plunging over the side. They didn't always work. On one occasion while I was living in the area a bus went over resulting in several deaths.

Michael came back after a couple of hours and then the driver returned with the spare part and we set off up the remainder of the 20 hairpin bends there were on the ghat road. Here is one of them.

And this shows the entrance into Yercaud. Note the cloud and the evergreen trees, showing that we are high up.

The name Yercaud comes from two Tamil words meaning lake and forest, and the lake is the first thing you see on arrival. I believe it has now been developed as a tourist resort with fishing and boating but in my day it was just a lake with some public gardens beside it on one side. 

Yercaud Lake

 We drove to the bungalow Michael had rented, albeit only for a couple of months as on his previous visit he had also located a property for sale that consisted of a pair of bungalows built on the terraced hillside so that on the lower level you had a well (there was no mains water) and the first bungalow. Then on the next level there was a stretch of garden with a few coffee and banana plants and some orange trees and finally at the top the main bungalow. It was ideal for running as a guest house. Michael had found this property through someone he had met on his initial trip who was a Syrian Christian called Tharyan Matthews. Syrian Christians are from Kerala for the most part and claim religious descent from St Thomas who is supposed to have landed on the Malabar Coast just a few years after the Crucifixion. They are ethnically Indians but use the rites of early Syriac Christianity hence their name. Tharyan (the name is a form of Alexander) and his wife Elizabeth would be good friends to us during our stay in Yercaud, helping us in many ways though the friendship did end on something of a sour note in what one might call typical Indian fashion. We will come to that another time.

The rented bungalow was basic but habitable. There was one large central living area and a couple of bedrooms but one was small and somewhat grubby so we used it to store our furniture, mostly bought at auction in Bangalore when we thought we would be living in Whitefield. We shared the other bedroom, and the first night passed reasonably well though I kept hearing strange noises but since the house was surrounded by quite thick woods I just thought it was the local nightlife. The noises were louder and seemed closer the next evening and then all of a sudden in the middle of the night Michael gave a great shout. It seemed something had run over his face and then tried to burrow down into his pyjamas. We turned on the lights and there were over a dozen rats in the room including several perched on a ledge or cornice that ran along the walls. They were looking at us inquisitively. We were clearly interlopers in their territory.

I can't remember how we got rid of the rats but we clearly did because we stayed in that bungalow for the next few weeks while the purchase of the other property went through. You may be wondering how we bought this other place, given the reason we had left Whitefield was that we, as foreigners, had not been granted permission to buy what was called immoveable property despite being assured by the Indian High Commission in London that we could. The answer is Michael had so set his heart on buying somewhere that he accepted Tharyan's offer to buy it in his name. Michael supplied the money which was about £20,000 (this was 1980 so that was not what it would be now but still was reasonable for 2 bungalows and a fairly decent amount of garden) and Tharyan's name went on the paperwork. I thought this was somewhat reckless but Tharyan seemed friendly and honest, and it was not my money.

We moved into the new bungalow in December 1980. It had taken several months, and a lot of work still needed to be done on the two bungalows and the garden which was heavily overgrown, but we had finally established ourselves in India.

 

Detachment and Indifference

 A couple of weeks ago I saw a television programme in which an Indian man who had been living in England since he was a small boy and who was, to all appearances, completely Westernised went back to India in order to find acceptance for the death of his father to whom he had been extremely close. The shots where he recollected his love for his father were very touching. He came from a Hindu family but was now an atheist due, no doubt, to the influence of the world in which he, a successful journalist, lived. But his father's death had awoken something in him and though he neither sought nor expected easy answers, he did want to explore his traditional background.

The way he chose to do this was to join a pilgrimage to the Kumbh Mela which is a festival that takes place every 12 years when Jupiter, the sun and the moon form some kind of astronomical relationship. The gathering is the most enormous collection of human beings on the planet and wild horses couldn't drag me there. But for many it is the highlight of their lives. Tens of millions of people attend forming a chaotic mass of humanity, and for Hindus it is one of the holiest events with people making many sacrifices to go and bathe in the river Ganges where they can purify themselves of sin and prepare their souls for Moksha which is liberation. At least, that's the idea. I remember reading once that one of Ramakrishna's disciples asked him if bathing in the Ganges really did wash away your sins. It certainly does, he replied. The trouble is the sins sit in the branches of the trees on the riverside and, unless you are attentive, drop back on you as you come out. A good answer that satisfies both faith and reason - sort of.

In the last post I talked about the need for detachment at the present time. There is always a need for detachment but the fact of the end times makes it more important than ever. I spoke of it meaning not that you don't care but that you are not attached to the caring. This might seem a contradiction in terms so let me explain. You care because this world is real but you are not attached to the care because it is not ultimately real. This world is a reflection of a higher world. That doesn't mean it's not real but that its reality is borrowed not innate. The true reality from which springs any reality this world has is located in the higher world. In the heart of God, you might say.

I mention this because as the journalist in the TV programme was going to bathe in the river at the Kumbh Mela there was a stampede. Hundreds of people were injured and dozens died. Naturally, he was horrified and he sought an explanation of how to react from the spiritual perspective from one of the many sannyasis who were present at the event. Unusually, this was a holy woman rather than a holy man, but she wore the ochre robe that signifies renunciation from the word. 

She told him to respond with indifference because birth and death were all part of life which is eternal. This is fine as far as it goes but the problem is the English word indifference carries the meaning of being, well, indifferent, that is to say, not caring about the pain and suffering there is in the world. You might consider this is just a question of the concepts of one language and culture not transferring accurately when expressed in the terms of another, and there is certainly an element of that. I suspect the word she would have used if speaking in her own language would have been vairagya which is a Sanskrit word meaning detachment and dispassion. It describes the spiritual state of being unattached to worldly matters of any kind, including ideas and beliefs, because one is centred in the eternal reality of being, above all the ebb and flow of events in the external world of space and time. It is not a question of the suppression of desire but the transcending of attachment to it. This is an essential quality to be acquired by any spiritual aspirant, Eastern or Western, that involves transferring the locus of attention from the phenomenal world of cause and effect to the stillness of the spiritual plane which is the underlying reality behind all the movement constantly going on in the material.

In classical Indian philosophy it is understood that dispassion does not negate compassion; that, in fact, properly ordered dispassion opens up the path to real compassion. However, there is a tendency, and this seems particularly the case for the Indian mind, for dispassion to actually mean, or result in, real indifference. That's why India is famous for its combination of spirituality with material squalor and degradation. Admittedly, it can be hard to balance detachment with caring but that is the task we are set, to be detached from the world but love it all the same because of the spiritual. Jesus wept. No one knew the reality of the spiritual world more than Jesus but that knowledge did not cut him off from the suffering in the material world.

I suspect that when this holy woman spoke of indifference to the deaths of many men and women at the pilgrimage she really was largely indifferent. I don't judge or condemn her because it is challenging when removing oneself from the world and transferring conscious attention to spirit to retain concern for the world. That is why there is always an element of balancing opposites on the spiritual path, of not going too far in one or another direction but standing on the edge of the razor sharp path. We must have detachment from the world but we must also have detachment from ourself. Then we will find (or so I have been told!) that love arises.

The Creative Side of Collapse

 One wonders at just what point will the supine populations of the West revolt. The latest almost farcical absurdity is that 16 year olds are being given the right to vote in the UK. This has been talked about for a long time but it seems is now really going to happen. The assumption, presumably, is that most will vote for the the left as naive young people tend to do, but it is a deeply cynical and immoral exploitation of both the population as a whole and the young people themselves who shouldn't have to think about such nonsense. The old excuses that 16 year olds can marry and die for their country,* and that, if they have left education and work, they pay taxes, are trotted out, but so what? They are nowhere near intellectually developed enough to make proper choices in how a country should be run. Nor, for that matter, are 18 year olds and while we're about it nor are most actual adults, but you don't put a mistake right by making it worse. This is an excellent example of the replacement of qualitative criteria by quantitative ones and, as such, another significator for us being in the latter stages of the End Times.

Most of the population did not kick back against the totalitarianism of 2020 which was probably a dry run for future restrictions of freedom. Nor have they kicked back against the extraordinary number of foreigners from the 3rd World flooding their countries which has an enormous detrimental effect, both culturally and economically. There is some resistance but it is managed like a little steam that is let off so that the whole pot can continue cooking away. The recent revelation that thousands of Afghans have been allowed to come to the UK focuses more on a data leak than the fact that another huge number of unassimilable people have been let into the country against the clear wishes of the majority, certainly the indigenous majority. How much longer will people refuse to see that this is deliberate subversion? Many current policies are intended to undermine and destroy. Are we so blind and prepared to put up with anything as long as we are comfortable? What a spiritually shameful state to be in.

For this is a spiritual problem. In a materialistic time such as ours people only understand spirituality in materialistic terms which means all they see is the horizontal axis of love thy neighbour. They don't see love God or love truth. Which means they don't see that spirituality does not mean being nice or kind or good as the world sees good. It might mean compassion for all on one level, but on another more important level it means establishing the higher and fighting for the transcendental good. The demons behind the scenes through their acolytes and stooges in this world, for the most part unwitting but corrupted by the desire for wealth, power, status and sex, seek to undermine the real good and replace it by a false good which closes off access to the higher good, the real spiritual as opposed to an ersatz copy. This is why evil shamelessly masquerades as good everywhere you look in the contemporary world.

At one time it was permissible for spiritual aspirants to turn their back on the world and dedicate themselves exclusively to spiritual discipline. This is less possible now. The world situation is so spiritually dire that we are all called upon to actively resist it. This may only be mentally but we cannot just ignore the raging evil that is everywhere and in everything. We can't step aside as though it doesn't concern us. We must stand against it even if it is only in our own minds and hearts. The course of the End Times in the outer world is what it is and cannot be changed, but the salvation of souls is what counts and every individual who sets himself against the current provides added strength to the forces that are engaged in a salvage operation in these times.

Outer collapse is coming but we can build lifeboats of consciousness that will rescue ourselves and others from the debris. In this world now, some, a minority, are active agents in the process of spiritual degeneration though most are passive participants with many self-proclaimed spiritual and religious people among them. But unless you identify and, inwardly, at least, resist the evil of today you are part of it and you will be dragged down with it.

The West is falling because it has lost touch with traditions which were built up over time to maintain and safeguard its material and spiritual integrity. When a culture replaces the strong (or masculine) virtues of belief in itself, discipline, ability to sacrifice and embrace hardship in order to forge a connection with transcendent reality and thereby separate the good from the bad with the feebler qualities of tolerance and relativistic acceptance of everyone and everything, justified by a nebulous compassion, it is a sign it is worn out. It has come to its terminal phase. This is our current state

At such a time the two most important qualities for the spiritual aspirant are detachment and discrimination. Detachment because the world is falling apart, destroyed in large part by bad people using false ideology as a cover to mask their vindictiveness, resentment and spiritual emptiness, and you will find such people in every walk of life. The process, driven also by the nature of end times entropy, is so far gone it cannot be redressed without great destruction. This must be accepted which is why detachment from the world is essential. That does not mean not caring but not being attached to the care. 

Then, discrimination. This is the ability to see through the lies and illusions that are everywhere, not just in politics, the media and academia, but even in religion and spirituality. Things, bad already, are going to get a lot worse but don't let that discourage you. This is all in line with the end of an age, and the outer collapse can actually, if you see it through the joint lens of detachment and discrimination, lead to spiritual renewal.

* Actually, I discovered that they can't anymore, the age being raised to 18 a couple of years ago which makes giving them the vote even more ridiculous. Also, though they can join the armed forces they can't go on the frontline until 18.

The End of a World

 Over the last hundred and fifty years, and especially since the end of the Second World War, Western societies have systematically dismantled the protective devices that guarded them from collapse. Standards, rules and cultural norms that prevented them from internal rot and damage from external sources have been attacked, ridiculed, removed and replaced. This is often at the instigation of particular groups which have worked to make the societies more congenial to themselves. It is true that a healthy society would have resisted these groups, but still they are like viruses that can more easily infect a body whose immune system has already been weakened.

The West has been undermined by sentimentality which is a luxury of the comfortable. It is this that has allowed it to admit elements that do it harm. A perfect example is the present crisis of illegal immigration into the UK with many small boats crossing the Channel from France full of people who have no right to be here and can offer nothing to the country into which they come. The solution to this is obvious but it is unacceptable to a sentimentalised society that has never known true suffering or hardship and indulges in the naive fantasy that its present wealth will always, magically, remain at the same level regardless of what happens. It doesn't see that this wealth had to be earned and can be, is being, dissipated.

Without boundaries everything is dragged down to base level. Boundaries guard. They protect. They keep out elements that would destroy what has carefully and laboriously been built up over long periods of time. Once removed the form they have maintained starts to crumble. Form by virtue of what it is needs boundaries, and higher forms, and yes, there are such things as higher forms, need strong boundaries in order to maintain their structure and integrity. Once those go then the structure goes. Again, to take the example of the UK, though this is true in most other Western nations too, we can see how the present relaxation of boundaries is leading to great cultural and material damage. To deny this may have been possible 30 years ago when the process was not so far gone even if it was well underway. It is no longer possible now except to the terminally deluded and those who, for whatever reason, just lie.

It is unlikely there is any solution to this, and it may be that from the spiritual perspective it was inevitable and might even have been desirable. That is because all societies run their course. The West had clearly reached its limits in the 20th century. No more proper art was being created even if, paradoxically, more supposed art than ever before was being turned out, quantity replacing quality in line with the typical pattern of the end of a cycle. But that is just one aspect of the decline which is well documented so there is no need for me to go into all the signs and symptoms here. Suffice it to say that the loss of the sense of transcendence lies at the root of most of them.

If the West has run its course as a creative endeavour that advanced the spirit of humanity then we may lament its passing because of what it was but cannot shed too many tears over it because of what it has become. A dying thing must die. To be a part of the death process is not pleasant but there are lessons that can be learnt by the spiritual aspirant as his world crumbles, primarily detachment and the realisation that everything true and good and beautiful exists in the higher worlds eternally. Anything that sought to manifest those qualities in the material world is only a reflection of higher things and cannot last. That is no reason not to seek to manifest the good in the world because by doing so we build it into ourselves, but equally when destruction comes as it must we must face it with equanimity and the sure knowledge that the forces of entropy can only affect matter. They cannot touch the spirit.

One last point. Jesus said that evil must come into the world but woe to those through whom it comes. If it is part of the divine plan that the West falls, having come to the end of its useful life, that does not mean that those groups which have attacked and undermined it through infecting it with false ideologies are doing God's work. Sickness and death are never good things though they may be necessary things from one perspective. The attack ultimately comes from non-material levels and the forces behind it are seeking spiritual destruction above all. They use vessels in this world that respond to the debased energies they channel. As the West falls how many souls will fall with it because they identify with the corruption? It is one thing not to regret the passing of a society that has fallen from grace but that society is made up of many individuals and these can either be saved or lost as the society of which they are a part collapses. The only solution is to become aware of the decay and stand apart from it.

Humility and Pride

 Look in any spiritual textbook and it will tell you about humility and self-abnegation, particularly if it is a Christian one. Humility is an important virtue that shows one is not dominated by the ego or separate self which is a materialised expression/distortion of the soul. Self-abnegation likewise indicates that the disciple has overcome the ego. But are things really as simple as that? Is humility the only quality the spiritual self should possess?

There are two aspects to the soul which are to do with expansion and contraction, and both must be realised if the soul is to be complete. What, after all, is the point of the soul? What is its purpose? You may say that the soul just is as an individualised expression of divine being which is true enough, but that just refers to its raw state and there must be more or else there would be no need for the soul to descend to the phenomenal world, the subject/object world of duality in which the keywords are experience, expression and experiment. This relates to the self-actualisation of the soul which means its development from a more or less blank cipher to a glorious star being of many colours.

Humility relates to the awareness of the oneness of life and the supreme reality of God, the knowledge that all that you are comes from God. It is not yours. It is his gift to you. But the soul is also called to become great. The soul is not a servant or slave, and any religion that teaches this is not worthy of your spiritual allegiance. The soul has the potential to be a king or queen, and this is the path it must follow. The more you have, the more you can give. The soul should strive to have everything and to be everything. This is its destiny, and this is where pride comes into the the equation.

The spiritual person is proud. He seeks the exaltation of the self. He strives to express the majesty of God in his person. This is right and proper and what we are called to do. We are kings of the universe if only we knew it. We can wield powers that could destroy planets. We can master and direct the pure force of spiritual will.

At the same time, the spiritual person is humble. He knows that everything comes from God. He knows that all he has, others can have too. He is bound to the rest of life with bonds of love. He lives in a permanent state of gratitude to his Creator.

Humility and pride relate to love and will, and the two are not mutually exclusive but part of the whole. Christianity has focussed, to excess some might say, on humility, while the old pagan religions, especially those of the Indo-Europeans, sought the path of the hero. There is no contradiction between these two if one understands that they relate to different aspects of the spiritual path, the push forward of the undeveloped self to mastery and its subsequent return to the inner knowledge of God. The problem has been the expression of humility and pride in the wrong spheres. The spiritual self should have pride and the worldly self humility. Some Christians have made the mistake of transferring humility to the soul and some pagans in the past made the opposite error, but if you understand the nature of the inner and outer aspects to your being you will see that both humility and pride (of the right sort) have their place in the spiritual life.

Love Your Enemies

 As we know, the devil quotes scripture for his own ends. Nowhere has he been busier in this regard over recent years than with the matter of love which is now used as an excuse to overlook all manner of assaults on goodness and truth. Don't judge, don't condemn, be tolerant, accept everyone and (pretty much) everything because, you know, love.

When Jesus told us to love our enemies he meant we should not hold hatred in our hearts for those who do us an ill turn. This is not to benefit our enemies who may or may not be good or bad people. It is to stop the hatred corroding our soul which is what hatred does do when it is personal. He was saying that hatred darkens the heart while love brings light to it. You cannot affect what is out there in others but you can affect what is in yourself. If you want to go to heaven then you must have heaven within you. We need to remember this. After death you will go to a place, an environment, that reflects your inner state. The subjective mind and the objective world reflect each other in the post-mortem state, the spiritual world. If you have hatred within you, you cannot go to a place of love

This is why we are enjoined to take Christ into our hearts. Not merely believe in him, but actually build him into our being. This does start with belief but must progress to a form of identification. That does not mean you are Christ, that is blasphemy, but Christ is in you. Controversially for a Christian, this can work with other deity figures depending on how much spiritual light they carry, but none carries so much light, and pure light unmixed with other stuff as is the case with other deity figures, as Christ who is the image of God in human form to a greater degree than anything or anyone else. God has appeared in many images to humanity at various stages of its existence but only in Christ is he revealed as fully as is possible in this world.

So, love your enemies because love cleanses the soul and hatred makes it sick. But loving your enemies does not mean accepting evil, and if you use the excuse of love to ignore or, worse, justify evil then you are betraying love which, ultimately, is love of the Good.

Today in the name of love what is ugly is called beautiful, what is unnatural is called natural and what denies spirit is regarded as as healthy in its own way as what fully accepts it. If you really love then what you love first and foremost is God who is the author of love, and if you love God then you condemn what rejects or insults God. You don't let that condemnation affect you on a personal level because then it drags you down, but nor do you succumb to the dangerous illusion that universal, unconditional love means loving everything equally. There is good and there is evil. To love your enemy does not mean accepting evil which must be identified and unsentimentally condemned.

Resentment and Nobility

 If I were the devil what sin would I most try to stimulate? What sin would be most spiritually corrupting for those who succumbed to it, and most damaging for the integrity of any culture in which it took hold amongst a sufficient number of the people? 

Resentment is the perfect sin from the demonic point of view because it can be disguised as a virtue, both to the one who holds it and to the society into which it is introduced. One can clearly see how resentment has undermined the Western world and is causing the West to allow itself to be destroyed. It is not only resentment, of course, because there are many factors at play, but this is a prime driver of the spiritually debased condition of our day. 

Resentment is behind the push for equality, and equality is the tool used to bring down the West and all it strove for which was excellence. For equality always does bring down more than it raises up as it inevitably reduces to the lowest common denominator the standards and culture of any society in which its pernicious influence takes hold. No egalitarian culture strives for nobility of soul and that is the preeminent spiritual quest for Western man. The very word nobility is meaningless in the egalitarian world, but if I had to pick one word to describe the goal of the spiritual path that would be it.

What is nobility? It is a spiritual condition of dignity, authority, responsibility, sacrifice and love, though love understood in its fiery rather than watery context. Nobility is the sun shining in solitary splendour in the heavens, the light by which everything else sees and to which everything else aspires. It is the fully realised individual soul that is able to express the power and majesty of God. It is Christ on the cross and Christ resurrected. It is that which stands at the top of the hierarchical ladder and the justification for that ladder which, be it noted, has height but also steps whereby to mount. Climbing is harder than falling and to be noble is harder than to resent but the noble soul knows God whereas the resentful soul has completely lost sight of God. It was resentment that caused Satan's fall and he uses it to bring us down if he can find anything anti-noble in us which he can stimulate. Therefore, cultivate the noble in your heart and shun the petty. That way you will find the path to the true God who loves absolutely but is no egalitarian. He is too big for that.

The Spiritual Failure of Tristan

Tristan & Isolde is a great opera, one of the very greatest. The Act 1 Prelude, Isolde's Narrative and Curse, the Love Duet in Act 2 and the concluding Liebstod in which Isolde sings ecstatically of a transcendent union with Tristan after death are some of the most extraordinary moments in Western music. The impact of this opera was profound on late 19th century consciousness and marked all serious music subsequently. Countless writings testify to its enormous influence, and not just on composers but artists across the creative spectrum.

The music is extraordinary, and yet the message of this opera as it comes through in the libretto is one of spiritual decadence and death. Tristan, originally a solar hero, is undone by infatuation with a woman and consequently becomes a weak, pitiful figure whose inner sense of wholeness and integrity is completely undermined by his obsession. He seeks to shun the day and be absorbed in night, and this represents the overcoming of the spiritual strength of the sun by lunar forces which is essentially the overcoming of spirit by matter. 

That is the very reverse of the true spiritual path, especially the masculine path, in which the self is raised to godlike potency through conscious alignment with divine reality. Instead, Tristan seeks to be merged back into the chaos of pre-creation from whence his soul emerged. Overcome by his sensual passions and losing control of his inner centre, he seeks a return to the emasculating arms of the primeval matriarchy and a pantheistic dissolution instead of following the path of becoming a radiant centre of light himself. 

In this path he could still have loved Isolde but would not have let that love overwhelm his spiritual integrity. He would have been master of it although, in the context of the story, he would not have acted on it since she was betrothed to another man so he not only betrayed his oath of loyalty to the King, as related in King Mark's desolate lament, in my view the spiritual heart of the opera, but he also violated the sanctity of marriage.

This does not form part of Wagner's treatment of the legend but the story serves as an illustration of a test for an initiate (Tristan was a hero so at a high level of spiritual development) which he failed. There is no sense of this in the opera which is a straight paean to romantic love which, although ending in tragedy from the worldly point of view, sees the two protagonists finding their fulfilment in death with the implication they have moved onto a higher plane. But have they really or have they succumbed to idolatry? Real spiritual attainment only comes when the soul turns away from seeking fulfilment in creation, any aspect of creation, even a lover as soulmate, and looks for it in the Creator. Then the soul can turn back to creation and move in its confines without attachment or suffering.

Love is an excuse for anything runs the Romantic creed, a creed we have largely adopted today. But this is an illusion. There is love and then there is love. Jesus said that the greatest love is to lay down one's life for one's friends. Tristan and Isolde lay down their lives but not as acts of personal sacrifice. They are seeking the delights of heaven not renouncing these delights for the love of God. Only those who are prepared to sacrifice heaven for others are worthy to enter it.

There is a close parallel with that other Arthurian story of Lancelot and Guinevere. Here too sexual obsession and infidelity are the cause of spiritual failure and destroy an ideal kingdom. Lancelot was the greatest of knights but he proved unworthy at the final test, and, because he was the greatest, his downfall impacted the whole world in which he lived. Arthur's kingdom was destroyed. But unlike Tristan, Lancelot worked out his fault through renunciation and repentance as he lived the rest of his life as a monk just as Guinevere, his adulterous lover, became a nun in contrition for her part in the sin. Love does not justify everything. At least, what is called love does not do so. There are higher values which even love must obey.

Wagner's words may carry a misleading spiritual message because his metaphysical understanding was limited. He adopted Schopenhauer's misconception of Nirvana as non-being as Tristan's credo, and saw that as the peak of spiritual realisation. However, in Tristan & Isolde his musical understanding and power of expression exceed his intellectual and philosophical grasp as they also did in Parsifal which is a curious and unsatisfactory mish-mash of Christianity and Buddhism from the story point of view but contains music in the Prelude and Good Friday section that is amongst the most spiritually profound of anything heard in this world. Tristan & Isolde also has music that reaches further into the higher planes than practically any other, but one can see why some people have problems with Wagner. The music can seem too intense while the themes of some of his operas, and Tristan especially, do have something spiritually self-indulgent about them. Nonetheless, Wagner was clearly used by the powers that be to bring through something entirely new and open up higher levels of reality to the physical plane. He was certainly not a saint but then how many saints are creative artists of genius?

Good and Bad Seeds

 I have used the analogy of human beings in this world as comparable to seeds planted in the earth before. Given that the same patterns repeat themselves at all levels of creation, the basis of symbolism and a key to deeper understanding, this seems reasonable. We are gods but gods in potential just as seeds are plants but only potentially so. The dark earth is this dark (spiritually considered) Earth, and the light of the sun to which the seeds grow upwards through their equivalent of aspiration is like the light of God to which the human soul should aspire. 

But this comparison contains a warning. Not all seeds germinate. 

I have just looked up the factors that might prevent germination. Here are some.

• • Dormancy:

  Many seeds naturally enter a dormant state to protect themselves from unfavorable conditions like cold, drought, or predation. 

  • Seed Viability:

  Seeds can degrade over time, losing their ability to germinate. Factors like storage conditions, temperature, and humidity can affect seed viability. 

  • Environmental Factors:

  Even viable seeds require specific conditions for germination, including moisture, oxygen, temperature, and sometimes light or dark. Some seeds may not germinate if planted too deep or shallow, or if the soil temperature is not optimal. 

  • Internal Factors:

  Some seeds may have internal factors, such as a thick seed coat or chemical inhibitors, that prevent germination until those factors are overcome. 

  
  

   It is not hard to equate some of these with human barriers to spiritual development. For instance, dormancy. In many people the spiritual sense does lie dormant. The stuff of which they are made is not robust enough to overcome world conditions. In others there can be a degradation of the soul as the lower self allows itself to be caught up in sin. Environmental factors must also be taken into consideration, and internal factors such as the intrinsic quality of the soul in the first place cannot be ignored.

  
  

  However, human beings are different to seeds in that we have free will. We can, if we set our minds to it, overcome obstacles. A particular environment might hinder but it cannot prevent. 

  
  

  A natural question to ask would be what percentage of seeds germinate, and the answer is it depends. It depends on the species, it depends on weather conditions and it depends on the time of planting. Modern science tells us that human beings all belong to the same species, and biologically we may do even if there are different categories within that species. But spiritually we may not. It is an unsubstantiated assumption that because we are all children of God we are all the same sort of children. We might well have different spiritual origins, and even where there is similarity of origin we know that the same parents can have quite different children. The weather conditions relate to the spiritual climate when we are alive. It may be fair as in some periods of history or it may be foul as now though if we are born at a foul time there will be a reason for that. A hardier strain might be produced by inclement weather.

  
  

  Then there is the time of planting. Most traditions would agree that we are not now in spring. Indeed, most would say we are deep in winter. It may be that the harvest is not great at such a time but this analogy should not be pushed too far. If we are alive now it is because the greater difficulties can produce a more intense growing season. What is lost in terms of quantity may be gained qualitatively speaking. The seeds that do sprout might produce a better crop. Those that don't might be held back for another season.

  
  

  There is good seed and bad seed. Both can germinate but the good seed is more likely to do so. What makes a good seed is love of God. This produces the pushing up through the earth towards the light of the sun. A bad seed can be characterised by rejection of God, a very bad seed by hatred of God. It seems that few people today love the Good. The Good is the same as God. God is Being which is a transcendental thing. That means it is beyond this world. If you do not look for the meaning of life beyond this world you are rejecting God and, ipso facto, rejecting the Good. That is why personal goodness, or goodness as the world judges it, is less important than the orientation of the soul. A conventionally good person who does not seek to strive upwards through the earth to the sun is not aware of the true Good and is therefore is on the wrong side when it comes to spiritual good and evil. His seed will not sprout. He may claim to love God but if he gives precedence to any worldly conception of good then his claim is false. He doesn't love God but an imagined idol of his own making.

  
  

  We live in an egalitarian culture which believes everyone will be saved because everyone is basically good. There is no bad seed, all is good. However, egalitarianism is a poisonous doctrine because it sacrifices truth for a perversion of love. Without hierarchy there is no higher or lower, no better or worse, and this means that everything sinks to the same level. The vertical collapses to the horizontal. It is clear that the egalitarian ethos has been put through by the dark forces to shut mankind out from the spiritual heights. It is a justification for resentment, making a vice into a virtue, and a major contributory factor to the degradation of seeds.

  Note: I could have described this in terms of healthy and poor quality seeds to remove the sense of moral judgement. But there is moral judgment involved when you are speaking in human terms. Healthy is good, spiritually speaking.

From Whitefield to Yercaud

During our time in Whitefield Michael, who was a great animal lover, bought a strange looking creature in the Bangalore bazaar. Obviously some sort of primate, this is what it looked like.

I think you'll agree this is not a thing of beauty, but Michael bought it to save it. Despite the Hindu reverence for the cow and the doctrine of ahimsa (non-violence and respect for all living things), Indians do not treat animals particularly well. This one had been captured from a tree and was being used as an object of sport in the bazaar. Michael paid a few rupees to rescue it from its captors, and then decided to keep it as a pet. This was probably unwise as it was a wild animal but it seemed harmless enough. We fed it bits of fruit and rice, and Michael bought an old bird cage to keep it in at night. During the day it ran around the house except when Michael went out to the local shops when he took it with him wrapped round the back of his neck. The sight of an eccentric Englishman bicycling around the village with a furry scarf soon became a source of amusement for the locals, but it was affectionate amusement because Michael was a popular figure there.

This carried on for a while and in that time we learned that Montrose, as Michael called him, was a slender loris which is an arboreal primate that is, as one might have guessed from the eyes, nocturnal. And that became a problem. During the night Montrose would whistle constantly so we let him out to roam around the house. I was having severe doubts about keeping him and wanted to release him back into the wild but Michael had grown attached to him. Then things got worse. Montrose discovered that he was a carnivore. He caught insects and that changed his character. From being quite mild and gentle he became aggressive and would bite. Not me because I was now fed up with him and left him alone but he bit Michael enough to draw blood and shortly afterwards Michael became quite ill. I decided enough was enough and took Montrose into the jungle where I put him in a tree, back where he belonged. Some South African Sai Baba devotees who lived locally showed a forgiving spirit and brought Michael restorative soup to get him back on his feet. I say they were forgiving because I had met one of them a short while before and, not realising he was a devotee, had spoken critically of Sai Baba. When I finished he calmly told me that he was a devotee, a lesson in think before you open your mouth I have subsequently learned.  But, as I said in a previous post, the devotees were all good people even if, in my estimation, they were spiritually naive.

When Michael had recovered we were invited to dinner by an Anglo-Indian ex-army officer who lived in Whitefield with his family. Whitefield had originally been set up as a retirement colony, so-called, for Anglo-Indians who worked on the railways as many of them did in British times. We had first met this person through some rather extraordinary ladies we had known in Bangalore. These were four Parsee sisters, probably in their seventies, who lived in a beautiful but rundown old bungalow in Grant Road near the Bombay Ananda Bhavan, the guesthouse that we had stayed in for several weeks before moving to Whitefield. There was something a bit Miss Havisham-like about these sisters. They were all spinsters, very aristocratic with pale paper thin skin covering boney features. They lived surrounded by the souvenirs of yesteryear with an equally elderly servant looking after them. Their father had been a rich lawyer and probably they had not married because there was no one of their caste and class and religion available in Bangalore. But they were very sweet and kind, and Michael and I were often invited to tea, on one occasion meeting the ex-army officer who now had invited us to his house.

Colonel De Souza turned out to be the solution to our problem about what to do after our attempt to buy a property in Whitefield fell through. He asked us if we had heard of Yercaud, a hill station in Tamil Nadu about 150 miles south of Bangalore. At 5,000 feet of elevation he thought it offered an ideal climate for Europeans and also presented opportunities to run a guesthouse as people went there in the summer to escape the heat of the plains. He knew of it because he had been to school there at Montfort, a Catholic private school, and he gave us the name of a couple of contacts. A week later Michael went off on a reconnaissance trip. I stayed behind in Whitefield because I was helping some visiting Christian missionaries redecorate their little chapel. They had come to our house because we were the only Westerners in Whitefield who were not Sai Baba devotees. They soon realised we were not going to be converted to their brand of Christianity but we remained friendly.

When Michael came back from Yercaud he was full of enthusiasm. He liked the town and its surroundings and had actually found a house to rent. I was happy to go along with this because the time felt right to move on, and Yercaud seemed a good place for us to go, both climate and area wise. We started to make arrangements to pack up and move.

 Before we did move though we had to find someone to take up the lease on the house we had rented for a 6 month period, all paid for in advance. We had only been there for 4 months and assumed the landlord would reimburse us the 2 months outstanding if we found someone to take up the lease. We soon did through the devotees we knew and arranged to meet the landlord with the new tenants to sign the relevant documents. The landlord accepted a cheque from the new people which included payment for the 2 months at the end of our tenancy but then, having given us to understand he would reimburse us those 2 months, declined to do so. The incoming tenants were embarrassed and we were angry but there was nothing to be done. This was not our last bad experience of Indian business practices but there was no use fussing over what could not be changed so a couple of days later we loaded everything we possessed into a small truck and headed south to Yercaud. 

The Test of the End Times

 In the End Times all institutions will be controlled, either directly or indirectly, by demonic intelligence. They will ostensibly function as before but their influence and effect will be spiritually corrosive. In few cases will the reality behind that influence be obvious to the ordinary person but it will be apparent to anyone whose spiritual eyes are open. Every individual serving those institutions will be serving the dark forces though most will be unaware of that fact. But they will have made compromises to get to positions of authority, and those compromises will have stained their souls. They will be the whited sepulchres spoken of by Jesus. Beautiful or virtuous or honourable on the outside, but rotten within. These are hard words but we live in unprecedented times. It's not like the end of Rome. There may be similarities because the same patterns do inevitably repeat themselves, but the situation today is of an order of magnitude different to any time we know of in the past. The scale of our spiritual destitution is unparalleled even though it is disguised by improvements on the materialistic humanitarian level. The bread alone level. 

You might ask, where is God in all this? Why does he allow the sheep to be led astray by wolves? Where are the shepherds? The analogy makes the point. We are not sheep, not anymore. God requires us to be spiritually responsible these days. No longer obedient followers but able to develop our own spiritual insight and make our own spiritual decisions. If the outer is corrupt it means we must go to the inner. Souls are being tested for their intrinsic quality. It's easy to make the grade when everything is in your favour but your true orientation only comes out when it manifests in spite of outer circumstances. God has planted seeds in a ground in which only the hardiest will survive and grow. But this is how he determines what is the best seed and what will just turn into weeds or not grow at all. One of the most dangerous doctrines is that God loves us. Of course, God does love us but what does that actually mean? Does this love disregard what we actually are or does it mean that God wants the best for us? We may all have the image of the divine within us but that image does not come alive unless we make it so. If we are equal because of that image within us it is only potentially so because the image must be developed.

The good seed will grow into a beautiful flower but not all seed is good. In fact, if we look at nature most seeds just get recycled back into the earth. That is a sobering thought for these end times and should alert us to the need to aspire towards the light and not remain trapped in the darkness, comforting darkness though it may seem to some, of the earth.