Living In The World

To the spiritual aspirant it is apparent that the world nowadays is dominated by falsehood and illusion. That does not mean that truth and goodness are not to be found but one could be forgiven for thinking that they are hard to find, in anything like a pure form anyway. No doubt that has always been the case to an extent which explains the Buddhist reaction to the world as a place of suffering, the Gnostic perception of it as the flawed creation of a flawed being and the medieval Christian view of this world as a vale of tears to be endured rather than enjoyed. And yet, while it is certainly true that the darkness in matter divorced from spirit has always been recognised, it does seem that only now has that darkness reached such a pitch that it is no longer even seen as darkness by many people. Indeed, sometimes darkness is actually mistaken for light. This world has always suffered from a sense of separation from its source but the degree of separation has never been greater than it is today (exacerbated by the fact that it is so often not even seen as such), and the consequences of that separation have never been more far-reaching or profound.

Before going any further with these thoughts I should make it clear that I reject the Gnostic position. This world is the creation of God and it is good. But I do subscribe to the view that it is a fallen world, corrupted principally and initially by fallen spiritual powers and then by humanity itself as it pursues an ego-motivated path, aided, abetted and clandestinely encouraged by these powers*. Like it or not, there are no two ways about this. The Masters were quite categorical in their assertion that so called dark forces exist and will try their utmost to distract one from the spiritual path. Their aim is to separate Man from God and they will do anything to further that aim including the fostering of materialism and atheism on the one hand and the corruption and distortion of spirituality on the other, both of which those who have eyes to see can observe quite clearly today. One of the current principal aims of these forces is the dismantling or deconstructing of the human form, using that word in its Platonic sense as the essential nature of a thing. This amounts to the denial that we are made in the image of God and the rejection of all that that implies. It has a bearing on every aspect of the human condition from the relation between the sexes on the horizontal level to that between the soul and its Maker on the vertical scale. The purpose is to sever the connection between the human being as it exists in the material world and its higher self in the spiritual worlds.

To illustrate the subtlety of these forces one might point to how they can co-opt apparent truth and goodness to serve their ends. For instance, the revival of classical learning which gave the Renaissance its impetus and name was used to lessen the focus on God and transfer it to the human being as a centre in its own right, a process that gathered pace over the centuries, going through the 18th century Enlightenment and the 19th century age of scientific exploration on up to the present time. All the while each advance in understanding man as man and the physical world as the physical world was counterbalanced and often outweighed by the loss of a sense of divine connection and an increasing separation from the source. Each apparent freedom was offset by a new, and sometimes hard to recognise, servitude. So, while one is not saying that these developments were or are bad in themselves, it is undeniably the case that, when taken out of a greater context and a part emphasised at the expense of the whole, they can by used to further the ends of the negative and the destruction of true spiritual values. For a right over-emphasised and given disproportionate significance in the overall scheme of things becomes a wrong.

All that having been said, the present state of the world, in which the spiritual is denied or neglected or parodied with everything that springs from that, is not wholly unexpected. In fact, it is predicted in many ancient texts (for instance, parts of the New Testament, the Vishnu Puranas and the prophesy of Hermes), all of which attest to the fact that the end of an age is a time of universal spiritual decay, a time when qualitative differences are eroded or leveled out and the hierarchy of values undermined with the result that the universe and mankind are both increasingly perceived in purely quantitative terms. One may reject these traditions as primitive superstitions but their near unanimity should give pause for thought. Actually, what enabled these predictions to be made with any degree of accuracy is the fact that human development proceeds in cycles, and a consequence of this is that disorder increases the further in time one travels from a cycle's initiating spiritual impulse. The creative energy that pours into the world at the beginning of an age gradually dissipates as time goes by, even if sporadic renewal can take place here and there and improvements on the material plane can occur as attention is directed there instead of higher levels of reality which are no longer acknowledged. Of course, this is totally contrary to the prevailing myth of progress, and progress may well take place in certain worldly, social or material spheres for the reason just given, but progress is not of much use if it leaves out the greater part of what a human being is, and it is worse than useless if it actively suppresses that part.

The spiritual emptiness of the modern world may be inevitable but how does one live in world which is blind to truth and often denies or even derides it? For the spiritual person it is a hard task but, paradoxically, a potentially creative opportunity. It is not so easy to be detached from the world when the world reflects truth to some degree, but when it actually scoffs at it and lives accordingly that detachment is easier to acquire. The current world state is as it is and it will probably get worse from the spiritual point of view. It should not be actively resisted or fought or you will be sucked into a spiral of negativity and the dualistic struggle of us and them which only creates conflict, both inner and outer. The fact of it must be accepted but the downward gravitational pull of it must be seen for what it is and rejected. Don't follow the crowd, even the crowd of the apparently reasonable and intelligent. Now is a time when there are many half truths masquerading as truth. It is a testing time when our ability to intuit the truth and stand firm by that in the face of worldly opposition, or even condemnation, is being examined. Do we have sufficient inner contact with the soul to hold fast to it in the face of outer pressure not to do so or to accept a lesser truth in place of a greater one? Are we able to stay faithful to our vision of the light when there are so many forces pulling us away, some obviously false but others outwardly fair of face but inwardly devoid of spiritual truth?

To say we live at a time of rebellion against God may seem over-dramatic but what else can you call a world which denies its origins? The obvious version of this is atheism and materialism, but one cannot write these things off in purely negative terms because some good in some areas has definitely come from them. Nevertheless, ultimately they are false doctrines which will lead us into error and illusion. Perhaps more difficult to see through are the forms of spirituality which have arisen or been revived which serve as diversions for those who reject the materialistic worldview but are not prepared to accept a divine Creator to whom they must submit. To submit not as to some authoritarian overlord who demands obeisance to further his own power but because it is the act of submission alone that releases the soul from the chains of ego. It is also a recognition of reality. Submission is liberation. It is the sole mode of entry into the higher life, the life of the spirit. Submission, in the spiritual sense, is humility which is love. Jesus taught that the one essential commandment was to love God. Everything else comes from that. Any form of spirituality which ignores this will not lead to eternal life or enlightenment or whatever you wish to call it. Without true and sincere love of God as the divine source of your being, whatever knowledge you might have, whatever realization you might have or think you do, you will remain within the bounds of this world.

I raise this point here because there are many people nowadays in the West who adopt Eastern forms of spirituality and claim that they don't need to accept the hypothesis of a creator to make spiritual progress. I'm not so sure. Maybe in some cases that is true but what needs to be understood is that many of these spiritual paths arose as a reaction against the excesses or failings of the theism of the time, a theism which had either become corrupted (as in dominated by a priestly caste who sought power for themselves) or which insisted on a complete separation between Creator and created. Now we have the opposite problem.  The solution is not the same. We also live in a world in which the sense of ego is more pronounced than it was in the cultures in which those spiritual paths developed. I am not saying it wasn't present then, it obviously was as it is a basic part of being human, but it is much more present now. So why do people in the West take up these ancient Eastern paths? I am certainly not saying that there is nothing we can learn from them. There is a great deal, and I personally am indebted to many Buddhist and Hindu teachings. But more significant than what people believe or subscribe to is why they do so, and the choice of a spiritual form that dispenses with a personal God or relegates that to near insignificance could well be prompted by the rejection of God on the part of an ego reluctant to submit to a higher power, an ego that pursues spirituality for its own ends. God is both personal and impersonal and if you ignore either side of this reality you will miss the mark. As the Masters said, and as I have repeated often  enough in these pages, our spiritual practice must consist of both meditation and prayer if it is to be successful. One without the other is not enough.

Be in the world but not of it is a timeless spiritual teaching and one we need now just as much as we always have done. In many ways the world clamours for our attention today more loudly than at any time. It is hard to avoid its insistent demands, and the increasingly artificial nature of our lives can have the effect of separating us ever more comprehensively from the soul. And yet, at the same time, the falseness of the world as it is today can set spiritual truth into greater relief thereby helping us to see it more clearly. This is particularly so if we put aside all theory and intellectualising and allow ourselves to be guided by the heart which is the source of all wisdom.

* Note: In the absolute sense these fallen spiritual powers have no real power or even being of their own but in terms of the manifested world they do have such power and being.

The Body is a Frame

In one of the Masters' earliest talks, in fact the first that I wrote down which I give in its entirety here, they* said the words that I have taken as the title for this piece. The body is a frame. Here I would like to consider what they might have meant by that because a correct relationship with the body is something all spiritual aspirants must acquire. In the past the tendency has been to lean too much towards a negation (as much as possible) of the body. Now we often go too far in the other direction, regarding the body as an intrinsic part of what we are. I think the Master's words can be very helpful in giving us a correct perspective in this matter.

First of all, they tell us that our real self is not the body. Many people in the West today would probably dispute that. Brought up on a diet of scientific materialism, we imagine that the body is what we fundamentally are, and anything else we might seem to be, mind, emotions, even consciousness, derives from that. That is not the Masters' view nor, of course, is it the traditional religious view. We are souls in bodies and the body is actually a projection of the soul not the other way round as present day conventional wisdom would have it.

So the body is not who or what we are but an outer aspect of who or what we are. In fact it is a frame. What is the function of a frame? It is to set off a picture. To provide a solid outer structure for the picture and enable it to be displayed. But the picture is the important thing. The frame is not unimportant and it's necessary if you want to hang the picture, but it is not what matters and the picture is just the same without it.

To say that the body is a frame does not in any sense mean one should reject, neglect or not take care of it. After all no gallery curator would display pictures unworthily with chipped or dirty frames. But it does mean that, although one should look after the body and observe its needs, one should not identify with it or follow its desires. It has its 'functions', as the Master said, and these are what they are. We should not deny or suppress those we might dislike or fear but nor should we indulge any of them either. To do the former is to make the body the enemy of the soul and set up a dualistic battle between mind and body. To do the latter increases our identification with the body and its power over us.

So the course we need to adopt if we wish to realise our true spiritual nature is to treat the body with respect as a divine creation and the vehicle for our functioning in this world but, at the same time, know it to be just that, a vehicle. That means doing what is required to enable the body to act correctly in its role as support for the soul, in terms of diet, exercise, maintaining good health and so on, but not giving it undue prominence or excessive focus or it will usurp attention which should be directed elsewhere. As the Buddha came to appreciate after several years of austerities which led nowhere, a well cared for physical frame is not a barrier to spiritual understanding but necessary for the mind to have sufficient energy be able to attend to the spiritual task in hand.

I called the body a divine creation and so I consider it to be. The Master, after all, spoke of its having been designed, and I both believe him as a knowledgeable authority in this matter and intuitively feel it to be so as well. But this does not mean I fall into the creationist camp. With regard to the human form, I understand this to have originally been conceived as a blueprint in the spiritual world, on a plane corresponding to that of the Platonic archetypes, and then that blueprint realised, as best it may given the resistance of physical matter to spiritual impulse, over a period of time. Pre-existing forms may well have been adapted to bring forth the human form, but I don't see even these animal forms as entirely arbitrary. Again, the spiritual idea precedes the material form but these also develop and change through currently accepted evolutionary means. In other words, the form of incarnated beings comes about through a mixture of spiritual ideation and evolution as it is understood from the modern scientific perspective. I would place the primary impulse on the spiritual side and regard evolution more as a tweaking mechanism which might develop new and interesting variations on an archetypal theme.

What this means is that the gulf between those who believe in a spiritual origin and design of the human body and those who see the body, indeed the whole human being, as coming about through random mutations and 'survival of the fittest' can only be crossed when each side accepts that the truth contains elements of the insights of the other as well as their own. Neither is sufficient by itself. I would certainly place the emphasis on spiritual principles guiding the process overall but what you might call the unconscious or material side also plays a part in the development of form, by no means as big a part as presently surmised, but an important part nonetheless. For those who think that this is hedging my bets I can only say that when human beings take diametrically opposed positions on a subject the truth often falls between the two or perhaps transcends them both, including them but seen from a higher perspective. Moreover if we regard manifesting life as the product of the creative interplay between spirit and matter then it is reasonable to suppose that both of these polarities must have an influence on the end result. However, as I wrote in the book, the origin of human bodies is of secondary importance given that we are not bodies but souls and these are of purely spiritual origin.

We are living in a material world, encased in a material form, and it can be hard to detach ourselves from that and realise that the latter is just an outer aspect or frame. And yet I truly believe that we can know ourselves to be souls by listening to the still, small voice in the heart which is always present though often drowned out by external noise and commotion coming from our own thoughts, prejudices and opinions as well as those that prevail in the society in which we live. The truth is ever-present, accessible to all not just a minority of esoteric adventurers or the spiritually gifted. We can reject that truth, deny it, rebel against it for whatever reason, but it will remain, and the truth is that human beings are spiritual beings currently experiencing life in matter for reasons pertaining to the development of consciousness. The body in which they find themselves, and with which they may confuse themselves, is but a frame, by no means to be identified with but to be used and respected as a vehicle or support for the manifestation of what they truly are which is spiritual consciousness.


* Note.
I often write 'they' instead of 'he' when speaking of the Masters, even individual ones, because they presented themselves as a group in which individualities were certainly present but subsumed in the unity of their awareness. Here may also be a good place to say that I would estimate I was spoken to by around six or seven different Masters, though some more frequently than others. Names were not given but I could usually identify, or think I could, which Master was speaking. There was a definite unity to them, as though they were speaking from the same place or state of consciousness, but that was filtered through an individuality which always had its own 'flavour' or tone.

The Universe and Man’s Place In It

Inevitably at some time in our lives we all wonder what sort of universe we live in. We may not give a great deal of thought to the question and, when it comes down to it, simply follow prevailing beliefs and opinions, whether religious, scientific/materialist or otherwise, but still there can be few people who have not, however briefly, considered the matter, and who will not, as a consequence, lead their lives in a certain way. For the particular worldview we subscribe to will largely determine how we approach life. Here I wish to give what I believe to be the truth behind this question. That is, as much of it as I can currently understand and express. Naturally the truth in its wholeness is vastly greater than anyone in this world can begin to comprehend, but we can draw an outline approximating to the reality.

I will not speak of the unmanifested state that exists prior to the formation of the universe (and, of course, time and space) since to do so cannot be other than speculative. The best we can manage is to say that everything comes from nothing with the proviso that nothing does not mean nothing but no thing. We cannot limit the absolute to nothingness for if it is void of form it is still the progenitor of form so cannot be mere emptiness which, anyway, implies emptiness of something. Furthermore if, as is often said, the absolute can only be expressed by means of negatives, i.e. it is not this and not that, then the negatives of these negatives must also be true. I mean by this that if, for instance, you say that the absolute is impersonal you must also say that it is not impersonal or you are qualifying it and thereby limiting it. If you say it is emptiness, you must equally say that it is not emptiness or you are restricting the infinite, an obvious absurdity.

So, to move on to something a little more comprehensible, I envisage the manifested universe, that is, the absolute once it starts its move into relativity, as a hierarchy of levels that descend from the formless spiritual plane down to the dense material form of this plane (plane meaning discrete state of being/becoming) which is the most 'external' condition of existence.  Each level is, as it were, a condensation of the one above it, but it is also contained within the prior state so although these levels appear as separate they are also parts of a whole which pervades and underlies them all. Thus everything emanates from divine oneness but as it gets further away from the source, and unity becomes multiplicity, so the purity and perfection of that oneness is reduced. Yet, at the same time and without contradiction, the divine oneness is ever present in every atom of the universe, physical and spiritual. God is the source of everything and everything is rooted in Him but as formlessness becomes form, and life becomes projected outwards into differentiation, so there is a sense of distance from God as well.

God expresses Himself abundantly in multiplicity which is given independent being (relatively speaking) in the duality of matter where it becomes self-conscious at which point it must work its way back to the source which it rejoins in full awareness of what it is and what that is. Thus the whole field of becoming is one of dynamic growth. All phenomenal reality exists as a theatre in time and space in which consciousness expresses itself and evolves, evolves meaning here something that unfolds and gains knowledge of its inner potential. The image of seed and tree is a good one. The tree is already contained in the seed and just needs to come out. Evolution, in the sense I am using the word, is the actualising of a potential which is always there. 

The hierarchical order of the universe is reflected in the human being who is a microcosm. Therefore the idea of levels of being all originating from and pervaded by spirit applies here too. The divine spark in man which is the centre of his being is also the point from which all other aspects of his nature derive. Thus although, in one sense, spirit transcends the subtle (formless), mental, psychic and physical levels, in another these are just forms and limitations spirit takes as it expresses itself in duality, duality, of course, being an essential condition for this expression to take place. Both these ways of looking at the picture are equally true, and it is equally necessary to take both into account for a complete understanding.

It is customary nowadays to dismiss the unique significance of the human being. I think that is doing ourselves an injustice. We represent that aspect of divine consciousness which takes up the central position in the cosmic hierarchy because we combine the highest and lowest within ourselves. We are, as the medieval philosophers used to say, part angel and part animal. Now, we cannot fulfill our role as a communication channel between pure spirit and gross matter, and thereby establish a proper harmony in the world, if we do not allow ourselves to be fully open to our spiritual source. It is the angel that must dominate the animal not the other way round. If we deny the angel and enclose ourselves in the lower levels of our being, the physical, emotional and mental levels, if we identify exclusively with any or all of these and give priority to modes of being that belong to those levels, then we are not only betraying our birthright and restricting our growth, we are also failing in our duty to our creator and our role as mediators between Heaven and Earth. This leaves Earth without guidance which means it will fall into a disharmonious state. It is plain that this is precisely what has happened.

So it is up to us to govern ourselves correctly for this is not just a personal matter but something on which the well-being of the whole world depends. We can do this through meditation and prayer on the one hand,  and rigorous self-purification on the other. This will enable our outer self to respond to the voice of the soul and by these means we will acquire a deepening awareness of our true spiritual nature and a growing understanding of God. Our mission on this Earth is to shine forth the inner light but this light will only come when we allow ourselves to love God, not a God of our own imagining or choosing but the one true God that dwells in the heart as our own truest self.

This is what we have to do for the healing of the world in our role as spiritual stewards, but the impact on ourselves will be no less transformational. As we grow in spiritual maturity so we become more and more like God but without ever fully becoming Him. This view contradicts the belief of some that the spiritual path ends in complete absorption in God to the extent that any distinction between God and the soul is lost but I think that is a misinterpretation of what union with God actually means. God is limitlessness and union with Him, oneness with life, is not some static condition of eternal rest nor does it mean total identity of the part with the whole. Even after we have attained this union by giving up our identification with the separate self we will continue to enter into an ever deeper and ever fuller union. We will reflect God to a greater and greater degree without ever exhausting the totality of what God is because there is no end to what He is. So our being may be God but we are not God. Those who think this shows someone still caught up in duality have failed to see that duality continues even after oneness is realised. It continues in a different way and without the sense of separation but it continues because both being and becoming are inexhaustible.

Suffering

For many people one of the chief benefits of religion lies in what it has to offer in terms of providing an escape from suffering, that being an inevitable fact of existence in this world. Indeed, Buddhism arose specifically from the attempt to understand and, if possible, go beyond suffering. The solution the Buddha found and taught was the cessation of desire. We suffer when we hold on to things so letting go of desire, in particular the attachment to it, brings freedom from pain. You might go further back and say that it's the sense of separation that brings about suffering. If we were one with life we would be complete and nothing could be added to us or taken away from us. So suffering at root is, or comes from, separation.

That is all true and maybe even a truism now, but I want to look at suffering from a different perspective here. I want to look at it in a practical sense as a purifier and the one true agent of spirituality. Today, when all the wisdom teachings of the past are readily available, there are many people presenting themselves as spiritually mature or even enlightened on the basis of a certain amount, small or large, of knowledge and experience. But I must tell you that a person may have all the spiritual understanding in the world but there is no real wisdom without suffering. You may talk of love and profess an awakened heart because you have heard that this is how a spiritual person should be, but there is no possibility of real compassion without having known deep suffering. It is as the Masters have said. In pain alone you get true values.  Pain is the gateway to eternal life because pain strips away falsehood and pretence. You can always tell a genuinely spiritual person by their face and expression. It is not constantly wreathed in smiles telling us what a loving, open, joyous person they are. It is marked by sorrow. I don't mean that they walk around looking miserable. That is self-pity. But they have been through the fires and that is etched into their face for it is suffering, and suffering alone, that cleanses the soul and stamps the heart with spiritual truth. Only pain patiently endured gives depth.

It is a perfectly natural impulse to wish to avoid suffering, and it is certainly a mistake (probably even an act of egotism) to seek it out with the idea of gaining spiritual kudos. But suffering that comes to us in the ordinary course of life, that is, in effect, God-given, that is unavoidable, we should use as an opportunity for self-transcendence. It comes to burn out the fires of ego. It is part of the sacrifice that makes holy, and it is only through such sacrifice that holiness is born in the individual. Only when forced to by pain can we truly begin to give up the self. This is the reality of living in a fallen world. Self has become corrupted and made itself into its own centre. Suffering is what de-centres the self, or does so if the ‘patient’ reacts to it correctly by offering it up to God and using it as an opportunity to go beyond itself. If you can you should even see it as a gift in that you are being given a chance to graduate to a higher spiritual state. You would not be given this gift if you were not thought equal to what it entails.

Now, none of this means that one should not respond to suffering in others or even that one may not pray for one’s own suffering to be alleviated. Suffering is not in any sense a good or desirable thing even if it can be used as a creative thing. The rule must surely be, especially where others are concerned, that one does all one can to relieve suffering, but if attempts to do this come to naught then one must accept the reality of the situation without rancour, resentment or resistance, and this is particularly so in cases where you are the one suffering. See it as a chance to go beyond your present state. Accept the will of God and submit to the experience, seeking to use it as a springboard to greater understanding, an understanding that comes from having lived something not just known about it.

As I have implied, this is a doctrine that can be misused and misunderstood. The fact that suffering is what I have called the one true agent of spiritual purification does not mean that all suffering in this world is sent by God and should just be left to run its course. Indeed, most of it comes from the fact that we live in a fallen, corrupted world in which human beings exploit each other and fail to live in harmony with the truth. This sort of suffering we should do all in our power to redress as well as always being aware of how we might be adding to it and how we can avoid doing that. But there is also spiritual suffering, frequently but certainly not always mental in focus, which we must learn to recognise. Thus we need to acquire discrimination as to what is suffering caused by man’s inhumanity to man and what is suffering that comes as part of treading the spiritual path. Complications can arise when the two become mixed, as they can do, and karmic suffering is another factor to take into account, suffering that may be the result of decisions that individuals or groups of individuals acting collectively have taken. But determining the meaning and probable inner causes of events that occur in life is all part of the process of developing spiritually. We cannot look at these matters in a simplistic way by saying that everything that comes about does so for a single reason. This is a complicated world and we must avoid the temptation to reduce serious spiritual questions to elementary formulae that can be expressed in a quick and easy catchphrase. Nevertheless for the spiritual aspirant it is wise to regard any suffering that enters into your life as having a purpose. That doesn't mean that you just lie down and submit to it. It may have come to enable you to develop the strength to fight it. But you must learn what you can overcome and what you must accept so a good rule would be that initially you seek to solve the problem it presents and if you can't do that then is the time for acceptance and submission to God's will, knowing that his will is always to our own long term advantage even if it does not seem like that from our current limited perspective.

It is a fact that the greatest saints appear to have known the greatest suffering and we also have the example of the suffering of Christ before us, showing us that this is indeed the way to eternal life. And how could it not be, given that the barrier to eternal life is the fallen self or ego whose roots have become so deeply planted in the soil of our being that we mistakenly regard it to be what we really are? But then, to put all this talk of suffering in perspective, we see what it leads to. The risen Christ who has found his identity in God and is thereby released from bondage in form which bondage is the cause of all suffering. So suffering is no more, gone, impossible. Its pain has been transformed into love. For note that form as the expression of spirit, and its opposite pole in manifestation, remains. The risen Christ still has a body, but that now exists as the means to express goodness, truth and beauty. Its power to limit and to hurt has gone. Now it exists only to reveal the glory of spirit and to manifest the perfection of love. And, believe it or not, it is suffering that has made this possible. That is not to justify suffering but to explain its presence because understanding it will diminish the ferocity of its sting.

An Advaita Debate concluded

I've had a few reactions to the previous couple of posts and they make a good postscript to the topic under discussion so here they are along with my responses to them. Some readers may feel that I am laboring the point regarding the limitations of a strictly non-dualistic point of view but I think understanding this matter correctly is important for appreciating what a true spirituality actually is. Is it the elimination of the soul or its sanctification? The temptation to a non-theistic form of spirituality is very strong for the modern person who has been raised in a largely scientific/materialistic culture with its monistic and soul-denying assumptions or, at least, implications. It seems more intellectually compatible with that culture, and more ‘advanced’ than what can be written off as a dualistic religion stuck in the relative world. However I think it can be used as an excuse to avoid facing up to the fact that we have a Creator to whom we owe all that we are. There is even a sense in which non-duality can be used as a smokescreen behind which we can hide our spiritual egotism. That may sound a contradiction in terms but by denying self we avoid the fact that we have to give up self and submit to a higher power. There is something of the temptation offered by the serpent in all this.

To avoid misunderstanding I should make quite clear that I am not putting the great Eastern sages in the serpent's camp. Their insights were pure and their lives were holy. They penetrated behind the veil of illusion to perceive the crystal clear image of truth. But everything must be seen in context and the distortion of these insights by the mind can lead to something quite other.

Here’s the first comment.

I would agree with most of what you say here but might not a non-dualist counter that it relates to the world of saguna brahman (God with attributes or qualities) not nirguna brahman (the absolute without attributes or name or form), and that nirguna brahman is the higher state or, better put, the reality beyond all states? So God and the individual soul only relate to the lower, saguna, level?

They might but my response, employing this way of describing things, would be that nirguna brahman might be conceived as the more fundamental state but perhaps saguna brahman is the higher state and the one we are called upon to reproduce in ourselves. The one question no rigidly nondualistic system can answer is why does the unmanifest manifest. To call it divine play is not enough, though hints at the truth. Life manifests to become more, or perhaps you could just say to become rather than simply to be, and therefore a state that combines and resolves being and becoming is higher than one of simple, pure being. But anyway I would also say that the qualities or attributes must already exist in the nirguna state (unexpressed but potential) otherwise they could not come forth from it so even on that score the supposition of an inert absolute, devoid of quality is incorrect. Nothing can come from nothing. All things already exist and are only brought forth or expressed.

Moreover, regarding saguna and nirguna, I don’t put the personal God on a lower level of reality than the impersonal one. I consider them to be two faces of the one reality, just the absolute in different modes relating to passive and active existence. And that, of course, has implications for the question of individuality which is a real God given thing not an illusion of ignorance, as postulated by advaita and Buddhism. So enlightenment does not mean the end of the individual but the end of identification with individuality which is quite a different thing. It is not just the entry into timeless, inert being but the integration of being and becoming.

Another commenter said.

You are right that individual selves, discrete body/mind beings, are a reality, and they need to do serious spiritual discipline (probably over several lifetimes) in order to awaken to the true Self, because the One Self has become all selves which then have to make their way back to the source. And they can only do this gradually. The neo-advaita dogma that you only have to realize the truth here and now in order to know it is nonsense. You can’t realize Truth without freeing yourself from all binding tendencies, at subconscious as well as conscious levels, and, in the process, completely purifying and dis-identifying from the lower bodies or sheaths, and that takes time, a lot of it.

 However would you not agree that on the Absolute level there are no selves and that it is only on the everyday level of illusion that there is a being who gets enlightened? On the non-dual/ultimate level how can you speak of enlightenment or liberation when there is no self to begin with? That’s why most real gurus may speak of karma and reincarnation to those who still see themselves as separate beings but would deny them at the non-dual level.

What you say is what most Buddhists and advaitins believe, but I think there is more to it than that slightly reductionist view because, and please forgive me for repeating this, the spiritual goal is not just the entry into pure being but the integration of being and becoming. That is the higher state and the reason for this whole manifested universe. Or rather love is the reason for existence, and love only exists when there is something rather than nothing. But it must have been there, in potentia, before nothing became something or that could never have happened. And that is why the Christian doctrine of three in one, the idea that the Trinity actually exists at the deepest level of Unity, is a deeper insight into the heart of reality that that of the conventional Eastern non-dualistic religions best represented by Buddhism which basically see the absolute as undifferentiated nothingness. See above for the point that nothing comes from nothing.

I don't disagree that there are no selves at the absolute level, obviously all is God, the One Self, but what I do say is that the spiritual goal is not to enter into the absolute and for the self to disappear. It is to merge the individual soul with the Universal Self, but in that merging the individual remains because the greater always includes the lesser even if it takes on an entirely new aspect and significance. This is the purpose and goal of creation. Perhaps we are misled by the words absolute and relative since the latter carries the implication of something unreal. Maybe the old fashioned (and often rejected as dualistic) description of Creator and creation conveys something important that is lost when we become too caught up in the idea of non-duality and the ‘absolute’. For reality is not a real absolute and an unreal relative but the two together.

The truth is that everything is real, there is no illusion, but different things are real in different ways and on different levels, and our task is to know what these are and then to put everything in its proper place. This is because unity and hierarchy are both equally true. As for karma and reincarnation, these clearly concern only the embodied self. The divine spark is eternally free (even though it may not always know that). But to deny them or speak of them as non-existent is going too far as they are a vital part of the panoply of existence. No embodied being can deny reincarnation or karma because it is the result of that. It can say that spirit remains eternally free on its own plane but that’s altogether a different matter. It’s like saying that nothing ever happens. That is saying precisely nothing. Of course it doesn’t from the perspective of formless existence and of course it does from the perspective of form. Life is formlessness and form together, never one without the other. We must just see them in their correct relationship.

So while there are no selves on the absolute level that is not really the point. The spiritual path is not supposed to lead to our disappearance into the absolute. It is intended to result in the complete integration of so called absolute and relative in our individual soul, the full reconciliation and union of being and becoming, spirit and matter, formlessness and form, and therefore produce the divinized soul. This is the creativity of life. But where does creativity fit into a purely non-dualistic scheme of things?

This led to the inevitable question.

Are you saying that sages of the order of the Buddha and Ramana Maharishi were wrong and you know better than them?

Of course not, but I do think they were speaking from a certain position and that that position, while true, did not encompass the whole truth. Lesser lights have taken it and made of it an exclusive doctrine. The fact is that many other teachers have taken a different view of the relation between absolute and relative, and I go along with them as it coincides with what the Masters conveyed to me, what my own intuition says and, not least, what Jesus taught. I regard the Incarnation as the most significant event that has taken place on this planet, certainly within historical times, and Jesus as the greatest revelation of spiritual truth both in his person and in his teachings. The idea that he was both God and Man (whether literally true or not, I don’t actually take it as such) is the key to what I am saying here. 

The Buddha pointed the way to the absolute. He came at a time of great religious formalism and offered a way out of that by focusing entirely on the practical side of the mystical quest.  That was relevant for his time and place. However maybe the true Middle Way today is neither to identify with nor to deny the individual self. To see that it is me but I am more than it. It has a place in the totality of my being but I should not be limited to or bound by it. At the same time, the individual is the reason for existence because it is what gives life quality. It is not the root of being but it is its fruit for life is being and becoming together, and while the Buddha was right to point to the fact that there is a way out of exclusive becoming, showing us how to step off the wheel of life, his vision of pure being in Nirvana is superseded by that of Jesus who shows us the way to integrate these two aspects of reality and produce from them something entirely new which is the risen Christ.

The soul is born when eternity enters into time. Its task then is to return to eternity but taking with it the gifts of time.