May 2009 Sydney Goodwill Newsletter

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No 265 / April 2009

Dear Friends,

Observing the “little self”, the personality we create to interact with the external world, we see it floating on the surface of things, bobbing like a cork on the vast ocean of Life, seeing only as far as its own horizon – the next wave, an approaching storm, nearby corks on the same wave – and, in reflection of the great archetypal creator deep at the centre of all, creating its own small world with such power and confidence, making “meaningful” connections between the elements and aspects within view only to be confounded when the next great wave wreaks havoc on the assiduously marshalled interpretation of its experience. Each wave shalled interpretation of its experience. Each wave is a reminder of the pulse of a larger life, a greater pattern, reflecting through the little fabrications, theories and assumptions with which we clothe our daily living.

How often do we operate on assumption in our impatience to remove obstacles or delays to our onward rush of determined living? How much do we succumb to the pressure of modern living in the material realm and sense a frenetic chaos snapping at our heels and driving us on to further intensity of action without stopping to check just where it is all heading? At times we can act with such certainty when we know so little, and with such authority when we have such limited vision, that it often takes the experience of failure to enlighten and show the way of real progress.

Looking back over the vistas of millennia, at life stories in film, novel, biography, documentary and even the popular press and magazines, we can identify the gaps in understanding that lead to crises and, eventually, to the underlying truth in their resolution. What remains is the task of realisation through our own living. But there is a heavy tide of old patterns that carry many deeply held assumptions masked as truth. It seems at times that only the unconditioned mind of the child can ask the questions that lead to wisdom. Children, through innate love and trust, can lead us there. They are the future; they see the new world for they have no past to hold them back, though they are not always sure of their footing on the bridge that links the world we have made and the beautiful world we explore through fable, fairytale, play and fantasy (the creations of joy) – in other words through visualisation and the creative imagination. We dismiss their childish creations as “child’s play” or “not of the real world”, but what is real? – the punishing pace of the world we’ve created or the harmony of a child’s vision? Realisation dispels the illusion as Hans Christian Anderson reveals at the end of the fairytale of The Snow Queen:

“…Kay and Gerda took each other's hand: it was lovely spring weather, with abundance of flowers and of verdure. The church-bells rang, and the children recognized the high towers, and the large town; it was that in which they dwelt. They entered and hastened up to their grandmother's room, where everything was standing as formerly. The clock said "tick! tack!" and the finger moved round; but as they entered, they remarked that they were now grown up. The roses on the leads hung blooming in at the open window; there stood the little children's chairs, and Kay and Gerda sat down on them, holding each other by the hand; they both had forgotten the cold empty splendor of the Snow Queen, as though it had been a dream. The grandmother sat in the bright sunshine, and read aloud from the Bible: "Unless ye become as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven."

And Kay and Gerda looked in each other's eyes, and all at once they understood the old hymn: "The rose in the valley is blooming so sweet, And angels descend there the children to greet."

There sat the two grown-up persons; grown-up, and yet children; children at least in heart; and it was summer-time; summer, glorious summer!”

We are told “simplification proceeds rapidly as we near the goal of Spirit” and we see the hallmarks of wisdom in simplicity and loving understanding, so apparent in the oft-quoted passage from The Prophet by Khalil Gibran:

“Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
or even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.”

To what desperate illusions do we cling in order to maintain the illusion of staying afloat that we might eventually arrive safely on that distant shore where our feet can touch down on certainty and where we will find the reality and truth we seek? In the book, I Am That, Sri Nasargadatta Maharaj explains that what we seek is in the depths of that which is greater and simpler rather than in the overwhelming plethora of worldly knowledge:

“Q: Surely there is a factual world common to all.

M: The world of things, of energy and matter? Even if there were such a common world of things and forces, it is not the world in which we live. Ours is a world of feelings and ideas, of attractions and repulsions, of scales of values, of motives and incentives; a mental world altogether. Biologically we need very little; our problems are of a different order. Problems created by desires and fears and wrong ideas can be solved only on the level of the mind. You must conquer your mind and for this you must go beyond it.

…. Q: Like beads on a string, events follow events — for ever.

M: They are all strung on the basic idea: 'I am the body'. But even this is a mental state and does not last. It comes and goes like all other states. The illusion of being the body-mind is there, only because it is not investigated. Non-investigation is the thread on which all the states of mind are strung. It is like darkness in a closed room. It is there — apparently. But when the room is opened, where does it go? It goes nowhere, because it was not there. All states of mind, all names and forms of existence are rooted in non-enquiry, non-investigation, in imagination and credulity. It is right to say ‘I am’, but to say ‘I am this’, ‘I am that’, is a sign of not enquiring, not examining, of mental weakness or lethargy.”

When confronted with the adult-made world the child asks “why?” It operates through an enquiring mind and takes nothing for granted in a puzzling, fragmented world. It automatically seeks the connections that relate everything into a meaningful whole. We are born with that inherent sense of relationship between all things and a readiness to bond without judgment. Orphaned animals are given maternal simulacra as their first step to bonding with a wider world just as human orphans may look to a foster parent or “den mother”. We are born to relate and to love and bring with us an inherent need to understand, to create, to know and to exist dynamically. We are part of the livingness of the great Life which pours through all, creates the tides and the currents, the rhythm of the waves and all that has its being within it. Just as that great Archetype projects His intention and vision through time and space – so each atomic life mirrors the process within its own little creations until illumination pours in with the wondrous revelation that each little life and the greater Life are the same. As Christ enunciated in the words, “I and the Father are One.”

The Tibetan Master explains: “Identification … is connected with dynamic life, with conscious enhancement, with completion and with creative sharing, plus process. It is a process of participation – consciously and constructively undertaken – in the life actions and reactions of the One in Whom we live and move and have our being; it is related to the life channels which keep the form aspect of the planetary Logos functioning as a ‘Divine Representation’… It is connected with that ‘life more abundantly’ to which the Christ referred when dealing with the true nature of His mission.” [The Rays and the Initiations, page 172]

An Old Commentary points the way to the new and promised land: "When the sun progresses into the mansion of the serving man, the way of life takes the place of the way of work. Then the tree of life grows until its branches shelter all the sons of men. The building of the Temple and the carrying of the stones cease. The growing trees are seen; the buildings disappear. Let the sun pass into its appointed place, and in this day and generation attend ye to the roots of growth." [A treatise on White Magic, page 426]

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