Edward’s Diary Entry 12 - Lower and Higher

The inevitable result of mental practice using Self-Enquiry (Vichara) is that life is better, thanks to daily planning and structuring. There is only a given amount of time for “inside” or “spirit”, and a given amount of time for “outside”, or body, family and society. It is orderly, tidy, organised. Yes, exceptions may come, but they can be planned. We are not interested in order for order’s sake, only for the sake of experiencing Self-Awareness. As soon as one forgets oneself, the order has to be disordered or re-ordered. If rhythmic processes like breathing or walking bring forgetfulness or drowsiness, we can change them immediately, by holding our breath, asking “Who Am I?” on the outbreath instead of the inbreath, or in between, or switching from left leg lead to right leg lead when walking – anything your spontaneity suggests. You get skilled at this and it becomes easy to deal with. Social and family life is better too. By practising virtues, or course, one is naturally very kind and sweet, easygoing and patient, quick to laugh, empathetic when listening, calm, tranquil and peaceful, so your companions find a certain good-naturedness that they can appreciate, even if they do think you’re a little strange! One of my great fears years ago was this: “If it is true that the spirit is the only reality, in this world we are going to have to give up so many material and intellectual things that seem ‘good and nice’ How can that be?” When analysed, this is an excuse or a reflection of a stage only. Because it is not so simple. Yes, things must be “given up”. But what things are these? Anything that belongs to “Lower Nature”. But lower nature is not given up because of a belief or a dogma or a conviction. Lower nature is given up when it is seen as being futile, useless and inconvenient. It dissolves into its constituent part, which is a mere passing thought, part of the ceaseless stream of thoughts that come and go. Even when Higher Nature is just beginning to be entrenched – and this is in the measure that lower nature dissolves – then everything becomes much simpler, more natural, and our underlying joy begins to seep through. So, yes, some things go – the unruliness, the wants and needs, the entertainment at any cost, the skirt-chasing or man-hunting, the idea that the world was made to provide me with infinite pleasures, all the ideas, beliefs, convictions, traumas, grudges, complaints, automatic reactions and conditioned behaviour patterns, the philosophical ideas as yet unrealised – all these fly out the window. But the fresh air coming in from what we classify as Higher Nature is more than enough to compensate for this, even if we seem a little childlike to society. Or upside down, like our Mullah Nasrudin, in the picture. It is said that dear old George Bernard Shaw professed his contempt for Indian yogis in 1898 saying, “You Indian saints are the most useless of men; you have no respect for time.” Whereupon the Saint immediately replied, “It is you who are slaves of time. I live in Eternity.”