A stone is happier than a man.

The other day I had cause to wonder if “ignorance is bliss”, and it turned out to be a tough subject. A fellow who has always gone “under the radar” of the system – ie, never having held a job, not caring about a pension plan, with no savings, no money, no success stories to tell, but has always managed to survive somehow, not without some brushes with the authorities, even from landlords! – was labelled as “living happily”, and I was of another opinion about this. If such happiness is offset by worries, concerns and complaints half the time, then it cancels out and cannot be called much of any kind of “happiness”. And then I wondered where “happy” came from, and “feliz” in Spanish as well. It turns out that it simply comes from “hap-“, meaning “chance, fortune, luck”, so “having good fortune”. “Feliz” even comes from felare, which means suckling from the bosom of nature herself, like little calves drinking from their mothers' udders, and whence fellation is derived of course, also known to be quite pleasant, at least for the receiver! But when the suckling is finished and hunger pangs set in again, happiness goes out the window. Basing one’s existence on that kind of happiness is just expecting desires to be satisfied, and we all know this cannot always happen, so that cannot be real happiness. It may seem to some that our non-conformist friend has happily gone through more than half his life now without working, even receiving handouts from others to keep him fed, but this cannot make him into a 100% happy individual. Maybe 50%, but as I say, that gets cancelled out by the -50% of stress, strain and tension at not being happy all the time. In fact, such moments of unhappiness may even be more intense than those few moments of pure joy. After all, a felicitous climax only lasts a few seconds. Then the dull dwell period sets in until the next happy event! Personally, I am more interested in the 90 to 99.99% span of happiness, joy and bliss. That’s the range that really counts. Even a 60% happiness-over-time ratio is good, because of that 10% accrual to your happiness account after subtracting the negative. So, if we are smart fellahs and gals, with intelligent characters and life philosophies, what we go for is something called “joy” or “bliss”, not just happiness as simply a question of good fortune, because that is merely a conditioned human interpretation of an event as being "fortunate" or not. Happiness in this sense can arise from complete stupidity – yes, blissful ignorance – or from an event that simply appears to the mind to be good fortune, and there are hundreds of teaching stories indicating that not all “good luck” is good nor all “bad luck” bad; it all depends on your viewpoint at the time, and what may happen next. 
Yet a stone knows no other way to be, it just rests in its position, resisting and enduring. It has the fortune, fate or lot, to do that, and nothing else. So it is much happier or fortunate than a man, because it complies with and fully accepts its fortune, fate or lot 100% of the time! Man is so mutable that happiness is never completely there; it’s always just round the bend, on the other side of the fence, about to come with another “if” or “when”, or perhaps lost in the mind’s memory of the good ole days, when we were young and innocent... So, busy thoughts keep that happiness in the future or buried in the past. Only stillness can make it appear in the Now, and that comes from deeper down. So Bobby McFerrin was right in singing Don’t Worry, Be Happy. He was quoting the 20th-C Indian mystic Meher Baba (1894-1969). So just by not using thinking, one can start being happy. But to continue on to joy and bliss, more is needed if we don’t want to be just hapless stones…

Edward’s Diary Entry 42 – Virtue 21: Energy or Vigour (Tejas)

Is it an eagle, a hawk, a falcon or an osprey? Or is it Superman?  No matter. It was riding the waves high up in the air. I saw it and photographed it, and later I used it for the blog and Facebook. Whether circling or diving to catch its prey, or coming to rest on a rocky crag, it is full of energy and vigour. It has tejas, which is energy, brilliance, “light”. The opposite of the downward pull of tamas, or darkness and destruction. Tejas is “radiance of character”, also called “animal magnetism”, “glow”, “élan vitale”, “brightness of aura”, and many other names: spiritual or moral or magical power or influence, majesty, dignity, glory, authority. Also “bile”, “brain”, “marrow”, “semen”, “gold” and... “fresh butter” – typical of beautifully imprecise Indian philosophy and ancient Sankrit words! So although a “virtue”, tejas seems to be more a result of practising the other virtues, although of course to show energy or vigour, Virtue 2 Fearlessness, and 3 Perseverance are needed. It does not matter that much at the beginning. What matters is one thing for today, one thing for now. One suggestion for today might be: practise being energetic, do something extra every time you do something. Make an extra effort to test your power. Or just keep your mind calm… and read a poem like this one: “Be still; Question every thought; Contemplate the source of Reality; And keep your eyes open - You never know when something that seems entirely insignificant will split your whole world wide open into eternal delight..." By Adyashanti. 

Edward’s Diary Entry 41 – Virtue 20: Faith in the Strength of One’s Higher Nature (Absence of fickleness) (Achapalam)

I consider this Virtue to be a major milestone. Because by Achapalam, or Faith in the Strength of One’s Higher Nature (also called absence of fickleness), after some time looking within, reviewing my past endeavours and remaining at peace with myself, there is a strange sensation of surety. Not the surety of knowing something, as if I had studied a dense treatise and had mastered the words of some kind of past or present master. No, not that. But rather the kind of a surety or certainty I seemed to be afraid to manifest in former times. Why? Because life clung to me, or I clung to what I perceived as life. I wanted this, I wanted that. I thought I should have this attainment, or that achievement. Maybe I should feel this or that sensation, see this or that vision in my mind. After all, we are led down the garden path of spiritual development, or self-mastery, to think we should see lightning bolts from the sky, or the Hand of God pointing down at us, or images of this or that Saint or Holy Man, or even just hear an inner voice, like Socrates’ dæmon, which usually simply told him “no”, instead of speaking plainly with a “yes, this is what you should be doing!”, acting like the inner dictator we think we need, as if dictatorship were the finest form of scientific government. No, it’s not like that. It’s a soft inner sound, like Simon & Garfunkel’s Sounds of Silence, and if it is written on the subway walls and tenement halls, it’s written on those parts of the cranium we call the bone case, so we can sometimes see it when we look inside and react. It’s a peaceful state in which thought subsides and only runs on like a quiet brook, as we sit looking at the countryside, hearing birds and bees and the rustling of leaves. It is a certainty that behind the apparent, behind the surface noise, there is a river running deep, coursing along joyfully from the mountain springs and snows above all the way down to the expansive ocean below. At the same time, I have to say that there is nothing remarkable or dramatic about this Faith. It sits there, waiting, poised, ready. It can recede from consciousness and be met with the hustle and bustle and noise of life in the Mediterranean streets, the shopping aisles of Walmart, the take-aways of Lamb’s Creek. Yet it is there. Definitely present and strong. The animals notice it. Dogs and cats come to enjoy it and sit with me. Because it is compassionate and gives. And the wind whistles through the pine trees and blows past my shoulders to get a smell of it. The stars look down upon it and twinkle. The ground throws mud at my feet to welcome it. There is a surface nature, a personality, no doubt. But because I dared to throw down my books and my incessant thoughts, and do something by simply closing my eyes and look inside, and have persisted in this for more than 19 Virtues now, this surety, this certainty, has come to me, it abides with me, it inspires me to persevere even more, remaining as calm and as collected as possible to promote it even further. Because there is more, so much more, than just a string of human thoughts that sits just behind our awareness, and it is a terrible shame that you – yes, you, my reader – perhaps do not experience this and realise that you are so much more than you purport to be. You are not a son or a daughter, a father or a mother, an heir to your family’s inheritance; you belong to no family; you have no nationality, no country; you were not born of this world; you have no religion, no creed; you are not a disciple or follower of some wise man; your spirit knows nought of teachings: you have no likes or dislikes, no special penchants or inclinations, you are free from all this; your mind is only confused by a nonexistent past or a future hope; you did not come here to fit into a society, a culture, a set of morals; you came to see timeless truth wherever or whatever you are; you are neither boy nor girl, man or woman, straight or gay; you have just adapted to circumstances; you have no labels, you accepted them; you know not who you are; you just think you do. And when thought goes, which it will when your brain eventually gives way and flatlines, all will be lost; all that which you think you have will be lost; not just the material things, but the mental constructs as well, and you will not hear the wind, or play with the dogs and cats, love your mate or say good morning to your neighbour, reminisce on your belongings, affinities, friendships and loves any more. No. You will just return and be what 99% of the universe already is – nothingness – from which, surprisingly, comes the most powerful conclusion we can draw, and that is that the only reasonable course in life is to culture Faith in the Strength of one’s Higher Nature. For lower nature… is just for the birds. And not even that, for the birds do their thing and are totally birds, without pretending to be as smart and as know-it-all as poor self-centred humans, obsessed with human thought when they are much wealthier than all that. And so, we continue to do as Krishna does in the picture, controlling all five serpents, sitting on the very body of the snake, yet remaining unperturbed by the throbbing of its coiled presence, eyes closed, smiling at life within and without. 

Not by the hair of my chinny chin-chin.

There are an unknown number of hairs on my head, even if some hairs that were there before seem no longer to be there, in a thinning patch at the crown. Nevertheless, I cannot count them, they are too numerous, like the stars above my head on clear nights when Orion commands the sky. And if we look at a hair under a microscope, the combinations of cells are higher than one can possibly imagine, if we can imagine we imagine the number of hairs concerned, which is quite colossal and impossible really to comprehend.

And then each hair is connected to a follicle, whose functioning could be the whole life study of an aspiring trichologist, whose work would never come to an end.

And the scalp would be only part of the studies of an endeavouring dermatologist, whose career would also be painstakingly lifelong.

There are no hairs to speak of on my chin, but my right eye has an iris, already photographed many times by American Customs and Immigration Authorities, who relate it to me, and what they know of me, keeping an image of it stored in their computers for future reference, to recognise me again when I pass through their controls again. It is unique, and identifies me as "me", they say, for how long I do not know.

And this is just off the top of my head… there are many more things to say. These things on my head and on my face, even obviating the rest of the body, were given to me by my mummy and daddy, in a genetic capsule that became the physical “me”. And from these progenitors I have the start of my physical being, which reaches back in time to at least 12 people I have personally known who are now already dead and gone – one of whom is that daddy – whereas others are still living, like my mummy. And quite apart from those living, from the deceased ones I have memories and physical mementos like photos that stretch back even further, to those I have never known in the flesh, but only in tales, photos and letters. But there are many of those, and one wonders if modern conservational technology in the form of papers and tapes and photos and heirlooms is really of any use to one. I have even seen photos of great-great-great-uncles and such who look like ancient versions of me or brothers or other family members. This also is inconceivably rich in uncountableness.

And, take, for instance, the fact that I am wearing clothes. The fabric of these clothes comes from certain places, and certain unknown people have worked on them – too many to know how many. Traders have bought and sold these raw materials, semi-manufactured products and finished goods, growing rich, paying debts to others and spending money on food, drink, supplies, utilities, banking commissions, rents and interest payments on loans.

I too carry coins and banknotes in my pocket – no, in a Calvin Klein wallet given to me as a gift (I forget by whom, actually, but that may be another story), made who knows where by who knows who from the hides of cows who grazed in distant pastures in a land run by a government of whom some of the civil servants were rigorously honest whereas others were labelled corrupt – and that legal tender is used by me for spending on food, drink, goods and services I need, with a certain percentage given as charity at some chance point; charity which is sometimes accepted with a smile by an old Rumanian lady who cannot speak and cannot tell her tale of need, but has warm hands when she holds onto a finger or hand extended to give her a coin for bread; bread made in a local bakery where the men awake at 3am and start their fires in industrial ovens made perhaps in Italy, where they like football, which was invented by the English, who conquered India, which produced the Vedanta many millennia ago, when man was young and hopeful, but in need of direction, which philosophy was absorbed by the Babylonians, who captured the Jews and held them in captivity for many years, before they dispersed and were taken to Egypt, where hieroglyphics were used, pyramids were built, and the Nile flowed out every spring to feed the deserts and produce fruit, which we now eat from New Zealand or Colombia, and only sometimes from local market gardens, which are irrigated by canals built by the Moors, who were banished or converted to Christianity under orders from Isabella and Ferdinand, and made to eat pork, slaughtering hogs in front of their houses in La Mancha, where Don Quixote once roamed in search of windmills, which looked like giants, being confused no doubt with the Cyclopean inhabitants of that Greek island where Ulysses wandered in search of the Golden Fleece, and speaking of fleeces, it is now almost shearing time in America, that is, for sheep still producing wool, as the fad nowadays is for hairless sheep with no wool, because wool is cheap and not worth producing since the giant farms in Australia and the American West are the big producers, and anyway, who needs wool if the petroleum from ancient Babylonian lands, I mean, the Middle East, is so abundant still? – at least for the next 30 years – and it’s cheaper to wear synthetic, petroleum-based fabrics for those very same pockets where I carry my now very ageing Calvin Klein wallet (will I get a new gift one day?) with banknotes and plastic credit cards, and where I store my little coins for buses, coffees and some odd charity.

So you see, in one single moment of what we call “time”, it is impossible, although Samuel Beckett and others have tried, to minimalistically concentrate the whole of even one millisecond of our time in the horizontal thinking that is actually writing down thoughts, and this proves, if proof was needed, that thinking is not going to get us anywhere when it comes to perceiving the universe as it is.

And so, this record ends on the same note on which it began, after quite a few minutes of writing, and we are back at the beginning again: the unknown is always greater than the known, and so, let us cease those time-linked thoughts that lead us nowhere, and prefer the experience of direct perception of the ALL. In one split second, in absolute nothingness! Only there can truth be found. There is another form of perception. And it isn’t thinking.

Edward’s Diary Entry 40 – Virtue 19: Modesty (Hrih)

The “Sense of Shame in Doing Evil Actions” is also called “Modesty” (Hrih). When you perform actions that are contrary to any kind of moral code, you are supposed to experience “shame”. What is the purpose of this? “Shame” is only a thought about the past, so there is no other purpose than that of learning and doing something about it in the present. It is an arduous process. What produces the “wrong action” is “wrong thought”, which is derived from “wrong conditioning”. Lack of Self-Awareness promotes this. So the solution is to establish a Life Plan and Right Thinking. When this is put into effect, everything becomes intelligible and easy. If there is no true plan decided on, there is no “intelligibility”. Maybe you think you have a plan, but you will change it depending on circumstances. Maybe you have decided to act more kindly, but at the first sign of trouble, you will react as you always did if there is no Self-Awareness. So first comes Awareness or a capacity to observe oneself. But thinking “how shameful”, or feeling “ashamed” will not help – that is mind’s reaction to a former mind’s decision and is just more of the same and means nothing. What we have to look out for, if we have some degree of Self-Awareness, is our own definition of “right action” (karma), “useless activity” (akarma) and (“harmful actions incurring retributive consequences” (vikarma). This is simple, according to the sages. There are 3 stages for this: 1) “Simple Observation” of what is going on, 2) “Detection” of what exactly is happening in you, 3) Application of Discrimination or the Intellect and “Elimination”, ie, see what you do, discriminate, make sure it does not come again. Beautifully simple. Hard to achieve. Around 1585 El Greco painted this picture called The Repentant Mary Magdalene, which is in the Museu del Cau Ferrat, in Sitges (Catalonia), Spain. See how she looks sad, as if repenting for her “sins”, pointing to the skull with her left hand, meaning death is nigh, and her right hand is on her heart, little finger splayed, as this is the sign of generosity. She has on a single robe and looks simple. She has been leading the hermit’s life and has the cross of Jesus near her, but is looking off into the void, not at any object around her. She sees things we cannot see. The ivy climbs the wall behind her. All is well, Modesty is here. No evil actions will be performed as from now. She has conquered akarma and vikarma. 

Edward’s Diary Entry 39 – Virtue 18: Gentleness (Mardavam)

Beautiful swan. I chose you to represent gentleness, knowing full well that swans are supposed to have a tough temperament. I know what it’s like. I have been called a bully, too, for defending or to pretending to defend my opinions strongly. So yes, selecting a swan may have two readings – they look gentle and may personify calmness and kindness, but they may also be heavy-handed, or heavy-winged, and can deliver a blow with their heavy wings that knocks out their natural enemies, of which there are few. So maybe choosing the swan was a sign for me to be as gentle as they look, but to watch out for cruelty, teasing, criticising and unpleasantries in general. I was a teaser when I was a kid, and at times I still indulge in wry humour, which some people sometimes find difficult to understand. But I know I am also kind and gentle, and I love animals – swans included – so this Virtue is not that unknown to me, I just have to apply it to people as well. Gentleness is kindheartedness, so here it is apropos to quote a verse by one of the most erudite of historical figures, Lao Tzu:

“Thus it is said:

The path into the light seems dark,

the path forward seems to go back,

the direct path seems long,

true power seems weak,

true purity seems tarnished,

true steadfastness seems changeable,

true clarity seems obscure,

the greatest seem unsophisticated,

the greatest love seems indifferent,

the greatest wisdom seems childish.

The Tao is nowhere to be found.

Yet it nourishes and completes all things.”

― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

We could paraphrase the sage and say that “great gentleness often seems harsh”, as often a solution from deep within, and not just addressing the subjective field of human opinions, may seem difficult to digest, but it can also be as gentle as it is true. Take death. Death is the ultimate solution to all our troubles. So much suffering, so much pain, so much stress and anxiety – it is all totally levelled and solved by death. The suffering personality ceases to suffer, it is free. It dissolves into its constituent elements and floats away like a cloud. Now, think on this: the cessation of thinking is like death. “I think I am right; I think they are wrong; how could they have done this to me? Can’t you see that I don’t deserve to be treated like that? They are so bad to me, they don’t understand me. Yes it is they who don’t really appreciate me…because really I am the centre of the universe, not them!” And so on. All these puny human thoughts are solved by not thinking them, by the death of thought. What is left? Emotions? No, those are also produced by thoughts. Instinct? Not much of that left – it’s mostly social conditioning that remains. What remains is your Awareness, your inner perception, your wonder that there can be a perceiver. And you perceive that thoughts are mere regurgitations of past memories, opinions you have, vague wanderings of the mind, or poignant expectations for the future. Cease all this, and gentleness automatically flows in when harsh thoughts (against others and yourself) are stilled. Breathing is gentle. And there is a little death if you stop after each in-breath and wait, or as each out-breath subsides. It’s a gentle death, a sensation of dying to each moment and being reborn again in the next. That promotes gentleness, and we should try it sometimes...

Edward’s Diary Entry 38 – Virtue 17: Non-Covetousness (Aloluptvam)

Such is the nature of desire that it perpetuates itself and grows stronger when pleased. So the discriminating man concerned to know himself or the intelligent woman doing the same will observe his or her senses. “Liking or disliking” is developed due to natural inclinations of the mindstuff when we are still children. We can see that our childish likes may have changed, our teenage likes too. Likes and dislikes in our 20s, 30s and 40s. But until I can refrain from doing something I like, or do something I don’t like, how can I be free? Likes are like languages. We learn them before we are even cognizant of ourselves – in our unconscious childhood years. And so our likes and our use of language condition our minds into thinking that that is simply the way we are. But it’s not true. We are wound up that way, that’s all. Whoever defends likes and dislikes is fooling himself, because he will inevitably change at some point – even if it’s just because of another like that arise and gets superimposed on an old one. And so in Exodus 20:17 we hear the Jews admonishing their people “not to covet”, millennia after Gita described the Sattwic man as being “not greedy” thanks to the cultivation of this Virtue. The definition runs as follows: “The senses are not affected or excited when they come into contact with their respective objects; the senses are withdrawn from the objects of the senses, just as the limbs of the tortoise are withdrawn by it into its own shell. Combine freedom and restraint, which a tortoise adopts, so it should not be difficult for a human being… When a tortoise sees no danger, it puts its appendages out and freely moves about, but at the first indication of danger, it draws its limbs into its shell. Similarly, let your senses range freely when there is no apprehension of danger, but come away from a place that seems dangerous to you…” But here, again, we come back to the same thesis – it is not possible to control the senses without Self-Awareness, without attention, without some degree of observation of the mind by the mind. So our first step is to Look, Listen, Notice, Be Aware and simply Be Conscious. The initial energy to do this comes from refusing to act moment to moment to our personality’s likes and dislikes. The more unconsciousness is detained, the more self-aware and conscious we become. Until the vacuum is created in the mind, the Universe can’t abhor it and fill it with something more useful and more intelligent than a simple conditioned response, the inertia of the past wrongly breaking in on the Present. 

Keeping agreements... do you?

How do we apply the Virtues and promote Self-Awareness when someone does something we think is wrong? A family member has failed to abide by a recent agreement and is doing his own thing and looking out for his own interests instead of fulfilling his agreement in consideration of other family members. How does one keep one’s cool in a situation like this? 

Well, when it comes to particular things, it is sometimes difficult to say. But in general, all behaviour that follows the Virtues and applies them to any situation can only be what is “good” for you, regardless of whether it is a family member, a friend or a stranger.

So there was a recent agreement and it has been disregarded. And this family member who agreed to do something is now being selfish, let’s say, and is not considering others. Is this something new? Or has it happened before? If it is a new circumstance and has never happened before, it might be just a misunderstanding or a fluke. But if it is a common occurrence and has happened before, the right application of Intelligence and some of the Virtues might have forewarned you that something like this might happen. Not everyone is capable of keeping their word or sticking to an agreement. A person agrees at a certain time and in a certain frame of mind and then when circumstances change and the mindset is “set to another channel”, it’s perfectly normal for someone to go his own way and “forget” an agreement. It’s like being selfish. In the normal conditioned state, with no analysis of one’s mental processes, the personality, depending on type, may first look to itself and itself only. Enneagram types 2, 6 and 9 may look first to others; types 1, 3, 7 and 8 will definitely look first to themselves; types 4 and 5 may go either way, but normally self, too. So with no observation of oneself, the personality and its ruling element, the ego, will simply do its own thing. Ego separates, ego wants, demands and craves attention. Ego excludes others. So it is very difficult for a simple “uneducated” person like this – uneducated in the sense of never having gained a degree of control over impulses, wants, cravings, self-justification and excessive pride – to open up to others, be empathetic and understand someone else’s wants and needs.

How does a Sattwic or wise individual deal with this? If you are intelligent, you have already seen it coming. You know there is a possibility of this happening and you will have devised or at least contemplated another plan. Or you will not be surprised or upset in any way if you suddenly have to adapt to new circumstances. After all, life is in continual movement and requires adaptation, and this includes dealing with human beings who may not be on the road to self-inquiry and think they are already totally human, when in fact they are not. They are just partially human on the outside, because they have not connected with the source of humane-ness inside – which is behind or above or within the external personality, with its thoughts, feelings and ingrained habits. This is not to say they are not potential perfect and deserving of respect. Of course they are, it’s simply that they don’t know it, and act unconsciously. They hardly even “know” what their untrained self wants and desires. They just are their wants and desires. They live in darkness – as in the picture – and the bright spark of light in the sky is just a moon, a reflection of another light!

So you – by practising Self-Awareness – you are already cool, calm and collected. You take things as they are. There is an agreement and it has been broken. You find another solution. You may or may not be able to teach the other person something. Probably not. That is not your concern. You are now ready to devise a new plan which does not include people who cannot keep their word. Because not everybody can. Can you, always? Do you empathise with others, do you understand their needs? Are you ready to help someone else before you help yourself? You see, the situation is perfect, because by having a family member who doesn’t keep an agreement and forces you to adapt, you are actually receiving a favour. You are being inspired to act and adapt. You are being taught about human nature, about the nature of the petty self. While remembering that apart from the petty self, there is more behind a human being than that. So you politely thank this person, mentally, or even openly, and continue with your adaptive, flexible, kind, loving life, and you remember that any action done to you is also a mirror for you. The mistakes of others, even the wrongdoing of others, is always a lesson, and a reminder to continue to practice Your Virtues, come what may.