Edward’s Diary Entry 94: The Inner “I” unveiled…

Today we journey upwards from the connecting stroke of the outward and inner strokes (at 2a), but here too, great care must be taken! The pen nib once again turns as it goes upward (from 2a to 2b), making a thin connecting line to the upper portion of the “inner I”. See how the line twists and becomes thinner as we go upwards. How unstable is the mind at this point, and its decision to approach this inner and upper world is ever fraught with difficulty, always seeming to turn back and seek the apparent substantiality of the thick lower line of our selves, connecting back to the “world outside”, which, the wise say, is only a dream world anyway, a mere creation of the mind, which interprets the outside world and hides its true nature in sense objects.

But supposing we are strong-minded enough to glimpse the heights above, then we see that this inner world as symbolised by the backward facing “I” of this Gothic marvel, tells us to seek refuge in its tripartite body: the top curve depicting the spirit (2c to 2d), whence comes all our life force to live, work and struggle; the middle part symbolising the soul (2a to 2b), where we pray to live and work and struggle; and the bottom curve facing downwards to the Earth, to our bodies (2a up to 1a), where we simply “think and imagine” that we live and work and struggle…

This letter has much more to it, so let’s look at its parts more closely. We have to face backwards or inwards to see them. In this Medieval creation, we can see that the outward facing “I” has actually turned its back on the soul-spirit entity and looks outward to the world only. Do we need tome upon tome of writings on questions of the soul, the mind, of higher worlds, of psychology, of philosophy, to see what has happened to us? In one beautifully conceived letter, our Medieval geniuses have given us a symbol to see for ourselves what we are like.

At any point where the pen should fail due to too little ink, we might be “disconnected” from the hidden spiritual parts of man. But this is our “normal” civilised state. Yet it would seem to be a fictitious state, because if the line were completely disconnected, we would simply die and the parts of “us” would go their separate ways. So we should consider that there is always this connection, however slight, however faint. Without it, there could be no life. But when we only look outwards, facing right as our right-hand letter-part does, we ascribe this life to ourselves and bow before the world outside and put our outward “I” upon the pedestal of egoism and believe that we are whole and one, when we are not. And the Wise also say that this is illusion, a dream world, and in fact, when we sleep – in deep, dreamless sleep – we are always in connection with our higher selves, where we rest from the “dream-life” of the world we call normal “consciousness”. And then, when we “come back” into our little egos and dream, and remember our dreams, we are actually spying on our own ceaseless thoughts and sensations and experiencing them as if they were real, and… wasting energy that has not been used productively throughout the day, as some say. Only when a dream is produced from some kind of “higher world” (inner world) as a message or portent or inspiration upon waking can it be considered to be valid and not just a waste of energy in the ebb and flow of the ceaseless mind.

A few reminders about the “inner man”:

Christ:                   “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.”

Mohammed:          “He who knows his own self, knows God.”

Native American:  “At the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.”

Zen Buddhism:      “A special transmission outside the scriptures; No dependence on words and letters; Direct pointing to the mind or heart of man; Seeing into one's nature and attaining Buddhahood.”

Socrates:               “Know thyself.”

Edward’s Diary Entry 93: The Outward “I”

Let’s concentrate today on the flowing right-hand side of the Gothic "I" before we delve into arcane knowledge about the “inner man”, represented by the left-hand side. 

Look at the variations of the flowing outside “I” from 1a down to 1c. We have said this part of the “I” represents the personality, the kind of traits we acquire during life. Many authors have described the personality "types”, and we must reject modern horoscopes as being too simplistic and too often abused without the knowledge that maybe “ancient astrologers” once did have.

Amongst the most useful of type classifications for practical purposes and which anyone can test for themselves are: Sheldon’s body types of endomorph, ectomorph and mesomorph, and their corresponding 3 “cerebrotypes”: viscerotonics, somatotonics and cerebrotonics; not a far cry from Gurdjieff’s Man No. 1 (physically centred), Man No. 2 (emotionally centred) and Man No. 3 (intellectually centred) – (and remember the corresponding tripartite tradition of the Three Ways: “fakir – monk – yogi”); and the Enneagram types 1 through 9, which are a little subtler, as all 9 have “wings” or variants.

So our 12th century masters knew about this and showed it in their strokes. If one’s personality (ego) is excessively intellectually centred, we are following the upper curve of fantasy (1a) and we are driven along on the illusion of the power of the intellect to make fireworks and dwell in the ceaseless roaming of the mind. See how the curve flows outwards – that is my ability to use thoughts to conquer the world! If I am centred mostly in this upper part of the ego, the intellect, then I will try to build a tower to the heavens and grasp God by the neck and squeeze the truth out of him by analysing everything and disassembling everything and dissecting everything and rebuilding everything to see how it works… But then, I come to a dead-end. I face the same impasse that Socrates always came to: the logical mind can only go so far on its own, and no further. That is why after analysing everything and being as logical and rational as possible, the Greek master always reverted to myth and legend to report on what he called the supra-sensible world.

If on the other hand my concern is with lusty life and I have a tendency to gluttony, good-living and the experience of the emotions more than the dry intercourse of the intellect, I will find my abode in the soft thick curves of the outer “I” in its middle part (1b): fat and thick from drinking of the mead and the honey of this life. And when so-called disasters arise, I will have nowhere to go, but will lament the lack of more food, drink and sensual experience, and cry away until I can find more of the same, if it ever comes.

And then if what I really seek in this life is the status quo of the physical, and only believe in the material, and value money, riches, anxiety, tension, the money and fame game, I will lie myself down in the bottom curve of the right-hand part of the “I” (1c) and roll in the mud, seeking pearls perhaps, and asking how much they might cost, and striving to buy them, only not to appreciate them once I get them, and looking for something else, and so on repeatedly. I will think, yes, the body is my temple, I shall do exercise, I shall eat this food or that, I will keep myself young, I will seek out those pleasures that only bodies can give. I am strong, I am good-looking, I am the master of the world… until physical diseases sets in from I know not where and destroys everything I thought I had gained.

These are three short interpretations of the preponderance of the three possible sections of the outward facing “I”, corresponding to personality types and modes of existence. They are all basic groundwork, all nothing without the left-hand side… which we shall deal with in the next entry.

(to be continued)

Edward’s Diary Entry 92: More on Roman and Gothic “I’s” …

Roman "I"

I took a Times Roman “I” and a Helvetica “I” and saw that our current psychology is based on this like a rock. After all, a person, an “individual”, means “not further divisible”. We are one, they say. But, as in Mark 5:6-13, “And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.” And some writers have mentioned the many “I’s” in us, as if we had various "egos", but it is not that; it seems rather to be that every thought, sensation and feeling takes the mental position of an “I” and battles it out however it can; some will be stronger and others weaker, and hence all our contradictions.

So we modern people are not as unified or as compact as this “I” seems to indicate. This letter is just one stroke; in fact, the simplest stroke in the whole alphabet. That would seem to be appropriate for something as a basic as an “I”, which, by the way, is one of the most frequently used words in the English language, ranking at number 10 in frequency out of all words, after “the”, “be”, “and”, “of”, “a”, “in”, “to”, “have” and “it”, scientifically proven by today’s digital means (Corpus ofContemporary American English (COCA)). Very basic, very simple, very compact.

And yet there is something not quite true here. Surely we, as “I”s, are more complicated than this simple stroke? Perhaps in an ideal world, we would be as simple as that: one supreme “I” sensing, being and controlling our worlds. But alas, upon inquiry, we find this not to be true. Instead of this single “I”, our thoughts, feelings and sensations come and go as if on a windy day, first this way, then that way, like the other letters of the alphabet with their curved, rounded, diagonal, perpendicular, horizontal and vertical directions, filling our minds, sprouting up from seeds which an unknown sower has planted in hidden fields within.

The first “I” above, in Roman Times font, a “serif” typeface (meaning with projections), is also untrue in a spiritual sense, as the bottom serif or projection is the same size as the top serif, seeming to indicate parity between the “lower” and “higher” worlds of the “I”. In today’s culture in fact, the bottom serif or base should actually be larger than the top one, because we are so firmly based in the material world and pay little attention to things spiritual. I was not able to find a typeface that corresponded to this, only a decorative one called “Ravie” (left), a rather comical script with a slightly larger base than the top, which at least has a certain lilt to it, perhaps signifying joy in looking upwards! All the other typefaces have “I’s” with tops and bottoms that are just about equivalent in size.

 So it was a real surprise to find and see this monumental Gothic “I”...

Because this "I" seemed to tell another story about our psychic makeup. It took it as a symbol and looked at it carefully and found many similarities with classic spiritual quests…

(to be continued…)

Edward’s Diary Entry 91: An introduction to the “I” …

The 9th letter of the alphabet is “I”, and the 9th virtue from the Bhagavad Gita, if you remember, is “Straightforwardness”. But we’ll come back to that.

One of the parts of the “I”, the curving stroke standing on the right, is flowing, open at the top and connected at the bottom. Our wise calligraphic experts from the 12th century are telling us that this is the part of the mind, the “I”, that faces the outside world, to the right. It deals with material things. It is our “ego”, the instrument used by the mind to interact with the world. Its shape seems to tell us that we should “go with the flow”, we should be easy and calm and practice tranquillity to deal with this world, as no straight lines really exist here. Lines are mostly non-straight, crooked, always changing direction one way or another. Any pretension to “straightness” (which is not the same as “straightforwardness”) is an optical illusion, for the straight line of the horizon is a mere fantasy of the senses, and only produced from our puny individual standpoint, from our tiny position in the world. In this letter, everything is curvy.

The top of the right “I” flows outwards, at the highest point, meaning we should look upwards and outwards, but, beware!, it stops there and continues no more. Back down towards the base, this “outward-facing I” narrows in shape due to the turning of the nib of the original hand-held pen and loses its thickness. This tells us to be careful not to let it “disconnect” from the rest of the “I” on the left, which is much more complicated than the right-hand part. If our “penmanship” fails us at this point, we are left with a simple Roman “I” with one single stroke, bereft of our “inner life”, as symbolised by the left-hand construction. With disconnection from the left-side (next photo), we are thrown out into the material world and left to fend for ourselves, attracted by sense objects, trapped by sense objects, acting and reacting with no further sense of our “complete Self.”

It is significant in the masterful creation of this letter that the simple right-hand stroke is connected at its very base with quite a thick plume-stroke to the left-hand construction, symbolising the “inner man”. What is an “I” just looking outward? When we question this “outward I” as to who it is, we find that we do not know who or what it is. This “worldly I” just appears and re-appears at every moment asserting itself as the sum total of the entity which is, in fact, an unknown entity. As each thought arises, we are not cognizant of where it comes from. So how can we say we know who or what we really are?

And so, at the very base, the monks of a certain monastery must have wanted to give a broader picture of the “I” by connecting the outer man with the inner man, telling us the following: At the very base of your thought of “I”, you are really connected to the inner world of “I” in a beautifully flowing stroke that looks downwards and stops, as we can see, with the same kind of point as on the right-hand stroke looking upwards. This means that the attention of our inner “I” given to the material plane must be as small and as tight and as controlled as possible. At a certain blunt point, our interest in the material plane stops short and obviates whatever is below. We should go no further down into the abyss of the senses; give no further heed to Mammon and Satan. Stop there, and rather look above for your answers…

(to be continued…)

Edward’s Diary Entry 90: A sequel to the “Five Senses”…

Before I start with “deeper” things I saw in this letter, let’s connect back to the “Five Senses”… I didn’t see this at first, but it later became apparent to me. This letter is “I”, or you, a symbol for “man” in the sense of “human being”. Look:

The entire capital letter has five points. Apart from other meanings, I took these five points to be a representation of the FIVE SENSES of man, starting at the top right. The point of the “outward facing” part of the “I”, at 1, is the sense of sight, open to the world, looking outwards, where the eyes transmit impressions of physical objects, which the mind interprets as things external. Seeing material things is a function of the body, one of the highest functions, as we have said before, because the sense of sight is “on” all the time – you only have to discount milliseconds of blinking throughout the day, which doesn’t add up to much.

If this outward facing “I” represents the external part of ourselves, our personality so to speak, then right at the very base of this long flowing “I”, at 5, we have the sense of touch. This is where we really fasten onto the physical world from outside to outside (skin to material), in pure physicality. One of the roots of our memory bank.

Now go back up to point number 2, which is the sense of hearing, because it is here, according to tradition, that the “spirit” hears the Word of God, and doubles back on itself to disappear at 3, which is the sense of smell, a much vaguer kind of impression, typical of the “inner” world, because the things we see and hear can be said to actually exist out there in the material world, but the things we “smell” are totally invisible, highly spiritual in nature, as we said before about this means of perception.

Point number 4 is the sense of taste, where our soul develops a taste for discrimination, seeking out the higher things in life. And taste and smell are brothers and so are placed together, one above the other, in this masterful letter-symbol.

The whole ensemble is the SIXTH SENSE, which is the mind itself, as we have declared, and as supported by the earliest known treatise on the senses. In Tamil literature, the Tolkāppiyam is said to be the first written text in the world to describe six senses which related to external body parts (dated anywhere from the 3rd C BC to the 1st C BC). One of its verses says "beings with one sense are those that have the sense of TOUCH (5). Beings with two senses are those that have the sense of TASTE (4) along with the above. Beings with three senses, have the sense of smell (3) in addition. Beings with four senses, have the sense of sight (2), along with the above. Beings with five senses, have the sense of hearing (1) in addition. Beings with six senses, have a mind, along with the above."

So whether you interchange 2 and 3, or 3 and 4, the basic 1 and 5 seem very clear, and this was just one of the possible interpretations that this marvellous letter gave me as I contemplated how it had been created all those centuries ago…

(to be continued…)

Edward’s Diary Entry 89: The "I": Does Blackletter have Asiatic influences?

The small or lower case letters are quite straightforward and follow in the footsteps of former scripts, as already mentioned. We can see them below, in an image because your browser on a PC will show them in script, but a mobile browser maybe will not. 

But what about the capitals? Why are they so complicated? Obviously in the first place because they were first used as initials at the beginnings of paragraphs, and therefore served as introductory decorations. The example here, the illuminated letter “P” for “Petrus” in the Malmesbury Bible, probably much later, around 1400, uses Blackletter, known as Gothic script. Many illuminated books were produced around this time, some of which were totally secular, describing the “fraudulent habits of the partridge which brings up the young of others as its own” or “Henry I confirming lands and privileges to the monks of Christ Church, Canterbury”, whereas others were reproductions of classical works or breviaries or psalters in Latin. Let’s take a look at the small letters first, shown here:

Then the capitals in Blackletter:

All these letters have at least double, sometimes triple strokes and interconnecting lines. They are special inventions, and don’t just “appear” or “evolve” without some conscious effort and reason. Counting from the “A” we see complicated contrivances throughout, with thin vertical lines and crossbars in all letters except at the sixth letter “F”, the ninth letter “I” and the 24th letter “X”. The final letter “Z” might qualify except for the two crossbars instead of the one thicker crossbar in the “X”. So 6-9-24 are the exceptions. See below:

The letters themselves number – as they do today – 26. Now that is the first curious thing about our letters. They coincide with the number of Sattwic virtues according to the Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 16, that man must cultivate if he is to develop a strong mind and see the Truth. Why are there 26 virtues? They were listed millennia ago as the divine qualities that man needs to accept in order to possess a good and noble mind, rejecting the so-called demonical qualities, which are their opposites. And why are there 26 letters in the alphabet? Maybe it’s just chance, but there are some correlations to be found here. So let’s just take one letter and see what happens…

My introspection gave me the theory that a group of masters of spiritual wisdom working in their monasteries around the dawn of the 12th century decided to use these letters to convey a message. It is known that the development of Blackletter was influenced by Saracenic art, an Islamic influence from the Crusades. This is a possible bridge from the East to northern Europe... These erudite calligraphers took the simple Roman “I” and turned it into a true symbol of mankind. Seeing is believing, but no one seems to see it. But I thought I saw something and described it to myself as follows:

We are talking about the ninth letter of the alphabet, and the number 9 has always symbolised many things: it is the highest of the integers, the maximum expression of the units; Dante described the 9 circles of hell; the Hindus speak of the 9 gates of the human body (there are nine apertures to the body); 9 planets were used by ancient astrologers to draw up their horoscopes; the Mohammedans speak of the 99 names of God; 9 is the completion of the enneagram figure first brought to the west by Gurdjieff, developed by Irazo et al. for the enneagrammatic personality types, and so on. So 9 is an important number.

This 9th letter in English represents the subject of all spiritual quests in line with the injunction “Know Thyself”, or the practise of Vichara, or Self-Inquiry. So it tempted me to dare an interpretation. And I started seeing it. This rather complicated depiction of an “I” in Old English typeface told me quite a long story… 

Cave Series 9: The force-field…

A strange device made its appearance in the cave. I can compare it to an armoured diving suit, a metal case that my body was placed in and it closed around me. My sides, front and back were encased in steel. Air continued to be pumped in. Breathing was intense but easy. Inside there was a firm and steady beating of the heart; a slow rhythmic breathing with gentle retentions. A slight tingling of electricity was all around me, like when you put your tongue onto a weak, two-terminal battery. Energy in the air. I looked around, I could see the blackness, a blackness that expanded. Tiny pinpoints of light accompanied the darkness all around me. All was calm, all was still. No... I had not been transported to the bottom of sea; there was no giant octopus, no whale! But maybe Jonah would have understood me. I was still in the cave, and yet I saw the walls slowly turning to old dusty bricks, and there was a momentary hope of escape, but alas, it was not to be. I slowly came out of my metal casing and, continuing to ask for an exit, I sat down again and waited.

Edward’s Diary Entry 88: The "I": Background to Blackletter

Blackletter came after the development of Carolingian miniscule script (left), arising from the court of Charlemagne in the 8th century. Manuscripts were given an official style, which at that time produced a clear, easily readable script. The Godescalc Evangelistary, Godescalc Sacramentary, Godescalc Gospels, or Godescalc Gospel Lectionary (Paris, BNF. lat.1203) is an illuminated manuscript made by the Frankish scribe Godescalc and today kept in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. It was commissioned by the Carolingian king Charlemagne and his wife Hildegard on October 7, 781 and completed on April 30, 783 AD. The Evangelistary is the earliest known manuscript produced at the scriptorium in Charlemagne's Court School in Aachen. Carolingian manuscripts (produced in large numbers in a monastery at Tours, of which Alcuin, a distinguished scholar from York, became abbot in 796) are among the most clear and legible documents in the history of writing. Then, somewhere in the years of the 12th century, out of nowhere (at least most sources give no indication of such location, only stating “the Carolingian minuscule was superseded by Gothic blackletter hands”) the clear, concise script of Caroline empire was replaced by the Gothic tradition with Blackletter:

“In the later Middle Ages, the clarity of the Carolingian script becomes lost. A much darker and denser style evolves in northern Europe from the 11th century. It is known as 'black letter', because of the almost oppressive weight of dark ink on each densely packed page….

This medieval style derives partly from an aesthetic impulse (there is drama in dark pen strokes and in the angular ends left by a broad nib), but it is above all a matter of economy. Parchment is expensive. Books are much in demand, particularly with the growth of universities. If the letters in a word and the words in a sentence are squashed more closely together, less pages are used and the book is cheaper.”             

But I couldn’t help thinking that something as “dramatic” and original as Blackletter was no chance occurrence. Could “economy” only be argued for its appearance? The development of an entirely new and quite complicated script takes great effort, time, patience, study and practice. If we place ourselves in that period, we would have to imagine a group of studious monks and illuminators actually re-designing all the capital letters, working on them, almost creating them from scratch. And since this was not just a variation of an existing script, but something completely new, human creativity and inspiration had to play a major role. When such a studious group of professionals or artists or scholars or seers develop something totally new, we need to surmise that they have their reasons; they must know something, and be interesting in transmitting something. Economising on paper, as alleged above, may be one thing, but the script itself does not seem to be “economical” in its calligraphic expression. On the contrary, it is highly decorative and requires more pen strokes than a simpler hand. To say that it just “evolved” or “appeared” is much too simple. There is something else here that no one has seen, and I have not been able to discover from written sources.

My way of explaining it is as follows. Culture was in the hands of the church. Universities were incipient, with the founding of the University of Bologna in 1088 (Oxford in 1096, Salamanca in 1134, Paris in 1150, Cambridge in 1209…). So monasteries were still seedbeds of learning and creation, with particular emphasis of course on “spiritual” matters, in line with the times. As old parchments were reproduced, and Roman and Greek scripts were fused for knowledge and artistic effect, a certain group of monks must have worked on this new style of lettering, drawing up glyphs that were particularly decorative and artistic, developed from the initials and illuminations used in many Books of Hours. This decorative style, in the capitals at least, involved incorporating more strokes than the absolutely essential. Now apart from the decorative effects, are there any other meanings behind these strokes? Do they intend to symbolise more than meets the eye? Stay with me and we shall see…

(to be continued…)

Edward’s Diary Entry 87: The "I": One Symbol, Many Meanings…

Once upon a time, some 4,350 years after writing began, and 866 years before our time, something incredible happened to the letters of the Latin alphabet, the likes of which had never happened before, nor have they since…

Remember that oral transmission was used in ancient times, and writing was not that important. Bards and wise men exercised incredible powers of mind in retaining reams of information in their heads, and the people who listened to them were always delighted to hear their stories. Then writing and scribes came. And today… 140 billion emails are written per day by fully keyboard-competent human beings... Isn't that great? If the world "happiness rate" were on the same level as the world literacy rate at 86.3% (UNESCO), wouldn't that be lovely?

But when manuscripts were just that, i.e., written by hand, a series of conventions were used, and an “I” was just an “I”, a straight vertical line; or with an upper and lower horizontal stroke, as in Latin capitals, an “I”.

Our Latin letters came from Rome, through the Greeks, who borrowed their early forms from the Phoenicians. We eventually wound up with these 26 letters in English:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Way back in Roman times, the letter “I”, like all other letters, was mostly written in capitals, with simple strokes. It was called Latin Majescule writing, using square capitals and rustic capitals, and there was also a kind of cursive or book-hand. But the “I” was just a simple stroke in all cases.

The incredible thing that happened in the 12th century in Europe was that so-called Blackletter was invented, also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule, or Textura. This was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 to well into the 17th century. It continues to be used in the German language today. Blackletter is sometimes called Old English (available in Word as a decorative typeface), which has nothing to do with the Old English language, just with the font.  In lower case, it looks like this:

That's pretty normal, but in UPPER case, things really change, unlike any other font:

Why do I say this new style of lettering was such an incredible invention? Because when I was searching for an appropriate reminder to "look within", thinking that I should find the right “I” to print out and hang on the wall, I suddenly began to wonder what these “Goths” were doing… and I flipped out...

(to be continued...)

Cave Series 8: The House that Jack Didn’t Build (A New First-Grade Reader)

Jack, you live in a house you didn’t buy. You never viewed it or chose it, or paid for it or took out a mortgage on it. Somehow, you just got put in that house. Your parents and teachers shut you up in a closet in the cellar, with a few comic books that you learned to read. Now you’ve grown up a little and they let you crawl into an adjacent closet, also downstairs in the dark. There are no lights down there. You don’t know what’s upstairs. You’ve never seen a window, let alone the outside. You don’t even know how big the basement is. You have no idea about what’s going on upstairs, in the kitchen, the dining room, the living room, the study… And all those beautiful bedrooms and that sunny dormer window. And that garden outside, with trees, flowers and butterflies? And the farm, that supplies the food? No idea. You just sit around in one closet or the other and repeat the comic book words you’ve learned, occasionally adding a few of your own, and you start feeling very smart. Oh, what a good boy am I! I’ve stuck in my thumb and pulled out a plum, so yes, I certainly am a good boy, aren’t I!

One day there was a big storm, and it made a crack in the ceiling of your closet. You looked up. There was too much light, so you ripped out a page you didn’t much like from the comic book and taped it up. And not long afterwards, you heard a sound from above, and you wondered what it was. You didn’t know that word – it sounded strange! But you soon forgot it, and found solace playing with your shoelaces again. A few weeks later, someone must have spilled a pail of water upstairs because your taped-up hole started dripping little drops of clear liquid. But you stuck your sock in the hole to stop it up.

Outside the birds were singing. Why? The garden was blooming. How come? The breeze was blowing. Who could do that? You sat and you sat, and you got plump and fat, and you repeated the words from your favourite comic strip to convince yourself that all was well. Your world was so small, Jack.

But one day, you heard another sound. Someone was talking upstairs. There were visitors. And they happened to say “Comic book life is not life, there’s real life up here.” You were amazed. You stopped up your ears. You didn’t want to hear those words. It shook up your little world too much. And you went back to your shoelaces again.

You live in a dark closet in a house you don’t know. Wake up, Jack! Crawl out of your closet. There’s a whole new world upstairs, out there. The key to the closet is in your pocket, in the silver lining of your pocket. Search for it, Jack. Find it. And step up into the house. Come outside. Look around you. And see, Jack, see!

Edward’s Diary Entry 86: More about empathy: The good, the bad and…

Take a person with a problem and I’m that person’s friend. An empathetic listening session could provide some suggestions. If these are appreciated by this friend, he or she may eventually solve the problem. Empathy has seemingly worked.

You can call it what you want, but why use the term “empathy”? It is simply the use of awareness, interest, attention and a little intelligence and an attempt to gain a clear perception of the reality behind the problem. And this is where the session works both ways: there is a person who benefits from being listened to and understood, and there is the listener who also benefits by being able to practise charity, compassion and learn about how people cope or don’t cope and maybe why they do or don’t. It’s a two-way transaction.

You can describe it as “empathy” if you want, but it’s no mystery, special ability or additional (sixth or seventh) “sense”. It’s just that two people are friends and feel for each other; it could happen with any two human beings… And if it doesn’t, there’s another factor at work: they are not “friends”, they don’t trust each other, or they have prejudices and belong to different “groups” and can’t forget their own little selves for a moment so as to open up to another.

What doesn’t make sense is when “empathy” means simply “sharing the same feeling”, or “experiencing emotions that match another person's emotions”. That may be frequent amongst both the joyful and the moaners, but it can only be good and do good if the emotions are “positive”. If we analyse it, it can’t possibly do much good if the emotions are “negative”. Let’s go back to our “feelings chart" and review the nasty ones, where we can see the following: 

Fear (fright, panic) Despair (disappointed) Impatience Covetousness (envy) Sadness (hurt, sorrow) Boredom Anxiety Annoyance Irritation

Anger (wrath) Frustration Nervousness (worry) Jealousy Disgust Contempt (hate) Hostility (bitterness) Guilt (shame) Pride (vanity)

Say that Mr “A” feels “fear, fright, panic”, so I as Mr Wells empathetically feel the same thing. Is that going to help Mr "A"? Or do we just starting running together?

Or Ms “B” feels “despair”, is disappointed, resentful. She has a grudge against someone. So do I as Mr Wells help her by feeling the same thing?

Adolescent “C” feels impatient, stressed out, fed up with his school life, and I as Mr Wells am doing him a favour by feeling the same thing?

No, in none of these cases does “feeling the same” help the other person. To help the other person, it is not the feeling that has to be the same. There has to be an intelligent application of interest first. There has to be attentive listening, implication, involvement and this only comes with the development and application of “awareness” – of ourselves and of others. Then there can be a meaningful transaction. If not it’s just a moaning and whining session.

If you look at it, people mostly complain about “bad feelings”. Or do they complain about the “good feelings”? No way! So when facing a problem, and being unable to cope with it, they generate bad feelings, and these are simply the result of wrong thinking.

For example, Mr A (Homo sapiens sapiens) feels “panic” when he sees a house mouse (Mus musculus). Well, obviously, since we know that mice cannot and do not lash out at grown men with their fierce claws (1 whole mm long!) and attack them, but rather run away to protect themselves from what they know are dangerous beings – those humans – Mr A has to put his headbrain and nerves into order and stop his cowardly reaction. He will need some time to do this if he has always reacted this way, because it is an ingrained habit. But habits can be changed, it’s just a question of knowing how and doing it.

Ms B goes on and on about how her ex-boyfriend was so stupid and unkind to her, and she carries her grudge around like a crutch and uses it on any occasion when someone mentions boyfriends, lovers, couples…or even when they don't!  She is wallowing in the mud, because if he was that stupid, why was she with him that long? And if he wasn’t, why is she being so cruel to him now? Will she ever get over the past and enjoy the present? Her head needs ordering.

Teenager C says he’s stressed out, but he hasn’t learned yet that he is the cause of his own stress, and that stress-free living is possible. He needs support from a more knowledgeable person, because obviously his parents and teachers aren’t helping him much. His method of thinking needs to be re-ordered.

So, no, so-called empathy is useless when it comes to helping or curing people or making them feel better if their feelings are derived from wrong thinking. Because that is a vicious circle within each person's head. To assuage this and cure it, the subject himself must establish some kind of order in his own mind.

And just tell me: which of the emotions would you rather feel? The nasty ones, as above, or the nice ones, shown here below?

Courage Trust (confidence) Calmness (serenity) Generosity (thankfulness) Delight Joy Excitement Happiness (contentedness) Tenderness (caring) Love

Compassion Satisfaction Interest Pleasure Friendliness Surprise (amazement) Amusement Hope Longing (desire for good)

There is no other way for a feeling to come other than through the mind, because we interpret everything through the mind – be it a bodily sensation, a pain, an ache, or a bursting forth of unexpected joy. So what do we do? First we set the mind in order and think straight. When in fear, apply fearlessness. When in despair, apply purity of mind. When impatient, perseverance. When there is envy, noncovetousness; when sadness comes, invoke joy. When boredom looms, apply excitement. Faced with anxiety, annoyance, irritation, frustration and anger, apply non-violence and compassion. And so on. A feeling comes from a thought. Change thinking and your feelings are healed. How to change thinking? Cultivate Self-Awareness, apply Virtue 7, Studiousness, and then sit still with eyes closed for 15 minutes a day and follow your breathing and you’ll see. It’s that simple.