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In fact, the more we
learn to live out of what I call the ‘truer us’, as opposed to out
of the illusion of our mediocrity (which, sadly, so many of us today
seem to live from), the more fulfilled we will feel from deep
within ourselves. And this fulfilment will empower us in
many ways. Most especially, it will assist us not to become
down-hearted, especially on those occasions when we will need to
face disappointment or the many different kinds of paradoxes which,
on the spiritual path, abound in large numbers. To give an example,
one of the main paradoxes confronting the seeker is the gradual
realisation that that genuine spiritual self we are spending so much
time and effort looking for, is in fact who we already are (but
don’t yet know it). In other words, there is nowhere to go and
absolutely nothing to discover! Or as the Master Papaji once put it,
we need to ‘Give up the search!’
Q.
What! How can we be a spiritual seeker – a seeker after truth – if
we give up the search? I don’t understand….
SBB.
Well you won’t. Not at the beginning of your journey. In fact, there
are many things that only become clear much later on. Actually,
the idea of ‘ giving up the search’ is not a truth for us for quite
a long time, and we will need to have done a lot of seeking before
we are in any way ready to understand the meaning of that statement.
Just as in mountain climbing, we cannot see what lies ahead until we
will have got to the top of the particular peak we are currently
grappling with, so the same holds true in
spiritual journeying. We gradually ‘grow into’ certain
realisations, or knowledge gradually reveals itself to us, but only
when we are ready to receive it, only when we will have dealt with
and completed previous challenges.
Indeed, what the
seeker comes to realise as he gradually advances on his quest, is
that the so-called ‘rules’ of the journey begin changing radically.
For example, at the start, it doesn’t matter much if he makes
mistakes or ‘falls down’ on himself, as he doesn’t have much
spiritual knowledge or power. Thus, he cannot do much harm. Further
along the path, however, when he will have gained more spiritual
understanding, the same thing is not true and the ‘spiritual game’
he is engaging in now, becomes more serious and becomes ‘played out’
in a much broader court and with a totally different set of rules.
What in the past may merely have been a small deviation now may
become a large and serious error! Indeed, we can say that the nature
of the journey changes all the time as our nature gradually
transforms and we begin opening ourselves up to deeper spiritual
realities and discover ourselves becoming subject to different
spiritual laws.
Q.
The idea of life actually lived as a
spiritual journey sounds very compelling.
SBB.
Well we cannot be spiritual unless we try to live it, try to walk
our talk. And, yes, it is very compelling for those who feel
especially ‘called’ by spirit. In actuality, our deeper radiant Self
or God or whatever we want to call it, ‘calls’ all of us all the
time. The problem is that most of us are often deaf to such calls
because they tend not to come through the frequencies of our normal,
three-dimensional space time reality which the vast majority of us
believe is the only reality and therefore is the predominant
‘frequency’ that we ‘hear’ or are ‘tuned into’.
Q.
So you are suggesting many of us don’t hear the call?
SBB.
Yes. Our attention is elsewhere. There is generally too much ‘stuff’
going on in our lives – too much static, noise, general obscuration,
emotional drama.
Q.
If this is the case, how can we ever hear the call?
SBB.
By working at trying to purify our psyches more, letting go our
static, seeking to tune into those frequencies where the ‘deeper
messages’ about life are broadcast.
Q.
It seems you are suggesting that we need to be on the path already
to have a sense of it?
SBB.
Simply by being a human being, we are all on a spiritual path
anyway. The difference is that some of us recognise this consciously
and some of us don’t. Those who recognise it, realise that they
cannot tune into spiritual frequencies unless they learn to empty
their psyches of the ‘junk emotions and thoughts’ that continually
fill it. Unless this begins to happen, spirit will find it hard to
get through to us.
Q So
committing to our spirituality gives us access to a wider reality?
SBB.
To more dimensions of life, yes. Life is many-dimensional anyway,
and too many of us live in the pretence that it is not. The mere act
of saying ‘I want to be, and to live as, a more spiritual person’,
if it is said with sincerity, opens our awareness up a little more
and thus makes us more responsive to what I will simply, at this
stage, call ‘the higher spiritual worlds’. The deeper we go into
ourselves, therefore, the more we become aware of subtler nuances
that we were not conscious of before. So at one level, being on a
path is all about our trying to experience our lives more deeply,
trying to open the doors of our perception more widely. We are only
able to see as much of the ‘world out there’ as we have learned to
open to the world within ourselves. In other words, the narrower we
are, the more limited our world seems, the more expanded we are, the
more expansive our universe becomes.
THE
IMPORTANCE OF SPIRITUALITY
Q.
Why do you just talk about spirituality and not religion and not
refer to today’s talk as the challenge of the religious path?
SBB.
Because this is not about religion; this talk is about spirituality.
And there is a difference between religion and spirituality? Many
people on traditional religious paths, for example, are not
necessarily spiritual seekers. And I believe our great challenge as
seekers today is to awaken to our spiritual and not necessarily to
our religious nature, and that it is spirituality that is important
and needed in the world today as a counterbalance to all the pain,
confusion, unrest and imbalance that is all around us. Of course, I
am not suggesting that religion cannot also offer humanity many
benefits. But this is not always the case, and as we well know, a
great deal of what is currently most destructive in the world today,
comes from religion, primarily in its fanatical and Fundamentalist
forms. Indeed, we can say that, in many respects, the religious wars
of several hundred years ago are still going on!
Q.
Why are people on traditional religious paths not seekers?
SBB.
I am not saying that all are not, as this is certainly not the case.
But many are not seekers because they do not see it as being
important to delve deeper into themselves. For many traditionalists,
their faith is more external than internal. Of course, all
traditions have very holy people in them. I am not talking about
these holy men and women. I am talking of the vast masses who are
orthodox and traditional and essentially conservative. Such people,
as I said, don’t tend to want to discover who they really are; they
don’t tend to put effort towards expanding their self awareness,
trying to find their real self, which is central to the life of the
genuine seeker. And I believe that what our world needs today is
people who are willing to engage in this kind of work and who wish
to become more conscious human beings.
The problem of our
world today is the problem of our unconsciousness – of our
collective lack of awareness at all levels; too many people are not
only ‘asleep’ to what is really going on in their own lives, but
they are also asleep to what is really going on out in the
world. They refuse to see life other than through the narrow lens
that is their only vehicle for perception and then they pronounce
their limited truth about what is, to be the truth. This
holds back our evolution. I believe that if we are to have a new and
better world come into being, and it is essential that we do - God
help us if we continue along the same lines that we have been going
along for the past half century - then it will be because
sufficient numbers of people will have worked on themselves to open
up a deeper and more awake part of themselves.
Q.
Learn to see the world in a new way?
SBB.
Yes. And out of that seeing, create a new and better and more
harmonious world. People say, for example, that there is not enough
kindness or love or wisdom in the world. This is nonsense. There is.
Only the problem is that these qualities are hidden. They are hidden
inside us because not enough of us know how to release them. Or we
can say that the way many of us live is not conducive to bringing
them up to the surface. Well, these qualities need to manifest.
Being wise and loving and courageous is so much more important than
say, speculating about whether Jesus the man really lived or not, or
whether the ‘true God’ is to be found in a particular religion!
In fact, many
spiritual seekers today are not especially concerned with religion.
And I am one of those. I am more interested in trying, in my
little way, to wake up to truth, to be of service to my fellow human
beings. I endeavour to ‘live ‘ out of the recognition that all of us
share a common ground of human beingness, and that everyone is my
brother and sister in spirit and that we are all important and
sacred and blessed in God’s eyes no matter whether we are rich or
poor, no matter what class, caste, colour, race, ideology or
religion we happen to belong to. To evolve attitudes such as these
are what I believe is important today as they affirm our
essential human unity.
Q.
It sounds like the spiritual seeker has a lot of responsibility?
SBB.
Eventually yes. Not so much at the start. But when a person’s
spiritual power grows and when their hearts begin opening, then they
have a real responsibility. The problem with our society today is
that it is set up to ensure that we take as little responsibility
for ourselves as possible. We are habituated to always giving our
power away to others. This leads to a culture of blame and passing
the buck. It is the result, as I just said, of not enough
consciousness or too much un –consciousness, which in
turn breeds greed, selfishness and fear.
Q.
So you are suggesting that a shift to a place of greater
consciousness and greater compassion, which you say is required if
our world is to ‘save itself’, happens more with spiritual people
than religious people?
SBB.
I am suggesting that it can happen in the life of anyone who works
on themselves to release their deeper human nature which I believe
contains many wonderful ingredients that tend to not be found in the
person who does not engage in this kind of work. The seeker, whether
he stands outside religion or inside it, must understand two things:
firstly, that it is his humanity that is important, not what
religion he happens to subscribe to, and secondly, that if his
humanity is to emerge, it has to be worked for. It is not ‘a given’
that you and I will be naturally wise, loving and mindful. We have
to discover how to cultivate these aspects of ourselves and also
have the courage to confront what in us may stand in the way. There
may be a lot of resistance. And this is a big challenge. Being
genuinely spiritual takes work.
What I am interested
in is spiritual values, and not all religious people hold spiritual
values. For example, those who hate people of different religions or
who wish to kill others who do not see the world in the same way
that they do, may be religious, but to my mind they are not
spiritual. Of course, many religious people are deeply spiritual and
open-hearted and allow themselves to be guided by a deeper part of
themselves. So anyhow, for the purposes of this talk, I am not
interested in whether a seeker happens to be a Christian, a Jew or a
Hindu, whether they are a Muslim or a Buddhist or nothing at all. I
am not interested in whether they like to worship in a temple, a
mosque or a church or out in nature or even on horseback (where one
client once told me was where she felt closest to God!) What is
important to me and what I see as being the seekers’ core challenge,
is: how consistent one is able to be in one’s commitment to truth,
how effective one is able to be in awakening to that divine, unitive
being that lies within the core of each of us and through which we
may connect to the very heart of life itself. . In fact, I will
quote from something which His Holiness the Dalai Lama recently
said.
‘ Spirituality I
take to be concerned with those qualities of the human spirit – such
as love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness,
contentment, a sense of responsibility, a sense of harmony – which
brings happiness to both self and others…’
He went on to add –
and this is the important bit;….
‘There is no reason
why the individual should not develop these, even to a high degree,
without recourse to any religious or metaphysical belief system.
This is why I sometimes say that religion is something we can
perhaps do without. What we cannot do without are these basic
spiritual qualities.’
This echoes what
another Tibetan Buddhist Lama, Thubten Yeshe, also said.
‘To completely
understand one’s own psychology, oneself, one’s own physics, I call
this Universal Education…In Buddhism we have an incredible
arrangement, a universal education beginning at birth until death…I
feel these things could be put in a universal language. Give up
religion. Give up Buddhism. Go beyond the Buddhism. Put the
essential aspect of the philosophy into scientific language. This I
feel is my aim. We need a new education for a new world. Because all
the education is no longer up to date for the present intelligent
people.’
Q.
This sums up your viewpoint?
SBB.
Totally.
Q.
So you are anti-religious then?
SBB. I
think I have made it clear; I am interested in spirituality. When
people ask me what religion I am, I reply that I am drawn to the
deep wisdom that is shared by all the great world religions. I tell
them that I have been touched by different spiritual teachers who
come from different traditions, that I am comfortable in the
presence of people of different religions, that I feel comfortable
in all sacred places, but that personally, I cannot say that I am
part of any tradition.. Yes, as a boy, I was brought up a Christian
and have obviously been influenced by Christianity, but I am also
very moved by Buddhist thought and by the Sufi way and one of my
major teachers was a Hindu. And yes, I pray to Jesus but I also call
upon other enlightened teachers to help me. And increasingly I am
finding more and more people who feel the same way, and who are more
interested in allowing themselves to be touched by spirit than
worrying about what form or what methodology is required to have
this come about. For example, I have had far deeper connections
with the divine in deserts and mountains than in churches, and when
I take people on sacred
retreats, those are the kinds of places I take them to. We all
need different transformational catalysts, and many of us, like
myself, need pure, wild and natural things around ourselves to
remind us of our own natural, wild pure self, and nothing is more
natural than nature. When I am out in wild nature, I am much more of
a space for the divine to communicate with me….
Q. …..Then
when you are sitting in a church?
SBB.
Precisely.
EMERGENCE
OF A NEW SPIRITUAL ORDER
I believe that all
aspiring spiritual seekers today must understand something of the
times that they are doing their seeking in, and one of the first
things to realise is that, despite, or perhaps even because of, the
many crises that abound in all arenas of life, a new spiritual
‘zeitgeist’ is in the air, a new spiritual order is wanting to
emerge on the planet, and that it is essentially being ‘birthed’
through the seeker, that is, through those people today the world
over, who experience a genuine impulse to evolve and be the best
kind of person they could be.
As the seeker begins
to journey more deeply into themselves, they are challenged to sense
how this new ‘spirit of our times’ seems to want to manifest in
their personal lives and what to do to best co-operate with it. This
is so important. Today, the seeker needs to be forward, not
backward, looking, and perhaps, if he or she is not part of any
particular tradition, the advantages are that, one, they are freer
to explore whatever it is that can best help them with their
journeying at any time, and secondly, it is easier to avoid becoming
stuck in potentially outmoded attitudes to spirituality which may be
both irrelevant and detrimental to the free spirit.
Q.
Yes. You spoke of the fact that transformation is not a ‘given and
that there was a need for inner work if transformation is to come
about.
SBB.
Absolutely. And in this context, the seeker must understand that
there are many different ways for him or her (I’ll in future refer
to the seeker as ‘he’ for convenience’s sake) to work on themselves
if they wish to open up their spiritual sensibilities. Inner work is
always determined by what the seeker’s particular path is, where he
is along it and what he happens to be encountering in his life at
any particular time. I stress again: I don’t think ‘God cares’ what
religion we belong to or how many Holy Scriptures we can quote from.
I think God is much more interested in how human we are becoming,
how much we are able to express human qualities in our daily lives
and how much we are therefore able to contribute to the health and
well being of our world. What is important is that the seeker be
sincere and that he has his
spiritual journeying be a central and integral part of his life.
Q.
You are suggesting the seeker walk his talk.
SBB.
Absolutely. Saying clever things about love, for instance, doesn’t
necessarily imply we are especially loving. However, being loving to
others, thinking in a loving way – that is what is important. And it
does not happen overnight.
DEFINING SPIRITUALITY
Q.
Could you define spirituality a bit more precisely for me?
SBB.
I think I will leave this task to the late U Thant who used to be
the Secretary-General to the United Nations, as the following words
are the best description I know.
‘Spirituality is a
state of connectedness to life. It is an experience of being,
belonging and caring. It is sensitivity and compassion, joy and
hope. It is the harmony between the innermost life and the outer
life, or the life of the world and the life universal. It is the
supreme comprehension of life in time and space, a tuning of the
inner person with the great mysteries and secrets that are all
around us. It is the belief in the goodness of life and the
possibility for each person to contribute goodness to it. It is the
belief in life as part of the eternal stream of time and that each
of us came from somewhere and is destined somewhere, but without
such belief, there could be no prayer, no peace, no meditation and
no happiness.’
Q.
Beautiful words. And linking the personal with the universal. And no
mention of religion!
SBB.
Absolutely.
THE
CHALLENGES OF THE SEEKER IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Q.
Do you think the same principles apply if one is a Seeker on the
path today as opposed to say, fifty years ago?
SBB.
The same spiritual principles apply. They are timeless. What
changes, of course, is the environment or the culture that the
seeker is operating in. I think we are all faced with more
challenges today, than, say, half a century ago and life is more
complicated. Also, we are facing more serious crises. Thus our
spirituality needs to be incorporated with all the many changes that
are taking place in our world, especially technological ones. In
addition, there are far more people ‘hearing the call’ than there
were, say half a century ago. And while the seeker is still viewed
as a bit of an oddball in many circles, he is not seen as being
‘completely mad’, which tended to be the attitude in the past. I
remember in the late 60’s, when I was embarking on my
spiritual journey, talking about love and peace, studying yoga
and meditation, being vegetarian and being interested in things like
wind power and ‘alternative medicine’ (today it is complimentary
medicine!) and ‘raising our awareness’ – I remember a lot of people
thinking I was completely mad! And that was painful.
Also, we are living
in more of a ‘global age’ than we were half a century ago and so our
spirituality is becoming globalised or planetised - and I use these
words in the sense that today our planet is being included much more
in our ‘spiritual thinking’. In part, this is because all the many
problems that were ‘beginning’ half a century ago, have now
worsened, and people are saying to themselves ‘What is the point of
trying to know God if the environment we are living in collapses
around us or if we blow ourselves up. The two things need to be
linked up.’ Certainly the idea of an eco-warrior never existed until
quite recently.
One of the major
differences then, is that today, spiritual seekers are much more
involved with their world and with social issues than in the past.
Fifty years ago, the seeker was much more on a personal journey of
self-discovery. In the fifties, for example, there was no
environmental movement. Global warming wasn’t an issue.
Globalisation wasn’t an issue. In other words, many Seekers are
realising that recognising themselves as being part of the larger
whole is not merely a nice abstract ‘spiritual concept’; rather it
is choosing to be who one really is. Therefore the aim of ascending
into our universal human identity (which for many seekers, is high
up on their agenda) is not ‘adding something on’; it is actually
realising our true nature. In other words, the idea of our ‘having a
duty towards our fellow humans and our planet’ is not separate from
honouring the gradual emergence of our ‘deeper human us’. Simply
put, we - or you and I - are them and they are us. We are not
separate from the person seated opposite us in the tube!
I am not saying that
this realisation didn’t exist in the past, only that it is more
explicit today. More Seekers are beginning to ‘get this’ in their
bellies and hearts as opposed to it being an interesting idea
located in their heads! Also, today, at the start of the
twenty-first century, because our world situation is that much more
precarious, the seeker is challenged with having more dimensions of
life to try to integrate, more responsibilities to be mindful of.
Many more advanced seekers today, for example, report experiencing
themselves very specifically as being part of ‘the voice of Gaia’,
our Mother Earth - part of her thinking and feeling, part of her
consciousness. They recognise that as Gaia is evolving, that they,
as aspects of her body-mind, are being propelled along with her. So
yes, today the scope is bigger, the range of operation is greater.
The seeker is ultimately involved in social, human-collective and
global and, in some instances, cosmic, as well as personal issues.
But I stress that this does not happen immediately as a person
embarks on the path. The journey is composed of many different
stages that the Seeker needs to go through and complete A whole lot
of preparatory work is needed before a seeker is ready to ‘take on’
this ‘larger universal responsibility.’
Q.
But there is still a lot on the Seeker’s plate who is just starting
out on the path.
SBB.
Absolutely. There is another issue too, that makes our challenges
today all the greater, and that is the issue of time. We have all
got to ‘hurry up with it’, for if our planet is to have any chance
of surviving, a whole lot of shifts need to happen quickly, which in
turn means that the seeker has to do a lot of speedy transforming.
There is no time for dilly dallying. In the past, this did not
apply, and the seeker could take his time. Now he cannot. Dr James
Lovelock, the inventor of the |Gaia hypothesis, for example, has
recently hypothesised that, due to our unwise ways, humanity has now
gone beyond the point of no return – global warming cannot
now be averted - and it is simply a question of our surviving the
destruction. Personally, I am not as pessimistic, but it shows the
new and urgent nature of our challenge. In the past, the spiritual
seeker could think about adopting new, planet-friendly
lifestyles. Today, he is absolutely compelled to do so. I stress
again: our talk absolutely has to be walked.
I also think that
there exists a connection between the crisis situation we are all in
today, and this ‘speeding up’ of the whole evolutionary process.
Bearing in mind what I said at the start, namely that only
transformed men and women can create a better world, we can say that
this makes for a powerful incentive today to wish to be in such a
position. World pain is evoking a powerful transformational impulse
in certain segments of humanity. At one level, the problems of our
world are the problems created by the fact of our ‘evolutionary
incompleteness’- the fact that so many of us have not advanced
beyond the stage of being identified with our egoic ‘mind set and
the whole lack of humanity which this engenders. People are
realising this much more deeply than it was realised, say, fifty
years ago.
THE
EGO ISSUE
Q.
Could you define exactly what you mean by the egoic vision?
SBB.
I said egoic mind set. Ego has no vision. That is just the problem.
Ego makes us feel separate, disconnected from others and thus
insecure and primarily out for our own survival.
Q.
Would you say that the ‘worldview’ of America under George Bush
today personifies this mind set?
SBB.
It is a good example of the distorted ego, yes. In fact, the
whole Neocon perspective is totally egotistical, totally centred
around what is perceived to be in America’s own self interest. The
‘new world order’ according to Bush has nothing to do with thinking
about what might best serve the well being of our planet, the larger
world community and what role the great nation of America might have
to play in this arena. Quite the opposite. The Bush world view is
totally un-spiritual. In fact, Bush is a good example of someone
who is fervently religious but completely un-spiritual. In no way is
he in touch with what we can call ‘the soul of America’ or the
‘higher vision’ for his country, and therefore able to see his great
nation as having an important unifying role to play in the world. In
fact, this absence of any understanding of what the ‘larger whole’
needs, excellently characterises the inherent ‘small-mindedness’ of
ego, and so long as a person or a nation is solely possessed by
their egoic identity and has no desire to recognise that anything
might exist beyond it, then there is very little room for anything
deeper or more spiritual to emerge.
Q.
I see.
SBB.
The whole Bush world view with all the violence and dissimulation
which it engenders, is a prime example of what needs to crumble and
die if we are to have a better world come into being .The Bulgarian
Master Peter Deunov, talked about the need for a new ‘culture of
Love’ to emerge, a culture where humanity would operate from a place
of recognising the common human ground we all share despite our
differences. Well, if this new culture is to emerge, it can only be
brought into being by men and women who are themselves coming from
love, that is, who will have worked on opening their hearts and
realising their own essentially unitive nature.
Q.
As opposed to coming from ego?
SBB.
Exactly. And one of the biggest challenges for all Seekers today is
the ego challenge.
Q.
It seems as if the seeker’s task today is monumental. So much to do
and so little time to do it in.
SBB.
It may seem like that but in fact it is not like that. Each seeker
is challenged to do what his soul bequeathment is. And this is what
we need to discern. No one can do everything and if we feel we
should, then it is probably our egos speaking., Part of my little
contribution, for example, is through the spoken and written word.
It is my challenge to give myself enough time and space to do this
kind of work. Not to be an eco-warrior or a musician or an activist.
I’ll leave that up to others. Actually, in my next dialogue, we will
look at the many different spiritual paths that exist. This is
helpful as each of us has a very different kind of spiritual path to
tread, and it is important that we recognise what it is and
therefore engage in the kind of activities that are right for us -
and not, as I said, feel we need to do it all! Because we can’t!
SPIRITUAL HELP
There is another
important factor to be considered here and this factor I’ll call
‘spiritual help’. There is a tremendous amount of this kind of help
available to us at this time. Our predicament as a species is so
dire that this is evoking a great deal of assistance from the higher
spiritual worlds. In fact, we can say that these ‘higher worlds’ are
drawing much closer to us at this time, and that this is
considerably helping to speed up our spiritual unfolding.
Q.
Spiritual help. Higher worlds drawing closer. I’m lost here. Please
explain.
SBB.
Remember I said that we all live in a multidimensional universe, and
that the spiritual seeker, unlike ‘normal man’, is engaged in trying
to open the doors to reach into these other worlds of being?
Q.
Yes.
SBB.
Well, he does this because he realises that his true, deeper nature
is to be found in these other dimensions of existence. They are both
inside and outside of us. OK. We can say that other, very highly
evolved beings - beings of light - beings who don’t have bodies as
we do, beings who may have been great Masters and Saints in prior
earthly incarnations – ‘live’ or have their prime focus of
existence, in these higher dimensions, and these beings are, we can
say, the lieutenants of God. Because they have realised their own
God consciousness and therefore are one with God, they can help
carry out the will of God and try to communicate that intention to
us. We can say that they are aware of the ‘cosmic plan’ - or the
plan for the human race existing, if you like, in the mind and heart
of God and are able to ‘step down’ that information and make it
communicable to the seeker. These helping forces then, assist us by
transmitting spiritual thoughts to us; they support the seeker with
his inner work. And to the extent that we are ‘awake’ to their
frequencies – and this is very important, if we are not on their
wavelength, we won’t receive any ‘transmission’ - so they will
inspire us with visions of what a new culture of love might look
like and how best to bring it into expression.
Q.
But you say we need to be ‘tuned’ into them.
SBB.
Yes. To be clear or ‘static free’ enough inside ourselves, as I
said, to hear. And the more we reach out in our awareness to ask for
their support, the more we draw them close to us.
Q.
So the person not interested in their awakening, or ‘normal man’, as
you would put it, is presumably not touched by these beings of
light?
SBB.
On the whole, yes. Normal man, or egoically-centred man (man not
consciously on a quest) has probably not developed a frequency in
himself that allows him to ‘vibrate with’ these helping forces.
Therefore, he is not aware of them. So whether we receive this
special help or not, depends a great deal upon where our awareness
happens to be focussed at any time. Are we ‘tuned’ into the
spiritual worlds or are we only focussed on our own little me
first/egoic reality? As an analogy, we can say that there are many
channels on television but if our set is only programmed to pick up
a few of them, then that is all we will pick up. Because we don’t
pick up the other channels does not mean they don’t exist.
Q.
Any more you can say about these beings of light?
SBB.
They are given different names in the esoteric texts. Some call them
the Spiritual Hierarchy, others the Masters of Wisdom. The late John
Bennett referred to them as the ‘Hidden Directorate.’ I like to call
them our unseen helpers and to stress again that because of world
need, they have come much closer to us, therefore making it much
easier for us – especially if, as I said, we consciously call upon
their help, which we can do in our prayers and meditations – to make
progress in our spiritual endeavours.
In addition, each of
us have our own personal spirit guides and angelic presences that we
can also call upon for assistance if we want. Often, we don’t
receive their support because we do not ask for it. Just because we
cannot see these presences doesn’t mean they do not exist.
Q.
So we need to ask for help?
SBB.
Yes. Ask and ye shall receive. If we don’t believe, then we can just
throw up requesting thoughts. ‘ Spirit guides. I am not sure if you
exist but if you do, please come close to me; please help me, please
guide me and give me courage and insight…’
LIVING AT A TIME OF A SPIRITUAL RENAISSANCE
Q.
Thank you, that is interesting. May I ask you this? The times we are
living in have been described by certain people as a Spiritual
Renaissance. Do you agree?
SBB.
Very much so. That is why it is such a great privilege to be doing
our spiritual seeking at this particular moment in our human
history, as we are living at the dawning of something very profound
and very cosmic. Whereas the first Renaissance which was born in
Italy, and mainly centred itself in Europe, was about the emergence
of our individuality from the dark ages of medievalism, this
‘second Renaissance’ which is happening all over the planet, is all
about our awakening, as I mentioned earlier, beyond the ‘dark ages’
of our individuality to a new and deeper identification with
ourselves as universal and ultimately as cosmic beings. And it is
behind all the many ‘new impulses’ or innovations taking place in
every single field of human endeavour. It is also one of the main
reasons why there is so much chaos and confusion around, for in
order to have innovation, many of our old, outmoded forms are
needing to ‘die’! To quote Tennyson (from his poem on the death of
King Arthur): ‘The old order changeth, yielding place to new.’
This is what we are all living through today.
Q.
The collapse of the old order?
SBB.
Yes, socially, politically, economically, and inside ourselves
personally. And the Seeker today, alive at the cusp of this new
‘Copernican Revolution’, is the midwife of this innovation. In other
words, it is you and I, as we reach up and out to spirit and try to
intuit the new ideas as they ‘come down’ into incarnation –who are
challenged to find the new forms to house the new spirit, to create
the new bottles for the new wine. A big challenge. Is this clear?
Q.
It is.
NEW
AGE’ SPIRITUALITY
Q.
I am imagining
that when you talk of this new, non-religious spirituality, you are
referring to what is commonly known as New Age spirituality?
SBB.
No, I am not referring to new age spirituality. Just because we
happen to be living at a time when a new age is being born and an
old one is dying, does not make all non-religious spirituality ‘New
Age.’ Let me quote you what David Tacey in ‘The Spirituality
Revolution’ says about The New Age.
‘What is called the
‘New Age’,
he suggests, ‘ Is a kind of parody of the new world about to be
born. The New Age, as this term is currently used, is frequently an
exploitation of the new public interest in the spirit, rather than a
creative response to it. Because the spirituality revolution is
rising from below, and not from above, it is vulnerable to
commercial manipulation and unscrupulous interest…’ He goes on
to say that ‘We have to be alert at every
turn to possible abuse, violation and distortion of the spiritual
principle…There has been a tendency to lump everything spiritual
into the category ‘New Age’ ……’
I wouldn’t be quite
as harsh. I’d say that the New Age represents a kind of
‘primary-school’ spirituality, which some seekers, en route to
greater depth, need temporarily to pass through. The new age is
exciting or glamorous spirituality; it’s often about what I’ll even
call an egotisation of the sacred. This spirituality tends to be
exotic; it tends to include a fascination with phenomena, with the
latest glamorous, bearded guru, or the latest gadget or process to
make you feel good.
Q.
This is bad?.
SBB.
No. It is not bad. It just is. It’s a stage some of us pass through.
And it is not without benefit. Look at it this way: some would-be
seekers who are still very ego-identified, would not be drawn
towards spirituality at all unless it was presented with a glossy
cover and sugar-coated. And it may be that through tasting a
superficial spirituality, one may later be drawn to something more
substantial, which, initially, one had not been ready for.
Q.
That’s an interesting perspective.
SBB.
It is just an opinion. I am suggesting that the new age is a
particular stage that some seekers (not all) may need to pass
through, whereby, not yet ready to move beyond ego identification,
they have access to a ‘domain of being’ that can be used to make
them feel better, bolster up their ego image. The commercialisation
that Tacey speaks of, is simply one aspect of its dark side. The New
Age is not only commercial.
Q.
But we elect for it, you say, because we are not yet ready for
something deeper?
SBB.
Exactly. We cannot run, spiritually, before we can walk. The
spiritual worlds need to be entered into gradually and if we are not
yet very deep, then depth spirituality will not be for us. Here,
however, the challenge is for us not to become hooked into the new
age’s commercialisation or the belief that spirituality should be
exotic, and so remain fixated into it, when in fact one needs to
move on beyond it. The truth is that real spirituality is not
glamorous at all, in fact the deeper we go, the more ‘ordinary’ it
may feel, but so long as we need the pizzazz, we won’t be drawn to
it.
That said, one of
the great benefits of New Age spirituality is that it focuses a lot
on the positive; it can help remind us that our true state is an
abundant one, and if this has to begin to be experienced at an egoic
level, then so be it. There is a possibility later of the idea of
abundance shifting to a subtler level. But can you see how this
might be liberating for those Seekers - and there are a whole lot
of them - who find themselves mired in self-criticism and thinking
about themselves in a negative way?
Q.
I can. A lot of people think about themselves very negatively..
CHOOSING THE POSITIVE
SBB.
Exactly. New age spirituality, therefore, can help some people not
take themselves so heavily, which certainly is a characteristic of
many traditional religions, and which can often produce, in my
opinion, pretty grim and humourless kinds of people, as if being
‘close to God’ means you ‘should’ be heavy, unhealthy and suffer and
sacrifice yourself all the time! If these characteristics featured
strongly in the religiosity of our past, I don’t think they should
of our future. It is not what the new zeitgeist is all about. What
did Teilhard de Chardin once say? He said: ‘Joy is a sign of the
presence of God.’ I believe that. If we can learn to feel joy as a
basic ingredient in our lives, it is much easier to face pain and
not run away from it; it becomes much easier to confront the dark
side of life.
Q.
And you feel the new age can help prepare us for this?
SBB.
Potentially, yes. Indeed, a lot of new age spirituality focuses on
our consciously choosing states of greater joy and well being. This
is not ‘being indulgent’ and hedonistic. On the contrary. Most
people fall into indulgence simply as a respite for not enjoying
life! The so-called ‘playboy’ is generally a repressed person who
actually may not enjoy himself as much as is believed! Also, there
is a myth that we don’t evolve through joy. I don’t subscribe to
this. The only reason that many of us don’t grow when we feel good
is that it can, if we allow it, make us ‘go to sleep’ again!
In other words, we can get lazy, whereas often when we’re in pain,
we may have little alternative but to sharpen up.
I therefore think
one of the seekers’ great challenges today is to remember to choose
joy and happiness and at the same time, remember to stay wakeful and
sharp. And for this we need to be doing plenty of work on ourselves,
observing ourselves, staying in touch with what is going on with
ourselves at all times, doing our best not to repress anything that
we happen to be experiencing. We don’t feel joy by repressing our
sadness. Joy often comes through our fully experiencing the counter
emotions, thus allowing them to pass through us and beyond us.
As I said earlier
on, this is precisely what tends not to happen with many traditional
religions, where people don’t really ‘work on themselves’ and where,
instead of owning and facing their shadow or dark sides, they often
‘strive to be good’ by trying to ‘kill off’ evil, that is, they
repress their dark side via will power. And this, of course, never
works. The disowned evil, instead of being transformed – metabolised
- is instead projected outside of ourselves onto others.
Q.
Dumped.
SBB.
Precisely. If this is the case, we need to be on the alert as it can
potentially carry us back to our past as opposed to forward to our
future, as many of us today still carry strong memories of our
Judeo-Christian repressed past, where crucifixion was seen as
superior to resurrection, where suffering was regarded as a prime
virtue to be cultivated, and where guilt was strong and martyrdom
often regarded as evidence of ‘high spiritual attainment’! We
especially see this being acted out in many of the Fundamentalist
traditions today, where certain extremists place prefer to court
death as opposed to celebrating life.
FUNDAMENTALISM
Q.
I presume then, that the New Spirituality does not include
Fundamentalism?
SBB.
You presume right. All Fundamentalisms, no matter what religious
denomination, look back to the past. They are all about repression.
The ‘devil’ is always outside them, never within, so there is never
any taking responsibility for one’s own shadow. Let me quote you
again what Tacey has said.
‘The regressive
appeal of the religious fundamentalists has to be taken seriously at
this time. After September 11th…all of us should be
concerned about the rising tide of fundamentalism, especially within
the three monotheisms: Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. In the
contemporary world, where so much is open and uncertain, where
traditions have been shaken or overturned….there is a strong desire
for absolute certainty, religious security and nostalgic
traditionalism….Fundamentalisms offer us a parodic version of our
need to turn back to the past, only here the turn back is a
full-blown regression, a deliberate and systematic retreat from the
demands and revolutions of the modern period. This is not going back
in order to move forward, but going back to escape the tensions and
complexities of a difficult present…….Fundamentalism also supplies a
distorted version of the past: its past is largely invented, a
projection of regressive social values and anti-modern perspectives
into an imagined former era. In the same way that the new Age seeks
to ape our spiritual future, so fundamentalism seeks to mimic our
past.’
Q.
I see.
SBB.
Fundamentalism is all about what can happen when a spiritual impulse
gets hijacked by a fearful and somewhat wounded ego.
Q.
So what advice do you give to the seeker about the New Age and
Fundamentalism?
SBB.
About the new age, I would say that if ingredients of it attract
you, go for it. But keep your eyes open; be mindful of its dark and
manipulative side and do not stay seduced by its glamours and so
overstay your time in this domain.. When you feel your emotional
life is stronger and you feel better, it may then be time to move
on. Regarding Fundamentalism, stay away. More than anything else
today, this distorted and fanatical impulse threatens to destroy and
dehumanise anything and everything that is beautiful, loving and
sacred in our world.
DEFINING THE NEW SPIRITUALITY
Q.
OK. You have said what you don’t like about the old spirituality.
How would you define the new spirituality?
SBB.
My vision is of a spirituality needed for the very complex times we
are living in, and I see this as being a spirituality that
celebrates our whole being, a spirituality where we are challenged
to take all of who we are - all parts and aspects of ourselves - to
God, and not leave some parts of us on the shelf as not being
‘god-like’ enough. In other words, a spirituality of fullness and
wholeness, a spirituality where eros and agape can dance in harmony
together, where male and female and Appollo and Dionysius can begin
to integrate, a spirituality challenging us to be the fullest human
being we can be and where we can allow ourselves to move beyond the
many dualities of good and bad, high, and low, right or wrong!
I see this new
spirituality as being a life-befriending one .It has a reverence for
everything on this planet. It challenges the seeker to be a friend –
a true and loyal friend – to all of life: animal, vegetable and
mineral as well as human. This spirituality is one that is tolerant
of all human differences and respects our shared human unity. It
accepts homosexuality. It celebrates women. It respects human
rights. It honours children. It is a spirituality of love and
compassion, a spirituality of kindness, integrity, intelligence and
awe. Nothing in life is to be denied and the aim is to discover the
soul or the mystery and beauty in all that is, be it in ourselves,
other people, our work, nature, whatever.
And unless our
vocation is to be that of a nun or a monk, in which case it is
natural for us to be cloistered away, we don’t run from the part of
life that I have referred to as the ‘normal or real world’.
Instead, the seeker operates from within it. He faces civilisation
and its discontents. He sees it as being there to challenge him. He
seeks to be ‘In it but not of it’, as Gurdjieff would say. He does
not, as in the past, avoid materiality, rather he recognises that it
is important to have this side of his life work and that he needs to
discover its spiritual face. And if the seeker encounters the forces
of untruth or darkness, he looks them directly in the eye; trying to
find the light in the darkness, the truth in the untruth.
EMBODIMENT
This new
spirituality, as I have been stressing, needs to be one of
embodiment; it needs to be talked and walked, smelt and felt,
breathed, laughed and celebrated. It needs to exist in our bones and
in our cells and in our sex life and in our work life and be
celebrated in all our relationships with life. It must reach into us
as a parent or a son or a daughter or a spouse and must be
trans-national. We may be a citizen of Italy or Russia and we
respect our country of origin and we seek to embody something of the
soul of our nation. But we do not take refuge in that identity for
we realise that we also have a wider identity that also needs
respecting, namely, that of being a citizen of our planet and
ultimately of our cosmos. That, very briefly, is the new
spirituality I espouse.
Q.
I presume that when you talk of embodiment, you mean that we also
include our bodies, that they also ‘accompany’ us on our
transformational journey.
SBB.
Very much so, in contrast to many traditional religions which have
often tended to exclude or even vilify them. For example, saints of
the past were only ‘allowed’ to be holy from the neck up and only
had haloes drawn around their heads. Today, the seeker has to
realise that not only must he not exclude his body from his
spiritual endeavours but that an integral part of his becoming whole
is that he is also works to purify and strengthen it. Unless it
becomes purged of toxins, unless it becomes strong and supple with
its cellular intelligence being consciously activated, the seeker
will have difficulty processing the high-frequency vibrations of
this new spiritual dispensation. And to the extent that we
consciously allow spiritual light to flow through our bodies, they
will be resistant to many of the new viruses that are prevalent in
the world today. This is why it is so important that the seeker
really takes care of his physicals health, eats properly, exercises
properly, takes time out to fast, and, if he feels so moved, engages
in activities like yoga and tai chi, all of which strengthen his
body’s subtle intelligence.
The seeker is also
of course, challenged to work with his emotions and his intellect to
ensure that his deeper essence, as it emerges, is reflected through
them. The Indian sage Sri Aurobindo talked about the need for man to
evolve a ‘higher mind’ which he referred to as the Supramental
awareness. This higher mind gradually comes into being as the seeker
opens up to deeper spiritual understandings and is able, via
meditation, to quieten what in the East is often referred to as the
‘monkey mind’, or that part of our mentality that is always
restless and jumping from one thought to another.
Q.
An activity that presumably stops us going deeper.
CHANGING LIFESTYLES
SBB.
Yes. Peacefulness of being is a prime requisite if we are to embrace
our spiritual depths. Another thing that the serious seeker has to
realise, if he is to commit to living a more authentic spiritual
life, is that certain features of his old lifestyle which may
militate against this, may need to be let go of. This may not be
necessary at the beginning of the seeker’s journey, but it will be
later on as his process deepens. In all likelihood, as more
dimensions of life begin opening up for him, the seeker may find
himself becoming increasingly estranged from many of his old
habit-patterns as well as from certain old friends whose values and
attitudes may no longer be aligned with the new direction that he is
now finding himself headed.
Q.
So, despite what you said about the new spirituality not being about
sacrifice, it seems that the opposite is the case. Surely there is
not a lot of joy in giving up one’s old friends and old pursuits!
SBB.
Actually, the opposite is the case. There is a saying in India:’
When the fruit is ripe it falls off the tree,’ meaning as a person
transforms, they find that they no longer want to participate in
many of the activities which in the past used to delight them.
These begin to drop away quite naturally, like a snake shedding its
skin. And the same holds true of certain old friends, as the seeker
finds that he now requires a deeper kind of nourishing which perhaps
they cannot give them. And so a distance grows. Yes, there may be
comfort in our past simply because of its familiarity, but the truth
is that as we evolve, a lot of the things which we used to desire
lose their allure. In my own case, for example, in the past the
superficial life used to delight me. It gave me pleasure to try to
hang out with the ‘in crowd’ and engage in small talk with glamorous
people. I loved all that jazz! It was where I was focussed and the
level I used to live at. As I began embracing a more spiritual path,
this began to drop away quite quickly. It became a huge relief to no
longer desire all this superficial paraphernalia. Instead, I found
myself moved to live a simpler life – eat simpler and feel moved to
engage with people who were genuine and aware, and where our
dialogue could be more substantial. It was much more fun and
energising for me.
Q.
So no sacrifice?
SBB.
No. None at all. In fact, the opposite is true. It would be a
sacrifice to return to my old, high-consuming life! I think that
today I enjoy myself more than I used to because now very small
things can give me a great deal of pleasure. Living in a simpler way
or having a less complicated life, is actually a blessing. It does
not mean I dress in sackcloth and ashes, only live on wheat grass
juice and never party or enjoy going out for a good meal! In fact
the opposite is true. Only I enjoy more with less. As my creative
life deepens, (and embracing depth spirituality always does this for
us) I find that less and less am I in need of being entertained.
And it is such a freedom not trying to keep up with the Jones’.
Today, because I am able to live by embracing a few more dimensions
of life, I am able to have more quality and require less quantity
and this frees me from all that ‘status anxiety’ that is so
prevalent in our existing culture.
Q.
Your value system has shifted.
SBB.
Yes. And the shift is a total-being shift. It’s not just an
intellectual one. Intellectual shifts are seldom ever embodied. That
is why so few people make the transition to a simpler, less
consumer-ish way of living simply as a result of knowing it would be
a good idea and is necessary for our human survival. It does not
happen because our being is still attached to, or addicted to, our
old ways of living. If we try to give something up that we still
hanker for, then that is a sacrifice. If I still yearned to be in
with the in crowd, but didn’t allow myself to because I thought it
‘bad’ or ‘unspiritual’, then I’d simply be in denial.
Q.
Can you tell me please how this ‘fuller life’ you speak of, ties in
with what you said earlier about facing our dark side?
SBB.
Yes. We humans
are rather like an iceberg, where only a tiny part is visible above
water, and the vaster part lies submerged - in shadow. If we wish
to be whole, we need to be able to reclaim more of who we are, that
is, work at learning to be conscious of and to integrate, all sorts
of aspects of ourselves that we are still unconscious of. In a
subsequent talk, I explore in great detail how we can effectively
engage in this shadow work.
DISCOMFORT
Q.
From everything
you say, however, it is clear to me that being a seeker is not
always a comfortable occupation. I can now better understand the
wisdom of that remark ‘Ignorance is Bliss.’
SBB.
I would question whether ignorance really is bliss or merely a state
of numbness where pain is not present. But you are absolutely
correct about the discomfort. Trying to ‘go for truth’, trying to
live an awake life, trying to break out of old comfort zones that
the seeker realises can be entrapping to his free spirit - this does
not always make for comfortable living. But who said life should
always be comfortable or that it’s comfortable being comfortable all
the time! I think one can die of excess comfort, as no effort is
ever required! Comfort and consciousness are not especially close
bed-fellows! As such, the seeker must sometimes be prepared for
discomfort. And sometimes for sorrow as well. For example, there is
the condition known as ‘the Dark Night of the Soul’ which I will be
discussing at length in other talks, where the seeker goes into a
very deep and dark part of his shadow and may feel incredibly bereft
and abandoned by God. But the flip side of all this is the huge joy
and aliveness that comes out of trying to live an aware and awake
life. Often this joy can be felt right in the middle of discomfort.
The joy is in feeling awake!
Q.
As you mentioned earlier, it can be painful when the seeker feels
seen as a bit of an oddball.
SBB.
Or, conversely, not seen at all. This tends to be more irksome at
the start of the journey, when the seeker does not yet have that
much confidence in his spirituality and may not yet have a secure
sense of self.
Q.
So why is he seen as an oddball?
SBB.
Because what I’ll simply call the conventional or ‘normal’ viewpoint
tends to be a narrow one. This mindset cannot see the point of
‘spirituality’. And what it cannot understand is deemed either not
to exist or to be weird and silly. In addition, the normal person
may, deep-down, feel unsure about his life, may secretly feel it is
a bit empty and so may envy the seeker for seeming to possess
something that he feels he hasn’t, and in his envy, may wish to put
him down.
But the challenges
are bigger than that. In fact the kind of challenges facing a seeker
trying to evolve in a ‘normal’ world - trying to be ‘In it but not
of it’ - can be summed up by these remarks by an old friend of mine
who has quite recently began embracing the spiritual path. Like many
seekers, she needs to support herself financially by working in the
conventional world, and currently she is going through a lot of
stress and angst not because of anything pathological but as a
result of her expanding very quickly. (In later talks, I will be
expanding upon the particular problems that speedy growth can
engender.) Basically, she needs space: space to rest, space away
from her busy outer life so she can consolidate herself inwardly.
She needs time off.
But she cannot get
this. ’Imagine’, she said to me the other day, ‘If I went up to my
boss and said ‘Look, I am doing a lot of inner growth work, I’m
going through a spiritual emergency so please give me time off just
to be!’ He would sack me on the spot.’ So the whole process of the
seeker’s being able to integrate their inner and their outer worlds
can be difficult especially if their outer existence needs to be
earned out of a work culture that is pretty ‘bottom line.’
Q.
Which is one reason why we need your ‘culture of Love’.
SBB.
Precisely.
THE
EGO ISSUE
Q.
Could you say a little more about the ego, which you touched on
earlier and gave the example of American foreign policy as an
illustration of the distorted ego in action? You suggested that the
ego issue is probably the biggest spiritual challenge the seeker
faces.
SBB.
I think it probably is.
Q.
So let me ask you this. One of the main purposes of being on a path,
many spiritual teachers tell us, is to transcend ego, to become
egoless, to get rid of ego. Ego is the great enemy. I imagine you
concur with this opinion?
SBB.
I am afraid I do not. Do you remember my saying that the new
spirituality is about respecting all aspects of ourselves? What this
means is that we don’t turn parts of ourselves into our enemy. If we
do, then those parts of ourselves will see us as the enemy in return
and will retaliate. And living a life where we are always fighting
with our ego in the name of ‘being spiritual’, is not really a very
effective way to be. Just because someone or something or some part
of ourselves is in opposition to us, does not necessarily make them
the enemy. Look at party politics or sport. The whole point of
having a strong opposition is that it can evoke the best out of one.
Labour need a strong Tory party to oppose them, and in sport, often
having an excellent opponent can help raise one’s game. In my own
life, for example, it was essentially the pain that my own ego or my
own ‘opposition’ brought me, that actually took me to want to be on
a path and find ‘something else - a better way to live - in the
first place. Maybe if I had not been in emotional pain around my ego
issues, I might never have been drawn to want to go deeper.
Q.
Interesting.
SBB.
So at this level, my ego can be said to be my friend ‘inviting’ me
to move beyond it. So OK. I say that we all need some ego.
Ego allows us also to do a lot of things that we do unconsciously,
such as drive a car, for example. It connects us, at one level, to
the doing of practical things in the normal three-dimensional
space-time world. And the name of the ‘spiritual game’ is not to
deny or exclude this world, but gradually to become less and less
dominated by it, so that we can learn to be in it but live out of a
deep and sacred place inside us where we feel increasingly connected
to our source and where the egoic part of us becomes our servant not
our master.
Q.
You mean be in it but not be of it?
SBB.
|Exactly. However, the ego doesn’t just come into a subservient
state just like that. It takes time and a lot of work, and,
interestingly, we cannot begin to let go ego dominance until we have
first developed a strong ego. This is why, for many seekers, the
‘new age’ phase of using spirituality to shore up ego and help us
feel better about ourselves, can often be an important one. In other
words, we cannot surrender something we have never properly evolved,
and ego development is a very integral part of our human
development. People who have never gone through a proper ego
development stage and who have weak or wounded egos – they are the
dysfunctional ones; they are our sociopaths and psychopaths, our
real weirdoes. Loners who murder people generally have insufficient
ego development.
Q.
So it is not just a question of becoming egoless
SBB.
No. The ego needs to dissolve at the right time and if that happens
prematurely, before it is properly developed, it can be detrimental.
The seeker cannot miss out stages in their human development. They
cannot try to attain the ‘higher states’ until they will first have
established a secure basic structure. Or rather, we do so at our
peril! So basically, we need first of all to have a relatively
well-functioning ego, before we can think not of getting rid of it -
for that is a strategy that never works with ego, ego is far too
canny for that - but rather of distancing ourselves from it and
giving it less and less energy. The less ego is ‘fed’ in all the
ways we all like to feed it, the more it gradually diminishes in
size.
Q.
So we starve it.
SBB.
Precisely. And letting go certain attributes of our old lifestyles
is one of the main ways that we do this. This is why I stress that a
lifestyle shift is so important if we wish to take our spiritual
development seriously. The less our ego self is fed, the more we can
begin identifying ourselves with the emergence of a ‘higher-order’,
non-egoic self, that is focussed on all the things which I have been
describing the new spirituality to be about. The point is that our
egos were never intended to drive the ship of our being along, or
certainly not as it begins to evolve and deepen. Egos, you see, are
not connected to our source; they have no wholistic sense and
consequently they lack the breadth or wisdom to know what is
appropriate. Just as the janitor of a corporation has an important
job seeing that the building is looked after but is not intended to
sit in the chairman’s seat and dictate the policy of the company (he
lacks the overall capacity to do so) so the ego has the job of
seeing that certain areas of our unconscious life are adequately
performed….
Q.
But its role is not to determine how we live our lives.
SBB.
Precisely.
Q.
But our egos don’t like to diminish in power inside us, do they?
SBB.
No. They will do anything not to lose their hold over us. They will
tell us spiritual work is nonsense; they will do their utmost to
keep us caught up in our emotional dramas and focussed on the
superficial. And if that doesn’t work, then they will try to worm
their way into our spirituality. We know this is happening when we
begin to think we are more spiritual than anyone else and we alone,
have a great mission to accomplish in saving the world!
Q.
So inflation is symptomatic of ego?
SBB.
Yes. And so is deflation. So basically, we all need to be very
watchful as far as our egos are concerned, as very often, when we
think we have beaten them and our guard goes down, hey presto, ego
will suddenly re-assert itself again. It is rather like that
‘baddie’ character in the film ‘The Terminator’. Each time the
‘goodie’ acted by Schwarzenegger manages to pulverise him, his atoms
always seems capable of re-assembling themselves again!
Q.
It takes a lot of killing then?
SBB.
No it cannot be killed. It gradually fades, as I said, as we put
more and more focus on the sacred, on the living of a harmonious,
peaceful, loving and honourable life. I personally find that the
more I try to live from my heart and be’ heart centred’, the less
space I give my ego. I don’t think: ‘I am not feeding my ego’.
Rather I think ‘I am enjoying trying to live with more awareness and
joy!’ That is how we let ego go.
What is very
important is that we always bear in mind that who we are is not our
egos and that all the many images we have of ourselves as being this
kind of person or that - a ‘success’ or a ‘failure’, a socialite or
a wit or whatever - are simply egoic self-perceptions. If we have
not evolved to that place and we still believe that who we
are, are the images we have of ourselves, and these self images
happen to get crushed (for one reason or another), because we think
that this is who we are, we also will feel crushed. We won’t
feel crushed if we will have become less ego identified. Is that
clear?
Q.
Yes.
SBB.
Ram Dass put it like this. ‘Before we can become a nobody’
(that is, someone with an ego identity subsumed into a larger self
identity) ‘We need first to become a somebody,’ that is, we
need to have built up a healthy self image. And a lot of new age
work and psychotherapy and self improvement work is, as I said,
focussed in this arena. Simply put, often the seeker’s ego is weak
or wounded, and unless the necessary ‘repair work’ is done and the
seeker feels ‘better about themselves’, they are not going to be
healthy enough to begin trying to shift into realms of being beyond
the ego. A lot of my work with people on the path is focussed on ego
repair work.
Q.
So ego really is that canny?
SBB.
Yes. It can wear any amount of disguises. It can pretend not to
espouse separation and as I said, can even feign holiness! However,
it will always be pseudo holiness, for the ego only understands
separation. It has no unitive understanding, can never see the
radiant beauty inherent within all things. That is why, to the
extent that we are predominantly ego identified, we will always
experience a degree of alienation and separation, which in turn will
make us feel fearful, envious and insecure - experiencing life to be
a struggle - thus leading us to all those kinds of destructive
behaviours we tend to engage in to try to overcome those feelings.
And, at one level, this is why our world doesn’t work. So long as
humanity operates from an egoic perspective, we will remain fixated
in our old lifestyles and values and attitudes which are currently
threatening our very survival. This is why it is so imperative that,
as a species, we learn to evolve new, trans-egoic ways of being.
Q.
So how do we know when we are ‘ready’ to begin reducing our egoity?
How do we know when our egos are strong or healthy enough – if
indeed, egos can be healthy – to begin the diminishing process?
SBB.
We will know as we gradually begin observing that many of our old
egoic games begin to give us less and less satisfaction. In other
words, we will know that we are ready for something deeper when we
become aware of how much we play power games and manipulative games
and one-upmanship games with others and how ghastly they are! We
will know we are ready for something new when suddenly it doesn’t
matter what others think of us, and when we feel moved to engage in
a project not merely to ‘look good’ or be considered clever, but
because we know that it is important and can contribute to the
quality of life.
Q.
How have you dealt with ego in your own life?
SBB.
I am still dealing with it, every day and it has been - and it still
is - a big, big challenge. I try to be vigilant. I also find that
the more I choose to bring my awareness into being who I really am,
and so try to live my life from the perspective of being made in the
image of God (which all of us are) that is, honour the divine me and
remember that this is who I am and that I am not all the images that
I and others might have of me - I find that the more I consciously
focus on these things, so my need for egoic food diminishes. But
the ego habit is a well-entrenched one and it needs constant
vigilance as well as constant non-judgement when we fall back, at
times, into ego (as we all will!) We just need to observe it and so
be better acquainted with how and where in us it might suddenly pop
up again, and when it does, try to stand back and ‘catch’ ourselves
in time!
I find I am
especially tested most when I am around egotistical people, for a)
we pick up their vibrations, and b) the egoically identified person
doesn’t really acknowledge any other way of being, that is, they
have no other lens but an egoic one, with which to relate to us..
Returning to Gurdjieff remark again about our being challenged to
‘Be in the world but not of it’, another interpretation is that we
are challenged to live in a world predominantly run by egoic values,
yet to try not to allow ourselves to come from or to subscribe to,
those values. Two important catalysts that have helped me were, one,
doing heart work - heart work to the ego is rather like the cross to
the vampire! (I explain heart work in depth in a subsequent
dialogue), and two, being in the presence of a genuine Spiritual
Master, someone who will have fully awakened to their divine
Selfhood and in whose cosmic awesomeness, ego is totally subsumed.
THE
ROLE OF THE SPIRITUAL MASTER
Q.
Let me take this opportunity then, to move on and ask you about the
role of the Spiritual Master. Some Masters have said that one cannot
make real progress without them and that all seekers require an
enlightened guru to assist them. I presume you agree?
SBB.
This is a vast topic and as I will also be spending a whole day
talking about spiritual Masters, I will only comment briefly here
and mainly in relation to the topic of ego.
Yes, the spiritual
Master, if he or she is genuine and the right one for us – this is
important, not all of us are necessary in sync with someone simply
because they may be enlightened - can help us a lot with our
spiritual journey as they can ‘take on’ our karma and do some of the
purifying that we need to do, for us. The genuine Master can also
‘lend’ us his spiritual power, can temporarily connect us to a
higher source of love and knowledge, in so doing, can help awaken
our spiritual potential more quickly. While in their presence, we
can be more who we really are; and this can help dissolve our
ego-boundaried self, and allow us the direct experience of a self
that is more fully expanded. In part, this is because the Master’s
soul force can very powerfully help to dismember that part of
ourselves that ego, above all, loves attaching itself to, namely our
monkey mind. If we are mentally identified, this can sometimes be
quite a traumatic experience, but the end result is to engender a
state of being which Buddhists call ‘no mind’ where we are
‘emptied’ of all the dross and trivia that generally our minds tend
to be so full of.
Q.
Are you suggesting that the emptier our minds are of this dross, the
less hooks we have for ego to attach itself to?
SBB.
Basically yes, so long as you understand that I am not talking of
empty in terms of being melancholy and vacuous but in terms of our
being divested of what often makes us feel like that, namely, being
full of emotional and mental ‘clutter’.
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