HOW TO MEDITATE—IT'S SIMPLER THAN YOU THINK

'Meditation is not divorced from our daily living. In the very understanding of our daily living meditation is necessary. That is, to attend completely to what we are doing. When you talk to somebody, the way you walk, the way you think, what you think, to give your attention to that. That is part of meditation.'—J. Krishnamurti.

Here are the names of a couple of people of yesteryear. There will be more than a few readers who will have heard of them, but there will ever so many people who will not have heard of them at all, which is a great pity. The names of the two people are Annie Besant and Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. Both were incredible women.

Annie Besant

During her lifetime Annie Besant was many things—minister’s wife, atheist, secularist, reformer, Fabian socialist, advocate of women’s rights and socio-political change, author, Theosophist, Co-Mason, orientalist and leader of the movement for Indian home rule. Madame Blavatsky (‘HPB’) was quite a woman as well. She was a Russian occultist, spiritual philosopher and author who co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875. Besant met HPB in or around 1890—HPB died the very next year—and in August 1890 HPB moved in to Besant’s house in St John’s Wood, London. Anyway, here’s a little anecdote Mrs Besant would tell. She once asked HPB, ‘How shall I meditate?’ HPB is said to have replied, ‘Stick your stamps on straight, my dear.’

Now, for the benefit of those who haven’t posted a letter—remember them?—in some time, or have never posted a letter, HPB is referring to licking (yes, licking) a postage stamp and then neatly but firmly affixing the stamp to the top right hand corner of an envelope. Hence, ‘Stick your stamps on straight.’ Of course, HPB is using an analogy. What she is saying is that, in order to meditate, you must take care to ensure that you perform your daily tasks, no matter how seemingly unimportant or trivial, with proper attention to detail and the effort to do it right.

H P Blavatsky

Note Mrs Besant’s question—‘How shall I meditate?’ She was asking for a method or technique. I hate the words ‘method’ and ‘technique’ as well as the 'how' word. I really do. My use of the word 'how' in the title to this post, implying the supposed need for a method or technique in order to achieve the sought-after end, is intentionally provocative, not to mention a bit mischievous. 

There’s a Zen story that goes like this. A disciple says to the master, ‘I have been four months with you, and you have still given me no method or technique.’ The master says, ‘A method? What on earth would you want a method for?’ The disciple says, ‘To attain inner freedom.’ The master roars with laughter, and then says, ‘You need great skill indeed to set yourself free by means of the trap called a method.’ Yes, I do have a real aversion to all so-called ‘methods’, ‘systems’ and ‘techniques.’ Don’t ask, ‘how’. Just do it! (I think that's not just a slogan but a trademark as well.) True meditation is a choiceless awareness applied it to one’s whole day, indeed one’s whole life. The philosopher and authority on Zen and all things magical and mystical, Alan Watts wrote that meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment’.

Annie Besant 'first day cover'.
Indian Posts & Telegraphs. October 1, 1963.

That, my friends, is what mindfulness is all about—living from moment to moment with awareness and being fully present during each immediate moment. True meditation occurs when there is a directness and an immediacy about your experience of life. All so-called methods, techniques and systems are an artificial construct—a barrier—to your moment-to-moment experience of life. Thousands of people spend a small fortune on courses, lessons and tuition on how to meditate. They recite mantras, affix their eyes upon an object, go into a trance-like state, and so on. The Indian spiritual teacher, international speaker and author Jiddu Krishnamurti was dismissive of all forms of meditation—except one. This is what he had to say about a commonly practised form of concentration meditation known as mantra meditation:

The other method [mantra meditation] gives you a certain word and tells you that if you go on repeating it you will have some extraordinary transcendental experience. This is sheer nonsense. It is a form of self-hypnosis. By repeating Amen or Om or Coca-Cola indefinitely you will obviously have-a certain experience because by repetition the mind becomes quiet. It is a well known phenomenon which has been practised for thousands of years in India---Mantra Yoga it is called. By repetition you can induce the mind to be gentle and soft but it is still a petty, shoddy, little mind. You might as well put a piece of stick you have picked up in the garden on the mantelpiece and give it a flower every day. In a month you will be worshipping it and not to put a flower in front of it will become a sin.

So, what, then, is true meditation? Krishnamurti went on to say:

Meditation demands an astonishingly alert mind; meditation is the understanding of the totality of life in which every form of fragmentation has ceased. Meditation is not control of thought, for when thought is controlled it breeds conflict in the mind, but when you understand the structure and origin of thought, which we have already been into, then thought will not interfere. That very understanding of the structure of thinking is its own discipline which is meditation.

Meditation, which Krishnamurti saw as a lifelong inquiry into what it means to be truly present and aware, occurs when you live in the action of the present moment, as opposed to the so-called present moment itself, for as soon as you say 'the present moment' you are in the past, you are involved in memory, and thus not living in the present moment. One more thing. You can only be said to be living in the present when your mind is free from all ideas of ‘self’. When you have the idea of ‘self’ (that is, of ‘I’ and ‘me’) you are living either in the past or in the future. 

‘Stick your stamps on right, my dear.’ Attend to the small, ordinary things of life with an ‘astonishingly alert mind’. Yes, meditation is in the direct and immediate living of your daily life, from one moment to the next.

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WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE 'CONSTANTLY AWARE'?

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE ‘CONSTANTLY AWARE’?

‘But how can I be constantly aware?’ a student said to me the other day. ‘Surely that’s impossible---not to mention very tiring!’

He’s right, you know. Yet so many books on mindfulness and meditation generally talk about the need to be constantly aware. For example, Krishnamurti wrote, 'True meditation is constant awareness, constant pliability, and clear discernment.' But how is that possible? Well, it’s not. It’s just a manner of speaking, so to speak. We must look beyond the words, as Krishnamurti would also say. ‘The word is not the thing,’ he often said. Good advice, that.

The fifth international president of the Theosophical Society, of which I am a member, was a very spiritual and enlightened man---N Sri Ram [pictured left]. He wrote much that I have found to be both inspiring and very practical. In one of his writings Sri Ram addressed the very matter I’m talking about now, namely, this idea of 'constant awareness.' He wrote:

At the same time it is not possible to be turning the attention to what passes in our minds all the hours of the waking day. We would find it too fatiguing, the attention would wander, just as when we try to meditate on a particular theme. To be constantly aware is a manner of speaking. When you try to meditate or contemplate something, you will find that the mind wanders off within a minute or two, and exactly the same thing happens when you try to pay attention to your thinking. This difficulty was put to Krishnamurti, and in one of his talks he replied, ‘play with it,’ that is, take it easy. He also lays stress on non-effort, that means it has to be done easily and pleasantly. …

Sri Ram goes on to refer to so-called constant awareness as simply the immediate perception of something taking place. ‘We have to become so sensitive that as soon as something takes place, whether outside or inside ourselves, we immediately perceive it, like a well-trained musician who becomes conscious of a false note as soon as it is struck. … This requires a certain sensitivity, without which one will not be aware.’

I have often written about the need for non-effort. ‘Resist not’ is the great wisdom of the ages. When we resist (something), there is an immediate loss of immediate perception. Straightaway we embark upon translation, interpretation, analysis, judgment, and condemnation. Meditation, wrote Sri Ram, requires a mind 'completely denuded of all previous ideas and knowledge.' Whenever there is translation, interpretation, analysis, judgment or condemnation, the 'past'---in the form of beliefs, conditioning, ideas, values, and so forth---is at work, and we are then no longer in the now. So, let any thoughts or feelings that arise fade out in their natural manner. Don't dwell upon or otherwise cling to them in any way.

The essence of mindfulness is the immediate perception of what is, from one moment to the next. The content of that which is perceived may be outside or inside ourselves. It will always be an uneven mixture of both. So be it. Such is the flow of life. Stay with it. Be with it … and live. Mindfully.



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BRUCE LEE ON MINDFULNESS 

PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLE OF THEM ALL

When I was an undergraduate Arts/Law student at the University of Sydney in the 1970s---a wonderful time to be alive---I spent probably more time in the now gone Adyar Bookshop, in Sydney, run by the Theosophical Society, than I did in the university library.

It was during those years that I ‘discovered’ the great debunker and iconoclast J. Krishnamurti (pictured right), and I have been in love with his teachings, and the man himself, ever since.

I still have in my possession a bookmark which I was given when I purchased a book from the Adyar Bookshop sometime in the early 1970s. I don’t remember the book I bought at the time---it may or may not have been a book written by Krishnamurti---although I am sure I would still have the book somewhere on my bookshelves here at home. (I never throw anything away---something I have to work on!) Now, on the bookmark there was a quotation from the writings of J. Krishnamurti---‘In the acknowledgement of what is, there is the cessation of all conflict.’

For years and years thereafter I couldn’t comprehend the meaning of those few words of Krishnamurti. It took several traumatic life experiences, and some more reading of Krishnamurti, for the truth of those words to manifest in my consciousness. You see, it is not what happens to us that makes or breaks us, it is how we react---or rather respond---to what happens to us that determines who and what we are and will become. There’s more to it, still. If we can ‘acknowledge’---that is, observe, note, notice, but not judge, analyze, criticize or condemn---what happens in and as our life experience from one moment to the next, that is, if we can accept what is as what is, there will be no resistance, conflict or inner turmoil. Then, and only then, can we know peace and have serenity.

Another spiritual principle which says more-or-less the same thing, but comes at the truth from the other ‘end,’ so to speak is this one---‘What we resist, persists.’

We don’t have to ‘like’ what happens to us in order for there to be an ‘acknowledgement.’ That will often not be possible or appropriate. More importantly, forming a ‘liking,’ or a ‘disliking’ for that matter, is an act of judgment, and once we judge something, we are attached to it. The result? Conflict. Resistance. Positive or negative. Just look, observe, note, and notice. But don’t judge or analyze. That is so important.

The Apostle Paul understood the truth of this most important spiritual principle. It is written that he said. ‘I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances’ (Phil 4: 11 [NIV]). He said ‘content,’ not happy. Contentment implies acknowledgment and a calm acceptance of whatever is---for whatever is, is best. Whatever the circumstances!

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CONCERNING THE SPIRITUAL: MINDS MADDENED BY PROTESTANTISM

It was H P Blavatsky, cofounder of the Theosophical Society (TS), who wrote of ‘the maddening effect of Protestantism [especially Calvinism].’ Theosophy, at least in its more 'modern' form, emerged in the late 1800s as an alternative spirituality---and as an antidote to the maddening effect of Protestantism.

Such a totally negative word---'Protestantism.' It doesn't even make it clear just what they were 'protesting' about or against, although history tells us that---and much of the story is not a happy one. Devoid of ritual and colour, devoid of intellectual depth, devoid of emotion (except emotion of the more hysterical and almost pathologically clinical kind), and inherently separatist, divisive, and backward-looking for the most part, and totally obsessed with sin and the fear and wrath of God, Protestantism---especially in its more evangelical forms---was found lacking and monumentally uninspiring to many intellectuals of the day. It remains the same today---at least for me as well as for many others.

For many years now, I have been a proud member of the TS. I am in full agreement with its three objects [see above], even though I reject many of the so-called ‘teachings’ of Theosophy (with a capital ‘T’). That doesn’t matter. Beliefs don’t matter. What you do with your life matters. (In addition to being a member of the TS, I have also had a long association with the Liberal Catholic Church (LCC)---a church very much open to theosophical ideas---and was even in holy orders in that church for a brief period. In the end, I decided to remain solely a Unitarian minister, but I continue to have great respect for the LCC. For those who may be interested, here is a published article of mine entitled 'Progressive Christianity from Liberal Catholic and Unitarian Perspectives.')

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, in the 1920s and 30s, was known in Theosophical circles as ‘The Occult Centre for the Southern Hemisphere’---a veritable hothouse of spiritual and intellectual inquiry, exploration and productivity. Indeed it was, with much of the attention focused on the writings, pronouncements and activities of leading Theosophist and Liberal Catholic bishop Charles Webster Leadbeater [pictured below left, and also above left with the then international president of the TS, Dr Annie Besant] who was resident in Sydney from 1914 to 1929 and who otherwise retained a significance ‘presence’ there until his death in Perth in 1934. (From 1922 onwards Leadbeater, when in Sydney, resided at 'The Manor' in Mosman, which was said by Theosophists to be a great ‘occult forcing-house.’)

The Sydney of today, in which I live, is a lot more multicultural than it was in the 1920s and 30s---which is a good thing---but the life of the city is nowhere near as bohemian, cosmopolitan and 'colourful' as it once was. We may have people here from every part of the globe but the ‘international’ flavor has in many ways gone---as well as much of the intellectual and spiritual life that once flourished. For the most part, Sydney is just like most large cities in North America---architecturally uninteresting (not so the Sydney Opera House and a few other prominent buildings),  and entirely mercantile and even mean. That reminds me of the occasion when Charlie (later Sir Charles) Chaplin returned briefly to Los Angeles in 1972 after some 20 years in exile outside the United States. Chaplin was looking around for the places he used to know in the city. A dismayed Chaplin remarked, ‘It's all banks, banks, banks!’ I digress, but hopefully you get the point.

Now, Dr Jenny McFarlane, who is a freelance curator and writer based in Canberra, has recently put together a wonderful book---which I heartily recommend---entitled Concerning the Spiritual: The influence of the Theosophical Society on Australian Artists 1890-1934, which has been published by Australian Scholarly Publishing. The book contains a series of fascinating case studies of some fairly well-known artists, including Jane Price, Clarice Beckett, Ethel Carrick Fox and Grace Cossington Smith, who had a special relationship with the TS and its ‘radical visuality.’ McFarlane beautifully documents an era, not that long ago, in which there was (in her words) an 'embedded and productive relationship between the Theosophical Society and Australian art.'

The book challenges assumptions about early Australian Modernism and offers a convincing, if controversial, basis for reinterpretation. McFarlane writes, ‘The Australian experience itself is reconceptualised as an integral part of a larger, distributed conversation with like-minded artists, intellectuals and activities across the globe. Australian Modernism is recast as an informed primary player in a movement which challenged Western reason and looked to the ‘East’ to revitalize its focus.’ Fascinating. No longer is Australian Modernism seen as entirely derivative and secondary to what was otherwise happening in Europe and North America. No, Australia was a leading player in its own right---with a distinctively unique contribution to the world of art. Further, the Modernism which emerges from McFarlane's fascinating account is (in her words) 'essentially feminist, spiritual and cross-cultural.' It is an account which has been waiting a long time to be told. Sadly, most Australian art historians have chosen---yes, chosen---to ignore this important part of Australian cultural, artistic and spiritual history.

Back to the book. There have been a couple of good books written on Theosophy in Australia but this is the very first book on the influence of the TS on Australian art. As such, the book fills a void and is a most important contribution to Australian cultural, artistic and spiritual history. McFarlane writes very well. She is a brilliant wordsmith and her writing has colour and flair. She also knows her subject-matter---very, very well. For those interested in Australian art, the book is a must. Ditto those interested in Theosophy, the Ancient Wisdom, esoteric Christianity and alternative spirituality.

I found one particular chapter especially interesting---'Science versus Spirit,' which deals with colour-music theories pertaining to the scientific and spiritual dimensions of colour. It seems that Sydney was at the forefront of research, discovery and discussion in this field of knowledge and speculative inquiry during the first quarter of the 20th century. Here's another nice thing about the book---McFarlane refers to a number of eminent Australian writers, such as Kylie Tennant, who made reference---sometimes oblique, other times not so oblique---to Theosophy, the Liberal Catholic Church and persons such as Bishop Leadbeater in their novels and other writings. (I hope that someday someone will write a book on the influence of Theosophy and the TS on Australian writers. Maybe I will.)

The book contains about 30 beautifully reproduced colour photographs (mainly of works of art) as well as many black-and-white and sepia photographs as well---a truly priceless and unique collection which alone is worth the price of the book. It's a gem!

Concerning the Spiritual: The influence of the Theosophical
Society on Australian artists 1890–1934, by Jenny McFarlane
 Imprint: Australian Scholarly Publishing Pty Ltd   ISBN: 9781921875151
Format: PB   Release date: February 2012   RRP A$49.95

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