Abdul Gaffoor Mosque

Here is a photo showing the Abdul Gaffoor Mosque as seen from the window of my hotel. This mosque has an interesting history and its own Wikipedia article. Fortunately the architecture is not marred by the presence of loudspeakers mounted on the minarets and the call to prayer seemed to benefit from their absence. The prayer was amplified because I could hear it clearly through the closed hotel window but it was not heavily amplified to the point of distortion. In Indonesia, the focus seems to be on maximising volume with no thought given to the quality of the emerging sound.

The think the Islamic call to prayer should be neither pre-recorded nor amplified and should rely on the natural, unamplified human voice. This was the way it was done before the arrival of loudspeakers. It was the way it was done for the first time by the black slave Bilal:

Bilal stood on top of the Ka’aba in Mecca. It had been a difficult and dangerous thing to do, but he had a far more important task to complete. He filled his lungs with as much air as he could, then used his deep and powerful voice to call faithful Muslims to prayer.

This was an extraordinarily emotional moment for the first Moslems. Some of the history behind this historic event is as follows:

As a free man, Bilal became a close and dear friend to both Abu Bakr and Muhammad. He helped to build the first mosque in Medina. When the time came that the Muslim’s were searching for a way to call the faithful to prayer, Bilal came into his own. The believers decided they did not want a flag, or a bell, or a rattle, or a drum, or a trumpet, but a beautiful human voice.

Abu Bakr became excited. “Then there is only one voice we could use for our first call to prayer,” he said, and explained how he had found Bilal and set him free. And so it was that Bilal became the first muezzin, the first to call people to prayer in Medina. And when the Muslims returned to Mecca, he was the first to call from the top of the Ka’aba. Source

It's a pity that what is largely heard in urban areas of Indonesia nowadays is not "a beautiful human voice" but a highly amplified and intrusive blast of sound that arrives unsynchronised from several different directions corresponding to the location of the various mosques in the vicinity. How much more pleasant it would be to hear a single human voice, natural and unamplified, at prayer time reminding us of the the way it was in the beginning with Bilal standing on the Ka'aba for the very first time.

The Path of Self-Knowledge

I began reading "Ramana Maharshi and the Path of Self-Knowledge", a biography by one of his disciples Arthur Osborne. I couldn't help but smile when I encountered Paul Brunton once again and his famous, or infamous, "A Search in Secret India". This is the book that I read in 1967 where I encountered my first reference to Meher Baba and, it now seems, my first reference to Ramana Maharshi because Paul Brunton visited both of them. His report on Ramana was positive while his report on Baba was quite negative. No need to dwell anymore on what that silly writer said however. Osborne's biography is very interesting and the circumstances surrounding Ramana's enlightenment are quite remarkable. More or less spontaneously, at the age of 16, he saw through the illusion of the ego and discovered his true self. As he said to Brunton is his interview:

The sense of ‘I’ pertains to the person, the body and brain. When a man knows his true Self for the first time something else arises from the depths of his being and takes possession of him. That something is behind the mind; it is infinite, divine, eternal. Some people call it the Kingdom of Heaven, others call it the soul and others again Nirvana, and Hindus call it Liberation; you may give it what name you wish. When this happens a man has not really lost himself; rather he has found himself.

Unless and until a man embarks on this quest of the true Self, doubt and uncertainty will follow his footsteps through life. The greatest kings and statesmen try to rule others when in their heart of hearts they know that they cannot rule themselves. Yet the greatest power is at the command of the man who has penetrated to his inmost depth. . . . What is the use of knowing about everything else when you do not yet know who you are? Men avoid this enquiry into the true Self, but what else is there so worthy to be undertaken?

I have to agree wholeheartedly with this and was encouraged to read that he also said:

If you meditate for an hour or two every day you can then carry on with your duties. If you meditate in the right manner, then the current of mind induced will continue to flow even in the midst of your work. It is as though there were two ways of expressing the same idea; the same line which you take in meditation will be expressed in your activities.

I now realise that without meditation there is little chance of any real change occurring in me. Some catastrophe might shake me awake but failing that I'll just remain fast asleep. Regular meditation creates the possibility of change but doesn't ensure it because it depends on the quality of the meditation. It has to be intelligent meditation in the sense that it can't be simply a routine, repetitive activity. Every session has to be entered into freshly and flexibly with no expectations. Some sessions may be relaxing, others might be deeply unsettling. Some sessions may bring fresh insights and challenges while others may not. Time and location should be varied. Although some times and locations are more conducive to meditation than others, it is important to try to sometimes meditate in difficult environments where noise and distractions abound.

In my meditation session last night, I struggled a little between attention to the outer and inner worlds. There was rumbling to be heard from distant thunder and I found my attention would move to this, then it would shift to some inner content that had arisen. I became aware of the duality but then realised that my mind had created this division between the inner and outer. What arrives from without via the senses or what arises from within should just be accepted and observed without classification. As the observer, I can unite these two seemingly disparate worlds.

Earlier that same day, during another meditation session, I became aware of a sort of inner pulsation and that seemed to grow in intensity until a sense of panic started to arise in me. I thought I might be about to have a stroke or heart attack. Simply focusing my attention of the sense of panic caused it to gradually abate. I have no idea what the seemingly physical pulsations were about but the incident illustrates my point that each meditation sessions may bring unique problems and challenges. I am encouraged to continue and I must continue.

U G Krishnamurti

Andy Dougharty suggested I read a little about U.G.Krishnamurti (not be confused with Jiddu Krishnamurti) and not surprisingly it turned out that there was a strong link between the subject of my previous post (Ramana Maharshi) and U.G.Krishnamurti. In the Wikipedia article about the latter, it says:

In 1939, at age 21, U.G. met with renowned spiritual teacher Ramana Maharshi. U.G. related that he asked Ramana, "This thing called moksha, can you give it to me?" - to which Ramana Maharshi purportedly replied, "I can give it, but can you take it?". This answer completely altered U.G.'s perceptions of the "spiritual path" and its practitioners, and he never again sought the counsel of "those religious people". Later U.G. would say that Maharshi's answer - which he perceived as "arrogant" - put him "back on track".

Many years later however, his final view of things was not all that dissimilar to that of Ramana who advised that the essential question to ask is "who am I?" until the sense of duality disappeared and the "I" dissolved completely. U.G. Krishnamurti says that self-realization is the realization that there is no self to realise. He also talks about the "natural state" of the body in very much the same terms as Barry Long and Eckhart Tolle:

"When the totality of mankind's knowledge and experience loses its stranglehold on the body, the physical organism, then the body is allowed to function in its own harmonious way. Your natural state is a biological, neurological and physical state."

It's clear that Ramana Maharshi, U.G.Krishnamurti, Barry Long, Eckhart Tolle, Osho and Meher Baba are all telling us the same thing in their own unique way. There is no goal and nothing to strive for. Only our thoughts prevent us from realising that. There is no need to do anything but simply stop what we are currently doing wrong by letting go of our attachment to thinking. As U.G.Krishnamurti says "We don't seem to realize that it is thought that is separating us from the totality of things". He goes on to say:

"The only way for anyone who is interested in finding out what this is all about is to watch how this separation is occurring, how you are separating yourself from the things that are happening around you and inside you. Actually there is no difference between the outside and the inside. It is thought that creates the frontiers and tells us that this is the inside and something else is the outside. If you tell yourself that you are happy, miserable, or bored, you have already separated yourself from that particular sensation that is there inside you." "The only way it can maintain its continuity is through the constant demand to know. If you don't know what you are looking at, the 'you' as you know yourself, the 'you' as you experience yourself, is going to come to an end. That is death. That is the only death and there is no other death."

The key is watching "how this separation is occurring". It's no use reading about or intellectualizing about it, it's an experiential thing and it's uniquely individual. No two minds are alike and nobody can get inside your head except you. You have to go in and sort things out. There are techniques that may be helpful but you need to be adaptable and pragmatic, using what works and tossing out whatever doesn't. Needless to say this is a totally subjective activity and I'm at the point now where I know what needs to be done or I should say undone.

Sri Ramana Maharshi

Barry Long gives the following advice in his book on Meditation: Go to the great sages - for example Krishnamurti, Meher Baba, Ramana Maharshi, among others." It occurred me that I didn't know anything about the last mentioned person and so I read the Wikipedia article about him. He lived from 1879 to 1950 in Southern India and Meher Baba thought highly of him, referring to him as a saint of the sixth plane. This means that he saw THE ONE everywhere and in everything but he had not yet crossed the great abyss that the separates the sixth plane from the seventh. Having crossed this abyss, there is no longer subject and object, there is only THE ONE.

Ramana attained to his near supreme spiritual state spontaneously in a Hindu temple in Arunachala at the age of 16 and, as with Meher Baba, his mother (Alagammal) became very concerned at his sudden and unexpected spiritual awakening and tried to persuade him to return home and resume a normal life. Ultimately though she ended up attending to him at the temple, as did his younger brother Nagasundaram. He was with his mother at the end of her life and announced on her death that she had been liberated.

Though he did not take a vow of silence as did Meher Baba, Ramana did approve of "the power of silence and the relatively sparse use of speech" and he led a very simple life. His teachings are summarised in the Wikipedia article as follows:

• As all living beings desire to be happy always, without misery, as in the case of everyone there is observed supreme love for one's self, and as happiness alone is the cause for love, in order to gain that happiness which is one's nature and which is experienced in the state of deep sleep where there is no mind, one should know one's self. For that, the path of knowledge, the inquiry of the form "Who am I?", is the principal means.
  
  
• Knowledge itself is 'I'. The nature of (this) knowledge is existence-consciousness-bliss.
  
  
• What is called mind is a wondrous power existing in Self. It projects all thoughts. If we set aside all thoughts and see, there will be no such thing as mind remaining separate; therefore, thought itself is the form of the mind. Other than thoughts, there is no such thing as the world.
  
  
• Of all the thoughts that rise in the mind, the thought 'I' is the first thought.
  
  
• That which rises in this body as 'I' is the mind. If one enquires 'In which place in the body does the thought 'I' rise first?', it will be known to be in the heart [spiritual heart is 'two digits to the right from the centre of the chest']. Even if one incessantly thinks 'I', 'I', it will lead to that place (Self)'
  
  
• The mind will subside only by means of the enquiry 'Who am I?'. The thought 'Who am I?', destroying all other thoughts, will itself finally be destroyed like the stick used for stirring the funeral pyre.
  
  
• If other thoughts rise, one should, without attempting to complete them, enquire, 'To whom did they arise?', it will be known 'To me'. If one then enquires 'Who am I?', the mind (power of attention) will turn back to its source. By repeatedly practising thus, the power of the mind to abide in its source increases.
  
  
• The place where even the slightest trace of the 'I' does not exist, alone is Self.
  
  
• Self itself is the world; Self itself is 'I'; Self itself is God; all is the Supreme Self (siva swarupam)

Sri Ramana warned against considering self-enquiry as an intellectual exercise. Properly done, it involves fixing the attention firmly and intensely on the feeling of 'I', without thinking. It is perhaps more helpful to see it as 'Self-attention' or 'Self-abiding' (cf. Sri Sadhu Om - The Path of Sri Ramana Part I). The clue to this is in Sri Ramana's own death experience when he was 16. After raising the question 'Who am I?' he "turned his attention very keenly towards himself" (cf. description above). Attention must be fixed on the 'I' until the feeling of duality disappears.

Lucid Dreaming

Hypnos and Thanatos, Sleep and His Half-Brother Death
by John William Waterhouse

I've been on holidays for one week now and that's about how long it takes to really start to slow down and relax. I've managed a daily meditation or two and have begun to re-read Osho's "The Book of Wisdom". In doing so, I was reminded of a reference he made to dreaming. He says:

The ego is a by-product, a by-product of the illusion that whatsoever you are seeing is true. If you think that objects are true, then the ego can exist; it is a by-product. If you think that objects are dreams, the ego disappears. And if you think continuously that all is a dream, then one day, in a dream in the night, you will be surprised: suddenly in the dream you will remember that this is a dream too! And immediately, as the remembrance happens, the dream will disappear. And for the first time you will experience yourself deep asleep, yet awake -- a very paradoxical experience, but of great benefit. Once you have seen your dream disappearing because you have become aware of the dream, your quality of consciousness will have a new flavor to it. The next morning you will wake up with a totally different quality you had never known before. You will wake up for the first time. Now you will know that all those other mornings were false; you were not really awake. The dreams continued -- the only difference was that in the night you were dreaming with eyes closed, in the day you were dreaming with eyes open. But if the dream has disappeared because awareness happened, suddenly you became aware in the dream.... And remember, awareness and dreaming cannot exist together. Here, awareness arises, and there, the dream disappears. When you become awake in your sleep, the next morning is going to be something so important that it is incomparable. Nothing like it has ever happened. Your eyes will be so clear, so transparent, and everything will look so psychedelic, so colorful, so alive. Even rocks will be felt to be breathing, pulsating; even rocks will have a heartbeat. When you are awake, the whole existence changes its quality. We are living in a dream. We are asleep, even when we think we are awake.

Osho is referring here to lucid dreaming about which much has been written and I was prompted to review the literature on the subject on the Internet. One technique recommended for the inducement of lucid dreaming is to carefully count the digits of your hand before going to sleep followed by a reminder to look at your hands in the dream and try counting the digits again. Apparently, this proves very difficult in a dream or you miscount the number. In either case, you are then alerted to the fact that you are dreaming. There are other techniques to maintain the state of lucid dreaming. I have an e-book titled "Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming" by Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D. & Howard Rheingold that I think I'll make an effort to read. I notice the final chapter of the book is called "Life is a Dream: Intimations of a Wider World".

I'd like to attempt some lucid dreaming during these holidays and Osho's words have given me the stimulus. The dreaming also connects with Jung, whose writings I've recently reconnected with, and so it should be an interesting experiment. I'll need to start with the digit counting on a regular basis during the day so that it becomes so habitual that the practice will spontaneously occur to me in my dreams as well, maybe. Let's give it a try.

Time Out Of Mind

Now that my practice of meditation has become a daily habit, I find myself a little more in sympathy with religious ritual which at least sets aside some time for supposedly "spiritual" activities not directly related to the routine of daily life. The activities themselves, as practised by the majority of individuals, are often mechanical and motivated by the desire for worldly gain but not always, the potential for some sort of spiritual breakthrough is always there. If no time is set aside, then the phenomenal world is liable to absorb our complete attention and we oscillate forever between past and future, never finding the equilibrium of the present moment. Years can go by like that, even entire lifetimes.

The key is to stay alert during the allocated time and not rely on any set routines. Initially, the mind will struggle against the discipline of setting any regular time aside at all for "mind-training" exercises. After all, like a wild horse, the mind (my mind at least) has had a lifetime of freedom, galloping off in any direction that caught its fancy. With persistence the mind will accept the discipline and the temporary reigning in of its freedom but attempt to compartmentalise and indulge the enforced practice. This is made much easier when external rituals and recitation of set prayers are being followed. The ego, the mind's greatest creation, can then bask in the false belief that it is spiritually oriented. Of course, any serious spiritual orientation has the death of the ego as its sole objection and the ego, despite its manifest limitations, is not stupid. It knows its life is on the line and will fight to the last for its survival.

The death of ignorance begins by setting aside some daily time in which there is the opportunity to drop our absorption in the phenomenal world and quiet the feverish activities of our minds. Without that daily allocation of time, there's no hope at all really but with it, there will be some "time out of mind", however momentary, and then seeds can be sown.

Practical Meditation

It was timely that I happened upon Barry Long's book on meditation (as described in my last entry) and started to apply his suggested approach to daily meditation over the past couple of weeks. This was a time of intense pressure for me as I was the sole person responsible for printing out all of the Secondary School reports by the start of the final week of school. The meditation, undertaken for about 15 minutes prior to going to bed, proved consistently effective in allowing me to remain calm under stress. I also came to realise that I have to do what works for me and not follow any suggested methods or techniques too rigidly. For me, sinking deep into the body and feeling its solidity and density, markedly slows the activity of my mind. Thoughts are so quick and light that I find the contrast between them and the heaviness of my body helps me to catch myself before I'm carried off too far into either the past or the future.

The focus on the body leads to an awareness of its energy and rate of vibration, a rate that is so much slower than thought and even the emotions that arise from thought. This creates a real sense of stability, of being rooted in the present. I'm starting to feel less of a helpless spectator caught up in a crazed thought machine and I'm sensing that I might be able to use the machine when I need it and turn it off when I don't. Of course, I've always applauded the "thought" of being able to do this but it's so very different to actually achieve this, even if only for a few moments in meditation. So I'm very much encouraged to continue my daily practice.