causes and conditions.

Mental stuff has its causes and conditions. They are rooted in nature, nurture and chance.

There are no unembodied truths, just the hegemonic ranting of silvertongue devils. Discuss!

Life stages and motivations

George G Clark, 4 November 2009

As I move from cradle to grave my motivations change. I assume it is the same with most other people. The following matrix offers a map that helps me (and thus perhaps you) to make sense of what is going on.

The matrix draws loosely on Hindu typologies with the four life stages crossed with the four main types of motivations. The typologies are more or less self-evident but they are described elsewhere.

Note that the axes have a very loose time dimension with a shift from (1) students motivated by pleasure through (2) householders motivated by success (wealth, fame and power), and (3) retirees motivated by duty (to your community and to your higher Self) and then to (4) saints motivated by liberation (and the fearless peace that passes all rational understanding).

		Motivations
		Pleasure	Success	Duty	Liberation
Life stages	student	1
	householder		2
	retiree			3
	saint				4

 

·         In the modern, materialist world few people advance beyond seeking pleasure and success as householders.

·         The path of desire for pleasure and success is mainly for the student and the householder.

·         The path of renunciation involves duty and liberation and is mainly for the retiree and the saint.

·         In the Hindu tradition the retiree is also called a forest dweller. For such people pleasure and success are seen as too trivial to satisfy their total nature. They thus rest in silence and solitude so as to dutifully make the inward journey and thus turn their minds around.

·         The saints have turned their minds around. They neither hate nor love anything. Time and place have lost their hold. “The mere presence of these (people) in a society to which they no longer belong, by its affirmation of ultimate values, affects all values … the super-social and anonymous life of the truly poor person who voluntarily relinquishes all obligations and all rights, represents (Hindu society’s) quintessence.” Coomaraswami (1957)

 

The sixteen boxes make divisions and edges that are sharper and clearer than my experience of life to date. I have been a lifelong student and never married or had children. I have lived in seven different countries where hedonism and workaholism were close companions and a source of much pleasure and success. I am now 60 years old and have been semi-retired for ten years. These days I reckon myself to be world weary but reasonably motivated to dutifully seek liberation by treading the path of renunciation.

 

So there are rough edges but the map helps me to make some sense of what goes on in my head as I move from cradle to grave. How about you?

 

 

 

 

What people want

George G Clark, 04 November 2009

Different people want different things, and patterns change with age and experience. By mapping the most usual patterns we can figure our own present and possible future patterns^[1].

So what do people want? Hinduism recognises four great aims - pleasure, worldly success (wealth, fame and power), dutifulness to society, and liberation. The first two involve satisfying selfish desires and the second two involve moving beyond selfish desire.

There is nothing ‘wrong’ with any of these and it is possible (if unusual) to be a selfish pleasure seeker who dies happy and content. Many people, however, eventually weary of chasing fleeting pleasures and worldly success. They feel, often in mid life, as if there must be more to being human than this. There can then be despair (the legendary existential crisis!) and a change of direction from the path of desire to the path of renunciation.

Note that the path of renunciation has two variations - (a) a push away from ‘lesser’ things (the legendary world weariness) and (b) a pull towards ‘higher’ things. And there are two paths on the road to higher things - (a) selfless service to the community (duty beyond the call of the selfish ego) and (b) retreat from attachment to worldy stuff and thus, through stillness, to spiritual liberation.

 

“Pleasure is not wicked but it is too trivial to satisfy one’s total nature.” Smith (p14)

“The glamour of yesterday I have come to see as tinsel.” Anon

“ Wealth, fame and power - you can’t take it with you.” Anon

“The guiding principle is not to turn from desire until desire turns from you.” Smith (p17)

“When they find themselves crying ‘Vanity, vanity, all is vanity!’ it may occur to them that the problem stems from the smallness of the self they have been scrambling to serve.” Smith (p18)

“There comes a time when one asks even of Shakespeare, even of Beethoven, is this all?” Aldous Huxley

“What if the interests of the self were expanded to the point of approximating a God’s eye view of humanity?” Smith (p23)

“Detachment from the finite self or attachment to the whole of things - we can state the phenomenon either positively or negatively. When it occurs, life is lifted above the possibility of frustration and above ennui.” Smith (p240

“Such power as I possess for working in the political field has derived from my experiments in the spiritual field.” Gandhi

 

So - where would you pinpoint yourself on the map?

What do you want?

 

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^[1] This note draws heavily on Huston Smith (1991) “The World Religions - Our Great Wisdom Traditions.” ISBN 0062508113

Rise out of the bog

George G Clark, 2 November 2009

Today there is a feeling of being bogged down, of not seeing the big picture. But the big picture has at least two dimensions - intellectual (objective knowing) and intuitive (subjective feeling).

Think of biogeochemical cycles[1] - eg for water, carbon, nitrogen, etc. These restless flows of stuff can be intellectually studied but they can also be emotionally appreciated. They can be talked about using the cold 'it' language of science but they can also resonate numinously with 'intimations of immortality' and thus infuse the soul with the hallowed sense of Oneness. The 'interconnectedness' of Ecology sits easily with the 'interbeing' of Buddhism.

The other day, while passing some robustly healthy potato stems and leaves, there was a sudden, if brief, burst of numinous wonder. There was a sense of awe at the plant process of sucking in air, water and dung and using the energy of sunlight to transform them into roots, stems, and leaves; and then into flowers and fruits with seeds. And all around were other plants working their variations on the theme. Restless, dynamic churn in a constantly evolving complex system that had no boss or blueprint. An impression was made and it stuck.

Recalling the insight helps me rise out of the bog.

 

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[1]  "Although the Earth constantly receives more light from the sun, it has only the chemicals from which it originally formed ... Because chemicals operate on a closed system and cannot be lost and replenished the way energy can, these chemicals must be recycled throughout all of Earth's processes that use those chemicals or elements. These cycles include both the living biosphere and the nonliving lithosphere (land), atmosphere (air), and hydrosphere (water)." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogeochemical_cycles