Teaching points

Children’s questions can embarrass even theologians: “Could Jesus have got down off the cross if he wanted to?” Or in the Old Testament: “Why does it say it say that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart every night, and then sent another plague in the morning to make him change his mind?” Similarly, in the Indian epic Ramayana, the Avatar Rama who is God incarnate lay unconscious and paralysed on the battle field, in the grip of magic snakes projected by the villainous enemy. Rama’s allies are bewildered; how can this happen, how can the incarnation of omnipotent God lie there helpless. …

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The Japanese Zen Master Fugai, though a talented artist and poet, often took to living in some cave, unknown to anyone. It has been thought that he did this partly to avoid fame and reputation which can easily gather round a noted teacher in a monastery. He once remarked, however, “Perhaps it is easy to give something up – after all it must be easier than chasing after it or vigilantly guarding it. Perhaps it’s easy to give the world up as a monk. But what is difficult to give up is the thought ‘I’ve given these things up’. Until …

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Some people find that when they begin a yogic discipline their mind is not calmed but more agitated and distracted than before. They complain to the teacher about this and ask for some remedy. Let us suppose that patients go to a skilful doctor to cure an ailment caused by a common mistake in lifestyle. He gives each of them the same remedy with the warning some of them might experience a few untoward side effects. Suppose further that one of them comes to the doctor and says, I have been following the treatment, but my health seems to be …

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After Aurangzeb died in 1707, the Mogul Empire began to decay and India was effectively split into independent states. Their authority was often weak, and much of the country was at the mercy of brigands and freebooters. After the British were more or less invited in to restore order, many of the states retained semi-autonomy, though protected by the central government. Some of the rulers used to send their sons to be educated at a private school for princes run on English lines. This had many advantages besides learning the language of the sovereign power: the youngsters could meet each …

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  ‘If you associate with dogs you have to be prepared for quite a lot of barking.’ A genuine thirteenth century Chinese saying: ‘A furious tiger rises up but is killed and then a tiny kitten comes up and laps the blood.’ This exemplifies third rate thinkers who try to sit on the body, so to speak, of the dead master and get a little of his prestige and strength. Compare the Western saying about pioneers and scavengers. Pioneers find the new tracks in the forest but sooner or later they are struck down by some wild beast and they …

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In music, don’t fall in love with a particular note, however perfectly played. Don’t fall in love with any particular piece, however beautiful, with the feeling that this is enough. Don’t fall in love with a musician, however skilful. Don’t fall in love with a particular composer or composers, however wonderful. Fall in love with the source of the inspiration that is struggling to express itself through the imperfect channel; it is imperfect, however technically adept the musician or the composer may be. John Lill, the virtuoso pianist, remarked in a BBC interview in 1999: ‘After a concert, if people …

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  The bad loser, the mentally agitated man, is always saying: ‘I am off my game today.’ I once made an enemy for life, when I was young, and even more tactless than I am today, by answering a man who said this: ‘No, this is your game. You nearly always play like this.’ And so he did. He knew from experience that he could play well, but he hardly ever did, and his idea was that he was somehow off his game that day. The fact was that his game was the same almost every time; the occasional fine …

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  ‘If you think I know it well, then little indeed you know.’   (Kena Upanishad) With these words, the teacher gives the mind of a pupil a shake. The words are a thrust at self-satisfaction. The pupil has an intellectual grasp of Brahman, Truth, and some experience of it, but he thinks that this shining intellectual experience is the true Knowledge which gives liberation from confinement in body-mind individuality – a succession of birth and death. The teacher gives a thrust: ‘If you think that this is knowing it, you know almost nothing about it.’ Badly shaken, the pupil …

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There is an oral tradition in some schools of yoga that persistent application to a spiritual practice creates a disturbance in the higher regions where live the beings sometimes called bodhisattvas. A modern teacher remarked to a pupil that sustained sincere effort at a practice would make a sort of ripple there, and one of the great bodhisattvas would turn to look at it: “There is a movement here. Let me see whether there is an opening being created through which I can pour help and blessings.” This same teacher said, when one pupil went and asked for help for …

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Man’s bondage to circumstances and his dependence on them can be thought of in terms of two interlocking hooks. One is within his own personality and one is the form of external objects or the ideas of external objects. When the internal hook, so as to speak, catches the external hook man is drawn outwards; or perhaps he tries to use the connection to draw the outer thing into himself. In either case he is bound and in the end he is drawn outwards. The external hook is conceived of in the form of objects or of events and so …

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