Hari
Om
'Freedays' are the 'gather our thoughts' days;
Q&As; a general review of the week so far…
When
in active study groups with Chinmaya Mission, it is often found that, whatever
the text, questions will inevitably fall back to pertinence of the themes in
daily life. Depending on the text, the queries and doubts may be about the
logic or science being investigated and just how relevant the information is to
spiritual pursuit… endless varieties, really (reference the post back on Sept.
11th).
Often,
questions don't get asked because the enquirer has a concern that their question is rather mundane. When they do ask, it will be prefaced by, "… this is gonna be a stupid
question, but…"
Rest
assured, if the question has arisen for you, it is not stupid. Just because
others have (apparently) understood a point or accept a premise doesn't mean
that you have or must do so. To sit with
doubts and unasked questions when on the path of philosophy will serve you ill.
It is a pitfall of 'adulthood' that we tend to put it on ourselves that we
ought to know everything which pertains to living life and it can be very
difficult to accept the possibility there might be an alternative way of approaching
things.
Then
comes the point at which we have to deal with the responses. Very often we ask
questions with some level of expectation that there will either be a simple and
straightforward answer (1+2=3), or at least a response that will satisfy
immediately and not require too much further input or effort from ourselves. In
philosophical discussions, however, whilst there may be succinct and to the
point responses, they may be of the sort which are very left of field to what
we thought we were asking; other responses are likely to be involved and raise
as many questions again as the point which brought about the initial query. The
eager student will release all expectation regarding responses and will wait
with an alert and fully focused intellect so that, whatever the response of the
teacher, there can be a shift in understanding, however subtle. This can
sometimes entail major shifts too.
Ultimately,
reading any spiritual philosophy, but particularly Vedanta, the difference has
to come about within the seeker. When we
formulate our questions, they ought to demonstrate that we have given thought
to them. It is often a ploy of the Guru to turn the question back on the asker
and get them to explain what prompted the question and what analysis they have
done for themselves on the matter.
Indeed,
some teachers, if they feel it entirely within the capabilities of the student,
will not answer at all. The alert student must not be offended by this, but
accept that there is something which has been missed and thus go back over all
the readings and find their own answers.
Stage Five.
Having
given an appropriate amount of review and analysis to your questions, do doubts
and queries still remain?
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The
important questions, the ones which you feel you cannot answer yourself at this
point and level of learning, if they pertain specifically to Vedantic
techniques, terminologies, tenets, ought now to be written in the back of your
note books… remember the note book? … it is perhaps
becoming clear there was good purpose for it. The workbooks are not just for
important jot notes and introspection, but useful to keep such questions.
Keep
the questions to hand. It is not that they cannot now be asked out loud, but
that you can use them to back track in another six months or years and notice
how you were thinking now; they are another benchmark measure for you to
self-assess your progress.
Further,
it is amazing how often it is that, on reading a certain passage of text, a
query or doubt will arise, then in very short time, the text itself will clear
up the confusion and doubt. When this happens, we can tick that question off.
Back
to the main exercise. Having withdrawn the 1-3 key philosophical questions,
what is left on your page/s of workings? These are no less important - for you.
Spend the 15 minutes a day with these now and really get the intellect
attacking them; now is the time to get stuck into whether you truly feel any
one of these has merit of its own or is just camouflage for another, or prompts something as yet unasked. …
this is where it can feel more like a therapy session, but stick with it.
Notice if you are avoiding the task. If you are, then you are not yet ready to
'get real'. That's okay. Leave it for a few days. Either you really are not
ready and don't return to the exercise at this time… or you find that you miss
the daily check-ins with yourself and return to it with more determination to
be your own 'excavator'.
It
is important to note here that by applying the techniques of Vedanta -
especially the saadhana chatushtaya - you have a scaffold ready made, tried and
tested over millennia, within which you can do your inner rebuilding with
minimum strain or pain. If you choose to take it up (and again you are reminded
that this 'scaffold' can be used within any other religious structure - it is
wholly portable!), you cannot fail but to observe life changing for the better.
Coping mechanisms are shored up; fears lessen; desires subside; objectivity is
restored…
Continue to utilise this focused question charting
for those times when the mind floods you. It is a useful adjunct to the
introspection tool. In going through this a couple of times, what happens is
that one can start to watch one's mind in the moment of reading/listening to a
teaching and straight away notice appropriate questions and points of doubt.
The idea is to unclutter the mind of all extraneous and unhelpful questions
which block the intellect from its task. A fortunate side-effect is that we can
get a handle on what we are truly feeling. It's a win-win!
