Chap 9 contd.

Finding the Tiger

In 1989 I married and over the next 30 plus years I became a family man and remain so to this time of writing. (2020). I extended my career to a satisfactory position as a senior health professional educator within mental health. I studied and received further qualifications and worked within a variety of interesting areas.

However one key element for me over this time to the recent was my struggle to deal with a seemingly ingrained experience of Dysthymic Depression. (Chronic low grade depression), with some severe episodes.I have also experienced addictive behavioural issues (dependent mostly on the depression).

There is a huge paradox. Now I have got to a place where I feel that I am really engaged as a spiritual soul to the maximum depth that I could ever wish, and I have found my self-realisation and my perfection (siddhi) on the spiritual plane.  Yet it has come to be connected integrally with my experience of struggle with mental health.

Interestingly I find that as I relate now to the personality that I left in India as the Hindu monk, I see that my time of ten years in India was probably about sitting in the same space where I am can sit now. (Without the need for a cave!). Also I can look back at myself in India & make a diagnosis of depressive episodes, interspersed with the mild-to-moderate chronic depression that is called dysthymia.

I am fascinated now by this paradoxical connection of intense deep spiritual experience & equally intense depression.

This for me is Finding the Tiger. The tiger is my soul animal – similar to a favourite animal but not quite! The tiger represents me as being a complete whole person. Powerful in that I have my spiritual plane again, but also powerful in that I am a complete human being. I am human with my experience of the depths of despair and depression whilst at the same time have become able to deal with and cope with this part of my life. This adds to my power. I have experienced common place reality for many: the human life which can be, “weak, disabled and dysfunctional”, and I am happy about this because I don’t see it as bad. However I also can be a functional health professional, family man, and “healthy human”. All this alongside the choice of continuing my practice of spiritual awareness. This is about finding the Tiger: the tiger memories that drove me when I was a child to go to India, and to head off to end up as a monk. This metaphor for life has driven me now to look at the issue of spirituality and religion, and also depression in some depth.

Taming the Tiger

Not a popular path! Spiritual endeavour.

You may find few who are willing or interested in listening to your politics and religion. Your personal growth and spirituality may be in a similar vein. You then find you need to talk to specific people who are clearly interested or committed in some form of growth. Personally interested people are willing to discuss spiritual topics. However when this topic is broached, it may be that interested parties will then talk about or even try to sell their particular brand of spirituality, which may well be connected with a specific religion. Even in company of spiritual practitioners we can find difficulties dealing with fixed rigid views, and even angrily hostile perspectives. This may be why many are put off even by the whole topic. It may seem like a can of worms.

On the whole most of society seems to be quite happy engaging in the material consumer world, except for when it bites back, and they find that suffering rather than enjoying becomes the experience. Then may arise desire for something else. The truly selfless person, the true soul seeker, does not want anything. There is a spiritual goal and transformation of purpose, but that is also selfless: it’s not like a dog finding a bone and running off.

We find some of these painful experiences about life out as we go through our years. Being somewhat protected as children, we may seek again more security as we get a bit older. In our hearts we may want to develop and grow in a holistic spiritual manner, and believe our path of spiritual growth will enable us to sit back in and be protected or safe. However we may find that there are dangers in exploring and trying to move forward on a spiritual path, even though we may hold “magical thoughts” about how “wonderful” it will all be! There is even research that shows evidence of spiritual endeavour increasing mental health problems like depression. Addictions, compulsions or other psychological snakes may rear their heads, almost as if the ego fears it’s “death” and wants to strike back.

Conversely it may seem that if one does all this practice with no sense of reward or desire, the goal may seems like some kind of hollow empty state – wilderness or a desert. Without actually tasting the nectar, the bliss of the Supreme Divine Grace, it is easy to feel emptiness (especially if one has given up lots of habits). Hence we may live for a while only trusting and hoping, when we follow chosen teachings, or believe that a higher power or Divinity will “sort our lives out”.

Religion can be based around desires to prosper, to flourish, to have a good place in society, or to get to heaven. We then will maintain belief & trust that God will help us to get all the things we want, and help us to do the right things. The spiritual journey though, (and this is where the difference really sits), is about transcending all of this. About becoming selfless, transforming a humanness into “spiritual-ness – not saintliness”. There is nothing wrong with being human wanting or achieving, or seeking. Human experience itself will show the way, for when a goal is reached, this can lead to dissatisfaction and a need to go deeper. The bliss of money, food and sex will never ultimately be a permanent satisfaction or consolation. Seeking on the higher levels is where we want to have some taste of the Divine Grace nectar. We want to overcome some of the pain, sadness or general feeling of malaise about the world. We might start to feel this spiritual centre more, especially as we dig deeper into the spiritual world, and start to overhaul our materialistic striving.

Choice will always remain the individual’s, and that choice will always be to go forwards or backwards or just stay in the same place. Probably not many choose to follow the path of spirituality to its deepest depths, nor would many want to become priests, monks, recluses or swamis. That however is not necessarily all of the potential “advanced” options. True “monastic” status essentially is an inner one in these modern times. Monasticism is something that was representative of spiritual or religious leaning more commonly in older times. The modern world doesn’t leave much space around us to pursue that option. We have to do a lot of it on the internal plane, by making our own Divine connections and meeting in spaces where like-minded people can gather to do this work, without necessarily wearing certain clothes or performing certain rituals.

The biggest obstacle of all, is the part of us that doesn’t want to die, and yet gives us most grief, and that is our ego. That is, when we seek to move into higher levels or planes the ego feels a threat, and may well set up its own conflicts and diversions to distract us for a long time. It is like a cat being removed from the warm fire to be put out into the cold – total reluctance! The human choice of life is to be very comfortable thank you very much. The way of the renunciate is not universally, commonly, or popularly cherished.

Our guides

There seems to be a series of doubts to do with how our spiritual or religious leaders have presented themselves. There are many sources of some hard questioning about gurus and spiritual teachers, now that we have the worldwide spread of the Internet. We can delve into subtle, (and not so subtle), truths about those who practice a religious or spiritual life, in the public domain.

There are questions about why many of such persons have not been able to achieve what may be considered to be, a balance, a harmony, or even sanity. Was there something intrinsically wrong with the person to start with, or did some “pollution” occur? Is it an ego somehow being bolstered up by spiritual or religious kudos and acclaim?

Even looking at older historical records of activities of great religious leaders, there have at times been things that are prompts for disgust. The modern media will spread gleefully, gory or outrageous accounts of the doings of major charismatic religious figure-heads, be they of any religion. Christian pastors, Buddhist leaders and of course some really power crazed but charismatic leaders of brand-new sects, where even mass suicide has occurred. Totalitarian ministries, profligate sexual practices, or stupendous consumption of wealth is not uncommon. Where then is a serious seeker of truth to look, when seeking a path or guru?

There is instability engendered by building on one’s fears and doubts, even if they have some truth, and this process should have some prominent ground in the seriously seeking inquiring mind. In all life it is best to avoid naive mistakes and blatant errors of judgement. There is also a need for some critical judgement, as to whether normal human behaviour is realistic for those with an expression of higher spiritual endeavour. Our journey is similar to a major journey or an expedition overseas. To go traveling with any company or guide, some inquiry and checks are needed. Find out about where you are going or why you want to go. Spiritual need can be at times overwhelming, and propel a person directly into acting rather than thinking.

So it is probably not realistic to expect that the spiritual enlightened are all going to be fully virtuous models of society, and paragons of morals, or even nice people! It would be nice to think so, but the reality is that anyone even at the higher levels, will still be inhabiting a human body. If they are dead and long gone: E.G. Jesus or Buddha; then we are not going to get much “dirt” on them, which makes things easier. However we may not benefit from shunning alive teachers of any description, and in fact a lot of our life is built around having teachers, so we can reap benefit in our learning journeys.

We need our many guides, and as long as we realise what we are using those guides for, and avoid being sucked into some game. It is probably realistic to think that any guide that espouses higher level philosophy or spiritual practice, is only going to be relatively free of behavioural problems, addictions and negative personality traits. We do know that many in the world follow religious teachers who exhort their followers to go out and kill others, and it doesn’t seem to put those followers off in the slightest. I would not see such persons as being teachers of any degree of spirituality. Religious teachers they may be, but then religion has always been associated with acts of aggression!

It seems that at some stage of the spiritual journey a conscious stock taking has to be done of all the subtle and more obvious mental, physical and emotional tendencies. Those which seem reasonably benign, (and yet set in concrete), may even be left unchanged as  the spiritual goal is not human perfection, in spite of what organised religion may try to thrust upon people. The individual may choose a relatively saintly path, with or without outward display. On the other hand the individual may simply take an, I don’t care, attitude with regard to how the world responds. The spiritual journey is not about walking through a desert wilderness. There are times when there can be many temptations, as benefits may accrue from being on this journey, and temptations may be just what the ego is putting in our way to knock us back a bit.

Only at the higher stages of divine practice, and at the end of the journey does the light of perfection shine clearly.

The True Guru

“My cat is enlightened so why can’t I be?  Why do I still need a guru”?

Cats have it all sussed. Laze around all day in the house. No chores, no responsibilities and yet they are independent and free as they want to be. They stay out as late as they like, come and go when they please, and plenty of them have trained their owners as well, with regards to feeding times and other requirements. They are the gurus of the animal world certainly, and at times the envy of humans.

So what’s the need then to be taught better “tricks”? Why can’t we just learn from nature and the people around us? Isn’t a baby the best example of someone experiencing an inherently blissful natural state? Is certainly there are no shortages of learning experience on a day-to-day basis, (if we choose to accept them as such). There are people all around from whom we can learn at all times. We can also learn from our own mistakes, and from those of others. If we pursue a higher goal then there are plenty of books, and exercises to be practiced, or philosophies to be pursued. In time it is quite logical, that, from the learning an individual could get a good idea of what Enlightenment, Nirvana, or Moksha is all about, and even find out how to get on the path towards such goals. (Nirvana, or Moksha are words used by Hindus or Buddhists and are Sanskrit words that describe a state of release from the cycle of birth and death, pleasure and pain).

The spiritual journey is open to anyone at any time. There are no rules which say you must have a guide, a teacher or a guru. Rather there is an understanding that all focused and energetic efforts on the spiritual journey will bring good rewards. In fact it is logical that if you have gleaned good solid information yourself you will get better results than if you accept willy-nilly someone professing guidance, which may lead you into a mess. I am reluctant to follow recipes when cooking, as I much prefer the results, and taste, which I get from little judicious experimenting myself. The satisfaction of my own recipe gives me much more than that achieved using a textbook guide. However in some areas, such as baking in my case, I always use a recipe!

Having a guru for the spiritual journey may even be dangerous, unless you are prepared for the acceptance of, and then proper use of, such a teacher. It’s like buying a serious, expensive supercar when you are a learner driver, or when you only do a bit of city shopping by car. Or, do you plan to run a Rolls-Royce if you are employed on the “lower socio-economic scale” (i.e. poor)? Real gurus are not to be trifled with; they are for those who are willing to accept some painful truths. Also casual acceptance of any teacher may be a gateway for further neurotic anguish rather than peace and bliss. The word guru means “one who leads from darkness to light”. A guru must be already in the light to be able to reach out and help others to attain the same illumination. A guru can only affect others to the degree of that guru’s own achievement.

What benefits then are to be gained by the following of an enlightened being? That teacher, that guru, may not even be alive in a physical sense. As long as the teaching remains with some system or path to be followed, then the aspirant on the spiritual journey can benefit in proportion to the efforts made. The difference with the living human guru is that, a dead teacher is not going to come along with a cane to administer a rap on the knuckles. By taking on a living teacher one is opening up to immediate evaluation, to being given marks, as in exams, and to being critically examined. The teacher is not working to allow comfort in the student. The student is not working to remain static in knowledge.

The spiritual aspirant who uses a living guru, will submit the dross, the mundane, and the un-enlightened mentality for the guru’s inspection. The guru prescribes the medicine and the aspirant then moves on to the next stage – whether to take the medicine or not. The spiritual journey as gleaned from books may be quite palatable, but what the living guru may require of you personally may be “too much”. This is the very reason why the true guru is necessary. If you want the spiritual journey to proceed apace, you can’t stay in your comfort zone!

It’s moving out of the comfort zone that is very hard, that is difficult to achieve without guidance. It is being open to inspection and evaluation that can be very uncomfortable, but can be so productive. This is where the guru can work to help the spiritual aspirant. When the guru is found by a careful, even choosy search, and when the guru is approached in the appropriate manner, then the guru becomes the means for rapid progress on the spiritual journey. It is quite possible to progress spiritually by one’s own efforts, and there is nothing inappropriate about this. Using the benefits of an enlightened guide however is like taking the express train rather than the slow goods train that gets “bumped off” into numerous sidings. The spiritual smorgasbord including the New Age, therapies, various sects, cults and new religions can be a temptation leading to endless side journeys, with the self-taught student ending up aimlessly sailing in a lake of spiritual hope, without getting to see the shore.

A knowledgeable guru has the present time experience of spiritual peace, awareness, and bliss that comes with real practice. This knowledgeable awareness can be “transmitted” to a student by subtle means that are not easily understood by a novice. In Sanskrit the word for this transmission is Shakti-Paat, the bringing down of divine Shakti energy by the guru to help awaken the natural abilities of the student, so that here and now something more concrete can be experienced regarding the nature of the spiritual goal. In Hinduism and Buddhism this energy transference is known to awaken the “third eye”, or to awaken the sleeping Kundalini serpent force up through the spine. The third eye is just one way station for the chakras or centres of energy. Other areas awakened are in the heart area, the spinal centre, and also another heart “space”, that is directly connected to Divine Energy. You can choose your cat to be your guru, indeed as you can choose any person as a teacher. However if you wanted to learn to fly jumbo jet would you take lessons from a bus driver? The importance of finding an enlightened true guru, (Sat Guru), may be overlooked or ignored in haste to develop one’s spiritual experience within a short term time frame, rather than looking at the need for a long-term, solid and extensive pathway.