The shifting beach…

(Above: ‘The beach at sunset by the author)

What I love about the beaches around Morecambe Bay is the way you can go back a day later and find them completely changed.

Heysham Beach, near Morecambe, is a wonderful example. In autumn, the tides get stronger, and the landscape upon which you walk – often a liminal zone between rock and sand – changes with each tide.

Which is good news for photographers, as, once more, we can crouch down on a virgin pattern of sand and rock as a new basis for the shot.

©Stephen Tanham 2022

Stephen Tanham is a Director of the Silent Eye, a journey through the forest of personality to the dawn of Being.

http://www.thesilenteye.co.uk and http://www.suningemini.blog

Beyond the Winter

(Above: Lake Windermere, all ten miles of it)

It’s at this time of year, when the nights are long and the days short and getting shorter, that we turn our attention to a what could unfold in the spring – in the form of the Silent Eye’s May workshop. The idea is one thing, the success lies in giving it form and substance…and making sure that everyone there feels a creative part of it.

There is something special about the month of May… Just the sound of it is romantic. It’s the kind of month that demands we do something different; that we cast off the inward-looking considerations of the winter, and perhaps say that last goodbye to the crackling of the log-fires in the hearth.

We used to hold our first weekend of the year in March or April, depending on the date of Easter – which we had to avoid. But May offers a very different energy – and perhaps a degree of warmth and colour lacking in the months before it.

This past year, we celebrated the May 2022 weekend – and the relative freedom from Covid – with ‘The Journey of the Hero’, using the north Lakes town of Keswick as our base. Our adventures took us along the ridges of hills, down a long river walk in the Eden Valley, and deeply into ourselves within the Castlerigg Stone Circle.

This coming May, we have chosen a different theme – Water, and its associations with our emotional natures. Our name for the weekend of 19-21 May, 2023 is ‘Water, Circle, Cross – a rite of Spring’

This time we are basing our journeys around the massive body of water that is Lake Windermere; England’s largest lake, as we set off on a spiritual journey across its vastness, along the paths over its neighbouring fells, and a modest degree of merriment in the twin towns of Bowness and Ambleside.

‘Body of Water’ is our theme…

We will explore our spiritual relationship with water, the alchemical element that is most associated with the emotions, and ask whether we can use its healing power. At a time of great tension on the planet, we will carry out a series of guided sailings and walks that attune us to the vast power of harmonisation we all carry – in the water of our cells.

The inner journey, from self to Self, is one of personal discovery. No-one can gift that journey, but you can gift it to yourself.

(Above: There are many hidden faces to Windermere. The Romans came this way…)

The group will use a method of ‘characterisation’ to move from one state and landscape to another. Each participant will be asked to form a fictional character in their minds and hearts; a persona of great power and insight. At various stages of land and lake, we will enact a developing rite that explores and unites this body of ‘players’ into a working group…all leading to the powerful and healing finale on the Sunday morning.

Our personal rite will take the form of a Solarace – a set of movements and gestures that take place entirely within the space of the body. This mysterious and ancient technique has calming and focussing properties that will serve us well in our individual and collective quest.

No experience is necessary. We will all learn, together, by doing…

The central meeting point will be the lovely lakeside town of Bowness. Rail connections are available to the nearby town of Windermere, two miles up the hill from the Lake.

The administration cost will be £75.00, but additional monies should be set aside for a ferry pass to cover the weekend. We will notify the 2023 cost of these tickets nearer the time.

(Above: and much to tempt the palette…)

Those joining us are responsible for their own accommodation costs, meals, and transportation.

We will meet at the ferry point in Bowness on the Friday lunchtime. Attendees may join later if needed. Friday evening will see us having a shared dinner in Bowness.

The workshop will run through to Sunday lunch, allowing early departure for return journey.

(Above: and the lakeside fells are never far away. Our journeys won’t all be by water…)

If you’ve never been on one of our weekends, you will be doubly welcome. Those who have joined us, before, will testify to the quality, fun and happy intensity of these Silent Eye events.

Contact us at:

Rivingtide@gmail.com to book your place.

©Stephen Tanham 2022

Stephen Tanham is a Director of the Silent Eye, a journey through the forest of personality to the dawn of Being.

http://www.thesilenteye.co.uk and http://www.suningemini.blog

Coming home – around the Abbey reservoirs

Michael perfectly sums up his remembrance journey to the home of his forbears…

Michael Graeme's avatarThe Rivendale Review

Abbey Village

The gate to the war memorial at Abbey Village is locked. I usually visit in the week leading up to the armistice, to leave one of those little wooden crosses for my great uncle. He died in Mesopotamia in 1918, and is named on the column. He was one of the many sons of the village who did not come home.

So, what to do? Well, after a moment of indecision, I toss the little cross, as gently as I can, but still rather indecorously, through the bars, where it falls skew-whiff among the evergreens in the planter at the foot of the column. I offer a wordless apology. A token charged such as this should be placed mindfully, not tossed as a last resort, but I didn’t know what else to do. I had not wanted to walk away with it still in my pocket, for then…

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Fishing for Golden Girls

(Above: the remaining three ‘golden girls’ today: Mum – left; Doreen – centre, and Mavis – left)

There were four of them: best friends who grew up in the smoky old streets of Bolton, Lancashire, long before the leviathan called ‘Greater Manchester’ gobbled up anything that looked remotely prosperous.

(Above: proud Bolton’s Town Hall… built in better times)

Bolton’s not prospering, now. It’s yet another ‘depressed former mill town’, though that blanket description completely masks the major contributions that Bolton – and many of the large towns near it – made to the development of the Industrial Revolution and the century that followed.

(Above centre: Louise, the 4th ‘golden girl’, centre, sadly passed away. Photo taken in 2011)

My life began in those dark, cobbled streets. So many did.. They were filled with a great number of good people… and a few bad ones. Most had hard lives and warm hearts.

I had some real aunties and uncles on my father’s side, but they were more remote and austere than the group of people who were best friends with mum and dad. These became our day-to-day ‘relatives’. Summer picnics, Christmas parties and Easter trips to the coast were our happy lives together…not to mention weekly Sunday trips to the baths – the name for municipal swimming pools in those days.

“Aunties and uncles’ had children, of course: my brother and I, Doreen’s son, Louise’s son. And, Paul, the son of Mavis, who tragically died in his teens. We didn’t have a ‘gang’ name, just cousins – even though we weren’t… In truth, we were stronger than most cousins by blood.

There are three of the ladies left alive, now – see top photo. Mum – right, Doreen – centre and Mavis, left. They took the name ‘golden girls’ for themselves about twenty years ago: after the American TV series. There were four, but Louise passed away this year.

(Above: Magee Marshall and Co – local brewers of distinction and only a few streets away from my grandparents house, where I was born)

Doreen and mum speak via her mobile phone every day. They take turns to call each other – when she can find the phone, that is; and assuming it’s still charged. Remarkably, this is one aspect that has survived the ravages of her dementia.

Keeping in touch is so very important for our golden girls.

Once in a while, we summon up the courage to get them together. I say courage because the potential for things to go wrong is vast. Mum’s dementia and Doreen’s dogged refusal to compromise are a fearsome combination. Often the whole event would make a hilarious sitcom episode. Mavis is a beacon of reasonableness and sanity, and helps the two of us ‘youngsters’ keep the events on the tracks.

Doreen’s son, Mike, and I usually arrange these things. On Sunday he had offered to bring the two Bolton-based ladies up to Morecambe where mum is in a retirement home – closes enough for me to be there in about 30 mins. But we didn’t learn about this until the middle of our trip to the Scottish Highlands. This meant that our long return car journey would be followed, not by a day of recovery, but by a ‘golden girls outing’…

No matter. We would make it work.

The original plan was to use the Royal Hotel in Heysham Village. It’s dog-friendly, so we could take Tess, our collie, along, too. But they were fully booked. Tables for seven are not always easy to come by at short notice.

Long distance from Scotland, we suggested the Morecambe Hotel, in the old central region of the Morecambe’s original town – Poulton. They had one table left and that would seat six – seven at a push. We’re used to compromise and knew there might well be a reduction in numbers by the time we got there.

We booked it…from somewhere north of Inverness.

Everyone was happy until Mike showed his mother the menu – online. She said there was insufficient veggie choice. We countered that there was a good fish option, but he had tried and it wasn’t enought to placate Doreen.

Knowing that we were still returning from Scotland, Mike said he’d arranged an alternative: the Midland Hotel.

We cancelled the Morecambe Hotel…from somewhere north of Perth.

(Above: the Art Deco Midland Hotel – a reliable friend)

The Midland is a reliable friend, but, outside of the formal restaurant, which was too expensive for our purposes, there were only a few large tables. It’s dog-friendly and we often use it for coffee stops, when we’re taking Tess for a beach walk. We hoped that Mike had secured one of the larger tables. We didn’t voice this, but our view was that the veggie choice was no better than the rejected Morecambe Hotel.

We arrived back home late that night. Tired and wanting nothing more than a gentle day to follow, but knowing that wasn’t going to be the case.

I was early collecting mum on the day of the ‘golden girls’ meal. The journey from the retirement home to the Midland was one of only a few minutes, so we arrived with about twenty minutes to spare… I had a hunch that the extra time would be useful.

Getting mum a glass of Apple juice from the bar, I went to reception to check that we did actually have a booking. They had no record of it… but assured us that one of the large booths in the secondary Rotunda bar would soon be coming free.

I returned to mum to find she had spilled half the fresh glass of apple juice down her coat. Some of the bar staff helped with additional napkins, but she was sticky…

Just then, in the way of such things, Doreen’s party arrived in the bar; protesting that their booking had been lost. I turned around to see one of the larger tables being cleared and immediately walked over to claim it, refusing to budge until the rest of our party, including a sticky mother, crossed the space to join me.

Was it a success? Yes, in the end it was. And what did the veggie golden girls choose from the menu? Why, fish, of course…

©Stephen Tanham 2022

Stephen Tanham is a Director of the Silent Eye, a journey through the forest of personality to the dawn of Being.

http://www.thesilenteye.co.uk and http://www.suningemini.blog

Long Tau Cross

(Above: a conspiracy of sun, sky and tau)

I just love it when you’re looking to capture something artistic, as opposed to just landscape, and nature conspires to assist…

There’s a long beach walk that links Rosemarkie, on the Black Isle, north of Inverness, with the lighthouse at Chanonry Point.

Halfway along, the sun became so bright that its autumnal ‘long flat’ rays began to create a glare in my side vision. For a second, I saw a structure, not knowing what it was in the visual intensity.

But I did point the camera at it…

Moments later, I turned away from the glare to examine what my eyes had glimpsed and the camera had snapped.

And went back to shoot it again, with the helpful sun right over the simple seat. The result is above.

The result is above; a natural ‘tau’ figure – elongated on the sand. Sun, sand and deep blue sky in perfect harmony … for which, a humble thank you!

©Stephen Tanham 2022

Stephen Tanham is a Director of the Silent Eye, a journey through the forest of personality to the dawn of Being.

http://www.thesilenteye.co.uk and http://www.suningemini.blog

Homage to Hopper by roadlight

(Above: Towards Inverness, photo by the author)

One of my favourite artists is the American Edward Hopper. His ‘Nighthawks’ is a study in late-night loneliness, set in a bar/diner whose light is a stark and emotional contrast to the isolating darkness outside.

(Above: Edward Hopper’s ‘Nighthawks’)

He also painted isolated and often abandoned scenes, such as outdated petrol (gas) stations; again with a very ‘still’ emotional fascination.

The figures within the bar still have barriers: the space between them. But the hopeful fragility of that is there to be overpowered by the need to, collectively, respond to the dark with… friendship.

That’s my take on it, anyway!

Hopper and his wife were both artists, but they didn’t start off that way. Inspired by her, he took it up and eventually outshone the lady, who never painted again.

(Above: the solitary oncoming car; a kind of companionship…but only for a second. Image by the author)
(Above: ‘Gas’ by Edward Hopper, 1940)

Last year, in the passenger seat on a night drive in Scotland, I noticed that one of the shots I had taken through the windscreen reminded me of Hopper’s work – which is not to say I am comparing our results.

(Above: the winding road, with its backdrop of dark mountains, can be a lonely place. Image by the author)

Since then, I’ve been trying to recapture the look…

We have just finished a long drive to the Scottish Highlands for a short break to get Tess away from the infernal Bonfire Night firework bangs. I took the first leg from Kendal; Bernie drove from Perth, allowing me time to try out my experiment on the darkest part of the journey as we approached Inverness on the long and winding A9.

(Above: Two cars- a completely different ‘feel’. Image by the author)
(Above: First sight of Inverness in the distance; journey’s end… Image by the author)

©Stephen Tanham 2022

Stephen Tanham is a Director of the Silent Eye, a journey through the forest of personality to the dawn of Being.

http://www.thesilenteye.co.uk and http://www.suningemini.blog

Country Girl?

It’s a song by Crosby, Stills and Nash, written in 1970 by their new band member Neil Young, for the best-selling album Déjà Vu; the event that propelled them to achieve what the music world described as ‘supergroup’ status.

Link. https://youtu.be/pWMyLDia6R0

It was a transformative moment for a sixteen year old boy-man who had just been bought the album as a Christmas present…

But it has nothing to do with the subject of this post, apart from the song title, and that the words ‘Country Girl’ have always carried a special magic.

Nor is the woman who owns this rather tasty Mini Countryman a country girl… Well, she might be, but that’s not our story, which is the nature of the chrome-plated letters that make up the revised model name shown in the second image.

I’m fond of gestures. I’m even fonder of clever gestures whose impact is understated…

Clearly irked by the misogynistic nature of the model name ‘Mini Countryman’ – bought by BMW as part of the bargain bucket of what was left of British Leyland, the unknown lady sourced an additional ‘W’ and ‘O’ , in matching chrome font and re-sited the letters:

‘C O U N T R Y M A N’

Giving us the full spread of

‘C O U N T R Y W O M A N’

Country Girl, I think you’re pretty. And you have a fabulous sent of humour…

©Stephen Tanham 2022

Stephen Tanham is a Director of the Silent Eye, a journey through the forest of personality to the dawn of Being.

http://www.thesilenteye.co.uk and http://www.suningemini.blog

Night beginnings…

(It begins… image by author)

I love images that pull you in and suggest what might follow…

‘The car behind had been gaining on her for the past few minutes, getting closer with every mile. How far was she from civilisation! Would she be able to outrun him…assuming it was a him!’

—-

‘He looked ahead and saw the car slowing… No! It had stopped. And he was hurtling towards it at fifty miles an hour! Only then did he see the other car behind racing to close the gap; they were either going to crush him, or force him to stop for a robbery…or worse…

—-

Difficult to stop once you start!

Taken towards the end of our journey to The Black Isle, a very dark section of the A9. Happily we weren’t crushed or kidnapped… but that photo holds a fascination.

©Stephen Tanham 2022

Stephen Tanham is a Director of the Silent Eye, a journey through the forest of personality to the dawn of Being.

http://www.thesilenteye.co.uk and http://www.suningemini.blog

Mind – mover of the Soul (4) Where is the World?

(Image by the author)

Where is the world? Is this a fair question to ask ourselves or some pointless intellectual game?

A friend sent me a beautiful piece of writing, created by a Kabbalist teacher. The Kabbalah is a system I’m very familiar with, though the Silent Eye uses the enneagram as a map of egoic and spiritual consciousness, rather than the Tree of Life used by the Hebrew-derived Western Mystery Tradition (WMT).

(Above: Kabbalistic Tree of Life – in this case portraying the psychology of mankind)

Modern ‘magical’ systems also use the Tree of Life, so I’m always keen to understand how what is really ‘one truth’ is mapped onto each one, differently.

(Above: the Mystical Enneagram used by the Silent Eye offers a simpler map of the inner journey but shares a common goal – finding the true Self and handing the Life to it…)

Both the Kabbalistic Tree of Life and the Mystical Enneagram have the concept of a higher state that we already possess. We are simply asleep to its presence – but the inner identity knows itself.

Your mind is a powerful tool. Your mind is what connects you to Heaven…

Rabbi Ariel Bar Tzadok

At birth, we had no choice but to use our worldly-facing senses to ‘make sense’ of where we found ourselves. Conscious of material realities only, we made our slow and careful way to maturity, gradually losing the sense of that ‘other world’ which was always ‘in-here’ rather than ‘out there’.

In reality, this is a meaningless division, since science confirms that the ‘atomic world’ we inhabit is actually nothing like the one our consciousness ‘assembles’ from the sensory information it receives. We build our world by education and consensus. That’s why we all agree with what is in our reality.

There is a division; our body. The senses our body convey to us provide more immediate information than that available by secondary analysis of what we received – such as logic.

There are many paths before us that are only hard in the mind of the beholder.

Rabbi Ariel Bar Tzadok

We take for granted that, psychologically, we live in our own worlds. Yet we persist in thinking that the greater reality is shared, rather than being entirely relative to our-selves… What creates this is our societal agreement as to what that big ‘container’ is ‘out-there’ The process also gives us the relative freedom to be individuals in this world, as long as we conform to societal conventions. The picture cements itself into place, and we grow in its environment… conditioned.

Welcome to the world.

But there is one added aspect. Because our senses feed us such vivid signals, we come to think of them as ‘me’. We create a centre for our selves and regard it as our primary reality. So, we have the new ‘me’ and ‘the world’. We have entered a state of total duality, all based on the primary illusion of separation and the growth of a personality – the egoic self.

Your mind is what connects you to Heaven. At the same time, your mind is what connects you to Earth. Do you see it?

Rabbi Ariel Bar Tzadok

There is a personality and, in reality, there is the higher Self, but the me-ness of that higher Self is the same as the person – the personality. Within the personality there are barrier to spiritual progress. The task is to find and remove them.

We build and wear a ‘suit of armour’ against the hurts (and dullness) of the adult world. We mature to deal with that world, but at the cost of our spirituality, which is pushed away in favour of ‘real things’ that benefit the personality – the eogic self. To set out ‘back’ on that road to get beneath the heavy armour that life has built requires a certain bravery, dedication and self-honesty… but it is open to anyone who is sincere.

(There have been many attempts to illustrate this journey. Here, the Egyptian Pharaoh is depicted as Osiris, re-made and risen with dominion over all things and with a duty of care to all Life)

The Tree of Life views reaching our original state of Oneness as a ‘vertical’ ascent of consciousness’, from an earthy base to a vastly expanded role for the mind and heart and touching the spirit- connected with our source. This is the mind freed from its limited world of ‘objects’, its focus of looking ‘down’ at the ground instead of up at the stars… metaphorically.

The Silent Eye uses the circular enneagram for the same journey, but with the more modern language of spiritual psychology to take us from the edge of the circle (personality) towards the centre, where living knowledge and experience of the true Self reside. Indeed, it can be said that the inner Self is just a name for what cannot be described yet is utterly personal to the person who finds it!

The circle, like the tree, is only symbolic and representative of a vivid and utterly real journey of self to Self.

The ‘circle’ has always belonged to the Self, but with this journey, is seen as the individual path back to the higher state – our true home.

Your mind is what connects you to Heaven. At the same time, your mind is what connects you to Earth. Do you see it? Do you understand? Your mind is the ladder, the ladder is YOU

Rabbi Ariel Bar Tzadok

©Stephen Tanham 2022

Stephen Tanham is a Director of the Silent Eye, a journey through the forest of personality to the dawn of Being.

http://www.thesilenteye.co.uk and http://www.suningemini.blog

The Human Eye in Winter

(Picture: Caroline Ormrod)

Within the blood of life the love is colour:

The lime-shine kiss of spring’s new fingers

The rising sun, the heart of gold

The mellow blaze as autumn lingers.

And listens to the human eye in winter

—-

Dark path the seeming death that follows fall

Pale exile when the tints have turned to bone

A zero-state as life, slow-frozen, bares its truth:

That colour moves from seen to see to none

Which listens to the human mind in winter

—-

The green, the gold, the falling mellow fold

The hardening of the ground, the ice’s splinter

The glimpse of death revealed as life unseen

Whose key we have to ask within, then silent be

To listen to the human heart in winter

©Stephen Tanham 2022

Stephen Tanham is a Director of the Silent Eye, a journey through the forest of personality to the dawn of Being.

http://www.thesilenteye.co.uk and http://www.suningemini.blog

Stages of Mellow

(Above: the promenade, Grange-over-Sands)

I find the autumn has distinct stages, and that these are subtly different on the coast.

I suppose the adjacent presence of the sea – with its residual warmth from the summer – has a modifying effect on the foliage of the trees, but this may be fanciful on my part.

Either way, as colour fades, the intensity of shadows becomes more important; knowing the light as well as the colour is draining from the landscape as we head down to the winter solstice.

©Stephen Tanham 2022

Stephen Tanham is a Director of the Silent Eye, a journey through the forest of personality to the dawn of Being.

http://www.thesilenteye.co.uk and http://www.suningemini.blog

Mind – Mover of the Soul (3) Seeing Pi and finding your birthday…

(Image by the author)

One of the most important things we do with our minds is to learn, yet we seldom ask: how do we learn things, and is it a single process?

How do we learn things, and is it a single process?

How do we learn things?

We have to be careful to define what we mean by learning. The child or young student gains praise by learning facts. Facts are important, as we are discovering in a world where idiots are given microphones and loud-hailers so they can bay at other adoring idiots; the entire set of bayer and recipient comfortable in a self-enclosed bubble, protected from knowledge osmosis.

Our collective sense of outrage at this treatment of the truth appears to have evaporated. Every day, the headlines bring us another loud idiot, looking to score in the rankings.

Every day, the headlines bring us another loud idiot, looking to score in the rankings.

On both sides of the Atlantic, we can point to populists who knowingly harvest the opinions (and votes) of people who do not have the capacity to question the noises they rally around. The protagonists here are in possession of the facts; the truth, but their character is such that the exploitation of the opposite side of that coin – the deliberate untruth – is acceptable as a route to power. 

their character is such that the exploitation of the opposite side of that coin – the deliberate untruth – is acceptable as a route to power. 

It’s a well-trodden path. Every fascist dictator or religious strongman/woman who rose to prominence claiming they represented ‘the people’ repeats the assault on the truth. In politics it is not unusual; even expected. But episodes like Covid vaccines and attempted overthrowing of audited national voting have exposed the new fragility of what used to be the self-evident.

…have exposed the new fragility of what used to be the self-evident.

Society depends upon that outrage. The collective derision of the deliberately twisted truth is one of our most powerful weapons to protect our civilisations. This is mirrored in the individual by the corrosive effect of having to live with untruths. We can rightly say that the soul is less bright; even dimmed, in the face of untruth.

This is not a political blog, though I may have opened with a rant…

Rather than look at the abuse of opinion, we might gain insight from examining the wider processes of truth, and how we truly learn – or surrender to happy not-knowing, but comfortably the same as our friend, Jack, in the pub.

The schoolboy’s accumulation of facts, regurgitated as multiple choice ‘ticks in boxes’, is valid for that stage of their learning. We can assemble accurate but empty facts into a ‘kit-bag’ of relevant information and have it to hand when we need to carry out something more important.

Which begs the question: what is the nature of that which is ‘more important’?

Which begs the question: what is the nature of that which is ‘more important’?

When information stored by us as reliable facts becomes part of something we can do, can achieve, then we know that the fact – the information is ‘a seed’. 

A seed cannot fulfil its potential without soil in which to grow and water to trigger its life. Yet the seed contains all the ‘process’ it needs to set in motion the potential it holds.

If I know the radius of a potential circle, it might help me as long as I know that a piece of string constrained to stay taut and then allowed to move at one of its ends, would ‘describe’ a circle with that length of string as its radius.

More theoretically, I might be able to design a circular garden feature if I know that within any circle, the diameter and the circumference are related by the multiplication of the former using a mysterious number called Pi – approximately 22 divided by 7.

Put simply: the diameter (all the way across the circle and crossing the middle) times Pi is always equal to the length of the circumference; the length of the string stretched equally all the way round.

This means that the inner meaning of a circle is to be a ‘growing machine’; one that converts straight lines of certain lengths (single dimensional) into a higher two-dimensional figure (the circle) which has the unique property of that first length as its child… or more accurately, its seed.

The seed in this case is the mysterious number ‘Pi’, which is not really a number, but a process. hidden in our number system to point out to us that our rational view of the world has a few cracks in it. In schoolboy facts, Pi is thought of as the number 22/7 or 3.142. But that is just an approximation which works, as long as you don’t ask philosophical questions of it…

If you are fascinated by the truth of Pi there’s a bit more below, taken from the Careers in Maths website: Did you know Pi has your birthday written in it?

This means that the inner meaning of a circle is to be a ‘growing machine’!

To my knowledge, the ‘zombies against truth’ have not derided the properties of the circle in favour of an opinion to the contrary, though they might be preparing such a case… 

Does this radical idea of a ‘growing machine’ have parallels in the human mind?

The philosopher Jidhu Krishnamurti considered such questions deeply. He studied the process of learning from a spiritual perspective; meaning that spiritual learning not only has the power to transform us, it must transform us…

He said some wonderful things about learning; including the statement “Learning is not additive – you cannot gather learning.”

Learning is not additive – you cannot gather learning

To the rational mind, this is anathema…

The mind gathers – accumulates – for a living. Its greatest joy is to add to the store of facts. This is not to say that those facts are not true, nor that they are not capable of being ‘seeds’ for action. But Krishnamurti was on the trail of a much higher goal: He wanted to find the ‘Pi of the mind’, and he found it in a different type of learning, one in which the mind has to be placed into a state of emptiness of (even) facts…

In this state, if we hold it open, the incoming seed, the ‘Pi’, does its work and converts our straight line into a mystically-experienced circle, where learning is immediate and total…

You cannot see if you are not empty. This means no commitment, always learning, not accumulating; it means observing, being awake, being aware without any choice, and therefore giving tremendous attention

Jidhu Krishnamurti

Does this denigrate the mind? Not at all… But it does point to where the mind might be more powerfully employed…

In the next post, we will examine this ‘other place’.

©Stephen Tanham 2022

Stephen Tanham is a Director of the Silent Eye, a journey through the forest of personality to the dawn of Being.

http://www.thesilenteye.co.uk and http://www.suningemini.blog