Philosophical Questioning & The Spiritual Path

This article ‘Philosophical Questioning & The Spiritual Path’ was written by an Enlightened person through the Inner Light and Sound Meditation around the year 2000.

 

What’s all this about being philosophical?  

“Philosophy constantly expands our awareness of the environments we use to support our sense of self and existence. The ultimate needs no environments”

John Yarr

  Philosophy would seem on the surface of things to be a purely intellectual exercise – a juggling of words, concepts and ideas (often not our own) in order to reconcile the world of duality and phenomena.   And yet, philosophical awareness is very much part and parcel of the Path as taught by John.   He also teaches that meditation itself is beyond thought – to quote John again

“meditation starts when thought stops” 

so there seems to be bit of a contradiction here.

So why do we encourage advanced meditators at all stages, including adepts, to develop their ability to be philosophical?  

When we look at the nature of meditation, it affords us the opportunity to witness greater and greater levels of stillness. These levels of stillness, which could also be described as levels of “less movement”, are the environments that John talks about in his discourses.   These environments are fundamentally sets of limits, and it is from these environments that we take our sense of purpose and identity.

As our conscious awareness expands through meditation and we transcend these environments, we find greater and greater freedom, and so a greater sense of identity. Over time, through transcendence and realisation, our sense of who and what we are will change as we learn to have our centre within this new expanded environment.   One of the greatest values of philosophy is that it helps us utilise our realizations. This occurs because the ability to be philosophical builds an interface between our lower and higher self, most specifically between the lower and higher mental aspects. This enables is to articulate our realisations, and most importantly of all, to claim our new set of environments as our “home”.

This is all excellent practise for when we transcend all limits and all environments and merge with the limitlessness that is enlightenment.   Whilst enlightenment is unchanged by our ability to express it, being able to vocalise profound realisations in a way that is useful and inspiring to others is a very valuable part of being an enlightened person. Similarly, for initiates at all stages, being able to express what they know is both rewarding and exciting.

Another huge plus is that the lower bodies, the emotions and the lower mind, benefit too. In utilising the philosophical side of ourselves, we access a more stable and less fluctuating aspect of ourselves. Consequently we are less buffeted by the idiosyncrasies of the emotions, or the erratic nature of thought.   In real every day terms this means we will cope better with whatever life throws at us as the peaks and troughs of the roller coaster ride of the lower vehicles are ironed out to a certain extent.  

 The limitlessness of enlightenment is a state of perfect perception. There is literally nothing to inhibit our perception, as there is nothing outside of enlightenment to perceive, and no perceiver to do the perceiving! Within duality perception is imperfect – in that there are limits (environments) in which we have our existence, and beyond whose limits we cannot pass. A valuable opportunity to challenge imperfect perception exists in John’s questions. To call these simply “philosophy questions” doesn’t really do the questions justice. For initiates philosophical questioning not only brings realizations into their awareness it also provides an opportunity to draw on esoteric truths that in traditional philosophy are usually unknowns or presumptions.  

True philosophical questioning is a process of enquiry and insightfulness – penetrating the nature of phenomenon to discover what lies behind it, and utilising what is discovered. Fundamentally it is an enquiry into the mechanics of the Universe, from the grossest to the subtlest plane of consciousness: from the slowest to the fastest, whilst being independent of mundane thought.   Intellectuality on the other hand links different effects (often through analysis) in an attempt to resolve particular questions.   

The philosophical approach is quite different to the intellectual approach,  bridging the gap between realisation and thought and between intuition and analysis. Intellectual questioning requires the analysis of what is known (or what is assumed to be true) plus a search for commonalities that will link these things together.

To be philosophical means to uncover the solution through association with universal causes. What is known through the intellect is always an effect: a shadow of the cause. Causes are more universal, and so they have a greater truth-value than effects do.   This all helps us to understand and appreciate the mechanism of consciousness, from our emotions through to our higher mental aspect, as well as to fully explore and utilise the state of consciousness that we have.   Developing the ability to use the mind in this way is really essential for initiates – it challenges us in a way nothing else can.

Naturally, some of us will find it easier than others – but it’s the challenge that is important – and the willingness to persevere and stretch ourselves.   A vital part of this is challenging our own thinking process. Over the years we will have built up mental models of how the universe works and our place in that system. We will unconsciously draw on these models in order to make sense of life, death and the purpose of existence. As our awareness increases through meditation we will have profound realisations that the mind just cannot grasp. Instead it will attempt to interpret realisations according to our previous experience and personal understanding – our mental models.   Gradually these models become inadequate and redundant.

Unchallenged they will fall well short of what we have become. Ideally we will revisit them from time to time and “remodel” them to compliment and keep pace with our expanding state of consciousness.   Challenging these mental models is very much part and parcel of being philosophical. In order to effect these challenges we need to look again from the perspective of our expanded state at what we believed, what we assumed were truths and why we thought that way. It is a valuable skill to be able to reappraise these models from time to time – and to be prepared to discard some of them completely.  

Putting our mental models, as well as realizations, into words, preferably utilising the voice itself, seems to play a fundamental part in this remodelling process. Somehow it’s not enough simply to think about these things – discussion, debate and conversation will often allow us to bring our ideas right down into the physical, allowing universal causes to be part of our world, enabling us to be more detached in our outlook.   How should we start? First of all, pick a question. Maybe one of John’s, maybe one of your own that you are interested in, or maybe a “classic” philosophical problem.   For example:   Is knowledge derived from experience?   Before any kind of debate can take place, we need to understand the question and the words. In effect the words must be defined. In this instance, knowledge and experience are both concepts whose meaning will vary for different people.

Similarly, the concept of derived knowledge needs considering, along with the possibility of other ways of gaining knowledge, and the notion that knowledge may be gained outside of experience as well as from experience.     What is meant by knowledge?   What is meant by experience?   What is implied by the concept of one being deriving from the other?   We could also add:     What is the value of knowledge, and the scope of experience?   What is it that knows?   What is it that experiences?   Technically there are real answers to many of these questions – however, our experience of life and the filtering process we use when we utilise our personal mental models in order to understand something, will always colour our answer to some degree.

An effective philosophical answer will embrace two things:     It will be universal rather than personal, i.e. its truth will not rely on any individual’s viewpoint, circumstances or belief system.   It will be timeless, i.e. its truth will be as valid today as 100 years ago and a hundred years into the future.   For example, in discussing the nature of human relationships, the solution should be just as valid for any society at any time and anywhere – rather than simply a code of conduct for a particular society, in a particular era and particular place. Similarly, drawing on the question “Is knowledge derived from experience?” the concepts of knowledge and experience should be universal rather than relate to specific types of knowledge or a limited range of experience.   Published western philosophical answers are often long and complicated as the definitions of the terms and all the convoluted possibilities are all laid out for scrutiny. And then we see the beautiful simplicity of John’s aphorisms, the Tao Te Ching or Patanjali’s yoga sutras, which in just a few words capture timeless universal truths.   This simplicity comes from the fact that certain things are assumed – for example the nature of unity and duality, or that there is an absolute being. These assumptions (or truths if we are able to draw on them) need to be put into the arena of discussion too.

  So, we could also add, an effective answer will capture universal, timeless truths within a few words – once the process of considering the essence of the question, and the meaning of the terms, is completed.   In order to be valuable the process of being philosophical should have a life changing effect – bringing universality into the personality. Simple snatching passing thoughts and ideas and churning them out later is not the same as philosophising.   Here are a few easy to make mistakes:     Skimming through a list of questions and answering with yes or no, or suggesting off the cuff solutions.   Drawing on generalizations that we don’t fully embrace or understand.   Relying on the Core Statements as “answers”.  

Relying on something we heard from someone else that has little meaning or value for ourselves.   For initiates, puzzling over philosophical concepts provides us with a bit of a bonus. It is an opportunity to bring the buddhic principle into our own awareness. This is actually what John’s questions have been designed for. Buddhi is a universal principal: it is not personal in any way. This means that buddhi will always reveal the true nature of something, rather than a reflection or a partial truth. This, combined with access to the light and sound, allows true learning to take place: learning that is independent of sense perception and memory. When carried out effectively this process is completely independent of the personal thought processes that are usually associated with traditional learning such as reading, understanding, discussing, memory or even philosophy itself. Philosophy becomes not only a stepping-stone to higher mental activity, but (with time) also acts as a bridge to buddhic realisations.  

Overall then, developing the philosophical side of ourselves can be life changing and empowering not only mentally but emotionally as well as it will bring universal into the personal and allow the personal to become increasingly universal.   Sometimes getting started can be a little daunting, but by following a few guidelines it is surprising how much can be achieved.     Define the words and the concepts used in the question.  

Be universal and timeless in your approach   Be straightforward and simple –summing up your “solution” in a few neat sentences once all the debating has finished.   Finally, realisations themselves are not philosophy. However in becoming philosophical our realisations have greater clarity and value within our lives. In addition, as we become more universal we can more readily accept and embrace realisations: we “consume” them, rather than are “consumed” by them. It is a wonderfully empowering process, which is well worth bringing into our everyday thought processes and ways of being. Probably the most important thing is to have fun playing with these concepts and not to take the whole thing so seriously that we lose site of our own personal realisations which are the crux of our development – without them, philosophy would simply be a mind game – luckily for us it has a far greater potential.   

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