Keynote address:

'Two wings fly the Bird'

After thanking Professor Indra Nath Choudhuri and the Bharatiya Basha Parishad for their generous hospitality, RSL set out three fundamental ways for human kind to view and understand the world. The first looks outwards to the phenomenal and material domain. In this sensory and emotional dimension the mind becomes entranced by pleasure, pain and passion. The second view is inwards towards the source of Love, Knowledge and Being. This inner world can only be experienced in the timeless world of the Present Moment - a world of peace and un-manifest potency. People who look this way often separate from common humanity and live a hermetic life so as better to commune with the Absolute.

But there is a system known as perennial philosophy described as the 'Way of the Householder' that 'with quiet hearts and minds, free of bondage', enables human beings to reflect both the outward world and the inner world and to this meeting bring the great gifts that we humans are endowed with - love, reason and the ability to discriminate truth from untruth. Indeed looking from this point the dual outward and inward view vanishes as consciousness rises.

RSL suggested that in this cultural age, one of the greatest impediments to this third view is the layer of belief each of us has accumulated in his heart. Religion is often criticised for demanding belief but the world of science and technology is just as insistent. Scientists maintain and most of the world believes that '….science . . . . can build a better world than any that has existed in the past. We  believe this is not from real conviction but from fear of the void. . . Belief in progress is the Prozac of the thinking classes.' (Mark Tully/John Gray)

  RSL suggested that this scientific indulgence in belief ensures humanity takes the outward view of the world and becomes fixed in it. While maintaining it is the world of reality and truth, science accrues belief of every kind. This belief is not the ancient system of Love  which leads to Hope, Faith and Charity but to opinion, conviction, assertion and mindless acceptance. While belief is not the only condition that imprisons us to the outward view it is perhaps the most pernicious. It is so endemic that 'The whole of our mind has for so long been associated with the outer world that it has quite forgotten the existence, let alone the language of the inner world. The moving mind (manas) looks for happiness in getting and experiencing things. These do not suffice, for, when the mind has one thing it immediately rushes after another. The still mind finds happiness in everything. Sri Shantanand Saraswati

Thus it is that our Being is impoverished by the confusion that belief engenders in a world seemingly devoid of the light and knowledge of divine spirituality. Alas, currently  the Religious and Spiritual traditions seem impotent. But there is cause for Hope provided humanity turns towards the experience of the present moment and retreats from the guilty fetch of the past and the fear of the future. It has been done before at another time of crises.

In the 5^th century when European Classical civilization was dissolving, St Benedict    established a small community and wrote 'The Rule' to guide them. His attention was undoubtedly given to the present as can be experienced in his introductory line 'Listen carefully, my child to my instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart. This is advice from one who loves you; welcome it and faithfully put it into practice.' It was put into practice in Europe reviving agriculture, medicine, the art of music, the spiritual exercise of prayer and chant, and to education that led to a new European Renaissance and a rebirth of the Platonic vision of 'the good, the true and the beautiful' in society all due to Benedict attending to present need of the moment.               

Thank you for your time and attention.

*****************************************************************