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Kolkata 2007 - Report
Material Progress and the Impoverishment of Being:
A Challenge for Religious Traditions
This three day International Conference was held at Bharatiya Bhasa Parishad , Kolkata, India from 30th November to 2nd December 2007. Professor Indra Nath Choudhuri and Bharatiya Bhasa Parishad
hosted the event, which the Millennium Trust UK attended as Guests.
The impulse which gave rise to this Conference is not new. The struggle for man's Spirit and Culture in the face of technical and economic
progress is an old one, but as the pace of progress has quickened to a crescendo in this new Millennium, so the guiding wisdom we have always drawn from the deep-rooted cultures and spiritual traditions we have
inherited, is being challenged as never before.
Report
This Conference was considered a great success, being attended by nearly 200 people altogether. On each day over a hundred distinguished Indian delegates, including a former Chief Justice of India,
were joined by a group of 14 from The Millennium Trust. Papers were given on a variety of topics and it is hoped to post all these on this website in due course. We have left the preambe and key questions
for those who are interested to see the background to the discussions. Following these are abstracts of two papers, the full texts of which can be accessed by clicking on the links which follow them.
Keynote address by Ronald Lello of the Millennium Trust - ABSTRACT
Ronald Lello set out three fundamental ways for humankind to view and understand the world. The first looks outwards to the
phenomenal and material domain. The second turns inwards towards the source of Love, Knowledge and Being. And then 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 and inner worlds, bringing love, reason and discrimination to their meeting. RSL suggested that the layer of belief
each of us has accumulated in his heart – whether religious or scientific - ensures that humanity today will tend to take the outward view of the world and become fixed in it. '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
St Benedict offers an example of how to deal with the
situation thus created. His small community followed 'The Rule' which began: '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.' That practice led to the revival of agriculture, medicine, the art of music, the spiritual exercise of prayer and chant, to education and in due course to a
new European Renaissance.
For the whole text of this address click here
Love, Law and the Search for Justice . Paper by Paul Benson of the Millennium Trust - ABSTRACT
Shema Ysrael Adoni Alohanu Adoni Achod.
"Hear! O Israel the Lord is our God, the Lord is
One". The Shema, as this prayer is called, contains the first principle of Judaism: the Oneness of the Absolute. Love of the Absolute is the basis of the religious aspect of Judaism and Love
for your fellow man is the social aspect of Judaism. Love of the Torah incorporating the various Laws given by the Absolute is also fundamental to Judaism and these are entwined rather like DNA. The first
great body of law is written, the Torah; it teaches about spirituality, love, and human goodness. It is external and is literally a light from heaven. The second source of law is internal; the Oral
Law. It is man-made and a product of man's intellect, creativity, efforts and spirit. This second source of inner light is fine but of course it would be quite unnecessary if we adhered to the Law of the
Absolute, a world filled with the light of the Absolute.
Whilst the Laws within the Torah are intended for Jews alone, the Noahide Laws are intended for all mankind and are the basis of a just society. The
Search for Justice is ultimately the same as the Search for Peace. As King David said "Turn away from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it." Today, many of the spiritual institutions
seem to have have deviated from the Spiritual path towards the material, in seeking to attain the greatest number of followers almost as if this confers truth upon their particular doctrine.
Paul Benson stated
that he sees the way forward as being via a spiritual path, and an acceptance of the concept of the Absolute without the dogma that plagues the traditional religions. So the Jewish answer to the question posed by
this conference is: Love of the Absolute and your fellow man, which is the very heart of Judaism, supremacy of the Law as embodied in the Torah and Justice as expressed in the 7 Noahide Laws.
For the full text of this paper, click here
Rumi and the role of stories in our twenty-first century.
Paper by Muriel Maufroy - ABSTRACT
Muriel Maufroy is a lifelong student of the Sufi tradition and author of Rumi's Daughter. She spoke about the importance and power of stories as formative
influences on young people and as instruments of change, with particular reference to the stories told by Rumi, the great Sufi poet and mystic. She asserted that stories conveyed visually - i.e. by television and
film - lack the power of those told verbally or through radio to exercise the faculty of imagination which is essential not only to thought and to the ability to conceive of differences and improvements in life,
but also to abstract and conceptual thinking.
Rumi's stories are entertaining, and can shock us into fresh perceptions through laughter or paradox. They may also carry a higher knowledge, transmitting wisdom -
the resource most needed in our world today in order to balance our technological mastery. Rumi's stories work on several levels at once, offering an experience which renders the listener permeable to the
knowledge which the poet wishes to transmit.
For the full text of this paper, click here
The Foolishness of Art Paper by Katy Khurt ABSTRACT
Rabindranath Tagore speaks about "a great desire to come out and come into touch with the humanity of the west," and about western man
who has "the power of the whole world, and his life is overflowing all boundaries and is sending out its message to the great future." This 'power' is creating problems for Western man. He's getting so
caught up in it that there's little time for anyone but himself and his own material progress. This gets in the way of obstacle of achieving spiritual well-being which requires dedication and most
importantly the ability to 'be'. Recently I read an article; "Teenagers 'ignorant' about world." It explained that British schoolchildren were the least likely in Europe to have an awareness of
current affairs. They are so involved in their laptops, ipods and mobile phones that its not surprising they have little time for anything else. Ironically despite the surge in new methods of communication
my generation is less communicative. We block out human contact when we plug in and shut off. In the UK most young people have much opportunity. All this choice means that there is no excuse to
underachieve – hiding away from it all is sometimes tempting. Some students where I was at school complained that school was boring and spent hours playing computer games instead of getting involved in the many
activities on offer. They were complacent. They had and would never have to work for anything – why bother? In contrast, Children in the Gambia where I taught, who had very little, were desperate to
learn. Back here the obsession with material possessions means that doors are shut and eyes closed to much else. This lack of open-mindedness is shared by many of my peers who cant understand why I'm
not doing a 'proper' degree. I chose art which to them is mere foolishness – like cutting and sticking at playschool. In fact, more effort and intellect, more of my 'self' is injected into my artwork than
anything else I do. Finding all of that to give is difficult but when I do I know that I am 'being' in the 'now'. "It hears through my ear, thinks through my mind…and sees through my eye. (Kena
Upanishad.) If I am ever wise it is at these times – there is nothing I would rather do. I don't want to be shunted from education straight to career ladder where its hard to face any way other than straight
up for fear of upsetting the balance and falling off. Although survival of the fittest is a natural instinct driving us to try to be the best it can become an obsession – more money to buy more things to create
more power. It can happen fast so why wait for anything that takes longer? This frame of mind creates problems because, "To be effective in the world, spiritual values require commitment and the work of many
individuals to seek essential resources of wisdom, enlightenment, love, faith and hope…" (Millenium Trust Website.) So is there hope for my generation – who or what will help us? I think the answer is
simple – a good teacher. Like artists I discovered at Tate Modern who created 'Untitled', a room full of perfectly carved plastic replicas. Foolishness you might say but 'Untitled' really tested my sense of
perception. I looked harder than usual because I couldn't believe my eyes. The artists remind us that things are not as they seem. We become more alert and in consequence more aware of ourselves.
Fishli and Weiss were inspired by Robert Walsers 'The Walk' where he says "A man must bow down and sink to the smallest everyday thing…if he does not then he walks only half attentive, with only half his spirit, and
that is worth nothing." Art is a powerful teacher. Listen to the Mughal emperor, Akbar, "It appears to me as if a painter had acquired a peculiar means of recognising God; for a painter in sketching anything
that has life…is thus forced to think of God the Giver of Life, and will increase in knowledge." Art encourages us to look and listen hoping that in turn we will see and hear. To do this we must go about,
antennae out responsive, appreciative, awake, alert and alive. And this is why Western man, if he goes about with eyes down, blinkers fastened, focused only on his material progress, is in trouble. How
can he live properly if his senses are dead? The Kena Upanishad concludes; "The living man who finds Spirit, finds Truth." For the full text of Katy's paper, click here
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For the Record: Background Preamble and key questions
In 1921 Rabindranath Tagore could write 'And I felt a great desire to come out and come into touchRabindranath Tagore in Kolkata c.1935 with the Humanity of the West, for I was conscious that the present age belongs
to the western man with his superabundance of energy. He has got the power of the whole world, and his life is overflowing all boundaries and is sending out its message to the great future'.
But importantly, Tagore also noted how, even then, overactive western man was turning to the East to seek peace.
What robs mankind of peace? This is an age-old question, answered by the age-old
teachings. Fear, Desire and Anger – these rob mankind of peace. Fear of loss; desire of gain; anger at opposition. How can we escape these evils? Only by a return to true Being. Thus say
the Geeta, the Bible and the Qur'an. Thus say Socrates, the Buddha and all great philosophic traditions.
Have the traditions failed us, or is it we who have failed to listen to them? Have we, by
dedicating ourselves to the pursuit of a material flowering, a material power, a material accumulation, forgotten the immaterial realities and the Divine law asserted with remarkable unanimity by the great teachings?
This is also an ancient question that has been posed to a perplexed humanity over millennia in such legendary myths as the story of Abraham, Sudama, Persephone and the Prodigal Son. Today might not Tagore be
dispirited to see India embracing the progress of markets, consumption and unbridled self-seeking – following the West in its descent into the veneration of the material and the acceptance of the materialistic ideal.
Men like Tagore, Schumacher and Gandhi might be even more dismayed to see how technological success now threatens the planet itself. Climates, forests and mountains, rivers, the seas and the oceans are
under threat; in human affairs, spiritual values have been largely abandoned as guides to action, and are no longer seen as reliable constants by those cultures which have venerated them for millennia. At
the same time, materialism is seeking new fields to conquer both within and beyond science – the molecular world with nano-technology; the manipulation of our genetic inheritance for financial gain; the so-called
'conquest' of space; economic systems that project unlimited, unbridled growth– all undertaken in ignorance of consequences and without any apparent sense of reverence for the creation being so systematically and
ruthlessly exploited. Short-term gain and benefit is all.
Soon - 2012 or 2020 or 2050 - we are told we can expect appalling stresses as water and land and energy resources fall short of human needs,
igniting more and more naked possessiveness and wars. And India herself, with her vastness, will be a major stage for all this to happen.
Are technical and economic challenges to have only technical and economic
responses? Can we still rely on the great traditions to provide the wisdom and understanding, for authoritative signposts? Or is it really true that societies have changed so profoundly that, as some say, the past
traditions and their wisdom can no longer bring any powers of relief or reconnection to modern men and women?
To consider such questions we need a common understanding and this is the central imperative for our
Conference. Do we in the West and in India share spiritual meeting-points from which we can, together, explore powerful and pragmatic resolutions to the dilemma of material progress and cultural impoverishment? And, if
we can identify a common understanding, on what shall it be based to ensure future continuity and practical relevance?
We might do worse than to look to two of the most ancient philosophies known to mankind -
sanatan dharma in the East and the perennial philosophy of the West. For many thousands of years, each of these has illumined and informed teachings, civilisations, cultures, and the lives of countless individual
men and women. Each proposes an underlying, divine unity as the ground of all being, within which all that takes place is under divine law. Each asserts that man's highest goal is the realisation of, and
reconnection with, that reality. Each makes it clear that men and women have the power to choose whether to seek to realise the truth of themselves or to be carried by the impulse of outgoing creative energy into
the depths of the material manifestation. Most important of all, each tells us that we can, at any stage, make the decision to reorient ourselves away from the material and back to the unifying truth of the
spiritual realm and the benign governance of divine law which is said to be the source of joy, love and happiness and well-being in this creation.
If societies are expressions of the state of the individuals who
compose them, then the character of society can only change if the individuals within it change. But we would sometimes rather try to change the world than confront and change ourselves. To be effective in
the world, spiritual values surely require the commitment and work of very many individuals to seek those essential resources of wisdom, enlightenment, love, faith and hope in the ancient teachings and religions of
mankind.
This commitment and work in the traditional approach can be seen as two-fold. First there is a constant need for individuals to find freedom from the incessant desire for more and more. Finding freedom
from such a powerful desire is difficult indeed and to help we need recourse to the second process – transforming our consciousness, our state of being, so we can transcend the various demands that hold us enslaved or
enthralled to the attractions of the material domain. This process, known in The Gospel of Thomas as metanoia, provides the impulse to enable a 'turning about' towards the unity and innocence of the real Self. It is a
process rooted in Indian thought and spiritual practice. In medieval Christianity the process is described as 'taming the dragon' – the dragon being the voracious ego, devouring all in it's path including eventually,
the 'beautiful princess' about which it is curled.
But if the old traditional allegories are no longer intelligible to the rising generations of East and West, would we be better to turn to contemporary people
like Gangaji and Eckhart Tolle, who state the immemorial truths in modern language, attracting in the process many thousands of followers of all ages?
Can such values be communicated effectively by the power of
the mass media? Can they be articulated effectively to a world population through governments and communal leaders? Are not wisdom, conscious enlightenment, faith and hope needed or can attitudes be
changed only through the dread of future disaster?
Buddha, Jesus, Moses Krisna and Mohammed, all managed to bring about great and positive changes in the world without the help of television, radio and the
Press. Such teachers did not reduce things to the lowest common denominator – they elevated us to the highest. At the heart of all their teachings is the idea of the transformation of consciousness, the process of
transcending duality in ourselves, of detaching from the fragmented realm of the material and returning to the innocence and oneness of the Real Self and the rule of divine law. These great principles help us to
see how the current state of humanity, with all its conflict and suffering, is created and driven by the body-bound 'egoic mind'. The teachings share a vision of 'oneness' and 'unity' in which the self
seeking ego is tamed, attachment to the physical is dissolved, and the light of spirit is allowed to illuminate all the activities of mankind.
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