SPIRALLING

Beings spiral away in ever-widening orbits.  They ask their endless questions but do not accept the answers they provide because they are not the ones they want. So their vortices lose altitude, weighed down by the answers that they do want.  

This is called ceiling-out.  

Naturally, beings spiral upward endlessly into ever greater happiness and light.  When they project a mental ceiling by refusing to let go of where they have come from, they bang their heads against it until, exhausted, they fall away and down, trying to fit into what they have outgrown!

LADY TREMAYNE
Lady Tremayne was a hostage to Fortune
but now she is a hostage to Herself.

She has made herself a cage
of what she wants to be
and though her dreams
pass through the bars occasionally,
they cannot set her free.


This week's project: UP THE DOWN STAIRCASE

USE IT!

Use what?  The Centre.

The centre of what?  The Centre of the Universe.

How?  Locate it.

How do you find the centre of the universe?  It is found in your body.

How can the centre of something as big as the universe be found in something as small as my body?  All beings come from the Centre of the Universe.  The Centre is found in all beings.  It is a tiny spot which is too small to register on any scientific instrument.  It is the tiny door through which you came into the world, then you started accumulating matter around it and grew into what you are now.  The tiny door is still there, overlooked and forgotten.

Where exactly is it?  In the centre of your body about two inches above your navel.

How can I perceive it?  Either by feeling or seeing it with your inner eye, that is the one you use to see with in dreams when your physical eyes are closed.

Assuming I could perceive it, in what way should I use it?  It is the source of all good things (including you!): 

1.  You can use it to introduce positive and wholesome states of mind into your environment; that is, feelings like friendliness, compassion, sympathetic joy, compassion, evenness of mind.


2.  You can use it to bring health and well-being into your physical body.


3.  You can use it to investigate itself.  That is, you can learn what it is, how you came from it and ended up in this world and how you can go back to experience its fundamental state, which is peace and happiness. Actually, you can do anything with the Centre.



New Project: Spiralling

THE SCIENCE OF ADEQUATE RESULTS

Knowing and practising Scientia Causarum Sufficientium, the Science of Adequate Causes, lead us to understand and be able to observe how karma works. We come to see that if one does good one gets good: if one does bad one gets bad; no-one ever escapes the just consequences of an evil deed. It is only short-termism which causes one to see it otherwise. This realisation produces peace in one's heart, renewed motivation to do good and improve oneself and unbreakable confidence in the ultimate perfection and justice of the universe.

Knowledge of the Science of Adequate Results enables us to see how we can achieve our goals by applying the law of karma. Simply put, if you want to end up with an oak tree, you plant an acorn. Of course, soil condition, moisture, location and care are important but the sine qua non is the acorn. There is no use in trying to achieve one's goal until one has clear understanding of the essential cause. At the highest level, the Buddha has offered us the ultimate goal, Nibbana, perfect peace and happiness. This is exactly what many of us want (not all of us). He has also indicated the necessary cause, the Noble Eightfold Path. This involves a completely new start to one's life, covering all aspects of living: how to understand things, how to think, how to speak, how to behave in our dealings with others and the world, how to earn a living, how to make the right kind of effort if we want to be successful, how to develop mindfulness and awareness, how to meditate in order to bring the mind under control and bring about its development to its highest potential. Tread the Path, he says, without change or modification, and we are certain to reach our destination.

Tens of thousands of men and women have achieved just this. Applied Cause, realised Effect. Even more men and women have attempted this while modifying the Teaching, "bringing it up to date" adapting it to cultural or national or fashionable considerations, - and failed. They have wanted an oak tree and sown a sycamore seed. No amount of loving care and compost will ever result in an oak.

This week's project: Use it!

Scientia Causarum Sufficientium

Everything perceived in the physical and mental universes exist because there is, or was, an adequate cause for it. This cause may or may not be apparent to any particular observer. But it exists all the same.

Scientia means "knowing" from the Latin scio: I know.

The Science of Adequate Causes is a process which starts with the Effect which is perceptible and investigates it in order to know the adequate Cause which makes (or made) it possible. In this way one comes to understand things. One sees how things are. One may not approve of what one sees. One often doesn't. There is an adequate cause for that too.

Everything is understandable but it takes an honest and detached mind, a longer or shorter period of time and perseverance to realise it.

The mind is naturally curious unless it has been interfered with by others (parents, society, educationists, dictators etc.) who try to make it work in directions which they consider desirable. When its curiosity is aroused, it is not normally satisfied until it comes up with a satisfactory answer. In this sense it doesn't mean that the answer is one that one approves of; simply that it makes sense. Why is there a dead blackbird on the lawn? Investigation reveals that the cat killed it. The mind is satisfied that this an adequate explanation. It may also decide to put a bell round the animal's neck to make sure that another similar effect is not produced in the future.

NEW PROJECT: The Science of Adequate Results.


SCIENTIA CAUSARUM SUFFICIENTIUM

When we were very young
we dug up the ground
to find Australia.
Australia was out.
A few old toys were all we found.

Because we were here
we wanted to be there.
Because we were dark
we wanted to be fair.
Because we were thin
we wanted to be fat.
Because we were this
we wanted to be that.

We longed for the country
for we lived in the town.
We wished we could have fair skin
because our skin was brown.
We had black hair
but we prayed for gold.
Because we were very young
we wanted to be old.

When we were very young
we dug up the ground
to find Australia.


THE SCIENCE OF ADEQUATE CAUSES

Trace it all back as far as you can
from where it is now to where it began.
From knife to hand
from hand to eye;
from footprints on sand
to sun in the sky.

Trace it back further to where it begins
to the gateways and windows where all things get in.
The scent is not the rose
but the hairs that line the nose.
The seascape is the roving eye,
the tongue is the taste not the apple pie.
Mozart is what you hear
and his place is in the ear.

And all the subtle sensations that impinge upon the skin
flare their little on/off switches
in the mind that shines within.

WHY DON'T YOU WANT TO WHAT?

In the pursuit of Pleasure
and the avoidance of Pain,
we come back for ever
again and again.

And though we remembered,
we also forgot.

Why is it that you don't want to what?


New Project: Scientia Causarum Sufficientium