|
||
|
|
||
| PAPERBACK BOOKS | ||
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Don was born in 1936 at Yarrawonga on the Victorian side of
the READ A SAMPLE: This book raises some puzzling
questions, enduring mysteries that men have contemplated since time began.
Subjects like, is there a God? Do I possess a soul? Is there any possibility of
an existence after death? Am I here for a purpose? Being a somewhat sceptical
person, I sometimes ask myself why I bother thinking about issues that in all
likelihood have no rational answers. It’s partly because I need an overall framework,
even if inconclusive, a broad understanding of these matters to help make sense
of my own particular day-to-day life adventure. Does everyone need a
life-philosophy? Perhaps not, but I do. It seems to me that the great
philosophical beliefs we’re invited to adopt are based either upon
‘fundamentalist faith’, at one end of the spectrum or at the other end,
scientific fact. It’s hard to argue with the latter but, inevitably, science
goes only so far until it reaches a point where rational answers are wanting. If
I want to proceed further, then I must cautiously develop my own brand of
spirituality. I wrote this book for my own
pleasure, but arising from it, I’ve come to certain conclusions. I revisit here
regularly because it’s my intention to ‘live’ the book. Some of the things that
I believe in, like living simply, abandoning pretension, being truthful, and
refraining from engaging in malicious gossip are practically impossible to
achieve all the time. But I try to practice what I’ve come to accept as
basic spirituality. When I think about what I’ve
considered in the following pages, one thing that gives me cause for wonder is
the miracle of birth, or more specifically, the miracle of conception that
precedes birth. It is the brief union between male and female that brings about
the birth of a new generation; be it animal, flora, or whatever, in an
oftentimes-physical likeness of its two donors. This relentless re-birth of each
new generation with perhaps ever-so-slight modifications has been going on for
so long that we have come to think of the result, the newborn as a miracle,
whereas perhaps the simple truth is our inability to grasp the incomprehensible
timespan over which re-birthing has been going on. Our mind, structured to think
in terms of lifetimes, wonders how and when life on earth began, and how and
when it will end. But I’m beginning to think there never was a ‘beginning’ nor
will there ever be an ‘end’. Not beginnings or ends that we can get our minds
around anyway. This procession of re-births has been going on, and might
continue to go on, ‘forever’. The new generation
inherits its incredible physical
likeness from the donor male and female. The physical rebirth is a
miracle, but even more astonishing is what I’ve come to accept is the existence
of a discrete energy that accompanies each physical birth. This energy is even
more astonishing than the body it accompanies; it too is inherited from the
parents and contains consciousness, from which the newborn’s destiny is
pre-written, and into which its ongoing life story is indelibly recorded. This
energy is indestructible; it’s also the same ‘stuff’ as the ‘Holy Spirit’, or
soul that religions talk about. Why are these two travelling
companions reluctantly bonded, one the ‘here-for-this-lifetime’ body destined
sooner or later for demise and the other, a soul that perhaps lives on
‘forever’? Why? They don’t particularly like each other. They don’t even talk
the same language. Perhaps we’ll never know, but my best guess is that we’re
participating in the ongoing clash between opposites. The body and mind,
particularly in company with the wilful ego, are intent on carnal pleasures, and
give little attention to the refined subtleties of the soul. Soul, meanwhile, is
determined to impose its ‘saintliness’ on an ego-driven ‘good-time’ body, the
accomplishment of which might save soul from going through a re-birth all over
again, or failing that, to at least make some positive progress, some
Self improvement in the ratio of soul to body. I’ve had an interesting life
and I can say that, like most people, I’ve experienced some of the pains and
pleasures available to us at the physical level. But I’m wondering about the
other, the soul, have I paid much attention to that side of my
Self? Could I really regard myself as
a ‘well-rounded’ individual? When my time comes to hang up my boots, shall I be
satisfied that I couldn’t have done more? Body, mind and ego have no
future beyond this life. Soul perhaps, does have a future. This lifetime I’m in
presents me with the prospect of securing for my soul a better ‘future’. It
occurs to me that this is where I should be concentrating my attention. I need
to develop my own natural spirituality. That is what this book is
about.
What am I?
The problem
of the second half of life is to find a new meaning and purpose in living, and
this, perhaps strangely enough, is best found in the neglected, inferior, and
undeveloped side of the personality. (Fordham) From birth until we die, we’re
each an individual, alone most of the time, especially with our thoughts. As we
grow older, our body deteriorates; things start to go wrong, arising from which
we’re forced to pay more attention to our physical wellbeing. Added to this, our
thought processes are not as sharp as they once were, memory lapses happen
regularly, and it gradually occurs to us that the end might be in sight.
Oblivion! We have been on this earth for all these years and for what purpose?
When we die, will that be the end of it? I begin to wonder, “Have
I missed something?” It leads me to contemplate,
“What is the I doing the
wondering, and indeed the contemplating? What is my
Self?”
Am I the physical body?
I’m wakened in the morning
with a mild headache from a dream-filled night and wonder if it’s the dreams
causing the headache, or the headache causing the dreams. My throat is dry and
in need of that first pot of coffee to get the system going. I visit the
bathroom and glance at the mirror and if I were asked to identify the
reflection, I’d most likely say, “That’s me.” What I’m looking at is the
mirror image of a three-dimensional body that’s been refined to adapt to this
particular physical environment in the wake of a relentless cycle of rebirth of
over millions of years. This body lives for a time in the fast lane, misses out
on a few scheduled services, switches reluctantly over to the slow lane, then
one day, for whatever reason, the heart stops beating and the lungs cease
breathing. Its lifetime companion, the soul, is no longer bonded and so it
withdraws. The effect on the body is immediate; the soul animation that had
provided it’s personality since birth is gone. The body has a limited
lifespan; it returns to the earth and decays, and basically, it’s the end of
that story.
Is my physical body that part of me
that’s doing the contemplating? I don’t think so. It doesn’t initiate any
thinking… it and the senses are simply the facility by which
I get to experience the physical world.
Am I the senses?
For since by being a slave to things of sense you
have clothed yourself with a body which you are not master of, you are condemned
to a living tomb were that body not to be destroyed… but now through pain and
suffering out of this tomb shall you come, and through the experience you have
acquired… have built yourself a new and better body… and so on many times, until
you spread wings and have all powers diabolic and angelic concentrated in your
flesh. (Carpenter) Senses are physical organs
that provide both pleasure and pain experiences that we store in memory. The
nose allows us to experience smell, the eyes to see, the taste buds to taste,
the skin to feel and the ears to hear. These five senses are all physical
body-related, which most normal people are born with in adequate supply. These
senses, conceived and developed together with the rest of the body through
evolution, allow us to experience the three-dimensional world. They monopolise our
attention by way of pleasure, discomfort, pain, hunger, desire, inquisitiveness,
and so on. From early childhood, we’re bombarded with messages about how we look
or how clever or how unremarkable we might happen to be. It’s little wonder we
identify ourselves as the physical, the reflection in the mirror, preoccupied
with ‘sensual’ messages. We’ve been warned, “Don’t let
the senses fool you.” Are our senses reliable? Of course, but they’re subject to
misinterpretation. Taking hearing as an example, we hear only what we want to
hear, or we decide how we want to interpret it. The mischief-maker is not the
senses routinely doing their job, but our ego. When the news is not to our
liking, we should be cautious about shooting the messenger.
Am I the ego?
Most of us realise, when we
dare to look at it, that we are terribly lonely, isolated human beings; although
we try to have intimate relationship with somebody, we are always thinking about
ourselves. If we are observant, one can see that our whole activity is
self-centred. This eternal preoccupation with oneself is going on all the time;
we are devoted to ourselves; this preoccupation brings about isolation. If I
have no images about self, then what is there to see? There is nothing to see…
and one is frightened of that… we cannot face that one is absolutely nothing and
therefore we have images about ourselves. The ‘me’ with all its branches is the
cause of violence. (Krishnamurti)
Click on the cart below to purchase this book:
|
|||||||||||||
|
All
Prices in Australian Dollars (c)2012 Zeus Publications All rights reserved. |
