All Considering

Upward, downward and pluralistic causation

Katinka - Spirituality — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:37:51 +0000

Going on with my exploration of Creative Evolution by Amit Goswami. This time I’m going to explore the basic metaphysics of his theory a bit, specifically causation. Does consciousness cause everything (Goswami)? Or matter (classic scientism)? Or something else?

Let’s start with a history of science lesson: old Newtonian physics relied on what is called a clockwork universe. For everything that happens one might point out all the physical causes and added up they completely describe and explain the physical properties of that event. This view was hard to swallow for religious people because it hardly left room for either God (except as the primary force), consciousness or free will.

Right now the dominant physical theory is quantum mechanics. This theory is not absolutely deterministic, even on a quantum level, because while there are clear causes, and clear possible effects, CHANCE and RANDOMNESS have been introduced as well. That is: it’s no longer true that specific causes always have the same effects.

Newtonian physics led to the expectation of an upward causation model of science. That is: the laws uf physics would explain the laws of chemistry, which would explain the laws of biology etc. However, that has proved false as well. There’s no way to describe the theory of natural selection (for instance) merely as the sum of physical laws. That is: at the complexity level of biology one of the laws that emerges is the law of natural selection. The fittest in any population survive. In philosophical terms: there are no bridge laws between the physical laws and the biological ones.

I don’t think any intelligent person can deny that law. It explains a LOT. However, the question is, does it explain as much as its strongest defendants think it does. I think it’s clear by now that I don’t agree with that either.

So there are laws at each level of scientific enquiry that can’t be reduced to the laws of the physics. There are examples in the fields of economics, computer science, psychology, sociology etc.

For instance in the field of psychology and medicine there is clear evidence that people are influenced by what they believe. This is on the border between the two fields mostly. Psychosomatic illnesses are best treated by a combination of psychotherapy and medicine. And one has to conclude that at least one reason the medicine part is necessary is that the patient BELIEVES that medicine is necessary. Some people would like to dismiss this whole field with a slight of hand: those people (we never seem to think we’re one of them) are just making too much of a fuss. They should get their act together and get a grip.

But it turns out that people who’ve been told by their doctor that they have a cancer one can die off, are more likely to die even if it is later found that they did not have cancer in the first place. The placebo effect is a more positive spin on the same thing. It’s not that the medicine doesn’t work – it’s that people get better just because they’ve been reassured that they can and this pill will work. This obviously complicates the whole field of medicine, but that’s not my point.(...)
Read the rest of Upward, downward and pluralistic causation (495 words)

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Post tags: Amit Goswami, causation, cause, effect, philosophy, science

Celebrating almost a year of blogging about spirituality

Katinka - Spirituality — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:25:31 +0000

I’m very happy with how this blog is going. Not only is my traffic growing consistently (4400 pageviews a month at the latest count), I also get intelligent debate on what I write. And since I love debate, that’s really appreciated. I’d like to get more visitors though. So I’m doing a survey on what you all like best of the stuff I wrote about in this year as well as a link offer to all blogs willing to feature a post of mine. Details below.

The survey
I’m doing a survey in honour of being at this blogging thing, on All Considering for almost a year now. On my lens about All Considering I’ve put up a list of the most visited blogposts in the past year. Some are recent, some are older. Please add your favorite blogposts of mine and vote for the ones you liked best. You can even vote down the ones you didn’t like at all. For those of you who don’t like to go off site – here’s the list:

Click through to see the plexo

Links
Next up – I’m skirting that magical line of a 100 subscribers, and also of a hundred unique visitors a day. I’m just below on both. So I’d like you all to help up that number a bit – those of you especially who have blogs.

I’d like you to pick the blogpost of mine you liked best and link to it in one of your blogposts. Please make sure you add some information on why you’re featuring that particular post. Then leave the URL in the guestbook on my lens where I thank all my spiritual friends: that is, the ones already linking to me. I will link back to your blog or blogpost on that lens (if you have a preference for which please add that in the guestbook too).

The deadline? August 23rd – on that date in 2008 I published my first blogpost here.

Of course if you like my blog – please tell your spiritually inclined friends on for instance facebook, myspace, twitter or through Email.

Quantum evolution, vegetarianism, Sunyata and emptiness, altruism, clairvoyance

Katinka - Spirituality — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:28:48 +0000

Contents of my spiritual newsletter

New Online
Short Quotes
Sunyata
Altruism,Winifred Tiplin
Working in the sun, anonymous

New Online

Checking my links I found a few online texts that had, apparently, not been moved but deleted. This is mostly due to the Canadian website no longer having a large collection of online documents. I still had many links to their stuff up. Most of that material has been hosted elsewhere by now, but a few hadn’t, and I took those on:

Theosophy, Annie Besant
Vernal Blooms, by W.Q. Judge
There is No Religion Higher Than Truth (about C.W. Leadbeater’s clairvoyance), E.L. Gardner

Totally new is this discussion by David Reigle about the term ‘dugpa’. I’m proud to present: Who Are the Dugpas in Theosophical Writings? David Reigle.

New on All Considering:

New on Katinka Hesselink Net the spiritual posters department:

New on squidoo:

The rest of this monthly spiritual newsletter

Tangled hierarchies and the creative evolution of consciousness

Katinka - Spirituality — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:30:50 +0000

The core of Amit Goswami’s argument in his ‘Creative Evolution’ is that consciousness is an active force in ‘creation’. And at the heart of that argument is the argument of tangled hierarchies. I had to reread what he says about it to be able to halfway understand, so I’ll just quote him here for easier reference (p. 121):

Behold the causal circularity of the role of the observer in quantum measurement. The observer, the subject, chooses the manifest state of the collapsed object(s); but without the manifested collapsed objects, including the observer, the experience of the subject does not arise either. This circular logic of the dependent co-arising of the subject and object(s) is called tangled hierarchy.

Goswami found this concept in a book that made quite a splash in the 80’s: Goedel, Escher, Bach: an eternal Golden Braid, by D.R. Hofstadter (1980). I read that book several times back then – or what I could understand of it. It contains an awful lot of difficult mathematics. I’ll be looking up the tangled hierarchy there and see if that helps our case.

The way Goswami goes about explaining the arising of consciousness is circular in a way that makes more sense to me than the way science explains the same.

Science basically says that consciousness arose as a side effect of evolution. Similarly the increasing complexity of nature – the arrow of time in biology (Ch. 11), which is opposed to the increasing entropy (chaos) in the universe – is explained by science as nothing more than a side effect of evolution. Science says this is powered by the sun. Amit Goswami counters that the energy of the sun is enough to maintain the status quo in terms of life being sustained, but not enough to explain increasing complexity. That takes more energy. Unless you’re with Goswami on this one: he says there’s unconscious processing that takes place (in local consciousness I presume) that suddenly leaps into a decision. Because it’s unconscious, it doesn’t take energy – says Goswami. Why doesn’t it take energy? Because as long as nothing is aware, the quantum waves aren’t collapsed and all the possibilities are still there.

As might have been predicted – I’m with Goswami on this one. I think explaining consciousness as a side effect of evolution, the result of mere chance, sounds like a spiritual form of perpetual motion. I have no problem with the sun as the mother of all life, indeed Blavatsky had her a mother to all life on earth spiritually as well. But her physical energy alone supplying everything needed for consciousness? I’m not so sure.

So far computer science and artificial intelligence are very good at creating all kinds of interesting computer programs and robots to make our lives easier. The big question is: can they be AWARE? Goswami quotes mathematicians who say that a computer cannot process meaning – it would simply take up too much calculation power. The next question of course is: how come we CAN process meaning?

Goswami goes right back to that first cell. It arose, he says, out of a blue print that is present in consciousness (sort of an archetype, or a Platonic Idea) that gets activated as soon as the proper ingredients and conditions are there. Consciousness then chooses to ‘collapse’ the necessary DNA, RNA, cell boundary and supporting proteins. It’s sort of a Jack in the Box causality going on here – the chances increased by the presence of consciousness. In essence: that first cell comes into being because it observes itself, collapsing a blue print already present in universal consciousness.

From a mathematicians standpoint the question here is: how to deal with statistics. Low probability events happen all the time. That is: throw the dice enough and you will see low probability events happening. A nice way to illustrate this – when they started to use computer shuffled card sets in bridge (a card game with four players) – the previously rare games became much more common. Hand shuffled cards have a far more regular structure than when they are truly randomly organized. When we think of a random set of cards, we expect there to not be too many cards of the same color in a line. From a computer’s perspective – and that of statistics – each possible order of the cards has the same probability.

To say that evolution and chance of this sort can explain everything, is at best a bit cold. But it’s also a bit like saying – anybody with a brush is capable (given enough time) to create a Picasso, so there’s no underlying intelligence necessary to make one. After all – evolution is a selection mechanism, not an actively creative force. But obviously a Picasso does need the help of the paints, concepts and culture of the day to be able to transcend them and come up with something new. Similarly, the creativity of Quantum Spirituality doesn’t stand in relation to creation like a magician who creates out of nothing. Instead it’s more like an artist working with the available material to create something new.

This creativity is used to explain significant jumps like the creation of the single cell, multicellular organisms like ourselves arising out of single cell organisms like yeast, land animals arising out of sea animals etc.

Scientists would say that everything except that first cell (which they can’t really explain) can be reduced to environmental stresses. It’s no stretch to believe that in a stressful environment a lot of processes in the cell get threatened. But an organism has very little room for variety in essential things like how to process food, or maintaining the cell wall. Any organism that saves energy on those will simply die out. So the only wiggle room as it were is in the reproduction of the genes. So a higher rate of mutation in stressful circumstances is very easily explained from the perspective of evolution. No need for unconscious processing etc. Just environmental stresses leading to increased mutation rates, leading to a lot of death (which was likely anyhow) and a few evolving to adapt to the new circumstances. And then thriving.

I think I’ve given enough examples now to show that some of Goswami’s arguments are convincing, or at least more convincing to me than those of science. On the other hand he does seem to attack evolutionary theory on more fronts than necessary. This does not threaten his main point though: that quantum mechanics combined with the theory of evolution is a viable interpretation of the scientific data that keeps room for consciousness and awareness as primary forces in the universe. The conclusion: there is a goal to evolution – the evolution of consciousness to ever higher levels of complexity and wisdom.

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Post tags: Amit Goswami, evolution, Quantum Physics, science

Creating the universe: consciousness choosing to observe

Katinka - Spirituality — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:44:17 +0000

I’ve been postponing seriously taking on Amit Goswami’s book about Evolution for a while, but it cannot be postponed any longer. The long and short of it is: I have mixed feelings about it. I admire the effort, but the way it’s done isn’t entirely to my taste.

Since the author is a quantum physicist, I should perhaps start with my issues about the underlying quantum mechanics. First off: I’m very glad to see someone take on the logical consequences of quantum mechanics for our world view. It’s tempting to stick with Newtonian physics, but let’s face it: it’s outdated. And physicists have gone too long without trying to explain their craft to ordinary people or even themselves. I had some very smart friends when I studied chemistry in college and they were very happy to not understand what the formula said, as long as they knew how to use them in their calculations (I think most of them must be scientists by now).

This never seemed like a reasonable option to me. And if physicists and theoretical chemists refuse to explain these things, they can’t blame others for trying or for facing up to the philosophical consequences of quantum physics.

Unfortunately though, I think Amit Goswami oversteps his bounds a bit. He doesn’t do much quantum physics in this book – after all, it’s about evolution – but what he does give is just not all right. I’ve learned some quantum physics in college and it just doesn’t jive with what I’m reading here.

Schrödinger’s cat. It’s probably the most famous of quantum experiments – or thought experiments, because there’s no ethical way of doing this experiment. But the point of the experiment is that until observed, the cat is BOTH alive and dead. Goswami goes one step further and suggests that it’s the observer that CHOOSES whether the cat’s alive or dead. So it would make a difference to the cat if the observer were a cat lover: more chance of being alive. And that if there were two observers there’d be a theoretical problem. But the way I’ve always understood the experiment is different: it’s the ACT of observing that does it, not the choosing of the outcome.

However, and this is where it gets interesting: this experiment does make it clear that there’s an explicit duality in quantum physics of observer and observed. This duality cannot be resolved by saying what most scientists say: that all is matter. Even though, the observer contains matter too. The thing is: something CHOOSES to observe or not to observe. That fundamental choice has – Amit Goswami suggests this convincingly in my opinion – created the universe. That is: the wave of possibilities didn’t collapse till there was life to observe it – and that explains why this universe fits life so perfectly.

How do more conventional physicists explain this? They say that a combination of chance and the laws of physics are at play here. No guiding intelligence wanting to express itself, but chance and luck.

Critics of the quantum spiritual approach say that Goswami has reduced God to a being that plays with dice. They have a point: God is Universal Consciousness in Amit Goswami’s world. And universal consciousness doesn’t do all that much, except at crucial moments choose among the available outcomes. In other words: where physicists see chance, Goswami sees the guiding hand of God. But only there – Goswami acknowledges that evolution selects and prunes what is chosen by consciousness. He acknowledges that consciousness sometimes chooses evolutionary dead ends.

Crucially though – this God plays by the rules of science, but is also the ground of the universe: because consciousness came FIRST, according to this quantum spiritual view.

So far, so good – but it does remind me of what one of my philosophy of religion teachers said when we were discussing God and science. He said: if you choose a God of the holes (the holes in science that is), your God is always retreating. In other words: is this God of Amit Goswami merely a way of explaining what science can’t yet explain, or is it a valid scientific interpretation? Although I think fundamentally Goswami’s theory doesn’t clash with quantum physics as scientists understand it, I’m also not sure it’s quite capable of uniting biology the way he seems to hope.

I hope to go into the biology of Quantum Physics in another blogpost.

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Post tags: Amit Goswami, Quantum Physics, science

What makes us human – about evolution and religion

Katinka - Spirituality — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:37:11 +0000

Let’s get back to basics

Since I’ve been digging into the theory of Evolution with the help of Amit Goswami, I’ve decided to take a look at precisely what that theory is. The Scientific American issue May 2009 is partly devoted to evolution. It has a column by a scientist visiting a creationist conference for instance. He notes, the dismay is kept very light in his piece, that they don’t think humans and animals have a common ancestor. Amit Goswami sits comfortably on the side of scientific opinion on this one: he does think humans have animal ancestry.

Looking at our closest relatives – from a genetic standpoint – chimpanzees share 99% of our DNA. This means that any one trying to prove we’re not related will have a hard time. By the way, Blavatsky maintained we ARE related, but that chimpanzees and other great apes are in fact descended from the first humans, not the other way around. Since she proposes a non-physical humanity coming BEFORE a physical one, her theory is rather hard to prove.

Let’s get back to those genes: When they started looking at that one percent of genes we don’t share with chimps, they found the following:

The HAR1 DNA sequence is the same for chickens and chimpanzees, but very different for humans. It plays an important part in how our brain develops, specifically the cerebral cortex which is responsible for abstract thought.
Another brain related part of DNA has to do with simply the size of it. ASPM it’s called. The human brain is a lot larger than that of other animals – compared to our body size.
The FOXP2 DNA sequence differs significantly from chimps and is involved in our speech. It probably enables us to talk and was already present in Neanderthals.
HAR2 is a DNA sequence that has an impact on the way the wrist develops enabling us to use complex tools (like me typing ten fingered).
AMY1 is a gene sequence that helps digest starch. Compared to other primates, humans have particularly many of these. This probably helped early humans digest a large variety of foods. Cooking food also helps us digest plant derived foods, but early humans also developed the ability to get more out of them without that help. Similarly there is a very recent gene development helps humans from Europe and Africa to digest milk. This gene, LCT, is only present in part of the human population and not in chimps at all. This accounts for the inability for people with Asian ancestry to digest milk – we would usually call that a milk allergy. But the fact is: it is simply a very new ability that humans elsewhere have acquired, but hasn’t spread throughout the whole human population yet.

All of these things are, of course, physical characteristics of human beings. That is after all the only thing genetics can say anything about. From a spiritual perspective all of this may be true, but it is hardly satisfying. Our instincts tell us that what makes us human isn’t the wrist-hand abilities, our speech or even our large brains. Yet from a biological standpoint: those are the only things that can be said at present.

Osel Hita Torres – aka Lama Osel goes on to make movies

Katinka - Spirituality — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:32:06 +0000

This is a true story that someone emailed me because it reminded them of Jiddu Krishnamurti’s story. That is: someone raised to be a teacher, steps outside the tradition that he was brought up in to do something totally different. Lama Osel was born to Spanish parents, but brought up as the reincarnation of Thubten Yeshe. In keeping with traditional Tibetan Buddhist teachings he only met his teachers and other children who were thought to be reincarnations of important lamas. Kept away from TV, movies and modern music.

His first disco experience was a shock. “I was amazed to watch everyone dance. What were all those people doing, bouncing, stuck to one another, enclosed in a box full of smoke?” [The Guardian]

Lama Osel then studied film and went back to using his Spanish name: Osel Hita Torres.

He’s facing the very issue Tibetan Buddhism is facing: how to combine tradition with modernity. This dillemma is wider than that: any and all religions are facing this problem. Islam fundamentalism is one response and Christians too are having to battle with this. What makes Osel’s story all the more poignant is that he was born into a modern western family. If his parents had chosen to raise him Buddhist, but not as a lama, things would have turned out very differently. Or so we can guess.

In Krishnamurti’s upbringing Besant and Leadbeater decided very quickly to make him aquanted with Western mores and habits. To give him a Western education, aside from his spiritual training. That did not prevent him from defecting, but perhaps it’s not too much to say that it helped him in his path.

Osel’s teachers on the other hand decided to keep modernity away from him. As Robert Thurman notes in the Time article about Osel:

Robert Thurman, a Buddhist scholar, former monk and friend of the Dalai Lama, recounts that when told years ago that Hita was to receive a traditional Buddhist education in India he expressed concern. Thurman’s argument: “If he wanted Tibetan traditional [education] he could have reincarnated in a Tibetan family in exile.” The result of the misplacement, he says, is that Hita “has broken away in a full-blown identity crisis.” Thurman thinks that after some time in our “busy postmodern world,” Hita may see the value of the Tibetan tradition, “which he will then be able to approach or not, of his own free choice.” And, he adds, “More power to him!”

The FMPT, the organisation that Osel was selected to be the leader of, is a curious mix of traditional Gelugpa Buddhism (a branch of Tibetan Buddhism) and modernity. It has taken on the conservation of Tibetan Buddhist scholarship by teaching lay people what in earlier times monks learned. It’s therefore a very scholarly tradition. Students (that is the proper word) are expected to not only meditate and take what vows they feel able to take, but also learn Tibetan, learn Gelugpa philosophy and the traditional ways of discussing Buddhist philosophy.

Fate has made sure I know several people active in this foundation in The Netherlands. The following is based on what they told me: while it’s clear that the FMPT is instrumental in keeping a knowledge of the scholarly tradition of Gelugpa Buddhism alive, it is not very successful at bridging the gap to Western people. That is: Westerners, especially Dutch Westerners, aren’t averse to discussing what they learn. In fact, they’re predisposed to do so. BUT to expect them to discuss in the regimental ritualistic way of the Tibetan Lama’s is too much. It’s attempted, but never very successfully. From the perspective of Buddhist history this is only natural. The Tibetan debating tradition started out as just that: people debating Buddhist philosophy. But with the isolation of Tibet, the debates cristalized – and they became memorized.

Now that Tibetan Buddhism has been liberated from Tibet (forgive the expression, will you?), it needs to face the world and reinvent debate. Perhaps, when Lama Osel is finished making films and documentaries, he can come back to the FMPT and help them modernize the forms while retaining the essence? But, from what’s published on the FMPT website, perhaps we may expect even more radical attempts from him. He says there:

Personally, my job is to find new ways in which to discover the true nature of our being. There is no separation between myself and FPMT – we are all working together in so many aspects and terrains. Humanity is our office. Besides, I don’t really qualify very much in Buddhist studies, because I didn’t finish them, so working together is the clue.

So I’m trying to find a different way for this future generation. One of the ways is through music, movies and audio-visual techniques. In a movie you can condense so many different stories. You can put in music, you can put in different situations and messages. Even just the sunset can be enough to give you peace to find a moment of meditation in yourself. There are so many different millions of possibilities in movies.And not just movies, but documentaries actually going somewhere and interviewing people who may have reached a level on their path where they are at peace with themselves, and so much more….!!!

That first sentence does remind me of Krishnamurti’s radical perspective. So let’s repeat it: Personally, my job is to find new ways in which to discover the true nature of our being.

Osel , I’m very curious to see where you’re headed and wonder if you’ll ever step into the shoes of ‘Lama Tenzin Osel Rinpoche‘ again. But let’s close off with two quotes from the original article in a Spanish magazine that got the whole thing going:

“Osel gets emotional when he sees the Dalai Lama take the floor. If Buddhas really exist. He would be one of them. He is an enlightened one.”

“The responsibility of teaching has always weighed on him. His heart tells him that for the moment he should learn. The literal translation of lama is teacher, and I’m no teacher. A good lama is a person for whom it doesn’t matter what others think about him, and who thinks about others before thinking about himself. That, to me, is being a lama, a good person.”

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Post tags: Buddhism, fmpt, krishnamurti, lama, modernity, tibetan buddhism

Limits to quantum mechanics and spiritual freedom

Katinka - Spirituality — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:41:14 +0000

I’ve been reading Creative Evolution: A Physicist’s Resolution Between Darwinism and Intelligent Design, by Amit Goswami. I’m impressed, the chemist in me (I was taught some quantum physics in college) doesn’t find fault. Nor does the biologist or the philosopher (I took biology and philosophy of religion classes in college too).

But I do have some reservations with the implications of Amit Goswami’s quantum spirituality for our every day lives. And I have quantum physical reasons to back them up too. I hope you all don’t mind a little chemistry lesson today.

Electron orbits

Above you’ll find an image of a carbon atom – as chemists think of it. What you see – the big red balloons – represent the four ‘free’ electrons that carbon has. The other electrons are so close to the carbon core they can’t be shown here.

The electrons shown have some freedom of movement. They have a space of probability where they can be – for each represented by a specific red balloon and a smaller white balloon opposite it.

These four electrons are called ‘free’ because they can pair up with electrons from other particles, other carbon atoms, or oxygen, nitrogen or something else entirely. Carbon is so good at uniting with other elements to form molecules that make up – ultimately – life.

But while those electrons are called free, they still have only limited freedom. It’s precisely their place in the atom that makes the whole thing work. They can combine with other electrons (indeed have to) to form molecules or something, but they are not free to go out of their orbit. The balloon shown here is there space. In quantum terms it’s not clear whether the electron has a place somewhere specific within the balloon, or whether it’s spread out. Indeed, the answer to that question depends on how you measure it (sound familiar?). But for today the main point is something else: that electron has a space to dwell in, and that’s all the freedom it has. Most of its fellow electrons are even more limited: closer to the core they are limited to orbits as circular as most of you have been taught in school, though even in their case it’s a probability orbit, not an ordinary one.

But probability doesn’t mean complete freedom.It’s a freedom within the laws of physics. Freedom within those balloons in my picture.

My point for today is that we’re similarly constrained.

I’ve looked up some videos from Goswami and he sort of agrees. Let’s look at what he says about separateness:

Goswami says here that the dictum is true that we create our own destiny. But in the seventies it became clear that merely creating cadilacs was a bit hard. It became clear that the place from which we CAN create our own destiny is not an ordinary state: it’s in fact satori or moksha or however you want to call it. There is no free lunch. We have to meditate BEFORE we can create our own reality.

I’m saying – even in satori this freedom isn’t total – we still are constrained by the laws of nature.

This of course doesn’t deny the other things Goswami says here: that in the process of reaching Satori or Enlightenment a person becomes much more loving, much more creative, transformed, capable of experiencing reality at a much more subtle level.

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Post tags: Amit Goswami, evolution, freedom, quantum mechanics, quantum spirituality, science, the secret

Black magic versus white magic – it's all about motive…

Katinka - Spirituality — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:26:59 +0000

Blavatsky was rather fond of the concept of ‘black magic’ and I’ve had this on my list of topics to write about ever since I started this blog. But it’s a difficult topic, a messy one. For one thing – I’m not too happy about labeling people, especially into such (literally) black and white categories. So first let’s get some things out of the way. When I talk about black magic, I’m not talking about skin color or the devil. Instead I’m talking about ideals.

The ideal of white magic is that of serving all of humanity. Anything partial to a group of people or one person is not white magic.

The ultimate black magic is selfish: it’s about me, myself and I. But Blavatsky included all forms of magic that were partial to a particular country or group in this. So if one prays for the United States to win out in Afghanistan, it could be considered black magic. That is – everything done at the expense of another is not pure hearted. Everything done with the good of all parties in mind IS pure hearted. I think that’s what the Dalai Lama meant when he said:

There is no real distinction in the long run between the true self-interest of a person and an unpleasant duty. There were unfortunately people who persisted in doing things which were going to harm them above all as well as others. He spoke with quiet compassion about these ignorant though cunning evil-doers. It would be most wrong for us, he implied, to condemn them or to dismiss them out of the horizon of our sympathy, as they did more harm to themselves than to other human beings, although they could not see it. Sometimes people were able to see the truth but through selfishness they could not apply it. There were also people who were utterly misguided in their view of what was in their own interest. If only they could know, if only they were not so short-sighted through their own desperation and through their own false concepts, they would see more clearly what was in their interest and that this could not be so very different for different peoples. In all conflicts the combatants ought to realize that their ultimate interests were the same, but this was exactly what was so difficult. Therefore, it was always the people who could stand outside a violent conflict in any part of the world to-day, who, by their awareness of this ultimate identity of interests between both sides in terms of their common survival and in relation to the whole of humanity, could be an active force for good. They could act as a check on the recurrent and ever-increasing nature of evil, generated by folly, selfishness and above all short-sightedness.

I like how the Dalai Lama puts this – he makes it clear that selfishness is ultimately not in anyone’s best interest, and at the same time reminds us that people who don’t know this are to be pitied. He has often repeated this idea after that conversation: that it is ultimately very selfish to be a good person, because karma rewards goodness.

Very specifically – in any war situation it is in everybody’s best interest to fight for peace, but most people are incapable of seeing that when in the process. This unfortunate psychological fact has kept people fighting in Ireland for so long and are now keeping people fighting in Israel/Palestine and in the Pakistan/Afghanistan/North-East India region.

Theosophists have sometimes used the term ‘black magic’ to condemn people they disagreed with. This is not a very compassionate thing to do. Instead it would be wiser to be aware of the wrong people are doing, while at the same time doing as the Dalai Lama suggests: be sympathetic, even while condemning their actions.

I would like to add that with power of any kind comes responsibility. For ordinary people it is quite natural to be partial, but for a president it’s a problem if he favors one group over another. Similarly spiritual power comes with responsibility too – the pope is answerable for not understanding today’s issues. Advertisers are answerable for spreading unhealthy messages and getting people to smoke when it’s been clear for years that smoking is unhealthy.

From a theosophical perspective any misuse of power is black magic. Misusing occult power is included in that. But where does use begin and misuse start? It’s a grey line. Some would go so far as to say that any interference with karma is misuse.

This means that healing is already near the grey line. Marion Zimmer Bradley portrayed this classic occult approach very well in her novel The Fall of Atlantis. It’s not for nothing that many people distrust the pharmaceutical companies so much: they have a vested interest that interferes with healing sometimes. But this vested interest is there for anybody who asks for money for doing ’spiritual’ work, which is why money is such a loaded subject in these circles.

So it comes down to motive and self-interest. But who among us can afford to not pay some attention to self-interest?

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Post tags: black magic, Blavatsky, ethics, healing, money, occultism, white magic

Dalai Lama, Diet, Theosophy, Steiner and Ghosts – spiritual newsletter june 2009

Katinka - Spirituality — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 15:21:32 +0000

New online

New on Katinka Hesselink Net

The Dalai Lama interviewed by Raghavan Iyer shortly after leaving Tibet
What is our Aim?, Radha Burnier

New on All Considering

New on squidoo

The rest of my spiritual newsletter contains:

Short Quotes
The Chief Objectives of the Theosophical Society as Outlined in the Mahatma Letters, Canadian Theosophist
Two wolves

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Post tags: dalai lama, diet, lucifer7, spiritual newsletter, steiner, theosophy

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