Chapter 3 

Learning from Life 

We are in a time of great change. Seen in the context of a lifetime our present age is filled with upheaval in every way, so much so that we have all but become inured to it - social, religious, political, economic, educational and moral change are so commonplace that we are getting quite used to the idea. We are coming to expect and even to crave novelty. In science we wait restlessly for new marvels of daring and delicacy whether in space flight, in biotechnology or atomic physics. In the marketplace new products succeed each other so that after 2 or 3 years a machine design is said to be obsolete. Not to be new is to be nothing. What are we to do? 

In human terms this thrust for change causes us considerable difficulties. In times of great stability we form attachments emotionally to certain idea structures. They help to hold and mediate the life force like a vessel, giving stability and constancy to our activity. But in times of change these idea structures act against us because of the attachment that we have to them. We find it difficult to look with a free objectivity at what is happening because we are held in the shell of past patterns. In some cases this shell has become so thick and unresponsive that the life force within it is unable to move outwardly at all. Nothing can come in, no relationship with external forces is possible. The life becomes like a stubborn and unrelenting opponent of change. Bigotry is everywhere. 

Such patterns lock us in positions of difficulty. They are carried by individuals, in families and within communities and nations. They are the idea structures that determine barriers, blocks, gulfs, impossibilities. We all hold them in varying degrees and in different forms according to our natures. And we hold to them passionately feeding their structure and stricture with our emotional responses like a mollusc secreting the substance of the shell in which it lives. We can see the activity of these emotional patterns by asking ourselves a few simple questions. The questions could relate to religion, politics, sex, education, family obligations, sexual roles, childhood and so on. 

Within family units these patterns of behaviour appear to stream in from the past through the generations of the family. Like the obligations of revenge the emotions are often set by inheritance. The ideas that structure the assumptions of power or the aspiration to improvement or the acceptance of poverty are bred into us. As such they become imbued with an emotional charge for us in our family unit where they may be completely absent for our neighbour. 

In a wider context we can watch these emotional patterns at work in the many religious and sectarian wars that are being fought at the present time or the countless theatres of ideological struggle throughout the world. We see people who will seek to destroy life for the sake of maintaining or strengthening an idea. Nor should we imagine that we ourselves are mere spectators in this situation. Let us gauge our own responses to local conflicts and our own struggles as well. In it all we can observe the same thing: life is not considered as important as these idea - shells that rule our emotions and our actions. Life is cheap when it is so little in evidence. We see our opponents not as life forms but as animated masks, often more mechanical than human. Or else we don a mask ourselves to disguise our humanity and commit atrocity. 

The experience of meeting, not a human being but a set of programmed or patterned responses is both the product and the reason for our contemporary reductionist view of life (when we see ourselves not as the greatest we might be but as the smallest that can be proved achievable by all). To some, man is a machine, but a machine for what? It is a disturbing line of thought for many of us. But when we meet another person who will not meet our eyes, who will not look us straight, we are encountering not a free life - spirit but a pattern of emotional fixity and we should be warned. 

In times of change these patterns, karmic shells as they are called, will be assaulted. Sometimes, if they are no longer supplied with life force they will become brittle and fall away. Times of personal change may lead to such an opening to life. Sometimes a little conflict will jolt the shell and release us. For others a jolt is not enough and many blows are needed to crack open the shell. For each of us the story is similar and yet unique. 

The shells are fed by a variety of emotional patterns although the process is similar. We are bound by such things as fear, pride, greed, jealousy or hatred; by negative emotions that are based upon past life experience. These shells prevent us from meeting new life experiences freely (we are prejudiced -we prejudge them). When the shells are broken we have to face life without the protection of this casing as a delicate kernel of life force ready to grow. It is a high risk business. 

Because of the dangers of being so apparently vulnerable we generally scamper into the shelter of our shells. When we face what appear to be threatening questions about our life or existence we take refuge in available belief and accepted philosophy. Of course, this may be the genuine product of our life experience. Yet if it is we will find it no shell nor shelter but a radiating centre of love for life. More often though the refugee will find it is a way of giving authority to other people who will hold sway through the power of their certainty. 

The man who holds the sway in ideas holds more power than the military chieftain because he holds the key to people’s hearts or rather the emotional patterns and karmic shells. Religion, in times of change, leads to disagreement and alienation. In an age of stability the problem does not arise because the external world conforms consistently with the internal idea. But when changes occur our inflexibility makes for dogmatism and blind belief. One man’s religion is another man’s prejudice. We rush to join the One True Way Club whose members are certain they alone know the Real Truth. The more difficult a thing is to prove, the more we feel the need to be right and the more threatened we are by alternative points of view. Ideas can become very destructive forces. 

For some the answer lies in happy ignorance: I would rather be a goldfish, mouthing water in a bowl. But that is just another kind of shell, the shell of ignorance, a way of avoiding life. And for the real fish there is no such reality as it encounters life force and life experience at its own level of being. For us there is really no other choice. We can only learn to work with life or come to terms with the consequences of refusal. The consequences of refusal are death. 

We stand in this balance between life and death. It is the nature of our existence. For each of us the condition of our being reflects the balance of these forces. And for each the story of our life has led to our being here now. To know why we are in this present situation we must make true observation of what has gone before. If we see it for what it is we may be able to understand how we got here and how the forces of life have arranged themselves in our body. To move forward from that position, to observe and learn the lessons that are there in the past experience and to apply them to the present is to understand why. But for that ‘why’ to have reality it must be free of prejudice, dogma and preconceived ideas. It must be free from the influence of karmic patterns. 

Without a structure of ideas though we are apparently unprotected, vulnerable. We are then thrown back upon the resources of the heart. Our love of life alone can sustain us. Like a refugee we are dependent upon human kindness and the generosity of life. But unencumbered we may yet be the ones who survive.