While musing in the shower today, I had a bit of an insight into why, when having to choose between two activities, one materially beneficial, and one spiritually beneficial, we often tend to choose the former rather than latter. For example, if one has to choose between attending a weekly study circle that furthers my spiritual growth, and taking that extra hour to study for an exam tomorrow, I've realized that one is more likely to skip the study circle and prepare for the exam. Or, if one has to choose between spending an hour meditating and using that hour to work on a class/work project, one is more likely to give up the hour of meditation, rationalizing that the project deadline is more important. Why does this happen? I believe there are two reasons - the first obvious, the second not so obvious.
1. The consequences of material choices of usually much more apparent and immediate than spiritual choices. So I believe that if I dont spend that time studying for the exam, I'm more likely to fail. Of course, I could have sacrificed an hour of sleep and used that to prepare for the exam, and still attended to that which is spiritually beneficial to me - but that would have other material consequences on the next day, such as more fatigue, etc. And so I'm willing to forgo the spiritual action as I don't see any immediate consequences of NOT going to my study circle or meditating this week.
2. Material consequences can be both positive and negative, while spiritual consequences can only be positive or less positive. I think this is an important, but not often appreciated reason why we make the choices we do. We've normalized our expectations such that our minimum degree of material comfort is at a non-zero value. And so deviations from that minimum level of comfort can be both positive and negative. And so I want to score at least a certain amount on an exam; anything below that would be a travesty. However, such is not the same with spiritual actions - if I don't read a prayer today, it will only mean I don't progress as fast as I might have. If I don't study the spiritual text I've been reading regularly today, it only means I finish it a day later. We are therefore prepared to accept a less positive spiritual consequence in favor of devoting time to ensuring a positive, rather than negative, material consequence.
What, then, I wonder, might happen if we were able to renormalize our spiritual expectations, so that we set our minimum level of desired progress at a nonzero level? If we viewed the consequence of one lost hour of prayer/meditation as being as negative (and as immediate/apparent) as one lost hour of sleep? How then, would we prioritize our choices?
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I think it also comes down to numbers. There is no quick and concrete quantitative measurement of spiritual progress, whereas there is such a thing for academics. Numbers give us certainty.
We can measure the time spent reading spiritual books and meditating, but the meaning of those numbers is less clear, because, at least in my case, its often very unclear to me afterwards whether anything actually sunk in. There is just such a large gap between reading and doing. And with the more ritualistic stuff that tends toward the supernatural, it's often unclear whether the motions were even carried through properly. I took a Buddhist Psychology class in undergrad, and the TA was a bona fide monk, with a special name and orange robes. He had us close our eyes and meditate in the discussion sections. Most of us ended up equating meditation with sleeping, for better or worse.
William's point is one I am pondering over recently.
In regard to your posting, I think that if you operate as many do, in spreading out the tasks to fill up the available time, then you will always be forced usually to sacrifice something. And this sacrificing will make a divided consciousness.
It is much better not to operate at the usual level of awareness by letting the amount of time available determine which you will do. Rather accomplish what you need to do by prioritizing from the beginning of the set, at the beginning of the semester, at the beginning of the year, at the beginning of your career decision-making. I will not claim to make decision THAT far in advance, but I look at successful people, and they look much further ahead than the average person does.
It comes down to motivation, I think. Just how bad do you want "it". If you don't know, or if you are undecided, then of course other factors will intervene.
William one of the primary points that I have been thinking about is what is said about how physical reality is mirrored by spiritual reality. NOT the other way around. However having said that, there are relationships as you are pointing out from your subjective state. However I fundamentally believe that the spiritual world should/could/probably does come first, but not from my subjective eperience.... As I say, I am pursuing this investigation right now, these days, and hopefully I will have more to say later on. Definitely this is an important matter.
This is a really provocative post, Nikhil. EdoRiver's comment made me think further about how we will be forced to always sacrifice something if we pit the material action against the spiritual one. It seems to me that the trick is to attempt to do everything with a spirit of reverence. I'm reminded of the following quote by Abdu'l-Bahá: "The man who makes a piece of notepaper to the best of his ability, conscientiously, concentrating all his forces on perfecting it, is giving praise to God. Briefly, all effort put forth by man from the fullness of his heart is worship, if it is prompted by the highest motives and the will to do service to humanity. Thus is worship: to serve mankind and to minister to the needs of people. Service is prayer..." It would be interesting to meditate on how this actually works with things like studying for an exam. I think studying for exams becomes tricky because, more often than not, our desire for a high grade is motivated by ego, not by a desire to do service. Thus, it seems we must detach from the ego-driven part of why we study and gradually move towards applying ourselves in our studies to be of service to humanity.
Is this just a cop out? It seems like this answer could conveniently be used to not dedicate oneself to efforts to read the Holy Writings, participate in study circles, etc. Yet, I suspect that only through these kind of spiritual activities are we able to develop detachment from our egos so that we can study in a spirit of absolute devotion.
William - that point about numbers is a good one. I agree that its much easier to quantify material progress than spiritual. In fact, to take it further, its often even difficult to make a clear causal link between certain actions and their spiritual consequences. This is often not the case with material consequences.
EdoRiver - I absolutely agree that it comes down to motivation and prioritization. And your suggestion about planning ahead is an interesting one - I guess the assumption behind that is that if we plan ahead, rather than in the moment, we are more likely to be objective and detached? Hmm, definitely something to ponder over... For example, I remember P telling me that in China, when they have study circles, everyone just commits ahead of time to being there every week - and then everyone just makes it a point to be there. Come what may. And if for some reason someone cant make it, the entire group doesn't meet, and they wait till everyone can get together. And surprisingly, it works - everyone has a priori made it a high priority, and so ends up making it most of the time.
BrightButterfly - your point about reverence is well made. I guess the important thing is for that reverence to be truly heart-felt - for I bet that if we play mental gymnastics, and try to use that reverence to justify not doing other things we know within our hearts we shud do, I can bet that the reverence would NOT be sincere. Also, one has to try and achieve a balance. I think the example Abdu'l Baha gives is not meant to tell us that its totally fine to just work at our jobs all day and never pray/read spiritual texts - but rather to say that even those actions can become prayers. However, for most of us, its much easier to reach a reverential state when in the appropriate atmosphere - while praying, or when with a group of people focused clearly on spiritual growth, etc - and so we have to make sure we dont neglect that. And this also really relates to the point you made about our ego.
Of course, I'm not saying that we completely abandon material pursuits - even in the examples I gave, I assume that the person studied through the semester for his/her exams, and will only lose an hour of studying on the final day by focusing on regular spiritual activities - so the key point here is about how we make choices regarding INCREMENTAL material progress vs. incremental spiritual progress.
Lets add another corollary to my last statement in the post - alternately, what if we could renormalize our material expectations, so that anything we got materially made us happy, for we considered all that we get as a gift from a higher source? If we viewed the consequence of NOT scoring as highly on an exam as minimal? In other words, what if we became more detached from the circumstances of the material world? This actually seems like an easier thing to do than to somehow view the consequences of spiritual choices as being huge (which, as William pointed out, can be hard to quantify).
As I dimly recollect my college studies at a school in Memphis, I recollect that St. Augustine, has a lot to say on this subject. So, we just need to invite a Catholic theologian over here and write a sermon lol.
I am wondering, to direct some response to Mz. Butterfly and Nikhil, that part of the "secret" has to do with the engine that supplies the energy to the system. What is it based on? A good cop-out would be that since we have been raised in a typical US capitalist-educational system (yeah, I do wince a when I use those words, maybe there's something more current.. but then again, ?) the framework for what gets us going is pretty self centered. And to deny that, because of what we read, is only a small part in the substitution process. I don't think its an easy matter by only 20-30 min. a night on prayer-meditation to make this substitution possible, though really that's all I can manage right now.
Switching over to Dawnbreakers
I suspect that despite the social bankruptcy, if not depravity, that is described as Persian society in the 19th century, in that work, a lot of those folks had a an extremely powerful ability, from a religious centered society of the ME, to focus their minds and generate a very strong mental force of will, a search light as it were of the heavens, and the earth.
So it is the same for any highly ambitious social climbers, but the ciircumstances are different. I am thinking that since real social improvement was largely blocked for the average Joe Muhammad, they did have access to prayers and meditations to build up their minds. Whereas in this modern generation, I have felt that we have alot of distractions to drain away our focus (even on making a piece of paper, and how long does that task take? to reference Ms. Butterfly). I think this struggle to constantly keep a correct short list of priorities, is a significantly larger battle for the post-WW2 generation than it was previously. The more powerful the Edutainment Empire is and the more multi-media, Twitter, Ipod connected we are to our network of relationships the more difficult it is to spiritually ascend (probably). We not only have our own wants and desires to contend with, thinking of my children they also have their whole social network to drag upward as well.
On the flip side the community/network can pull you up with less effort than the solitary and lonely individual.
Still the source of power for the engine remains an important question/ challenge. The other guys on our networks, how dedicated are they to achieving these kinds of spiritual transformations? We cannot look into any other individual heart. To get back to my, and William's original comment, I will rephrase it as
Time on Task
Nothing in the Educational research that I did back in grad school is more reliable as a measurement of success than this simple variable. The more time you spend, regardless of all other variables, the more likely it is that you will learn. This is assuming you are awake and are not being physically restrained lol.
This is very true - that distractions today are far greater than they were earlier. As technology progresses, I guess its inevitable that we have greater power to affect the world (both positively and negatively), and at the same time the world has greater power to affect us...
Well said Nikhil.
And be that as it may we have to push through and devise cooperative strategies to deal with it. Hence the study circles, etc. I will add for the moment that I am very much influenced by series of CD's published by perhaps the NSA of Alaska and called Drawing Nigh to Baha'u'llah, by Adib Taherzadeh. I hesitate to mention all this because I don't know who visits this site so I don't want to sound like this is an inside-referenced discussion of all things Bahai. It isn't. I think you do a better job than alot of others to bring in many references.
Here in Japan, I use the Virtues Cards, which are endorsed by the Catholic Church for use in their schools, because I met one of its creators when he was here in Japan. These cards are a way, I think to counter the social forces that are shaping our environment--as we speak.
I am also thinking about how episodic the Internet is. Like a newspaper. These comments on this posting will be part of the past, just like an old newspaper, and we will most likely never visit these thoughts expressed here in this way again, unless we have our own personal way to remember and carry forward what is mentioned in a kind of newsy way, a comment here, a few sentences there. I am beginning to see this is a great yet unsolved weakness of the Internet, our information cannot be automatically sysematically synthesized and condensed so that we can carry forward what we learn in an interchange a week ago to benefit the current conversations. Of course those with encyclopedic photographic memories, they don't notice this problem. Then there are new people who venture here and make comments that were discussed a week or 2 weeks ago. Consequentially they get almost no attention, and wonder why the site and its visitors are not so friendly. Thus a core of regular followers and commenters are the only ones who develop their ideas and gradually it becomes group-think. A kind of clicque, just like the old world order. I have never been one to be satisfied with the way things are. I suppose this is just another factor why I left the US and moved to another country.
Final Apology.
Sorry my thoughts are hard to follow, because I am lazy and don't edit the transitions carefully enough. I have this huge dialogue with my self that I carry all day over several days in English, and never get a chance to express it. Consequentially I write quickly as though writing to myself, and the spaces between my writing are my thoughts not consecutively written.
Just an additional comment regarding my experiences in that Buddhist psychology class, because I don't think I expressed myself well.
The point I was trying to get across with that anecdote was this: Not only is it hard to make a causal and quantitative link between studying spiritual things and carrying them through, as Nikhil acknowledged, but it can also hard to be assured that spiritual studies are being carried out properly, because some of the study methods themselves can be so abstract.
In getting us to meditate each session, the monk asked us to breathe in, breathe out, and become very relaxed and calm. And many of us ultimately fell asleep. Now, I can ask, does that count? We achieved the goals of becoming very calm and relaxed, albeit asleep. Now, if I start entering REM levels of sleep, is that too far off to be considered meditation? Where is the fine line, and how do I find it?
This is just one example of a long list. When I'm praying, what should I envision? B likes to envision himself prostate on the ground with a giant universe of stars above him so as to illustrate his humility and insignificance as compared to the vastness of God's creations. When I was a kid, I used to envision an Anglo-Saxon looking Jesus in a white robe listening to my requests for blessings and forgiveness, nodding his head after each of my demands like Santa Claus.
Back in the day, all my elementary school classmates would be together in pews at church, and we'd mostly goof off while surrounded by walls of older people singing religious songs and holding their hands up toward the sky. One of the kids amongst us was the son of a pastor, and one day, he tried doing the same sort of thing, closing his eyes and singing while timidly holding his hands up. Upon seeing this, we gave him and each other weird looks, as if to say, man, that looks really ... weird. What could motivate you to raise your hands to the roof like that? I don't feel the slightest inclination in my body to do such a thing. It makes no sense. I would wonder to myself, what has gotten into this guy? Is he just trying to imitate these people around us?
In another example, in the Baha'i study circles, we often start by reciting some random passages. I find it very difficult to pay close attention to a passage someone else is reading, and simultaneously flip through a book searching for a good passage to read next. Plus, there is no prescribed order for reading passages. If I start, there is the possibility that I will preempt some poor fellow who also wanted to start around that time. And when does it end? Our eyes flit back and forth to see if everyone seems to be out of quotes by some vague unspoken agreement. And then it ends.
Once I met a Guy who wanted to find enlightenment and inner peace. This Guy read all the books and meditated everyday, devoting himself furiously to this pursuit of enlightenment. In fact, when a renowned Buddhist came to campus, the Guy asked the Buddhist in desperation, I think I have become so worked up and stressed out over the pursuit of enlightenment that I am getting farther and farther away from enlightenment. What should I do?
Additionally, I agree that physical reality is mirrored by spiritual reality, but I also think that more of spiritual reality is mirrored by physical reality than people think. At one extreme, if people do not even have the basic necessities for survival, immorality and violence will surely ensue, and we can see this in many countries today. Now, in a less extreme example, there have been several studies released in the past few years showing that money indeed does buy happiness up to a point. "Going from earning less than $20,000 a year to making more than $50,000 makes you twice as likely to be happy, yet the payoff for then surpassing $90,000 is slight." In any case, the more I think about, the more it makes total sense. If we had a boatload of money, we wouldn't have to waste time worrying about money so much, we could be much more relaxed, sleep better .. and follow our hearts! And finally pursue only those things we truly want to pursue, like start a cash-strapped Foundation devoted to important causes you really care about, or teaching recreational mathematics to spunky bright-eyed kids regardless of the abysmal pay, or leisurely translating old Persian books into English while sipping on strained gourmet watermelon puree on a shiny desert island, or something like that.
My thoughts are far shallower than the general fanfare here, but I offer no apologies. :)
You know, don't you ;-) ???
This is what a TM teacher said to us fairly often after we had paid him $35.oo for the TM course in Memphis, long long ago.
I have not circulated among Bahai summer and winter schools in a long time....but we never had a course on "Prayer". So, William I had the same kinds of thoughts based on late night discussions in the college dorm (prior to hearing about the Bahai Faith) and we were reading the Zen books by Prof. Suzuki, and Allen Ginsburg, and so on. Those were exciting and confusing times, because no one exactly knew, (contrary to our TM teacher's message) we only heard rumors of someone else. And then we invited Baba Ram Das to speak at the college coloquium. He was a really cool guy, but he admitted he didn't "really know". However, he was keenly aware of his ignorance, and he continually explored that vast land within, and wrote about his journeys. In those days, his ego was very much under control
To continue what I was thinking about which William initiated:
a) Prayer is all about focus of attention. If we can't focus, then our mind wanders, and then all the hours of prayer are equivalent to sleeping during meditation, or building up our own egos. Obviously this isn't what Baha'u'llah had in mind. So we have a book of prayers called Prayers and Meditations.
b) Meditation, in my opinion teaches us to listen, but it doesn't tell us what to listen to/for. That is up to us.
c) In my humble experience, if I practice 5 minutes of clearing my mind before praying,(but I don't call that "meditation") my concentration improves dramatically. I can focus my mind for much much longer periods of time.
d) It follows that if I can focus more completely upon the words of the Prophet, I have a better chance to draw upon the benefits which He promices us that prayers will provide (page 1 and 2 of your prayerbook, anyone?)
e) If I can more successfully draw upon those blessings and benefits derived from praying Baha'u'llah's words, I can be more psychologically and spiritually united.
f) If I am more psychologically and spiritually united, then I have a better chance at successfully overcoming tests, and achieving other results, such as mental achievements.
g) and this gets to the original post about choosing to study for an exam or spending say 20-30 minutes in Prayer and Meditation.
h) Unless I am gravely mistaken, nothing I have written here within a Bahai context would be disagreeable to either New Agers or Christians, except New Agers don't do much praying customarily.
Time on task
i) Even if I can't concentrate, spending more time would give me a better chance that I would eventually focus my mind towards the end of the prayer, than spending a shorter amount of time racing through the prayer and saying "Well Baha'u'llah, I did it. Give me a sticker!"
Regarding another comment by William, I would say to you, "What't wrong with repeating until you "get it right"? If we don't remember what we said a few seconds ago, then we were not focused on what we were saying. If I imagine that I am standing before you talking, I at least want to realize what I am saying to you, the ideas I want to express. The same should be true when talking to Man Upstairs, in however form you want to visualize Him/Her/the Force.
Wow thanks for all your comments, guys - i was out over the weekend, and just saw all these comments :) This is a great discussion, and hopefully we'll all get something out of it :)
EdoRiver - no need to apologize at all! I really enjoy reading your comments and hearing your ideas. And anyway, the point of blogs and comments is so one can be free in one's writing and not have to go through a 1000 edits before coming up with the perfect essay :)
Your point regarding synthesizing information is really interesting. It would definitely great if there were some way to automatically synthesize all the info in these comments for example, so that a new reader gets something out of it all, rather than being intimidated by the long stream of comments :) Seems like a tough computer science problem...
William - here are a few thoughts your comments raised in my mind. I totally agree that its hard even to know whether our methods of study are proper - and for example, whether we are praying/meditating properly. Obviously there is a huge subjective/personal element involved in these activities, and it is hard to judge whether one is doing the right thing in a static sense - however in a dynamic sense I do believe these things become clearer with time, as one tries different things out. You mentioned the incident where a lot of people fell asleep meditating. Now that one solitary incident might not tell u whether the purpose of meditation was achieved. But if one tried meditating regularly, one would, over time, gain a better understanding of what the most beneficial form of meditation is. And this might vary from person to person. For some people, it helps to focus on breath while meditating. For others, on a single thought/prayer/chant. And so on. So the short answer to your question about where the line is, and how you find it is this - through personal, subjective experience.
The Bhagavad Gita talks about the threefold path of spiritual growth - Karma Yoga (action), Gyana Yoga (knowledge), and Bhakti Yoga (devotion). Each of us has to find our own balance between action, studying/gaining knowledge and expressing devotion through prayer/meditation in this threefold path. There are of course general guidelines for each of these (acting according to ethical principles, writings of Prophets/learned souls we can study, prayers we can use, some broad principles such as the ones EdoRiver points out while praying etc) - but ultimately finding what works for us is our own job. There aren't any set formulae.
Baha'u'llah writes that "To chant but one verse with joy and gladness is better for you than reading all the Revelations of the Omnipotent God with carelessness." So its really not about reciting random passages, or just reading stuff for the sake of reading it. The intention behind it (in our minds and our hearts) is really what matters most. If we can read just one prayer with complete devotion and sincerity, that is worth more than reading a 100 books. Abdu'l Baha also writes that "The man who makes a piece of notepaper to the best of his ability, conscientiously, concentrating all his forces on perfecting it, is giving praise to God. Briefly, all effort and exertion put forth by man from the fullness of his heart is worship, if it is prompted by the highest motives and the will to do service to humanity." And so even as seemingly mundane a task as making a piece of notepaper is equated with the highest worship if done with the right intention and motives.
Btw, with regards to your point about finding it difficult to concentrate while listening to passages and at the same time having to find something to read, I totally agree - in fact, there's a section in Book 1 of Ruhi which talks about exactly this :) Of course the idea is not to rush through some readings for the sake of reading them. The idea of even doing that as a group as opposed to just individually is to create a sense of positive energy and be able to draw from each other. And the exact format of how one should do it is of course upto the people there - personally I've been at devotionals where things are more loosely structured with people reading whenever they feel inspired to, as well as events where its more structured, with a pre-set order of readings etc. Its entirely up to the people in that space to structure it in the way they feel will best promote that spirit of reverence, and enable everyone to get the most out of the readings. Baha'is do things in many ways - and who ever said Baha'is were perfect? :)
And finally yes, its very hard to think about spiritual reality if one doesnt even have money to feed oneself - or worse, one's kids/family. We definitely want to reach a stage where everyone in the world at least has the basic needs for a decent life. The question is whether one can get there by just throwing money at people - or if there is a greater change required in the attitudes of people (particularly those who are currently rich, and "follow their hearts", using their plenteous riches for self-gratification and "immorality and violence" of a different nature) that will enable development to be more sustainable and permanent. I do believe (and this is my interpretation of the Baha'i philosophy on this issue as well) that spiritual and material development do go hand in hand, and to truly develop materially in the right way, people have to spiritually develop too.
Additionally, there is another point I thought of when I read William's comment
There is no quick and concrete quantitative measurement of spiritual progress, whereas there is such a thing for academics. Numbers give us certainty.
Just as we can measure differences in the physical world, we "should" be able to make measurements of spiritual progress. One reason I say this is because Dr. Taherzadeh in his talk in Alasaka said that Baha'u'llah has written that we should experience a spiritual progress that is day by day.
Dr. Taherzadeh goes on to emphasize this point by saying that just as a child grows day by day, we should experience the same thing. Thus just as the child cannot and then later does not notice a change "day by day". it is a fundamental fact of the physical world that it is impossible for a healthy child "not to grow". If we cannot measure our growth in a daily accounting, then we are the ones experiencing a limitation of some sort, not the spiritual law. Of course, Dr. Taherzadeh warned us not to get too caught up in physical laws' properties, but we use this together with the Writings. And from this point he said that it is easy to become Bahai, but it is a great challenge to grow, day by day as a Bahai. I tell you I have been a Bahai a long time, and I am probably typical of "the spiritually immature". I cannot measure my spiritual growth day by day, or even year by year. According to my previous spiritual point of view I have had "good years" and "bad years". Or at best I would say that I have made advances and retreats of various sorts. However Dr. Taherzadeh doesn't make that kind of distiction, he holds us to the standard of Baha'u'llah who says we should experience a spiritual growth of day by day, (the daily accounting, all Bahais are urged to do in the evening, should eventually be able to document that? What I am telling you now in this comment is what I told myself about 2 years ago after I had been listening to the CDs for some time, over and over. I decided that my main problem was not changing my mind or my ways from the time I was a Christian. I made wrong assumptions. I assumed that after being active in the Church for 23 years there was little you could tell me that was new about "Prayer" and then in college I took a course in TM, Transcendental Meditation together with a group of friends and we meditated together as often as we could. We also fasted. So, what happened? Well even becoming a pioneer to Japan didn't change my perceptions of spiritual progress. So as I say about 2 years ago I began a much more aggressive, or active approach to prayer, and meditation. I have felt that my problem and the problem of those who will discuss this topic with me, is that we are pretty passive about prayer. We want to do it, and get it finished and move on. I have decided that attitude is precisely the problem. So in my plan I set some goals based on my research and my own intuition about what the meaning of prayer is all about. I assumed that the Dawnbreakers had minds that were much differently attuned than myself, but they are no different from you or I. Part of this is our culture and our upbringing,
Duuuuuuh, this is pretty obvious, but I decided that after being a Bahai for more than 20 years, it was time to stop using that as an excuse. I really wanted to change. I had a greater motivation to change than any Bahai I knew or know. And so at that time, the first basic step as I mentioned here is
Time on Task
If you spend more time praying there is a higher probability that you will improve than if you spend a shorter amount of time. I didn't buy the "quality time" argument lol.
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