Organisations - Request for information

[Guest guest]

Many members will be aware that I have been writing a book on Advaita for

over a year now. It is finally nearing the conclusion of its first draft now

and I will be putting it out for review shortly. While this takes place, I

will be doing some tidying up (adding glossary, introduction to ITRANS,

comprehensive index, references etc.) and I am also adding a final chapter

to suggest where more information might be found. This will include web-site

references, email lists (principally this one!), book recommendations and so

on. However, I would like also to include brief descriptions of

organisations that are available for people to join. It would be very much

appreciated therefore if anyone belonging to, or having significant

experience of any relatively large organisation could write something. This

really only applies to organisations that have branches in a number of

locations and offer regular meetings for reasonable numbers of people. (It

could obviously be a good source of free advertising!) I would naturally

acknowledge the author of any material provided.

 

The sort of information I am interested in is location, frequency of

meetings, nature of talks/discussions etc. As an example, I include the

information that I intend to provide for the organisation that I used to

attend. I certainly would not ask for or expect anything more detailed than

this!

 

 

School of Economic Science (SES) / Philosophy Foundation etc.

http://www.schooleconomicscience.org/ in the UK and

http://www.philosophyfoundation.org/ in the US.

There are a number of organisations that either 'teach' or arrange

discussion groups for this philosophy. I can only write from experience

about one of these but it is also one of the most widespread, with centres

in a number of countries around the world, especially in the UK - the School

of Economic Science. This provides an excellent introduction to the basic

concepts and is very practically oriented (even to the extent of advertising

themselves as providing courses in 'Practical Philosophy'). Most of the

ideas are presented in the first term of 12 lectures but students are

encouraged to continue attendance indefinitely. Eventually, stable groups

may form to practise and discuss the philosophy, attending regular

'residential' courses of 2 - 10 days at a time, in addition to their 36

weekly meetings per year, to enable more concentrated practice.

Transcendental Meditation is introduced in the third year and regular

monitoring thereafter ensures that this is proceeding well.

 

There are several shortcomings to this organisation. Firstly, all of the

tutors are themselves students. This is not always a drawback, especially in

the early stages, since tuition proceeds using material written by members

much higher in the school, and this is periodically revised to ensure that

it does not become inappropriate for the current society. However, the

ability of tutors to present the material in an interesting and stimulating

way, and to answer questions that are not immediately covered in the

material, naturally varies tremendously. As students progress in their

understanding, they eventually reach a plateau when attendance and practise

can become mechanical with no real benefits being gained. Although a

realised man (one of the Shankaracharyas in India) guides the teaching and

methods, it is not possible to experience the actual presence of a true guru

in the classroom. It may also be regarded as significant that, despite the

fact that the School has been in existence since the 1930's, it does not

claim to have enlightened a single individual.

 

Also, as time progresses and essential material has been covered many time

over, more and more time is devoted to the study of Sanskrit (though this

proceeds extremely slowly since much emphasis is given to the chanting of

Vedic prayers and the learning of verses from the scriptures). This can be

interesting, and is certainly useful when studying the scriptures, but is

ultimately irrelevant and a distraction from the inward search.

 

The most serious aspect, however, is that far too much emphasis is placed

upon the ahankara. From a very early stage, students are told of the

dominion of this 'entity' over all of our actions and much of the teaching

is aimed at bringing it under control through various disciplines. What

seems to happen, unfortunately, is that it is merely 're-shaped' so that

those students who persevere and remain with the school for the remainder of

their lives are simply those who have succeeded in moulding their ego into

that shape commensurate with the school disciplines. It is ironic that

senior members of the School will happily agree that the ego does not really

exist, when so much effort is effectively devoted to being aware of it and

'overcoming' it. It is inevitable that such attention will itself continue

to reinforce its power in one way or another.

 

Finally, it must be noted that the teaching is not pure advaita, containing

various other elements including some significant aspects from samkhya and

Patanjali's Yoga traditions. Few of the tutors at the lower levels are aware

of which parts stem from which tradition and, if asked, will claim

erroneously that it is all Advaita.

 

[Note that there are some (see

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/9169/SES/index.html ) who claim

that SES and its associated organisations in other countries is a subversive

'cult' and, indeed, in 1984, there was a book 'Secret Cult' by two Evening

Standard journalists, Peter Hounam and Andrew Hogg that said just this.

Furthermore, a Belgian investigation into cults reported on their country's

branch of SES as recently as 1997. This is all nonsense. There is never, at

any time, any attempt to 'subvert' people in the way that this is usually

understood. † The Belgian report is clearly based upon partial, second-hand

observations from students unfamiliar with Advaita. Most of the conclusions

of the book were based upon a misconstruing of the appearances, and some

practices have since been changed. It is certainly true that students do,

indeed, often find it difficult to leave. But this is partly because they

appreciate that they are being given access to profound wisdom. Though it is

in no way secret, they do not know where else it might be found. Also, they

are sharing this with like-minded people and, similarly, they do not know

where else they might encounter such genuine truth-seeking individuals.

Nevertheless, having said all this in defence, it is also true that many

current practices are unnecessary and would still tend to make an outsider

think the organisation a cult.]

 

 

Dennis