Self-Reliance

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

 

This lecture on Self-Reliance was given at the Caxton Hall, Westminister, on

18th October 1969.

 

Enjoy!

 

violet

 

 

 

Self-Reliance

 

Those who sail alone round the world, or venture on foot across the Arctic, will

not need to be told of the virtues of self-reliance. The conditions of life in

these undertakings force it on them, and their survival depends on it. Robinson

Crusoe had to be self-reliant, for until Man Friday turned up there was no-one

else to depend on.

 

But we who live in the thick of modern Western civilisation have no such

opportunities, and the social pressures tend to be all the other way. As a

consequence we all tend to look to someone somewhere else for everything, to

shops for our food, TV, radio and the papers for our ideas, to the medical

services for protection against epidemics and care in illness, and to the civil

authorities for help in any catastrophes which threaten us. It is not surprising

then that, when we feel our life is not as it should be, we tend to look

elsewhere both for the causes of our troubles and for the potential solution to

them.

 

This leads to an attitude of mind which is always seeking and finding an

external scapegoat for everything, which shifts all responsibility for doing

anything about it away from the individual himself. Some people tend to blame

their problems on their past - on where they were born, or their choice of

relatives or the material circumstances in which they grew up. Others attribute

their ills to the behaviour of other people, to the government, to the

Communists or the capitalists. Some just lump it all together and blame their

fate.

 

The one thing few people blame is themselves, and in this they are probably

rather sensible because excessive self-reproach usually only engenders a

paralysing feeling of guilt. Wallowing in self-pity and repentance seldom does

much good. For one thing, it doesn't get anything done about it.

 

But the snag about all those attitudes which put the cause of the trouble

elsewhere is that, whatever truth there may be in the analysis, there is very

little you are likely to be able to do to help things. It is difficult to alter

circumstances, and even more difficult to change other people. Much of our

modern malaise indeed arises from the feeling of powerlessness of the individual

lost in an enormous faceless bureaucracy.

 

But all this overlooks the fact that what you can easily do is to alter your own

state of mind and, in doing so, you can transform your whole attitude to the

situation and discover that the situation itself has changed. This may sound

trite, but it is, in fact, something profoundly true and vitally important for

us to realise, not theoretically, but practically in our own life. We

underestimate the importance of how we look at things in actually changing the

character of those things.

 

Anthony Grey has described how, in his long period of solitary confinement in

China, one of his only three books, a book on Yoga exercises, was his salvation

because it enabled him to manifest some degree of mental calm and balance. He

could not change the outer circumstances, but by doing something to change

himself he was able to master them and survive.

 

One of the features of modern life is the terrific pressure on all of us to

become dependent on outer aids of one kind or another. If people are tense or

anxious they are at once put on tranquillisers; if they sleep badly they are

given sleeping tablets, but although these drugs have a value in real cases of

need, one pays a price for using them, and you become, for the time being at

least, reliant on them.

 

This is not only true of drugs. If we show any sign of boredom, there are

innumerable piped diversions laid on - continuous background music, endless TV

or films to distract one, clubs to go to which have brought time-wasting and

emptying the pockets of those who frequent them to a fine art. None of these

things encourge self-reliance. On the contrary, they weaken the natural

resistance and strength of the mind and make it more and more dependent, so that

very soon we are mental invalids, unable to do without these crutches of

constant diversion, stimulation or sedation.

 

Yoga inculcates a totally different attitude, and our own Teacher once summed up

its teachings in this one word 'self-reliance'. It aims to make us less

dependent on outer circumstances and able to tap instead the hidden resources of

unsuspected strength in our own being. Therefore its approach is to tell us not

to concern ourselves so much with the analysis of the supposed outer causes of

our troubles, but to make adjustments in our own personality here and now.

 

The great merit of this approach is that it is practical - we can actually do

something and effect some changes. There is some good sense in the dictum of the

Marxists that a philosophy should not merely be concerned with understanding the

world but also with changing it. The analysis of outer circumstances and

influences - no matter how subtle or reasonable it may sound - does nothing for

us except to increase our discontent and make us feel weaker and more powerless

and dependent. As a cynic remarked: 'There is no problem, however complex, which

does not turn out on closer examination to be even more complex!'

 

And it is because they are seeking an escape from the stifling feeling of

powerlessness and dependence that many young people are turning to the use of

drugs or inordinate sex indulgence or other pseudo-stimulants. Sadly, their

latter state is worse than their former, because they end up even more bankrupt

and dependent than before.

 

Yoga's aim is quite different. It is summed up in the verse of Chapter Six of

the Bhagavad Gita: 'Let a man raise himself by himself, let him not lower

himself by himself; for he alone is the real friend of himself, he alone is the

real enemy of himself.'

 

The principles underlying this attitude of self-reliance which Yoga inculcates

are twofold: (1) to become as far as possible independent of outer objects and

circumstances, by freeing oneself from the habit of relying on outer props

(particularly those which sap our energy unproductively and weaken the will and

the power of reason); (2) to build up (or rather to discover) the springs of

inner strength and to tap the spiritual reserves within and behind the

personality.

 

We weaken ourselves by attributing everything to outer circumstances beyond our

immediate control, whereas the fact is that much more of the quality of our life

is dependent on the behaviour of our own minds and our attitude towards things

than we commonly suppose. A man with an independent mind and a strong

personality can change the whole climate of thought and opinion of those around

him.

 

There is a story of the prophet Abraham as a young man which our Teacher used to

tell, which comes from the Islamic tradition. Abraham's father was a polytheist

who worshipped many gods and used to have a room full of images of the various

deities in his house. Abraham became converted to the one true God and regarded

his father's statues as so many idols. One day, when his father was out, he went

in and destroyed the idols. He cut off the head of one and the arms of another

and left the whole place looking like a battlefield. He carefully left the club

he had used in the hand of one of the idols. When his father came back and found

them, he went straight off to Abraham and said: 'What has happened? Did you do

this? " Abraham replied: 'No, father, the gods started quarrelling and they

fought each other and they have reduced each other to this state.' The father

was very angry and said: 'You are lying! These are only statues.' Then Abraham

said: 'But I thought you believed them to be gods. If they haven't even got this

much power, why on earth do you worship them! They are nothing but idols.'

 

This is the spirit of independence - not bowing down to or relying on any outer

agency, but relying on the light of reason and truth within the personality.

'Put not thy trust in princes', says the Psalmist, and St. Paul warns us that

principalities and powers should not be able to separate us from the love of

God, the Highest.

 

This independence was something which the great spiritual traditions inculcated

in their followers, but nowadays man needs to be reminded of it, because most

people have rejected these teachings or forgotten them.

 

Of course, as the American psychologist Eric Fromm says, there are many

different forms of idolatry, and not all are so easily recognised as the brazen

images of the Old Testament stories. In Fromm's words:

 

" We forget that the essence of idolatry is not the worship of this or that

particular idol but is a specifically human attitude. This attitude may be

described as the deification of things, of partial aspects of the world and

man's submission to such things, in contrast to an attitude in which his life is

devoted to the realisation of the highest principles of life, those of love and

reason, to the aim of becoming what he potentially is, a being made in the

likeness of God. It is not only pictures in stone and wood that are idols. Words

can become idols, and machines can become idols; leaders, the state, power and

political groups may also serve. Science and the opinion of one's neighbours can

become idols, and God has become an idol for many...Is it not time to cease to

argue about God and instead to unite in the unmasking of the contemporary forms

of idolatry? Today it is not Baal and Astarte but the deification of the state

and of power in authoritarian countries and the deification of the machine and

of success in our own culture which threaten the most precious spiritual

possession of man. "

 

Yoga says that, like Abraham, we have to break free from these idols of the mind

and establish our spiritual independence.

 

The spiritually free man does not have a closed mind unsusceptible to the outer

influences. He is open to truth from whatever quarter it comes. It is the bigot

who has a closed mind. It was once said that the bigot is like the pupil of the

eye, the more light you pour on it the more it contracts! True spirituality

doesn't mean narrowness or intolerance.

 

Spiritual independence does not mean cutting yourself off from the outer world,

and trying to live invulnerable as a hermit. This is not the Yoga ideal. The

Teacher, Shri Krishna, sends his pupil in Yoga, Prince Arjuna, back into the

thick of the battlefield of life, to practise Yoga in the world in a life of

action, and not as a recluse.

 

The aim is to be open to truth, but not to be a slave to propaganda, a prey for

those subtle influences in the mind which want to weaken you by preying on your

lower nature so that you can become fodder, content (like battery chickens) to

sit in front of your television sets and do whatever is suggested. Similarly, in

action, the Yoga ideal is that we shall have a spirit of willingness to

co-operate with all, but maintaining our own moral independence, our freedom and

integrity. We should remain free to give our assent to what is worth-while and

good, and to reject what we regard as pernicious or worthless.

 

This, then, is something of what the yogis mean by 'self-reliance'. But though

it is a man's birthright, it is not something to be acquired without effort on

our part. In order to achieve it, it is not necessary to make any changes in the

outer circumstances. What really matters is to make the inner adjustments within

our own personality. We have to transform our own character, to strengthen the

mind and the will so that we can rely on them.

 

The Chinese yogis have a saying: 'Shine the light at your own feet.' The light

is the light of the mental consciousness. It means to focus the attention not at

outer objects but on the mind within. 'Don't think of good or evil,' says a

Chinese master, 'try to find out what your own original face was like. If you

can discover that, the secret of meditation will be naturally yours.'

 

It means to try to find that spiritual element hidden within and behind the mind

- 'the original face'. Not to concern oneself with good or evil - with the outer

circumstances - but to turn the attention within on the mind itself, and to

discover the nature of this enquiring seeking entity, the 'I' of man. The senses

are not reliable, the mind is not reliable, even reason is not ultimately

reliable.

 

This enquiry within the personality to find the real Self - that element on

which man can truly afford to rely - is the reason for the practice of

meditation.

 

What are the practical steps to this ideal of self-reliance? There are two:

 

1. Voluntary withdrawal of the mind from the outer objects. To sit at the time

of the meditation practice and close the senses to the stream of impressions

which is normally pouring in through them. In the Katha Upanishad - one of the

oldest classics on Yoga - the senses are compared with untamed horses yoked to

the chariot of the body, and controlled by the charioteer which is the intellect

of man. And it says that in the ordinary, raw, uncontrolled mind, the horses of

the senses tend to career off, following the trail of the sense objects,

carrying the mind along with them. 'He who has no control over his mind has no

clear understanding.'

 

So, if one is to have understanding, if one is to see things clearly as they

are, one must be able to restrain and control these outgoing tendencies of the

mind and to withdraw it at will from the field of sense objects. Then in

addition to this restraint and withdrawal there is a second step:

 

2. Voluntary stilling of the thoughts. Having withdrawn the senses from outer

objects, then to silence the inner babble of thoughts and impressions which

still wells up into the mind from the storehouse of memory and desire in the

unconscious. As Alduous Huxley says, we suffer from two sources of noise, both

of which prevent us from using our minds creatively. The first source is the

outer noise, battering on our senses, but when this is excluded we still have to

silence the inner noise of our own jostling stream of desires, prejudices,

opinions, likes and dislikes.

 

How to silence this inner noise in the mind? Having restrained and stilled it,

to focus it first on the breath. Take a few deep breaths consciously and focus

the attention on the breathing - this is a great means of pacifying and stilling

the mind - and then focus it on a text or symbol chosen for meditation. You will

find a number of simple meditation practices which you can do for yourselves,

given in the book Meditation: Its Theory and Practice by our Teacher, Dr.

Shastri.

 

A tremendous amount of time and energy is wasted, say the yogis, by letting our

attention run loose and unchecked. Our mind is amazing in the speed with which

it can flit from one idea to another and the thousands of different, often

conflicting, impressions which it can entertain in a short space of time. But it

only becomes truly creative when it is concentrated. When it is allowed to run

wild, it not only lacks understanding, it may actually become a curse to us, for

its restlessness may deprive us of all inner peace and mental well-being.

 

We actually make our minds weak and dependent on outer circumstances by

habituating them to dependence on outer props of one kind or another. Then we

feel bored or agitated, if our access to them is cut off. This in turn makes us

vulnerable and weak-willed. Our mind is easily knocked off balance and is unable

to resist the adverse outer influences. If we want to avoid this we must have a

mind which is controlled, self-possessed and not easily subject to agitation.

 

Swami Rama Tirtha gives a simile of the mind. He says that the ordinary man's

uncontrolled mind is like a pencil hanging from a string, to one end of which it

is tied. In this state it is like a pendulum and, if it is disturbed or hit in

any way, it will start swinging. This swinging will go on for some time before

the pencil comes to rest. In the same way, if anything comes to upset the mind

of an uncontrolled man it will set up great agitation, or resentment or

criticism or fear, and this state will long outlast the event which caused it.

But the mind of a man of understanding, which has learnt the art of

self-reliance through control and self-training and the practice of meditation,

is like a pencil lying on the flat surface of a table. It rests there and, if a

strong disturbance comes, it may be moved by it at the time, but as soon as the

force ceases to act on it, it comes to rest again in the place where it now is.

So, says Rama Tirtha, the mind of a man of understanding reacts to circumstances

in the appropriate way when they arise, but it is not knocked off balance by

them. The state of independence of circumstances is a spiritual ideal, and it is

the ideal of Yoga.

 

Two of the greatest formative influences on Western civilisation, as Salvador de

Madariaga has said, have been Christ and Socrates, and both demonstrated in

their lives and their deaths a supreme example of this self-reliance. Both were

put to death by the State, and both were able to meet the circumstances of their

trial and execution with inner calm and with an undimmed inner vision which

enabled them to remain true to their own knowledge of truth in the face of

overwhelmingly hostile and adverse influences. They demonstrated the truth of

what the yogis tell us, that the real secret of success is not to try and change

the outer circumstances, or even to seek more favourable ones, but to turn

within and control and change the personality, and achieve this ideal of

self-reliance.

 

Freedom through Self-Realisation

A.M. Halliday

A Shanti Sadan Publication - London

ISBN 0-85424-040-3

Pgs. 173-182