Something essential is going out of our lives, something that has been part of human life as long as humanity has existed. Something that connects us to each other and to the vast richness of the world, that allows us to live together in community, something necessary for our development as individuals and our participation in the common life. Something that has sustained us for a million years is beginning to disappear. We are no longer singing together.
In a world of seemingly endless crises, of wars and unspeakable violence, the rampant despoiling of nature—a world of so much suffering, so much despair, so much need, this loss may seem a very small thing, so marginal, even trivial, as to hardly deserve our notice.
It is not a small thing. It is, as people all over the world have known since the most ancient times, an essential part of what makes us human.
–Gail Needleman
November 19 2011 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the young century’s most important books, July 25, 2011
Stafford Betty, CSU Bakersfield
This review is from: What Is God? (Hardcover)
This is a flat-out great book. It is a blend of philosophy, theology, religion, and autobiography written by a professor in his mid-seventies who writes with mastery and eloquence. In it he describes his journey through atheism into a theology that embeds the divine reality in our own consciousness. It would be wrong to conclude that he is a pantheist, however. God for him is the mind behind the universe who loves it, incarnates within it, and manages it through us. Needleman is especially concerned with the problem of evil. The Big Dogs of contemporary atheism–I’m sure he has in mind writers like Dawkins, Harris, and Dennet–are doing us a service, he says, by pointing out the glaring deficiencies of traditional concepts of God, but they give us something worse. Needleman envisions God in a radically new way that leaves us free to affirm God without contradiction.
Let’s let him speak in his own words: “. . . how could the human race have ever dreamt that God could act in a merciful, just manner in the human world without the presence of individual men and women who have received the inward God of consciousness within their own human frame? That is the real unrecognized illusion about religion in our world–not the illusion of God’s existence that Freud attempted to expose. The deeper, widespread illusion that God can and should act mercifully and justly in human history without the ‘instrument ‘ of God-inhabited human beings.” He goes on to say that the idea of God intervening in human affairs by answering prayers and working miracles “is defeated by the world we live in and which, no doubt, we have always lived in.” From the countless genocides of the last hundred years to the afflictions of our own precious children, it is obvious that God does not intervene just because we earnestly want him to and ask him to. God expects us to solve our own problems. But this is no bleak prospect. Needleman continues: “Wherever the process of cosmic creation is taking place [and he imagines innumerable earthlike planets spread throughout the cosmos], there is, and must be, a specifically human energy, filling, as it were, the stages and steps in the descent and manifestation of what it is that originally emanates from the Source. It is at these everywhere-appearing junctures in the cosmic and planetary world that Man is created and needed as the microcosmic God, the ‘image and likeness of God’, whose work it is to ‘make straight the ways of the Lord.’”
In other words, God does not intervene in human history but depends on us to intervene when justice and mercy are required. Needleman takes a dim view of a supernatural deity who would sometimes jump in to solve our dilemmas when we ask Him to. It would demean and enfeeble us. Yet God is involved in our attempts. For it is God’s energy, God’s grace (to use traditional language), that rolls through us and makes us yearn for God and for God’s ways. So God is involved–through us. “What, after all, is the meaning of my own human life if I live without yearning for what the religions call God? What is the meaning of our lives if we cannot love, cannot be just, cannot hate only what is evil and cannot love only what is good? What is the meaning of our lives if we live enmeshed in the troubled sleep of fear, resentment, fantasy, cruelty, sentimental stupidity, or even the bloated, arrogant atheism that succumbs to the essence of the very illusions it has honorably sought to expose–namely, the worship of a false god that has sought to usurp the place of the real God?”
Reason tells us, correctly, that the traditional theologies are implausible, but our inner being tells us that the reasoning mind which ignores this urge falls tragically short of the final answer and leaves us with the scorched earth of a virulent atheism. From this terrible fate he rescues us with his brilliant analysis and artful writing.
I share Needleman’s view of God and found his book exhilarating. Here is a man who lets himself be guided not only by reason, but by the transcendental urge in his very soul and body. Putting those two powerful forces together and living out of them is the key to happiness for the thoughtful man or woman.
Huffington Post review:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-jack-bemporad/what-is-god-jacob-needleman_b_880842.html
If you are looking for a theologically erudite discussion of the nature of God, the Divine attributes of creation, revelation, and redemption — then this book will disappoint you.
But if you are concerned with asking and answering the question, “How can one approach the question of God in an honest and authentic manner?” then this is the book to read.
Jacob Needleman, emeritus Professor of Philosophy at San Francisco State and prolific author of such insightful books as, “Why Can’t We be Good?”, and “The Heart of Philosophy”, is a truly wise individual. Wise in the sense indicated by Ben Zoma, who, in the Jewish sayings of the fathers asks the question: “Who is wise?” and answers, “Not one who has amassed a great deal of book learning, but one who can learn from everything and everyone.”
As we read his latest and most intimate and self-revealing book, “What is God?”, Needleman traces his search for knowledge of God by taking us on a biographical and intellectual journey, from his early childhood discussions with his father, to significant contact with deeply wise individuals, to his many interchanges with his students and colleagues over the years, and finally, to the present day. This book details an inner journey searching, not necessarily for concepts or borrowed definitions of God, but rather, for a genuine idea, an idea that is transformative and vital.
Everything that Needleman integrates into his philosophy is dedicated to the task of answering, what for him has become the essential question, What is God?
One soon learns as one reads the book that the search requires certain qualities in the seeker in order to get at what are the truly essential questions. An example of this is his profound discussion on the quality of attention. Needleman comes to this in the most moving exploration of the exchange between him and his students. Although he has often reported talks with students in his other books, here it clearly becomes more personal and revealing.
Those who have read Needleman’s many other works will immediately recognize that this is his most intimate book; that the question about God is such an overwhelmingly important one that he brings all his many talents of mind learning and vast experience to bear on it. He candidly confesses his past atheism as he taught courses “about God.” He also illustrates how so much in (organized) religion can turn an inquiring seeker away from the very question of God and, in his many talks, Needleman often refers to toxic ideas, ideas that are reductionist and make it impossible to be open to anything that is transcendent.
Now, through this inner struggle and transformation, he comes to the realization captured in the very first sentence of the book: God is to the soul, what breathing is to the body.
What Needleman points out is that for many, God is an abstract concept unconnected to any genuine experience or theoretical framework. As a concept, it can easily flitter away, since it has no grounding through a transformative search; note, not a search for transformation but a transforming search; not where the end result is clear beforehand and one only has to find the best means, but a transforming search. The very seeking becomes the finding and the finding the seeking.
We come to understand through Needleman that asking questions constitutes a task. How rarely do we ask our own genuine questions? How often do we deal with not just borrowed answers but even more perilously, borrowed questions?
There is something sui generis about this book. It is not easy to classify and a facile classification would not do it justice.
Nonetheless, I think this is Needleman’s best-written and most thoughtful book. At a time when people produce all types of tomes, usually quickly and superficially, it is a breath of fresh air to encounter the summary of the life-thought of a very sensitive and wise man on perhaps the most critical issue of our time.
I do not want to give the essence of the book away. I want the reader to travel with Needleman, first as a spectator, then as a companion, and then as a co seeker.
http://www.amazon.com/What-God-Jacob-Needleman/product-reviews/B00403NG9A/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1
August 29 2011 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
In fifty years of teaching philosophy I have seen hundreds of young men and women come to my classes with their hearts open to the wish for truth, but with their minds stunted by the dogmatic assumptions about man and the universe that pervade our culture.
By the end of the semester, however, these students are burning with the kind of hope that only great philosophical questions can bring. Their minds have started breathing again. They have been touched by a part of themselves that they had never known, or that they had been made to forget. They have come in touch with the seed of the real human mind.
These young men and women are also ourselves, and their world is also our own. Their need is also our own.
And it is not only great philosophical ideas and questions of the heart that must re-enter our lives. What is at stake is the work of thinking itself in its deepest meaning. While scientific knowledge and its applications are rapidly advancing, the work of thinking about what really matters in our lives is disappearing from our world.
I will show that the long climb back to our truly human thinking mind begins with something surprisingly possible and joyous: the practice of an ancient and nearly forgotten form of friendship and conversation. I will show by examples what this means. Here, at the outset, I can only cite a recent telling event. One of my students shyly came up to me, her eyes glistening with tears. She was a stout African-American woman in her thirties who always sat quietly in the back rows of the class. “Professor,” she said with her voice catching, “you really do want us to think for ourselves, don’t you!”
I’ve never felt happier about what I have been trying with my students over the years.
August 14 2011 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
Preface to the Monkfish Edition
For ten consecutive days in December of 1995, the NASA Hubble Space Telescope, orbiting far above the earth’s atmosphere, pointed its lens toward what seemed an “uncluttered” portion of the sky in the constellation Ursa Major. Astronomers narrowed the focus of the telescope to a tiny speck of black sky about the size of a dime 75 feet away. The resulting image, assembled from over 300 separate exposures, appears on the cover of this book
I was standing at a magazine rack in a Borders bookstore when I first saw this photograph on the front of the National Geographic. Opening the magazine and eagerly reading the explanation of the photograph, I was struck with wonder: a nearly microscopic point in an apparently empty patch of the night sky was here shown to be a window onto hundreds, thousands of stars, many certainly greater than our own sun, and, like our sun, pouring out unimaginable streams of life-creating energy onto who knows what planetary worlds and who knows what living beings that may have arisen upon these worlds. I remember standing there for a moment with my eyes closed, sensing the mingling of impersonal joy and yearning that everyone sometimes experiences looking up at a night sky strewn with millions of shining worlds.
I put the magazine back and started to walk away, but after two or three steps I stopped short. What had I actually seen? Something was not quite right. I turned around and went back to the magazine rack. My knees nearly gave way when I looked at the picture again. Could it really be? I opened the magazine again and this time very attentively read the explanation of the photograph: these were not stars at all, they were galaxies! Hundreds, thousands of galaxies never before known or seen inhabited that infinitesimal speck of “empty” sky, each galaxy itself containing billions of suns. I suddenly became very quiet inside.
I would like to think of the present book as an extended commentary on this image and the inner experience such images and discoveries can evoke. Every day in almost all its branches the revelations of modern science offer evidence that the universe, reality itself, is alive—alive beyond all imagining. All those who love science must know this truth in their bones, whatever may be the view officially sanctioned in the corridors of our universities and institutions of research. In any case, this is and always has been the view offered by the great spiritual traditions of the world, East and West, in all cultures and at all times previous to our own.
The very word “cosmos” signifies that the universe itself is a living organism, unimaginably vast in its extent and in the depth of its purposes and intelligence—and its beauty and, above all, in its goodness. And, according to these traditions, to know this universe, to know reality, it is necessary for a man or woman to perceive it with more than the intellect alone. It is necessary to perceive it with the unique source of perception by which beauty and goodness can be perceived—with the depth and subtlety of the power of feeling. The power of feeling—not the violence and chaos of what we usually know of as our emotional reactivity—the power of feeling must be joined to the genius of the intellect in order to know the nature of reality.
We cannot know, so the great spiritual traditions teach, with only one part of the human intelligence. To know with the intellect alone is to know beings, but not to know Being itself, which is where meaning resides. And this implies that the true scientist must himself or herself strive to bring together all the parts of oneself, must strive to become an ordered world in oneself as a prerequisite to seeing and knowing the order of the cosmos and the true nature of everything within the cosmos, all life, all elements, all laws and forces. Then one begins to understand that the great mechanism of the cosmos is an abstraction from, that is to say, an embedded aspect within, the far greater organism that is the universe, reality itself. Not only in our ourselves, in our own bodies, but in everything, everywhere, mechanism exists only as an aspect of organism. Mechanism is the instrument of organism; mechanism is the instrument of life, it is how life does things.
But really to know how life does things, it is necessary to know why life does things. And this cannot be known without the joining together in ourselves of feeling, instinct and thought. The greatness of modern science, as this book tries to show, is rooted in its courageous effort of reliance on what it considered the pure intellect as it was joined to and supported by a rediscovered respect for the bodily senses—which, in a larger meaning of the term, form part of the “instinctive” functions of the human psyche—as the source of knowledge. But in this revolutionary development of modern science, what was forgotten—for reasons having partly to do with the widespread cultural blunting and degradation of the meaning of faith in the religious institutions of the West—is that the heart, the power of profound feeling, is absolutely necessary in order both to be good and to see the good, to know the good that is an objective—yes, objective, attribute of the real world—out there. Losing this meaning of the human heart, losing the feeling component of knowing, science easily becomes scientism and easily leads to the belief that there is no objective value in the world. And this in turn leads to the moral relativism that has become the source of despair in our culture and especially in our younger generation. Of course, no less despairing, but not as obviously so, is what is simply the other side of the coin of moral relativism, namely, moral absolutism, the tyranny of the emotional reactivity masquerading as the human heart.
Here is the truly revolutionary aspect of this ancient vision: it is telling us that it is impossible for a human individual, for mankind, to have real knowledge without at the same time having virtue. When it is said—and it is said and seen by everyone now who has any eyes at all—that our knowledge has gone far beyond our morality, this is the same thing as to say that we need to rediscover how to join the attention of the heart to the powers of the mind and the perceptions of the senses. And this is to say, simply, that our being must catch up with our knowing. We must begin to confront a mysterious directive offered by two of the greatest minds of the twentieth century: Martin Heidegger and G.I. Gurdjieff. Each spoke in his own way—Heidegger as a philosopher, and Gurdjieff as an “awakener” – of the need to think deeply, to ponder, to contemplate the one ultimate question: the Being of beings. What can such words mean to us ? And why should they be, how could they be, the most important question that our world has to face? They sound so abstract, maybe even meaningless, so removed from the flesh-and-blood problems of our world and everyday life.
But step outside one starry night. Go to a place where the “light pollution” of man-made cities is lessened. Go to a place out there and in here where our inventions of concepts and explanations no longer obscure the subtle intimations of higher truths within oneself. And look up at all those shining worlds.
What do you feel?
No. That is not the only question to ask oneself.
The question is: what do you know?
It is the same question.
Then observe your inner state. Could you hate? Could you be overwhelmed by envy or resentment? Could you dishonor any man or any woman? Is it not true that your wish to know more and more about the great world around you is now joined to the deep yearning to serve one’s neighbor and whatever it is that is, for you and for me, God? Is it not true that no man or woman has ever committed a crime in the state of wonder? Is it not true that there is such a thing as sacred knowing? And can there be any real knowing, worthy of the name, that is not embedded in a sense of the sacred out there and in oneself? Does our world cry out for anything more fundamental than this sense of the cosmos?
Tags: Cosmos, Hubble, Jacob Needleman, NASA, sacred
July 15 2011 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-jack-bemporad/what-is-god-jacob-needleman_b_880842.html
If you are looking for a theologically erudite discussion of the nature of God, the Divine attributes of creation, revelation, and redemption — then this book will disappoint you.
But if you are concerned with asking and answering the question, “How can one approach the question of God in an honest and authentic manner?” then this is the book to read.
Jacob Needleman, emeritus Professor of Philosophy at San Francisco State and prolific author of such insightful books as, “Why Can’t We be Good?”, and “The Heart of Philosophy”, is a truly wise individual. Wise in the sense indicated by Ben Zoma, who, in the Jewish sayings of the fathers asks the question: “Who is wise?” and answers, “Not one who has amassed a great deal of book learning, but one who can learn from everything and everyone.”
As we read his latest and most intimate and self-revealing book, “What is God?”, Needleman traces his search for knowledge of God by taking us on a biographical and intellectual journey, from his early childhood discussions with his father, to significant contact with deeply wise individuals, to his many interchanges with his students and colleagues over the years, and finally, to the present day. This book details an inner journey searching, not necessarily for concepts or borrowed definitions of God, but rather, for a genuine idea, an idea that is transformative and vital.
Everything that Needleman integrates into his philosophy is dedicated to the task of answering, what for him has become the essential question, What is God?
One soon learns as one reads the book that the search requires certain qualities in the seeker in order to get at what are the truly essential questions. An example of this is his profound discussion on the quality of attention. Needleman comes to this in the most moving exploration of the exchange between him and his students. Although he has often reported talks with students in his other books, here it clearly becomes more personal and revealing.
Those who have read Needleman’s many other works will immediately recognize that this is his most intimate book; that the question about God is such an overwhelmingly important one that he brings all his many talents of mind learning and vast experience to bear on it. He candidly confesses his past atheism as he taught courses “about God.” He also illustrates how so much in (organized) religion can turn an inquiring seeker away from the very question of God and, in his many talks, Needleman often refers to toxic ideas, ideas that are reductionist and make it impossible to be open to anything that is transcendent.
Now, through this inner struggle and transformation, he comes to the realization captured in the very first sentence of the book: God is to the soul, what breathing is to the body.
What Needleman points out is that for many, God is an abstract concept unconnected to any genuine experience or theoretical framework. As a concept, it can easily flitter away, since it has no grounding through a transformative search; note, not a search for transformation but a transforming search; not where the end result is clear beforehand and one only has to find the best means, but a transforming search. The very seeking becomes the finding and the finding the seeking.
We come to understand through Needleman that asking questions constitutes a task. How rarely do we ask our own genuine questions? How often do we deal with not just borrowed answers but even more perilously, borrowed questions?
There is something sui generis about this book. It is not easy to classify and a facile classification would not do it justice.
Nonetheless, I think this is Needleman’s best-written and most thoughtful book. At a time when people produce all types of tomes, usually quickly and superficially, it is a breath of fresh air to encounter the summary of the life-thought of a very sensitive and wise man on perhaps the most critical issue of our time.
I do not want to give the essence of the book away. I want the reader to travel with Needleman, first as a spectator, then as a companion, and then as a co seeker.
July 01 2011 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
http://onbeing.org/programs/2011/inward-work-of-democracy/
It’s easy to forget, especially as a July 4th weekend approaches, how much trial and error went into the creation of American democracy. This week on Being, Krista revisits her 2003 conversation with the warm and wise philosopher Jacob Needleman. In his studies of the American founders, he became fascinated by what they took on as the “inward work” of democracy. Disciplines of conscience and virtue accompanied every institution and right that they defined. Today, as young democracies emerge around the world, Needleman offers a long view of the ingredients that formed American democracy well beyond July 4, 1776. He reminds us that America is an ongoing experiment, always a work in progress.
July 01 2011 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
A 9-Year-Old’s Hidden Self
–by Jacob Needleman (Apr 12, 2011)
Listen To Reading!
The quality and strength of Lobsang’s inner being was also brought home to me through an event that took place in my home. After one of his weekends working with our translation group, he stayed for a few days as a guest in my house in San Francisco. One morning at the breakfast table we were discussing this and that, I don’t remember what. My nine-year-old daughter, Eve, was present. Ordinarily, she tended to be shy, especially when strangers or guests were present. But at one point in the conversation, during a brief pause, she looked up at Lobsang and without any preamble she asked him: “What happens when people die?”
I was startled and a certain warmth rose up in me. It was obvious she had been keeping this question for a long time inside herself, without letting anyone know. My own attempts to make room in our relationship for this kind of question had not gone anywhere, or so it has seemed to me. But now, suddenly, I felt her hidden self and felt that strength of its need. How would Lobsang respond? I set myself to listen to him with as much eagerness as my daughter.
Lobsang turned toward her with his warm, brown face and his lucent black eyes and began talking to her as though she were, like him, simply a normal human being for whom such questioning was as natural and as important as eating, a human being who was, like him and like all of us, someday going to die. I don’t remember the content of what he said to her; I do remember thinking that what he said was not extraordinary — things that any serious adult might say to a serious, inquiring child. But what I do remember as vividly as though it were yesterday was the “resonance” of his voice, the stillness of his body and the warm attention in his face. I remember sensing the vibration of a certain kind of energy passing between Lobsang and my daughter that served more as answer to her question than any words by themselves could have. I saw her eyes deepen as though they were seeing something strong and new — not outside herself, but inside herself.
Perhaps she did not realize what was happening inside herself. Maybe she still doesn’t know. But I saw it. A quality of attention was passing between Lobsang and my daughter that is becoming more and more rare in our common world. And it is this “something” that desperately needs to pass between people. It is the mutual flow of this special quality of attention between human beings that all people, whether they know it or not, are starved for. Not all the praise, touching, words, teaching, smiling, sympathizing, serving good causes — not any or all of it can do what this quality of shared attention can do. Its lack is more of a threat to our world than anything else — or, rather, its increasing absence in human relationships is at the root of all else that now threatens to destroy or degrade us beyond recovery — the internecine hatred and egoism and immorality that is crowding out not only our ancient, traditional ways of life, and the life of nature itself, but which is also crowding out the human memory of what mankind is, and is made for.
–Jacob Needleman, in What is God
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Previous Reflections:
On Apr 7, 2011 Richard Whittaker wrote:
Beautiful passage. The whole book is really worth reading, by the way. Somehow Needleman captures the essence of a precious quality of exchange. I think what’s most amazing is the quality of Lobsang’s tone in addressing this 9 year old as a being in her own right and not someone it’s necessary to “speak down” to. I’m sure Logsang’s response was made with full awareness that he was speaking to a child, but also another being in herself. So the content, the words, no doubt were chosen wi See full.
On Apr 7, 2011 Aumatma wrote:
This passage reminds me that maybe it is not in the words that we convey, but in the presence that we share, that is most significant.
On Apr 7, 2011 Prasad Kaipa wrote:
I was touched by the quality of listening that Needleman and Lobsang brought forth to Eve’s question. Considering that Eve is his daughter, Needleman’s ability to be open to her the way, he describes makes me long to be the kind of father he is. Then Lobsang’s attention and willingness to be with Eve and engage her with his own response — not to answer it so that the question goes away, but to answer it in a way that there is more curiosity, certain confidence that one is on the right pat See full.
On Apr 7, 2011 Pratibha wrote:
Hmm, it would be interesting to know what Lopsang actually said to the child. I agree that the communication as described was surely significant between the two, but the actual words to answer her question would be important too.
What happens when people die–would we like to have that discussion? I think it could be very interesting.
Pratibha
On Apr 7, 2011 Conrad Pritscher wrote:
I was touched. Normally I respond to what you write by saying my name is Conrad. Today, I gave my full name partly because of Lobsong’s open expression. First, I thought I might respond by saying something about how death is natural and everything, including people, are impermanent (dealing more with the content rather than how the content was expressed). After reading more, I thought what is important is not only what I say but how I say it. Kindness in expression says more than what is e See full.
On Apr 7, 2011 Kate wrote:
What a passage - thank you for posting. This story reminded me of a piece of being-human that I forget - of how we give attention to each other when we don’t have answers. That quality of attention, of holding each other and the things we are scared or unsure of, is an amazing gift. This story reminded me of times and people in my life who have shared that gift - and held me in their attention, when the unknown was overwhelming. How fabulous it is, that as humans we have See full.
On Apr 7, 2011 susan schaller wrote:
This needed story reminded me of when I first moved to Berkeley many years ago. I wondered how I was going to relate to all the panhndlers. I couldn’t give everyone all my money, but I hated the idea of looking away and rushing by as so many people do. At that time, I often stopped for a cup of coffee after I dropped my kids off at school. I decided to befriend two women who were outside of my coffee stop. I chatted with them, got to know them, and considered money See full.
On Apr 7, 2011 Rajesh wrote:
A most wonderful passage. One gets a hint of the quality of conversation that Needleman is speaking about. When that quality happens in an intearction with a friend or a stranger, one feels like one’s heart has opened up to the whole world and that everything is blessed. I find that such interactions have become rarer in my own life and I long to create such deep connections more often.
On Apr 7, 2011 xiaoshan wrote:
“We sat together, holding hands. No words were said…that was a perfect moment in my life.”
On Apr 7, 2011 madhur wrote:
This passage brings up an opening like perhaps the conversation did. The idea of treating the question and the enquirer as perfectly normal, in sync with self and giving profound attention, has so much to learn and practice in everyday life’s moments. This has potential perhaps to make deep relations, connect and express or change for good which otherwise may be extremely difficult.
Thanks so much for bring forth a strong message from such a simple incidence.
On Apr 8, 2011 Ganoba wrote:
when we drop the ego, which is after all just an image, a fragmented one at that, what is left is the nameless I. this I is one with the whole universe. It is pure compassion and a loving wisdom.To this I age, titles, gender etc don’t mean a thing.
On Apr 8, 2011 Derek wrote:
What I enjoy about this delicate passage is it’s emphasis on the power of subtle meanings. Many adults today have gotten caught up in the day to day “static” of life, missing the intentions behind words. Young children, with pure minds absorb every nuance in movement and tone in communication. They are Watchers of life. They can see, feel and absorb what some might say are messages of transcendence. As adults, children can be great teachers for all of us. They can guide us See full.
On Apr 9, 2011 Edit Lak wrote:
A truly beautiful and inspiring passage. This reminds us all ,that, our interactions have meaning and true purpose. The comfort and safeness of a child to ask a deep question from her own growing, learning and inquisitive mind, As important as the question is, more importantly is the reply, not so much in the format explained, but to have the respect and care to answer the child the best one can, to be as one with the child without ego or mental nature running wild, Instead there was a responsib See full.
On Apr 9, 2011 KT wrote:
Human-kind has more ways to communicate with one another than one could have ever imagined, and while It is probably true that people are communicating MORE due to technology, the communication is LESS due to the quality. You see it every day. As an English teacher my job is to teach students how to communicate through speech and writing. What I have found is that I often spend the most time on teaching them the art of “tone.” They have no idea how their choice of words combined See full.
On Apr 10, 2011 Kinjal wrote:
Beautiful passage. I am glad that the author does not remember what Lobsang said to the child, because that would have distracted the reader. The following words hit me the most: “the mutual flow of this special quality of attention between human beings that all people, whether they know it or not, are starved for” We all have been there at some point or another, at least I have been there. Infinite amount of praises and kind words can’t do what true compassion conveyed by warm atte See full.
On Apr 10, 2011 Ricky wrote:
I am so grateful to have read such a precious story about a parent who really gets it…about who our ‘teachers’ are on this journey we refer to as our life…in this case, his daughter. What most enchants me about this beautiful writing is that it touches what I know to be true in my deepest inner core-my soul-the Self. At a very young age, as I looked out at the world around me and tried to make sense of it all by making observations and asking questions, I See full.
On Apr 12, 2011 Dr Venkat Pulla wrote:
being human - we forget, being caring we forget, being there in that moment with that person we forget. grateful fo these wonderful reminders. may God bless you all.
On Apr 12, 2011 Somik Raha wrote:
This passage reminded me of a chat my wife and I had with a monk. We expressed a desire to meet with spiritual teachers and film Q&A with them so others can also benefit from it. The Dalai Lama came up, and this monk said, “The Dalai Lama says a lot of insightful things, but that is not what is really important about it. What is important is that he says it.” In the spiritual and intellectual realms, two opposite standards apply. In the former, the purity of the individual and the See full.
On Apr 15, 2011 Dinesh wrote:
Few audio clips from our circle of sharing last Wednesday … See full.
On Apr 15, 2011 rahul wrote:
The first thing this passage brought up for me was presence, and that with a given quality of presence always comes permission to respond in harmony its energy. The neurological basis of this is what are called ‘mirror neurons’ which essentially pick up on the mental states of those around us and cause us to replicate their inner states within ourselves. Research has shown that you’re much more likely to be happy if you have happy friends. Not just that, but See full.
On Apr 17, 2011 jacob wrote:
What a beautiful story.
Link to original posting: A 9-Year-Old’s Hidden Self
April 27 2011 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
How to Read a Spiritual Classic
(WSP 226)
“And so I urge you, go after experience rather than knowledge. On account of pride, knowledge may often deceive you, but this gentle, loving affection will not deceive you. Knowledge tends to breed conceit, but love builds. Knowledge is full of labor, but love, full of rest.”
—The Cloud of Unknowing (14th Century, Anonymous)
This workshop will offer a measure of practical guidance to the vast quantity of spiritual writings now flooding our culture. Working with two seminal spiritual classics of the world (East and West), we will try to understand how such writings can begin to orient us in our search for inner truth. The first book is the 6th-century Chinese classic, Tao Te Ching, attributed to Lao Tzu. The other is the less well-known but equally profound Christian mystic text from the 14th century, The Cloud of Unknowing. Throughout the Western world today, the realization is dawning that science can do many things, but it cannot give us self-knowledge or a sense of purpose in life. At the same time, many of our religions have cut themselves off from the energy of their original teachings. Thus, many of us are now seeking out ancient and modern texts that offer a truly transcendent vision of human nature and life-meaning. However, it is often difficult, on one’s own, to extract the real wisdom these texts have to offer. This workshop will provide coaching on how to read two of these influential texts, and through them to look with fresh hope and understanding at what sometimes appears to be the chaos within ourselves and in the world around us.
Due to its short format, this workshop may not be taken for Credit.
Jacob Needleman, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, SFSU
Jacob Needleman’s books include The New Religions; The Wisdom of Love; Money and the Meaning of Life; A Sense of the Cosmos; Lost Christianity; The Heart of Philosophy; Time and the Soul; The American Soul; Why Can’t We Be Good?; and What Is God?. A frequent commentator on current cultural issues, he has also been featured on Bill Moyers’ PBS series, “A World of Ideas.” Needleman received a PhD in philosophy from Yale.
Textbooks for this course:
(Required) Gia-fu Feng (translator), Tao Te Ching (ISBN 0679724346)
(Required) William Johnston (editor), The Cloud of Unknowing (ISBN 0-385-03097-5)
https://continuingstudies.stanford.edu/courses/course.php?cid=20103_WSP%20226
Tags: Stanford Continuing Education Jacob Needleman Philosophy Spiritual Classics
April 19 2011 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
It is a question that echoes in all worlds—from realms of the spirit to the material needs and exchanges of our everyday life: We are born to give and to serve, yet nothing can be realized without payment, without sacrifice, without separating oneself from something seemingly precious. Similarly, there is a work required in order purely and simply to receive and accept a gift, be it from God or man or nature, be it a new energy, a needed action, or even money. In the realms of spirit there is, as well, the eternal interplay between grace (meaning the unearned gift) and effort, or struggle, paying with one’s emotions, opinions, willingness to give way, or with one’s fixed, attached attention. In nature as in human life: on the one hand everything has to be paid for (karma) and, on the other hand, everything comes and is given from Above.
How to understand this central question of human life? How to live our understanding?
March 29 2011 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
FINDING MY RELIGION
Philosopher Jacob Needleman asks in his latest book, ‘Why Can’t We Be Good?’ Part 1
Monday, April 9, 2007
|By David Ian Miller
SF Gate
We’ve got self-help programs, sensitivity training and easy access to the wisdom of all of the world’s greatest thinkers and spiritual traditions. We know exactly how to be rational, caring, honorable human beings — most of us, anyway. So why do we act in stupid, soul-hurting ways, fully aware that we’re being awful and always vowing to do better next time around?
Religious scholar and social philosopher Jacob Needleman addresses that quandary in his latest book, “Why Can’t We Be Good?” (Tarcher, 2007). Needleman digs deep into the writings of philosophers, religious leaders, scientists and psychologists to understand why we humans are so often seemingly incapable of doing the right thing. It’s a sobering subject, but Needleman’s book is far from a dull, accusing tome — his humor enlivens both the insights he shares and the exercises intended to strengthen one’s moral muscles.
Needleman is a professor of philosophy at San Francisco State University and the author of many books, including “The American Soul,” “The Wisdom of Love” and “Money and the Meaning of Life.” In this first part of a two-part interview, I talk with him about what he’s learned about good and evil during the 40 years he’s spent studying religion and philosophy. In part two, which will run next week, he speaks about his own faith and the people and ideas who have inspired him in his search for goodness.
The obvious answer is, “Read the book,” but can you give me a short synopsis? Why can’t we be good? Why do we do things that we know aren’t right?
This is one of the eternal questions of human life. We have a sense in ourselves of what’s right and wrong and we constantly, or, I should say, often betray it. This disconnect is an intrinsic part of the human condition, one that every religious and spiritual leader has tried to address and in some way repair. It’s as though there’s one part of us that knows one thing, and yet it’s another part of us that acts. And the two parts don’t speak to each other very well.
So there’s a part of us that wants to do the right thing, and then there’s another that just doesn’t give a damn?
Doesn’t care, doesn’t know and is overwhelmed by the selfish aspects — the fear, the anxiety, the resentments, the sensitivities that are part of what you call the ego.
It’s like we’re two people inhabiting one body, all of us, and there’s no real connection between those two halves. One part has a tendency toward the good — to what is noble, to what is related to the sacred, to what wishes to love — and the other part is in the service of desires that are socially conditioned into us by the illusion that just getting what we like or want will make us happy. Those two parts need to come into relationship with each other.
You write in the book that we know what is good, yet we do the opposite. But I’m wondering if we really do know what is good. Isn’t that part of the problem?
That’s a good point, and that’s what Socrates and many other great teachers have said. Personally, I think we do know what is good, but it’s in the deep part of ourselves that’s very deep down in us and is all covered over by self-deceptions. We don’t know it in a way that enables it to touch our feelings, our reactions, our muscles, our nerves.
Can you give me an example?
Just look at how we knowingly behave counterproductively. We say, “I know I shouldn’t smoke, but …” or “I know I shouldn’t eat all this stuff,” or whatever it is. Put the pastry in front of me, put the cigarette in front of me, and there I go.
People often explain this sort of behavior by saying: “Well, human beings. They’re just not rational.” Is that the problem?
We are rational, but we’re not always intelligent. How’s that for a paradox? You can think very cleverly or rationally about how to do something bad, but that is not the same thing as real intelligence. A thief, a murderer can be very rational, in the sense of plotting things out. But intelligence is when the part of ourselves that is the deep mind that we all potentially have really governs our life.
Do you think that part exists in all of us?
I think it does. It’s very covered over in many of us, but it’s there.
Where does that part come from? Is it something we’re born with? Is it something we’re taught?
I think it’s complex. It comes from our essence as human beings, and sometimes it also comes from our influence and environment, from education. And, in a sense, it comes from who knows where. It defines a human being that we have this potential, this power. We don’t have the awareness of it or the ability to articulate what it is, but down in our essential nature there is something called conscience, which is not necessarily just a socially conditioned ego.
Do you believe that human beings are basically good?
Yes, basically. We are built to be able to care and to love as part of our essential nature.
What is evil, then? Are some people evil?
Yeah, they sure are! And maybe all of us, relatively speaking, are sometimes evil.
How do those two things coexist, that we are basically good, and yet evil also exists?
There’s at least two kinds of evil. There’s the evil that just covers over the deep voice of conscience, and the whole society sometimes does that, free of charge, as it were. By the time we are 4, 5 or 6 years old, the voice of conscience becomes covered over, and we only hear it on special occasions when someone dies, or when we do something that we suddenly realize is against all that is good and right. Then the voice of conscience is heard, and it’s very clear and very painful.
The other kind of evil just comes from the ego, basically, when we’re identified with this picture of ourselves, of, say, our country or religion or ethnic group or social class, and we become so attached to these things that we build our identities around them. If somebody threatens that image we have of ourselves, we get frightened. And when man is frightened, he gets angry, and when he is angry, he often becomes violent.
Why did you decide to write this book now?
As a philosopher for many, many years, I’ve studied the great spiritual traditions of the world, and I’m convinced that they all converge — they have one and the same message down in their depths. And the books have to do with what light these spiritual truths can throw on the problems of our culture. It seems to me the burning question of the day is the question of ethics. And trying to care for each other and for the Earth, and anything else that’s good.
So it was a challenge to me: Can I really find something in what I’ve come to understand as the spiritual core of all the religions, that can really be realistically applied to this terrible question of ethics? And I found it in the most unexpected place — what I consider the beginning of a bridge between what we know down deep and how we act, and I found it in my classroom. And what’s what I write about in a large part of the book.
What, exactly, did you find?
I saw that what I’ve been trying to do is listen to my students and help them to listen to each other when they speak, especially when they disagree, and I found that the work of listening, of thinking together, is the beginning of morality. It’s a very practical step towards real ethics. It’s what I call in the book “a rehearsal for morality.”
You write that we need to listen to each other more — that’s part of what will help us find our own goodness and be good. What does listening have to do with being good?
Usually, people don’t really listen. They are just waiting for the other person to catch their breath so they can go in with their own point of view. If you really listen to someone, you will have to detach yourself from your own opinions, your own views, your own ego, in order to let the other person in, let their thought in. That’s not so easy. It’s not so obvious. Most people don’t do it.
It doesn’t mean you have to agree with the other person. You just have to separate from your own mind for a moment and let them in. And that separation is really the beginning of being free from your ego. Of course, it doesn’t last, and going through your life you become the same dang fool you always have been, but it’s the beginning of understanding that it is possible to separate from my own picture of myself, which is often governed by my opinions on things.
What about when people disagree strongly with each other? Does listening really help?
When two people disagree upon something — when they passionately disagree, say, about abortion, which I talk about in the book — if they try this exercise of listening and not responding until they can summarize what the other person has said to their satisfaction, it’s an amazing path. They may never agree, but they wind up regarding each other as human beings. They disagree with the other’s point of view, not with the person. And they don’t hate each other. In fact, sometimes they go away arm in arm.
You point out in the book that you’ve got a lot of people right now who either subscribe to moral relativism, on the one hand, or they have some sort of kind of absolutist, fundamentalist view of the world. How is it even possible to get those two sides to listen to each other?
It’s very difficult. I would say that’s the philosophical, spiritual crisis of our era. People no longer do it. They shout at each other. How to get free? It’s hard to do, but in a way, it’s easy, if you know what it serves. Just to take a moment sometimes and let yourself step back from your own thoughts. I tried this with my students, and this is powerful.
One student who tried it — most of them sort of resisted it — when she got angry with somebody at a dry-cleaning place, and she said: “Oh, this is what Professor Needleman said! I’m going to look at my anger, look at my annoyance and step back from it.” And she was amazed that she became two people, the person who was angry and the other person who was calmly looking at her anger. And then when that happened, the anger itself subsided. Now, what she said after trying that stunned me. She said: “I had no idea my mind could do that.” Are we raising a nation, a culture, of people who don’t know this fundamental power of the human mind to step back from itself, to just look at itself? That power is the source of the beginning of the freedom from the ego. But we don’t value that as a culture. We value it when people get very so-called committed and passionate and are ready to strangle the other person. Do you see what I’m saying?
That sounds like a Buddhist approach.
It’s not just Buddhism. If you look at the core of many spiritual traditions, you will find that practice being emphasized.
Having written this book, do you think you are better at being good than you used to be?
No. I would say I’m a beginner.
Why do you say that?
To be good, one has to intend what is good for the other, for one’s neighbor. That is very difficult to do in any pure way. The ego almost always sneaks in selfishly for personal gain and deflects the good that was intended. I would say I’m a beginner in the sense that I see more and more clearly the power of the ego to control our actions. But I also realize that seeing this, in and of itself, can detoxify the ego.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2007/04/09/findrelig.DTL
FINDING MY RELIGION
Philosopher Jacob Needleman asks in his latest book, ‘Why Can’t We Be Good?’ Part 2
April 16, 2007
|By David Ian Miller
SF Gate
This column continues a conversation I began last week with Jacob Needleman, a religious scholar and social philosopher whose latest book, “Why Can’t We Be Good?” (Tarcher, 2007), explores why people don’t always act in accordance with either common sense or their soul’s desires.
Needleman is a professor of philosophy at San Francisco State University and the author of many books, including “The American Soul,” “Lost Christianity” and “Money and the Meaning of Life.” He is able to glean fresh insights from classical philosophy and the teachings of the world’s spiritual traditions, and remind us — in new and interesting ways — of the simple truths embedded in this wisdom.
In the first part of this conversation, Needleman discussed what he’s learned about good and evil during the 40 years he’s spent studying religion and philosophy. In this column, he speaks about good people, science and technology’s effect on us and, ultimately, how to be good — or at least better.
Do you know anyone who you would describe as genuinely good?
I do. I have met several people in my lifetime. They are not famous.
Any interesting examples?
I can give you examples in terms of behavior. I mean, there are wonderful saints in the world. But I’ve seen people make sacrifices for the sake of others without anybody asking for any reward or any attention or anything. It’s hard to see because usually it’s invisible.
So for you, goodness has something to do with being selfless?
Being selfless, yeah, for a moment, anyway. I asked my class once, “Have you ever done something that cost you something just for the sake of another person without telling anybody about it?” Very few people had. But one or two people who had done this told me — and I have experienced that, too — that it produces a feeling of joy unlike anything else. This is something that the culture doesn’t teach: that pure giving is a joy unlike anything you do when you get.
Can we talk a bit about your personal faith? Do you follow a particular religion or spiritual tradition?
I have a practice, yes. It’s what you might call meditation and spiritual exercises, but I don’t talk too much about that explicitly.
Were you raised in a particular religion?
I was raised Jewish, but I was pretty allergic to my religion as I was growing up. Now I see that aversion to religion is much more about the fact that our churches and synagogues, in my humble opinion, have lost contact with the real depth of their teachings. People try to do ethics without realizing that it needs to be connected to deep philosophical, metaphysical and spiritual experience. People are trying to figure out ethics with just their minds or their reactions. And as a result, everybody criticizes everything.
Do you still consider yourself Jewish?
Yes. I also just as deeply respect Christian tradition and Buddhist tradition. I’ve spent 45 years studying the inner meaning of these great religions, and believe me, they all converge. If I could be a Christian, I’d be just as happy as if I could be a real Jew.
What do you mean by that last statement?
It takes work to be a Christian. You have to choose it. And you can’t choose it just once and forget about it. You have to choose it again and again, and it’s an inner struggle. It’s an inner struggle that the great mystics have put on paper.
Is that different from being a real Jew?
That’s the same thing with being a real Jew. A real Jew is not just someone who goes to the synagogue and follows the diet and says the words, but the real Jew is someone inwardly Jewish.
You have children. Did you raise them in a specific spiritual tradition?
We didn’t. We were confused about what to do about that because we ourselves were not faithful, in the sense of going to synagogue and that kind of thing. We hoped that they would have a sense of sacred somehow because that was we were seeking in our own lives. I think it’s very important for children. Whether they get that from religion, that’s another question.
It’s a difficult problem when you feel ambivalent about your own religion. How much of that do you pass on to your kids?
I don’t think you can fool them. If you don’t have a strong sense of commitment towards a religion, and you try to make them go to Sunday school, do all those things, they may do it or they may not, but right under the surface they are going to feel the lie.
I think the sense of the sacred sometimes for me was always connected to science and to the wonder of nature — the sky, the Earth and philosophical ideas — and that my parents did cultivate that in me, and I hope I have cultivated it in my children.
The Jewish scholar Hillel said, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.” Every religion has its Golden Rule. But how do individuals follow this rule in a world where it sometimes seems like the good guys finish last?
You have to interpret the Golden Rule in a way that maybe isn’t too simplistic. I mean, if you’re in the jungle, it’s naive to think you are going to be nice to the tiger who is coming at you. You’ve got to get out of the way or knock him out, whatever is necessary to protect yourself. You have to live in the real world.
I think the Golden Rule has to be internalized. That means not to be devoured by your egoistic reactions when someone does something that annoys you. It sounds simple, but it takes years to put into practice.
It sounds like you’re saying that morality is for the few.
But there [have] to be many, many more of the few.
We have, more than ever, access to all the great philosophical and religious traditions that offer guidance on how to be good. Is it harder or easier to be good in today’s world?
I think it’s always been hard. Otherwise, why did the Buddha have to go to such trouble to transmit his teachings to the world? Why did Christ get up on the cross? Why did Moses lead people through the desert? Maybe each era has its own kind of obstacles, and our era has ours.
What are some of those?
One of them is a kind of a belief, not in science so much, but in scientism. That is the religion of science.
We know that our scientific progress and our technology [have] gotten way out in front of moral development. We are like little children sitting in a big powerful locomotive playing with the switches — we don’t know what the hell we are doing. I think our moral development, maybe our culture, has in some sense lagged behind our intellectual development.
Technology has given us the power to do good, but also to do much worse.
Yeah, and it amplifies our weaknesses to the point that the very Earth itself is in danger. People have always had this problem. But I do think our culture has distanced itself more than others from the sense of the sacred. And that’s dangerous. In the history of any religion, there’s the same question being asked. You’ll find the prophet Isaiah crying out to the people, Jeremiah crying out to the people, Christ, Buddha, they all had this question: “Why can’t you be good?’
Being good doesn’t mean being nice. It means being a real human being. Being capable of love. That is what the human being was meant for, in my opinion.
The Internet seems to bring out all the best and worst in people. You could find people who will go out of their way to help a stranger, and others who will take advantage of our trusting nature. Do you see the Internet as a potential contributor to good in the world?
I think it’s got its great side, just like every technology. But it’s also very self-deceptive. I mean, there is this kind of electronic communication that’s developing which is so far from being a real human interaction. People are thinking that they are really having relationships, and they don’t even know what it means to sit down in a room with a person and really talk and open one’s heart to each other. I think [the Internet] could be a great help to people, but there is so much self-deception in it that I don’t know if it’s going to help at all. The same with a lot of modern inventions. They usually create new problems with every problem they solve. Is e-mail a good thing? Sometimes I think it’s an invention of the devil.
As you were talking, my mind was wandering back to something we were discussing earlier — the problem of people not agreeing about what good is. There’s so much conflict in the world about that. For example, morality seems to be so different from one person to another. If we can’t agree on what it means to be good, then what hope is there?
The question is how to come in touch with the central nature of ourselves — our conscience. That does not differ from culture to culture, in my opinion.
The conscience of a devout Muslim is the same as a Hindu or an atheist scientist?
Yes. I would say so. I’ve known many people who were atheists or agnostic who have deep feelings of what’s right, and maybe their conscience is more accessible to them than others of us who call ourselves religious.
In our scientific age, maybe religious language is no longer the only valid guide to what is right or wrong, to morality. Maybe we need something that speaks in a more scientific language. So the studies of things like “What is mind?” “What is consciousness?” — these may actually lead us in a spiritual direction.
One last question: If you could ask people to do one thing in their quest to be good, what would that one thing be?
I would say to work at listening, at trying to let the other person in. You don’t have to agree with them, you don’t have to go to bed with them, you don’t have to do anything. Just to let their thought in. If people could start doing that, to master a little bit the art of simply speaking to each other, that would be the first step on the plank, I would say, the plank that leads to a bridge, that would lead to a new kind of morality.
http://articles.sfgate.com/2007-04-16/news/17238028_1_religion-jacob-needleman-teachings
March 29 2011 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
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