Many of us have discovered what the ancient spiritual traditions have always known, that there is a mystical reality within ourselves, an unfathomable freedom that our science and our psychology may not comprehend. But we also have discovered that to know about this inner world and to touch only in the privileged conditions of meditation is not enough. Surely, the next step of the spiritual search in our culture is the capacity to search for this condition concretely in the midst of the life and activity that is common to so many of us in the world today. What do we now understand about this inner work in the vortex of everyday life? What difficulties and obstacles do we encounter? How can we help each other understand our next step?

–Jacob Needleman

Descartes writes that he is looking for certainty. Certainty—not blind belief that masquerades as certainty, but which is almost always self-suggestion. He is looking for absolute certainty—about something, anything. He is willing to go anywhere in his mind, think anything, just to have one experience of absolute certainty. And so with this aim, he tries his famous, now infamous, exercise: He withdraws his mind from any activity in which what is known can possibly be doubted. Anything. He recognizes that anything he believes because of sense-perception could conceivably be false—for, as he observes, we are often deceived by sense perception—and to show this he traverses absolutely everything we generally take as obviously true. And, ruthlessly setting aside—bracketing, as it were—all possible perceptions and beliefs that we take as self-evident, he ends by seeing that there is one and only one thing that is indubitably certain—the fact, the experience, that he—that is, I exist now and here thinking these thoughts, making this experiment. For even if I am deceived even here, even if some evil god is entering my brain and deceiving me, still it is I who am being deceived, I who am thinking these thoughts (whether they are true or not). And with this, he delivers his famous (now also infamous) absolute certainty: I think therefore I am. Rooted in this certainty, Descartes ingeniously ends by arguing for the utter separateness between two realities: the reality of mind and the reality of nature, and then argues that the only thing that can harmonize these two separate kinds of reality is a force from above, a third thing: namely, God.

All this has had huge influence in modern thought, vitalizing the whole scientific revolution with its methods of knowing nature that, along with other great influences, now still define the culture in which we all live and breathe and take our sense of identity.
And now he is despised because of creating the rupture between mind and matter—between man and nature.

But that is not at all what he was doing. His great exercise of seeking for certainty actually represents the emergence of a power of the human mind that was being covered over by the decaying Christian world. What he was showing, and what I was experiencing reading him at a time when I was only a precociously philosophical teen-ager, was the possibility of the human mind to withdraw its attention into itself, to separate the mind from all that pulls it outward, to intensify its power of attention into a pure light. What thrilled me, and what thrilled or astounded so many, was the invitation to develop that which is uniquely the power of a human being. We call that power: concentration: The power to withdraw the attention of the mind away from all that is offered to it by the senses and the emotions, along with all thoughts and images that are rooted in either sense-perception or emotion.

Of course, anyone who tries to think seriously or work seriously at any craft or task or question, brings to his work at least some of the power of concentrated attention. But the problem is that we are absolutely swept away by the results of this power—the accomplishment that this power of attention enabled us to reach. We do not value enough or understand rightly what this power of concentration tells us about what we are and what we are meant to be.

What Descartes is showing us is something dramatically different from how he has been interpreted: He is showing us that in the capacity of the mind to concentrate its attention toward itself in pure thought—in that capacity there is a central element of Man that is not merely separate from nature, but beyond nature! Beyond earth!

What Descartes is offering is not more or less than the idea of the holy spirit expressed not in religious language, but in the language of the independent human mind, the aspect of man that is, in inception, in its embryonic form, beyond the created world of nature, beyond the earth.

And, what is even more astonishing, he is showing us that the element in Man that is beyond earth, beyond nature, is meant, ultimately, to manifest outward and downward into nature, into earth—in the form of embodied knowledge, understanding. His experiment is a halting first step in the true separation which is a precondition for true unity. As the ancient alchemists knew, one must first separate rightly before rightly joining together.

The vision that would lead to the birth of modern science was the vision of a deep power of the human mind penetrating nature, the earth and the human body.

But this incipient vision never survived or grew beyond its birth. A strange sort of failed twin embryo was also born at the same time. It had the look of Descartes’ great discovery, but none of its essential power or goodness. Like a mythic dark twin, it stole the food meant for the embryonic human soul. We are going to see that the first origins of modern science can be interpreted as the first step in an aborted process that originally pointed to the power of human consciousness to truly care for nature and the earth. We are going to see that this power was almost immediately usurped by (or degraded into) its mere simulacrum and became the power and the ambition to exploit the earth.

Did Descartes know anything of this interpretation of his experiment? I think not. Would he have even considered it had it been presented to him? Perhaps, but perhaps not. But it does not matter. What matters is our own experience and understanding and what they can show us about an entirely new kind of relationship between consciousness and nature, between consciousness and the earth, between consciousness and the human body here, now, in our lives.

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

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

(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