What and where is the “Higher”?

It seems to me a most appropriate time to reflect upon what I have termed the “Higher” (which term, elsewhere, I have signified is not related to or synonymous with an existing term or concept). As part of this reflection, one may indeed ask what the Higher is, and where It is.

Human beings manifest limited intellectual and emotional capabilities. Even at their most capable and sublime, human expressions and formulations do not describe or reveal what the Higher is. What chance have we, then, whose language, culture and spirit are so poor and wanting, to express something of the inexpressible? Our fingers and thumbs are not yet so formed as to be able to grip or hold the even most elementary aspects of the Higher.

Notwithstanding great difficulties, human beings can still approach “something” of the Higher, and determine something of what it is. Just as the frog can sense the difference between water and land, and thus know “something” about water (while it is yet quite incapable, one would surmise, of appreciating the finer qualities of water – its aesthetic qualities, or PH content etc.), so too can human beings, with their reason, intellect, emotional capacities, linguistic abilities etc. know “something” of the Higher. However, this knowing is very primitive and is incapable of appreciating what the Higher is: in truth, all human knowledge amounts to nothing more than the frog’s knowledge of water, and that it is wet.

The following is no different; it is but one way among many of approaching something of the Higher, and what – and where – it is:

“We must begin with who we are, and where we stand, before we approach the Higher. Yet, wherever we stand, whatever we are, the Higher is both there and not there.

“Who are we?

“‘We are the children.’ The baby cries for its milk, barely a week old. What is the Higher? It is the source of the milk, the bringer of satisfaction; an unknown something that provides. In time, however, the baby grows to know its parents: the mystery demystified, this is not the Higher, though once it was. Yet, new mysteries open up: the world, the universe – that is the Higher. We rest, then, in temporary security, until a new layer appears, and opens onto further mystery. Once again, all is obscured, and the search continues. The Higher begins far, far beyond where parentage ends.

“‘We are the scientists.’ The mysteries of matter, force and energy have been solved. The clouds have no personality; the sun does not smile and the thunder does not care for human indiscretion. The mysteries demystified, they are not the Higher, though once they were. The vast universe becomes visible to reason; it is entirely explicable as a combination of factors and principles. Yet, this is not the Higher, though once it was. The Higher is more vast than the universe visible to reason; it extends beyond that combination of factors and principles that are known. ‘There cannot be anything more than is understood by calculation!’ At that next interval, then, the Higher both begins and yet becomes undiscoverable again. The Higher begins far, far beyond where science ends.

“‘We are the men and women of religion. The mysteries of that which lies beyond human sense are our domain of expression. Through one way or another, we know or believe what the Higher is, and is not.’ The difficulties outlined and explored, the principles established and upheld, one says how it must be and how it must not, and why the others are wrong; though the others say the same. Great variety on the one thing: yet, the Higher is not that thing, though once it was. The Higher is far beyond the agreement and the disagreement, the named and the unnameable. Where it is discovered, by faith, at once it becomes undiscovered again. The Higher begins far, far beyond where religions end.

“‘We are the artists. We alone can express the inexpressible, and with word, image, music and movement, speak directly to the secret heart, and point to where the Higher is.’ Through the most sublime of human creations, through the vastness of human skill, the Higher is reached only indirectly. The ethereal beauty of an echoing choir, the pictorial vision of an other-worldly state, and the profoundest poetry that points to the mysteries behind the word: these things do not claim to be the Higher, but to lead to something of It, from which point one may justly proceed. Yet, the Higher is not in or through created things. Even beyond the imagination, the Higher is immeasurably distant. Perhaps the Higher was there once, beyond them, but now is not. The Higher begins far, far beyond where art ends.

“‘We are the scholars, the philosophers and the thinkers. We understand the difficulties of conception. Through our analyses, what can be rightly thought and wrongly is finally ascertained. With us, difficulties may end, obscurities cleared, mysteries demystified.’ Through ploughing the very ground of the intellectual enquiry, the limits appear to be found. Beyond the points mapped by philosophers, the heights do not extend. All possibilities are resolved by human capacity. ‘The Higher’ is a concept, an argument, an abstract position and object of faith; it may be studied and understood, but never found in itself. Yet, the Higher was that field, was that plough and the fruit that came from work; although, immediately it was no longer those things, nor the ground on which they took place. The Higher begins far, far beyond where philosophy ends.

“‘We are the people. We are the workers, the masses, the leaders and the followers. We are the criminals and the judges, the politicians and diplomats; we are the mechanics and the plumbers, and the farmers of rice. We don’t know about the Higher, but practical things and the things of life.’ The mysteries of life are mysterious; but the sight of the sun, the snow-capped summits of mountains, or other of nature’s beauties, are still beautiful, however they are explained. Whatever the Higher is, life is crime, punishment, birth and death; it is the breaking and fixing of things, payment and satisfaction. ‘Whatever the Higher is, there are still bills to pay, fields to work, time to pass in jail.’ Yet, the Higher is those things, the things of life, and still, is at once not these at all. The Higher begins far, far, beyond where ordinary life ends.

“‘We are the specialists, the seekers of Truth. We few alone are of high spirituality. We are also the scientist and the religious, the artist, the philosopher; we too are farmers, diplomats, criminals and judges. We know what the Higher is not, and what distance “far” is.’ The mysteries demystified, things in their proper place, others’ errors now understood: the Higher is ‘there’, in a more perfected conception. The long work done, the heart is now at rest. Yet, the Higher is not there, though once it was. The mystery is ever mysterious. The Higher begins far, far beyond where the seeking of Truth ends.

“So far away, and yet at one time so close. The very thing in one’s hand, the hand itself! – being all equations, laws and impersonal principles, and models of the universe; all articles of faith, and positions of belief, and religious conceptions and names; all imaginations, depictions and visions of reality; all philosophical conceptions and analyses; all mundane things, activities and processes of life; all things beyond, sought and found; all experiences: the Higher is all those things, has always been them. And yet: no, at once It is far beyond them. Vaster than the universe, smaller than can be conceived, farther than impossibility, nearer than the skin. And all this going towards the Higher is still but a childlike expressing, the fumbling of hands, and the steps of infancy.”

Picasso, British artists, and the mystery of artistic creativity

Screen Clipping from the Tate website

I was most fortunate to be able to view the exhibition at Tate Britain in London earlier today, “Picasso & Modern British Art”. It seemed to me that a good selection of various artists’ work was on show, which allowed one to regard the ways in which Picasso’s work inspired and anticipated some of the work of British artists, and how certain artists responded to some of the same artistic and aesthetic concerns, subjects and themes related to the experience of being human. Of course, there are always constraints of one kind or another, which sometimes means that exhibitions such as this one are not always complete, but, overall, from the ordinary perspective on such things, it was still a perfectly decent exhibition that provided an opportunity to see some fine works of the last century. However, I am quite sure that more competent individuals would be able to provide a more insightful critique than I could offer, so I will turn my attention to other things.

Thinking more generally about “artists” and the work they produce, especially as regards non-standard apprehension of non-standard disclosure, which is a subject about which I may be able to provide certain insights, it is interesting to consider such things as the experience of the artist, the work that is produced, and how that work relates to that experience. In short, it is useful to consider the mystery of artistic creativity, and what it can and cannot tell us about the apprehension of wider reality. Of course, and as I often (perhaps tiresomely) suggest, it is a very large subject; one cannot do it justice in such an informal article as this. Nevertheless, it may still prove beneficial to even a casual reflection, especially if it would lead the reader to something more complete.

Man with a Clarinet, Pablo Picasso, 1911-12

If one considers for a moment the painting by Picasso titled Man with a Clarinet (1911-12), which was in the exhibition, and one considers particularly the process by which the painting came into being, which is to say the whole process by which a blank canvas becomes Man with a Clarinet, and which must in fact include all the realities on which such a process depends – biological, social, neurological, aesthetic, historical etc. – which may be simply referred to as Reality, one is compelled to consider the curious relation between such things as the physical eye and the sensation it affords, the artist’s perception, and the artist’s manipulation of physicality (hands, movement, paint etc.) to create the image. Indeed, even a full reflection upon these things must take its time. At some point, one may be led to consider, to a greater or lesser degree, the nature of the prior Reality on which the emerging or finished image depends, of which the painting is the result and to which it testifies. Of course, such a consideration is both ancient and perennial, and is dealt with in many of the older and more recent disciplines of enquiry; interested readers may readily find various kinds of treatment of the subject with minimal effort.

Although there are many different ideas, the standard position regarding the nature of that Reality might be summarized as follows: the artist, or indeed any individual, receives impressions of reality through sensation, such as through the physical eyes, which become the primary materials or the data that form the basis for the imaginary process. Through the individual’s interior mental processes, these data become reconfigured and transformed in a variety of ways, for example: as a completed, imaginary form, or as a distinct intention, or as something less distinct but which becomes more so, becomes “formed”, through the interactions of the artistic experience itself. What results is essentially and absolutely equal to what went in: every point of the final image can be traced back to some physical sensory experience. It cannot be any other way, for “where” else can the point come from, if “there” does not exist? Nothing can be added to the originally experienced sensations, for there is nothing additional: what appears to be added originally comes from and must be traced to prior experience through sensation. The aforementioned Reality is, and can be, nothing more than the one previously apprehended by the senses.

In this view, the human imagination is a transformatory device, which supports a continuum between input and output: fundamentally, nothing is created and nothing is destroyed, and all that occurs is a transformation. Originality can only be an apparent fact, mere appearance, and even the most radical transformation must be but superficiality. Indeed, what else can be going on if there is nothing but physical realities? The artist merely regurgitates prior experience into a different pattern, but the resulting configuration is not new, only different.

The standard view of imagination, as a faculty that can deal with nothing but that which comes through the physical senses, may still be entirely compatible with non-standard understandings of human capacity. In the non-standard view, ordinary imagination does indeed depend and operate upon physical sensation alone. However, there also exists the capacity to apprehend and sense independently of physical sensation. Here, one encounters that which may become added in the transformatory process of the artistic machine: something from a wider reality, inaccessible to physical sensation. The non-standard view understands that what is apprehended is exactly what is revealed, disclosed, to the inherent capacity by world disclosure; it is that which the individual cannot apprehend and obtain from physical sensation. The standard and non-standard understandings essentially differ through this assertion concerning human beings’ capacities to apprehend something independent of physical sensation. Here, one meets with the old dividing line, with those on the one side who say such a thing is possible, and those on the other who say it is not. Essentially, in the old language, it is the discussion of the possibility or impossibility of “revelation”.

Indeed, so much to say, but space and time are limited! Perhaps, as one returns to the painting by Picasso, and all the other work at the exhibition – and as one thinks about art in general – one might have just enough time to consider the following: if non-standard apprehension is impossible, as the standard view must logically assert, where is the originality in Picasso or any other artist? If there is originality, from where does it spring, given that it cannot be in transformation itself? How much of non-standard apprehension enters into the creation of those images, if such a thing is possible? What are the possibilities for art in the absence of the possibility of originality? What, then, of the artist, or any original thinker? If there is nothing but the regurgitation of physical sensation data, nothing but reconfiguration – not only in art but in all human production – how is development and evolution possible, or movement, which must, then, be illusory? Of course, one could say, “who cares?”, but one cannot ignore for too long that which may entirely undermine the very basis of being, life, reality and experience.

Related:

• Picasso and Modern British Art at Tate Britain (u4art.com)
• http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/picasso-modern-british-artp (Tate)

Image Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/image/iBvSyZkZhoJA.jpg

The Challenges of Establishing a Meaningful Life in the Current Age (3)

A growing number of individuals and communities, seeking to establish a meaningful life, neither subscribe to one or another major or minor religion, nor necessarily assert the inherent meaninglessness of life; rather, believing in “something” that is “beyond” that sensed by the physical senses, to a greater or lesser degree of formulation relative to this, and as influenced to a certain degree by a number of factors, the search brings an encounter with various traditions and interpretations, ideas, expressions and experiences. Just as may be the case with individuals and communities with other “kinds of life” (i.e. lives more traditionally religious or secular), many come to various degrees of belief concerning their discovery of the truth, and ultimately of some kind of meaning that derives from it. Notwithstanding the varieties of encounter with possible “solutions”, these individuals and communities must also meet with and face the many challenges of establishing meaningfulness.

Life outside of both the orthodox religious traditions and the orthodox physicalist or materialist traditions brings with it many challenges of validation, community identity and cohesion, and of encountering authentic and genuine material. With the great liberalisation and democratization of the access to knowledge and information of the current age, with its respective pluralist, open and equalizing ethic, the difficulties of encountering authentic unorthodox perspectives can be increased. In the public forum, where everyone and anyone has their “chance”, discriminating between dissenting voices can be particularly difficult when the subject matter is outside of the orthodoxy, where fundamental principles and ideas are not established by a disparate community, and where the most adept thinkers and practitioners must mingle with the least. Furthermore, where individuals or communities encounter the unorthodox after traversing the orthodox, the challenge may present itself as being one of “out of the frying pan and into the fire”, where, galvanized by a refreshing and uplifting new formula, the entity in question replaces one set of erroneous beliefs or system of beliefs for another.

In some ways, the challenges for these individuals and communities do pertain to the problems with unorthodox perspectives generally, whilst other challenges pertain to the establishment of a meaningful life generally. For the ordinary believer, these challenges must often extend the simple problem concerning who or what to believe and follow. But for those who seek or claim a position of authority within the emerging fields of experience, the challenges must also include the difficulties concerning leadership positions both generally and specifically. Perhaps all too often the urge to form teacher-disciple relations, either formally or informally, obscures and prevents the search for and establishment of meaning previously undertaken; the lure of being considered or appreciated as an authority can perhaps both stagnate and prevent even a good progress towards that which the faith has been leading. Such challenges do not pertain only to these “outsiders” (although this fringe continues to express itself as a significant mass of the population), but to all individuals and communities that seek and organize knowledge and belief. In this, many of the challenges will come to be seen as both ancient and perennial.

For all individuals, the challenges of establishing meaning arise out of the difficulties of finding it, whatever, of course, “meaning” itself comes to mean. Whether the individual or community is on the fringe relative to others, or in the centre of the tradition or orthodoxy, life will also present particular challenges, in accordance with the world process and the universal, eternal principles on which life and all things are based.

Related articles

• Unorthodox Views (antonjarrod.wordpress.com)

The Challenges of Establishing a Meaningful Life in the Current Age (2)

For various reasons and according to numerous factors and principles, many individuals of the current age turn to one or another of the established traditional or newer religions in their search and efforts to establish a meaningful life. According to one degree of faith or another, individuals and communities meet with different degrees of success in their search, and come to establish different kinds of meaningfulness, which may or not bring them authentic satisfaction, peace and joy. For the ordinary believer, for those more advanced in their respective religious or spiritual practice and life, and for those who partake of some position of authority within those traditions, whether of a major or minor nature, the experience of life consists of general and specific challenges coming from without as well as from within the religious realities in which the life is lived.

In the modern world, the individual or community must face the challenges of the modern society and socio-political realities it is constituted in, along with all the other realities of life (as remarked in the introductory sections). The follower of faith must also navigate the challenges brought by the faith itself, in terms of the duties and obligations, practices and sacrifices that it may encourage or impose. In the effort to adhere to the faith, the challenges of reconciling official and orthodox teaching with one’s own experience and ideas about life can constitute a daily struggle for clarification for the more serious followers, or the means by which one makes many errors of interpretation and practice, which may or not cause concern for the individual or community. The difficulties of understanding and following the principal precepts of the respective religion must imply the core challenges of securing and reaching the intended goals of those religions, such as “salvation” or “enlightenment”, or what the individual or community considers to be the goals for which they strive and which they would formulate in their own manner. Both the challenges from within the faiths, and the challenges to faith from without and within, along with the challenges of life in the modern world, do and will continue to challenge the individual’s attempt to establish meaning in the current age.

In many ways, the establishment of meaning is a fundamental aspect of adhering to a religious tradition: religion is the “answer” to the question of meaning for various individuals and communities (although this greatly oversimplifies the matter). Thus, it would seem that whatever challenges exist in this regard, it is being a part of the religious tradition and community that would lead to their resolution. Through those religions’ leaders, histories, figures and canonical texts, answers to questions can be given, and solutions to problems presented. Religion, in this regard, may be seen by some to provide the vehicle through which the challenges of meaning are met with.

How to live life as a follower and practitioner of religion in the modern world is in some ways a perennial concern and in others ways is ever novel (as must be the case for any other individual in any kind of life). The histories of religions, with the various responses individuals and communities have provided, both in the form of revolutions and schisms of a major kind, and in the quieter establishment of new religious orders and individual expressions of solutions to one challenge or another, testify to this. With those histories, it may seem that there is within the religions a certain preparedness and resilience for any kind of challenge, and that the follower of faith may be assured in being provided with the necessities required for the journeying. However, while the new disclosure will manifest through characteristics of constructiveness and development, this preparedness and resilience may, in attempting to meet with future perennial and novel challenges, actually prevent the same, and rather than support the salvific renewal that the new disclosure will bring, it may oppose it, and make it more difficult to face the challenges of establishing a meaningful life as a follower of religion, both in the current age and in subsequent, meaning that life, for many, will come to be very challenging.

Foreword to Seven Articles on Further Human Development

“The idea of humanity’s wider inherent capacities, and its ability therefore to understand something of the deeper nature of reality using them, is perhaps as old as humanity itself. For some human beings, it has been more than an idea, and has been the reality in which they move. For others, both in the distant past and in recent times, it must only be a dream, or an imagination.

With seven short articles, from the position afforded by own perspective, being mindful of the extensive literature already available on such matters from the ancient traditions as well as more modern studies from the last and recent centuries, I give only a very general attention to certain fundamental aspects and principles which would come into play in any developmental scheme or process. In the form of informal advice, individuals and communities will be able to decide for themselves whether there is anything of value in it for them.

Whatever “path” the individual or community is on or is beginning to take, and however far they are along it, only the best and warmest wishes can be expressed for their continued advance for the benefit of all living beings and all that is.”

[For the complete short eBook in PDF format, click here]

The Importance of… Methodicalness

In this sixth of seven articles concerning the development of the individual or community, I focus on the factor, importance and necessity of methodicalness. In ordinary life, or rather, the life that all are familiar with and with all that is commonplace, the value and importance of methodicalness in certain activities, practices and endeavours is both readily apparent and has been attested through trial and analysis. In the scientific community, the development of the scientific method has allowed humanity to come into contact with a more accurate knowledge and understanding of the realities that are apprehensible through the physical senses. By applying methodicalness to the practice of observation and experiment, as well as analysis and evaluation, a gradual and effective control over certain natural phenomena has helped humanity in its material development and brought it into contact with realities that were hitherto hidden from it. Indeed, in the scientific community, the value of method in achieving knowledge has perhaps emboldened its claims (sometimes) that science alone is the superior means to achieve knowledge about the self and the world.

In the popular imagination, it may seem that, compared to the scientific disciplines, there is a fundamental lack of methodicalness in those realities which are ordinarily understood with the term “religion”, and that because of this (amongst other things) access to knowledge about the self and the world are not offered by them, and the knowledge they would seem to offer cannot be tested or verified methodically, and thus must be inferior. However, this is not quite the case. In some respects, the word “religion” indicates “diligent practice”, and in other respects the traditional religions provide a wide range of practice and ritual which can only, from within a larger perspective, be understood to constitute a subjective science of spiritual realities that is methodical. However, through the separations of language, culture, time and space, and because of a great variety of other factors, the nature of this “spiritual science” is quite obscured, so much that there does not appear to be any homogeneity, singularity of method or purpose, that would be recognizable as so compared to that found in the disciplines related to the physical sciences.

It is not the intention here to provide an outline of comparative religion, or to suggest that all religions and practices are so similar that their differences are insignificant. Rather, focusing on the contemporary situation, and the individual’s or community’s relation to the new disclosure (see the Introductory Remarks), it is necessary for me to remark only on the importance and value of methodicalness to development, and that this methodicalness need not at all adhere to, or follow, or be dependent upon the particular form and detail from the tradition. Indeed, the individual or community that would develop itself does not necessarily need to acquaint itself with ancient practices that it may not entirely understand (and where only an intellectual development would result); it is not necessary to become a scholar in order to evolve one’s inherent capacities; rather, it is necessary to be methodical in oneself and in one’s approach to one’s own development to be methodical about it.

What does it mean to say? In many ways, it is less the framework or system of development that is important, and more the application of self to development, and whatever that means for the individual or community in question, and to wherever those entities are being led. In many ways, it does not matter whether one is following the precepts of one or another, or undertaking the practice or one or another, but rather one is following or undertaking in a methodical way. Whatever is the elected practice or system, it is the methodical application to it that will likely bring the results to which it is supposed to lead. Thus, in essence, it is the principal that is important (I may obtain an opportunity at a later date to say something more substantial about the relation between former non-standard disclosures, and the religions and traditions which have formed around them, and the current or subsequent disclosures).

Furthermore, in order to be methodical, the individual or community must develop the necessary discipline and other auxiliary requirements on which methodicalness depends. This is, of course, in addition to what is required from the practice or activity itself, which demands and implies a certain quality and presence of methodicalness. Thus, the entity in question must also develop the method that is to be applied, as if a new discipline or field of enquiry were being discovered for the first time.

In many ways, the developing individual or community is like a pioneering scientist discovering or investigating new phenomena. In order to make any progress, it must proceed methodically, carefully, and with the integrity of an honest seeker of truth, according to an order that is reasonable to it, and that is in accordance with the very capacities of apprehension in its repertoire and which, with these, it must seek development.

Related articles

• The Importance of … Practicality (antonjarrod.wordpress.com)
• The Importance of… Knowledge (antonjarrod.wordpress.com)
• The Importance Of… Conscientiousness (antonjarrod.wordpress.com)
• The Importance of… Principles (antonjarrod.wordpress.com)
• The Importance of…Diligence (antonjarrod.wordpress.com)

The Importance of… Diligence

In this fifth short article of seven, which draws a very general attention to certain key factors that impact upon the development of the individual, according to my own perspective (yet, which the individual or community in question may observe and validate experimentally), I wish to focus now on diligence.

At a first consideration, diligence may not seem very different from conscientiousness, the subject of the preceding article in this series. However, closer reflection upon both the meaning of the word and my use of it, and the reality of the thing to which the word refers, reveals the fundamentally different nature of these terms.

Etymologically, the word derives from the Latin dīligent-em, indicating carefulness, assiduousness. In use, at least since the 14^th century, this carefulness has been bound up with the implicit understanding of “constancy”, which is to say, carefulness over time (see the definition and usage in the Oxford English Dictionary, for example). As an adjective applied to persons and actions, the word indicates steadiness, perseverance, as exemplified over time. In former times, the word also signified a certain attentiveness, and an observant nature of persons and their actions as well as attentiveness to others, although this meaning is now generally obsolete[1]. However, in my own usage of the word (as is in fact very often the case with other words) all of these meanings are indicated by “diligence”: the constant assiduousness and care of the individual to activity or practice, to self in activity or practice, and to others, as exemplified over time.

Reflecting more upon the actuality of diligence in life as opposed to on the page of the dictionary, one finds actions and practices that are sometimes more diligent and sometimes less. As with all qualitative values, diligence – like conscientiousness – can be observed to exist in fact on a scale, where, relative to any one activity or practice, diligence may be found to be greater or lesser.  Within the experience of the individual or community, former activities can be apprehended to have been of a greater or lesser quality of diligence; activities of a more mundane kind, as well as of a more significant.

In ordinary life, one may understand something of how “diligent” activity or practice differs from that which is not diligent. Perhaps the most common understanding of diligence comes from the world of business, as “due diligence”. Here, the process of thoroughly investigating the business entity is indicated over a period of time: the accounts may be audited; the systems of administration reviewed and outlined; key transactions may be analysed and a whole host of meetings, questions, and procedures may be instigated over time to examine and understand something of the nature of the business in question and its viability and security etc. Due diligence is the practical application of diligent attention in a business context, and can give one an indication of how it indicates a thoroughly different process to ordinary, internal management processes and review.

Also in ordinary life, one may think of the practice of the artisan or the artist, especially as regards those activities or works that are executed or created over a long time. It is easy to understand the nature of diligence when it is used to describe the working of the artist creating a masterpiece over decades, or the stonemason in the construction of a large building, or the whole endeavour of many individuals in the same construction decade after decade, generation after generation. In these areas, diligence indicates a higher quality of activity, care, concentration and attentiveness over long periods of time, exhibited by the master of crafts or art. In ordinary life, or rather, that life with which most people are either directly or indirectly familiar, diligence can be seen to indicate a certain quality of activity or practice, which may further be observed to be of different qualities itself.

Diligence as it is found in both the business and the cultural arenas of human experience can give the developing individual or community enough of an illustrative context with which it may understand what is indicated by the same term in this article. It is something like this diligence, this kind of high quality diligence, that is entirely necessary to both enter upon and proceed towards and through the development of what I have termed the non-standard apprehension of the new disclosure. Indeed, without it, as with all the other important factors, very little can be achieved.

It might be observed that an ordinary, high quality diligence is necessarily involved in achievement of difficult and challenging works. How much more then is necessary to achieve the most extraordinary heights that are indicated by the development of even the most elementary forms of non-standard development? Development and extension into those terrains must require the most exceptional kind of diligence humanity can display as standard. What is more, this must apply equally to the most elementary stages of that evolution as to the more advanced.

It is not the case that one factor is more or less important than another. Indeed, they are all as equally important, and nothing but the most exceptional application to practice and activity will suffice for the development of inherent human capacities.

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[1] Oxford English Dictionary, 1989.

The Importance Of… Conscientiousness

Reflecting for a moment on the meaning of the word “conscientious”, we find two subtly different senses, both of which are etymologically and semantically related to the word “conscience”.

The first sense relates to performance and activity, and indicates things done well, thoroughly, attentively and scrupulously. Further, it indicates activity, or intention to act, that is accompanied by an inward sense of what is right and proper. In this way, conscientiousness means to indicate something that is done, or not done, in a certain state of mind or being.

The second sense relates more specifically to consciousness and awareness, and in some contexts conscientiousness simply means being aware. Here, the activity or the object (that of which one is conscientious of) is more fundamentally related to the state of being aware, of personal awareness.

In the first sense, we have activity (or inactivity) imbued with awareness; in the second sense, the activity and the awareness are one and the same. In my view, conscience (“con” or “with”, plus “science” or “knowledge” and “knowing” etc.) signifies activity and consciousness together; inseparable, at one. Activity, and the consciousness of it and self, are one and the same thing. Conscientiousness pertains to that which has this quality. In my use of the word, both the first and second senses are signified simultaneously, where “conscientiousness” indicates and implies both a thoroughness of activity and concomitant fundamental consciousness of activity and self in activity, or self presence, at the same time.

With this series of seven short articles, focusing on the development of the individual’s inherent capacities – a development which may or not lead the individual to apprehend something of the wider reality and the wider nature of things, according to the world process and world disclosure (see the Introductory Remarks) – I suggest that a number of important factors enter into the aforementioned development, and development generally, such as practicality, knowledge, principles and here “conscientiousness”, which may be both general and specific.

The relationship between conscientiousness (as a mode of being in the unified sense above) and the development of inherent capacity (whatever that may be) may be understood through experimentation, study and personal experience. Any manifested ability must have depended on the pre-existence of a capacity for that ability, and in the study of the movement from unmanifest capacity to manifest ability, the degree to which conscientiousness in the above sense had played a part can be ascertained and understood, although in a limited way (being mindful of the many other factors involved). In principle, what applies to standard capacity and ability applies to non-standard capacity and ability too.

However, it is not within the scope of this article to go into the details of how abilities are acquired, how capacities are developed, why there is a differentiation amongst individuals of capacities, or why some individuals have a greater capacity for one thing than another; neither is it the intention here to present a proof of the relativity of conscientiousness to development. Rather, continuing in the spirit of friendly advice as mentioned in the introduction to this series, I wish to draw attention to the importance of conscientiousness in principle, which, while it may be observed experimentally, understood theoretically, and known experientially to one degree or another, may be considered as having a bearing on the individual’s current progress towards non-standard apprehension and the living of life that is based upon it.

Simply, then, considering this, I would say: whether the individual is progressing towards an elementary development of its inherent capacities for apprehension, or whether it is progressing through a more advanced development; whether the capacity itself is weak or mature; and whether that development is occurring within or without a traditional framework or context; consider that conscientiousness is entirely necessary to reach one’s goals and activities, for where that inherent capacity is great, and is at the threshold of being developed, conscientiousness can bring about its complete fruition and flowering and can lead to the more secure development of an ability, and its eventual mastery; and where that inherent capacity is weak or is immature, and is far from being developed, conscientiousness can bring the unmanifest capacity closer to manifestation.

Of course, this being general advice, much depends (as always) on the individual’s current practice and activity, and to the actual capacity that is being developed. Yet, whether it is an ordinary capacity and one that is quite commonly developed in the world, or an extra-ordinary capacity that is not commonly developed, with conscientiousness the individual may more assuredly progress towards the goal and acquire the abilities that are inherent within them, and thus also the life enabled by them, whatever that may come to mean.

The Importance of… Principles

Giving further consideration to various important aspects of development in seven short articles, it is now necessary to consider the role played by principles in that development. By “principles”, I mean to indicate the general rules that are adopted to guide action, conduct or practice, as may pertain to the individual (or community, for, strictly, the development of the one relates to and in some ways implies the development of the other). In the pursuit of any goal that is distant, complex and advanced in some way, it is at least appropriate and may be, in very many cases, entirely necessary to adhere to certain principles in order to reach it. Likewise, in terms of development, the question must be asked, “By what principles can development occur?”

Before a principle can be adhered to, it must be identified; before it can be identified, it must be established in fact, which means the identifier (the individual or community) must discover it in the activity of practice, whatever the activity is. Through this activity, and the experience of it, the necessary principles will manifest, for the resulting relative success or failure of the activity is in some way dependent on them (insofar as one’s own activity constitutes a factor in that success or failure). In the act, the necessity of one thing or another, according to the individual or community capacities and resources etc., may be determined subjectively. What is deemed a principle for one may not be for another. For example, one individual or community may determine that a general rule of strictness helps achieve a certain goal, while for another it is determined that a certain laxity helps achieve the same. In another example, it may be decided that a particular manner of working is useful, while another individual or community may decide that quite the contrary is suitable for itself. Of course, much depends on the activity, the goal etc.

Since the development of inherent capacities is already a feature of ordinary life, where the whole contemporary world structure provides for their development to that standard level of apprehensive ability with which most adult human beings are familiar (indeed, the very existence of any “ability” is the perfect testimony that a capacity has been developed), the individual will already be able to determine how the establishment of certain principles was either important or necessary to its former work and achievements, no matter how little articulated or invisible they were. Any individual, having applied itself to a long and difficult work that is then achieved, will already have some experience of its establishing and following certain principles – although it may account for its achievement in different ways (though the work will still have proceeded according to certain principles). Through trial and error, it may come to a kind of inexpressible “know-how” regarding what is necessary. These are the somewhat inexpressible principles that the individual will have established in relation to one activity or another.

As part of the trial and error of establishment, the individual may elect to adhere to the principles that others have adopted and have expressed as being necessary or useful; and this may be so in practically any area of life where a development is to occur, which is to say, those understood as “ordinary” and those not. However they may be acquired, and whatever they are, the individual must still establish these principles for itself, through experimentation and analysis. The individual’s aim is not to try to establish global or general principles in a theoretical way, which may be a worthwhile endeavour of an academic kind, but to discover first-hand what works and does not work, according to one’s own abilities, temperaments, prior knowledge and experience, in the relevant situation of one’s own living. As far as global principles are concerned, the individual must still at some point individualize them.

When the principles that are necessary to the current activity or work have been established and identified, they must then be applied; otherwise, the acquired know-how will remain merely experimental. It may seem strange to suggest that principles established through practice and experience can then be considered as experimental. However, it must be clear that a period of trial and error, and experimentation, cannot strictly be considered to constitute the established practical application, development or genuine activity; such activity is merely preliminary and helps establish the right manner and mode of activity which, once acquired, must be put into use. The right mode is what may result from the application of learned principles, from the transition of theoretical and experimental knowledge to experiential. The fruits of experimentation are the means through which a real cultivation by them becomes possible.

Depending on the whole variety of factors that are represented by the world process, of which the individual or community may not be entirely aware, many kinds of developmental catalysts may be encountered and an almost infinite variety of trajectories through life, which bring the living subject from the primitive state of the zygote to a more developed state of being and awareness, may be taken. Though the individual may encounter any number of other individuals, communities, histories, traditions and practices of a contemporary or ancient form, within limits, the development which becomes possible for them, according to the world disclosure and the world process and all the realities they consist of and disclose, and according to the individual’s own fundamental being and capacity, must still proceed according to the universal principles and processes by which all development occurs. Discovering those principles, establishing them in oneself, and then adhering to them, is simply a part of “growing up”, as it were.

With the foregoing short articles on “practicality” and “knowledge”, it may be seen with this article that, whatever its approach to non-standard disclosure, to the non-standard apprehension of it, to the wider reality and the living of life within it to which that apprehension inevitably leads, the individual must have a certain knowledge about these things, a certain practicality and practice, and certain principles, along with many other things; all of which will enter into subsequent developmental processes and which will have already entered into the development that has occurred. To progress from the mere conceptualization of wider reality, or rather imagination, the very processes and actualities of life are necessary; for just as the individual cannot enter into the safe and sound standard apprehension of reality without developing and acquiring those actualities of knowledge, practicality and principles, so too is it the case that it cannot enter into any other apprehension of reality unless the very same essential things are present.