A Smattering of New Age Theosophy

Anyone else have New Age parents?  I'm referring here to Baby Boomers: people old enough to have dodged the draft and/or been to Woodstock.  My parents skew young for that generation, but not too young to have been influenced by the Krishna consciousness, communal living and astrological thinking of that time.

I suppose my own thinking is to some extent a reflection of theirs.  I'm an empirical sort of person, and my embrace of logic and factual accuracy is in part a reaction to the theosophy I was exposed to as a child.  My parents never forced their beliefs on me, and my inborn character had something to do with it, but my fondness for philosophy and the scientific method was in some contexts a deliberate reaction to discussions of past lives, astral healing and the like.

What follow below are some excerpts from books in my parents' library.  I chose these books randomly, and the sections quoted were also chosen randomly.  Maybe you'll find them insightful enough to embark upon a new spiritual path.  Maybe you'll just find them amusing.  Maybe they'll remind you of your own parents, in this life or the next.

"Free awareness, or from our standpoint, 'pre-perception,' is the basis for our physically focused sense perceptions.  Pre-perception is undifferentiated; it is an ability to, or potential for, organizing awareness along certain specific lines.  Our regular perception brings the earth alive for us by structuring our basic awareness, sifting it through the differentiated senses and alternately blocking out other data that might otherwise also 'come alive' to us."

- Adventures in Consciousness by Jane Roberts

Q: Deep waters here.  Or are they?  Sometimes piling on intellectual (scientific) terms can give the illusion of meaning.  This is one of the cornerstones of Scientology.

"Free awareness" seems to imply a lack of subjectivity.  If the barrier between subject and object (i.e. one's individual self) has been removed, IS there such a thing as awareness?  If we are existing (or perceiving) in a state of oneness with the universe, can such a thing as "awareness" even occur/exist?  This mention of "undifferentiated" awareness also begs the question.  While remaining open to new information seems necessary, isn't it also necessary to filter information through an individual being?  Isn't that the essence of individuality?

Also, is perception possible without sensory input?  Without physical being?

"Power goes into our word according to the feeling and faith behind it.  When we realize that the power that moves the world is moving on our behalf and is backing up our word, our confidence and assurance grow.  You do not try and add power to power; therefore, there must be no mental striving, coercion, force, or mental wrestling."

- The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Dr. Joseph Murphy

Q: Strong Gospel of John vibe here.  "In the beginning was the word (Logos)..." and so forth.  And yet the last sentence seems very Buddhist.  I suppose it all depends on the author's definition of "power," which could just as easily be the Holy Spirit, individual spiritual power, or the ultimate nature (perhaps negation) of all existence.

"Many mediums have 'spirit controls,' guides who take over and protect them while the physical body is in a trancelike state.  Sometimes these guides are exactly as presumed, discarnate entities who lived many years ago and have now dedicated themselves to aiding in this work.  In certain instances there is a different element involved.  Several years ago I went with a group to a Spiritual church conducted by a very successful medium.  His 'guide' would apparently take possession of his body as soon as the trance state was established."

- Psychic Energy by Joseph J. Weed*

Q: I fail to understand what "discarnate" means in the context of an entity that somehow still exists.  Maybe the author explains it elsewhere in the book.  But um yeah, cool man, guides who take over and protect us while we're in a trancelike state.  Good to know!

"BB turned and faced a woman who seemed to be walking in slow motion, in one place.  She appeared middle-aged, overweight, tears running down her face... (I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Mommy didn't mean to leave you, baby doll, but she just couldn't help it, but I'm coming back, I'm coming back to help you just as soon as I can... I'm coming back somehow...)"

- Far Journeys by Robert A. Monroe

Q: I seem to remember that this book is about astral projection.  Certain people expend a lot of time and energy toward contacting loved ones who've died.  I'm never quite sure how I feel about the idea that we all have a spirit that lives beyond our physical selves.  I understand why people find it comforting, but it seems to me that the erasure of such individuality could be equally comforting, if you believed that nothing is truly gained or lost in a closed system.  Given such a closed system, even in death we're still part of the totality of things.

This of course begs the question as to whether our universe is a closed system.  Do I know the answer to that question?  Of course not.

"Every cell of the body is enveloped in soul or thought, and its initial impulse is to conform to the divine-natural law.  When this law is not observed by the will of man and cells are reduced to the slavery of lust, they combine with other cells of like condition, and, rather than submit longer to the debased condition, they destroy the organism.  But the destruction of the cell as matter does not destroy it on the mental plane; the mental entity survives, and again seeks to carry out the great law of soul evolution that was implanted in it from the beginning."

- The Twelve Powers of Man by Charles Fillmore

Q: Shades of Zoroastrianism.  This could easily be a passage from the Zend Avesta, or even Herman Hesse's most famous work.  The old duality between mind and body, flesh and spirit.  Without getting into whether or not such a duality really exists, this passage seems to hinge upon this "slavery of lust" mentioned by the author.  No idea what that means, and I'm not about to read "The Twelve Powers of Man" in hopes of finding out.

Related Entries:

"Misbehaving" by Richard Thaler (2015)
"The Dharma Bums" by Jack Kerouac (1958)
"What Money Can't Buy" by Michael Sandel (2012)
"The Anatomy of Violence" by Adrian Raine (2013)

*That's really his last name.  I swear.

NOTE: No offense intended toward anyone who adheres to any of the authors, books and ideas quoted above.  I wrote this entry with a lot of affection for my parents, who are able to overgeneralize on any number of topics.

"A Suitable Boy" by Vikram Seth

"'So do I, so do I,' he said, 'I've always felt that the performance of a raag resembles a novel - or at least the kind of novel I'm attempting to write.  You know,' he continued, extemporizing as he went along, 'first you take one note and explore it for a while, then another to discover its possibilities, then perhaps you get to the dominant, and pause for a bit, and it's only gradually that the phrases begin to form and the tabla joins in with the beat... and then the more brilliant improvisations and diversions begin, with the main theme returning from time to time, and finally it all speeds up, and the excitement increases to a climax.'"

At 1,474 pages, Vikram Seth's 1993 novel, "A Suitable Boy" is the longest novel (published in one volume) in the English language.  This book took me a while to finish.

I'm no expert on contemporary Indian fiction, English-language or otherwise.  I've read Rohinton Mistry's "A Fine Balance," Vikas Swarup's "Q&A" (a.k.a. "Slumdog Millionaire), and Rudyard Kipling - if he can even be counted as an Indian author.  Seth's novel is less depressing than Mistry's, and is less jokey than Swarup's.  Given Kipling's stature within the world of literature in general, and in the world of Indian English-language fiction in particular, I wouldn't know where to begin in comparing Seth and Kipling.

Summarizing the plot of "A Suitable Boy" is almost as challenging.  In the personal sense, it follows the search for "a suitable boy" as a prospective husband for one of the novel's many, many characters.  It is also the story of India, and the struggle of the Indian people to free themselves of the cultural trappings of England.  Spiritualism is another theme that runs through the book, as is the ethnic tension between Hindu and Muslim in the wake of Partition.

The book takes place in the 1950s, after the British have left and Gandhi has died.  Nehru is President, and Pakistan has just been severed from India.  The Indian government is attempting a large-scale land reform, and wants to seize the estates won by British sympathizers from the previous government.  Many Muslim residents of the novel's fictional centerpiece, the city of Brahmpur, have migrated to Pakistan, and many of Pakistan's Hindu inhabitants have returned to Brahmpur after losing their properties and livelihood in Pakistan.

Vikram Seth is a fantastic writer, but I've got to say that "A Suitable Boy" cries out for an editor.  While I'm aware that this novel may appeal to non-Western models of fiction, there are portions of this book that do little to advance the plot, and many of the characters could have been discussed in less detail.  The digressions into the doings of Kedarnath and Haresh, for example, detract from the flow of the narrative.  Much of the legal and political goings-on could have also been left out.

Which is not to say that "A Suitable Boy" isn't a great read.  It is.  But like another famously long book, namely, "War and Peace," you may find yourself longing for the abridged version.

Incidentally, the sequel to this book, "A Suitable Girl," should be released soon.