Arun Kolatkar

This is the essay I wrote in answer to a SIM requirement. I feel a little frustrated because the question demanded a comparison between two Indian poets. I would have prefered to have concentrated solely on Kolatkar. Eunice de Souza is a good poet but too full of feminist angst for my liking. Call me an old colonial if you like.

Kolatkar is a personal discovery. I have grown to love his work ( I even got the complete "Jejuri" via Amazon ). All my time in India and I find someone has enunciated everything I felt. But isn't that the mark of a great artist?

Rest in peace Arun Kolatkar ( died 2004 )

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In this essay I will concentrate on the works of two poets, Arun Klolatkar and Eunice de Souza, and attempt to show how the concept and actuality of displacement is apparent in their writing, and how they respond to this condition. Displacement is inherent in the tone of many Indian poets writing from the Diaspora, but it is also discernable from those writing from within the Indian subcontinent, as these two poets are. I will try to show that displacement is an outcome not only of geographical dispersion, but also of the appropriation of the colonizer’s language in post-colonial discourse. It is indeed a paradox that some writers find the English language is their most effective means of shaping and expressing their innermost concerns, and I will argue that the use of English leads to poetic tension and ambivalence, adding depth and colour to their work. l will also try to show that these poets have succeeded in deconstructing “orientalism” to a great degree, despite the fact that influences of colonial literature such as binarism and ”othering” are still evident in post-independence Indian literature.

Unlike some of his contemporaries, Kolatkar appears comfortable using the English language, and he is equally at home when using Marathi. In this sense he is ambidextrous: there is no guilt or need of apology when he writes in English. De Souza often feels the need to justify her appropriation of English, almost to the point of defiance. There is no such tension in Kolatkar’s work. The crisis of representation, as Said puts it, seems absent, at least on the surface. Further, V.S. Naipaul’s observation that Indians in a post-independence India are condemned “to use a telephone, never to invent it” (as quoted by Said) seem unjustified in Kolatkar’s case, where the poet is indeed inventing unique ways of using the English language. Kolatkar manages to create some illuminating vignettes in his poetry, which portray the essence of the “man in the street” with a skillful economy of words. In this, he has succeeded in overcoming the barriers created by “othering” the indigene, a trait which was apparent in the fashionable writings of dispossessed Frenchmen in Algeria, most noticeably by Albert Camus in his celebrated novel “The Outsider”, where the local inhabitants were largely ignored. As a small digression, it is interesting to note that a generation ago, Camus’ novel was a celebrated example of a fashionable genre forged in the fires of displacement and alienation. Nowadays, a postcolonial reading will reveal the “othering” of the indigene as represented by the author; a classic instance of orientalism. It can be argued that Kolatkar has undermined such orientalism unequivocally, a “structure which represented and elaborated not only scholarship but a partisan ideology”, to paraphrase Said. Kolatkar is perhaps one of the few Indian poets to have successfully deconstructed colonial discourse, whilst others (Das, de Souza, Dharker) still seem to suffer self-recrimination, sometimes agonizing over their appropriation of the English language.

Displacement can be seen in Kolatkar’s works not as an overt sense of “not belonging”, but in his persona’s sardonic tone which is one of a man somehow removed, distanced from what is observed. It is this objectivity which sets off the ironic tone and humour of some of his best work. “Biograph” for example is a life-story in eight short stanzas leading to a possible haphazard death on the roads at the hands of a reckless driver. The poem is a headlong rush from birth to death, foregrounding the chaotic course of a life shaped by a series of coincidences rather than by self determination.

“Stepping on my toes, a guy said,
Sorry man, I’m sorry.
Sticking an umbrella in my eye, another said,
I hope you aren’t hurt.
Bearing down on me, full tilt, a trucker said,
Can’t you see where you are going you motherfucker?”

The poet uses irony and humour to catalogue a wasted life, one which is propelled into senseless action by events out of his control. The persona is displaced from a position of coherence and stability by a series of accidents which shape his destiny. Perhaps Kolatkar is commenting on the transitory nature of a life which is prey to circumstances beyond control; a total absence of determinism.

It is in the poems from “Jejuri” that we see the concept of displacement in its most tangible form. The persona in these poems is detached, sardonic, and almost cynical at times. The ambivalence of Kolatkar’s attitude to religion is also apparent. The poems can be read either as an affirmation of Hindu ethics or as a denouncement of them. They show a duality which is engaging and intriguing. As in much of Kolatkar’s work, he uses experimental techniques borrowed from the recent western canonical tradition, including surrealism and semiotics ( the iconic patterns and layout of the poems on the printed page). At no point does the reader detect any sense of uncertainty or inappropriateness here. Kolatkar is assured and confident in his usage of such techniques. “Between Jejuri and the Railway Station” is a good example of this. It is written in 2nd person narrative, which in itself is an unusual poetic form. The page layout is semiotic, suggestive of an ebb and flow, finally disintegrating into the seemingly random sequence of “up and down”, which mimics not only the seven cocks and hens in a field of jowar near the station, but the persona’s “monkey mind” – the mind of the average onlooker which flits from one subject to another, uncontrollably. The poet lists the houses and their occupants he encounters on the road to the station, stopping here and there to offer tantalizing glimpses and hinted suggestions of impropriety;

“You pass the sixty fourth house the temple dancer
who owes her prosperity to another skill.
A skill the priest’s son would rather not talk about.
A house he has never stepped inside
and hopes he never will.”

The subject persona ( you ) is left with a priest’s visiting card and “a few questions knocking about in your head”, all of which gives the impression of a fleeting visit, a trivial adventure. The poet engages with the townsfolk and yet at the same time seems somehow distanced, adding to an impression not quite of alienation, but of detachment and displacement. It is the sight of the cocks and hens that takes his breath away, not the trials and tribulations of the townsfolk.

Kolatkar builds on this tone of detachment in “The railway Station” and it is most apparent in “4 : the station master”, where a lack of punctuation reminds one of e.e. cummings, delivered in a stream of consciousness, parodying to comic effect a style of writing which characterizes the bureaucratic footnotes and disclaimers found in Indian train timetables;

“all timetables ever published
along with all timetables yet to be published
are simultaneously valid
on any given time and on any given track….”

Here, the persona is omniscient, displaced in time and space, a neutral observer.
However, in “5 : vows” the observer is more involved. One can sense the frustration as he waits for a coherent answer to a simple question “when will my train arrive?”. Kolatkar’s ambivalent attitude to Hinduism is reflected in his comic mock-seriousness when offering to appease the Gods, if only an answer could be forthcoming;

“smear the indicator with the blood of a cock
bathe the station master in milk…..”

Kolatkar’s depictions of Jejuri’s townsfolk are rarely stereotypical, nor do they evoke a sense of “othering”, which is often the case in characterizations offered by colonial writers. An exception would be the use of irony in an earlier poem, “Woman”, which is deliberately designed to foreground the “othering” inflicted on the colonized woman, not only by the colonizing powers, but from within Indian society itself;

“a women may shave her legs regularly
a woman may take up landscape painting
a woman may poison
twenty three cockroaches”

In “Jejuri” the poet must have been aware of the linguistic paradox which finds him writing in cultured English about priests and pilgrims whose mother tongues and cultures may have differed from his own. There is no apparent dichotomy in his work however. On the contrary, there is a naturalness and a flow of thought unimpeded by the guilt of association, unlike the angst and self-recrimination we sometimes detect in the works of Dharker and Das. He is speaking from what H. K. Bhabba calls “the third Space of enunciation”, an ambivalent space of cultural identity which overcomes the exoticism of cultural diversity, leading ultimately to a “recognition of an empowering hybridity within which cultural difference may operate”.

The Goanese poet Eunice De Silva writes with a greater sense of tension and conflict in her work, and she holds this in common with many female Indian writers, most notably Dharker and Das. Whilst these female writers explore subalternity and female sexuality to a greater extent than de Souza, both de Souza and Kolatkar avoid attempts to speak for people who are “othered” by the disadvantages of poverty and of poor education. De Souza prefers to write in tightly controlled verse of her own experiences, and eschews the rather obsessive and confessional style typical of Das. In De Souza’s own critique of Das’s poetry she writes “ When the poet loses control, the work ceases to be poetry, and becomes more like automatic writing”. Whereas Das’s harrowing accounts of personal sexuality and a prevailing tone of self-absorption can sometimes pall, De Souza prefers at times to soften the blows by switching gender and speaking with a man’s voice in order to foreground the marginalization of women, as in “He Speaks”;


“….She was an affectionate
creature and tried hard, poor dear,
but never quite made the grade.”

De Souza uses gender-switching to expose the put-downs and masculine oppression meted out to women in relationships, revealing the callous and demeaning attitudes of some men in Indian society. However, as the study guide writers note, this escape, one of using the man’s voice, can only be temporary.

When De Souza uses her own voice, the sense of displacement felt by a woman in a community arising from a complex history is strikingly apparent. “de Souza Prabhu” exposes several instances, delivered in a tone of alienation which characterizes her work;

“….Prabhu was no fool
And got the best of both worlds.
(Catholic Brahmin!
I can hear his fat chuckle still.)”

The sense here is one of a desperate compromise; Prabhu aspires to the status of Brahmin whilst at the same time claiming a Catholic identity. We get the impression he does not fit in; despite his efforts he is alienated. She goes on;


“No matter that
my name is Greek
my surname Portuguese
my language alien.

There are ways
Of belonging.

I belong with the lame ducks.”

Here we have the transcultural associations of her name, and the self-destructive conclusion she reaches, delivered with ironic force. The use of the word “alien” to describe her chosen language, English, shows a tantalizing ambivalence; we are not sure if the writer feels that the language is alien to her, or alien to her culture. As is the case with many Indian poets, she probably feels she has no choice but to use English; whether she feels comfortable with the choice, as Kolatkar appears to, is not immediately apparent. We are left with a sensation of displacement, an uncertainty of exactly where her roots lie. Given the complex milieu of cultural influences she has inherited, this is not unexpected, and leads to a tension, a pulling in different directions, which is the mark of much post-independence Indian poetry and prose.

She continues in this poem to describe the shame bestowed on her at birth by being born female, a powerful allusion to the subaltern status of women which is still found in some sectors of Indian society. But for de Souza, it is rare to comment on subalternity. As with Kolatkar, she is more comfortable with personal observation and reflection.

The poem raises the question; when was colonialism? When referring to modern Indian writers we tend to draw a line between those working in pre-independence times, and those working in the 60 or so years since independence from Britain, as if styles changed overnight. But in De-Souza’s case, it could be argued that her community was founded during a much earlier colonization, that of the Portuguese in the early 16th century. As Stuart Hall reminds us, the transition from the colonial to the postcolonial ….”is not only marking it in the ‘then’ and ‘now’ way. It is obliging us to re-read the very binary form in which the colonial encounter has for so long been represented”. Hall argues here that space and time are blurred markers between colonial and post-colonial eras, and that paradoxically colonialism itself has sometimes been represented in binary terms by postcolonial writers. The displacement felt by the Goanese, a small community within the much larger Indian entity, has probably existed for much longer than the 60 years since independence. The Goanese Catholics are a separate identity within Indian society, a predicament felt by many minorities including the Parsees, Zoroastrians, and to some extent, the Muslims. It is a further paradox that these communities are sometimes “othered” by Hindu extremists within the modern Hindu nationalist movements, such as the BJP. Edward Said’s seminal work “Orientalism” has often been criticized for not defining or discriminating between different imperialisms, and it should be remembered that the French conquests of North Africa and that of the British in the East Asia are not the only forces acting on colonized peoples. It is against this wider background that we should view the work of De Souza.

The tone of displacement in De Souza’s work does not therefore derive from “place”; alienation is not the sole preserve of the Diaspora. However, the poems often allude to a need for survival within a postcolonial “place”, as if the persona has endured an alienation both personal and cultural. In “One Man’s Poetry” she writes;

“Irony as an attitude to life
Is passé. You said.
So be it, friend.
Let me be passé and survive.”

De Souza uses irony is a defense not only against the onslaughts of racism and sexism, but as a means of foregrounding the displacement she experiences within her own country. Paradoxically, irony is often associated with a quintessentially English consciousness. By adopting this tone De Souza shows how transculturalism has infused her writing, and how she uses not only irony, but the act of writing itself as a weapon of self-defense. Again in “de Souza Prabha” we have;

“Words the weapon
To crucify.”



Women’s writing often wages war against the binarism imposed on the female gender.
( Kolatkar, interestingly for a male writer, used irony in his defense of women in his poem simply entitled “Woman.”). Binarism was a condition imposed on colonized men and women by colonial discourse, and became embedded in western consciousness by the works of writers such as Kipling and Rider Haggard.. The effects of the black/white, female/male, weak/strong categorization of colonized subjects lead inexorably to a hierarchical structure which is inherent in English usage to this day. De Souza, (as well as Das and Dharker), uses irony to undermine the structure and logic of imperial binarism. This exposure of binarism is used to great effect in the closing lines of “He Speaks” ;

“After that pathological display
I decided there was only one thing to do: fix her.
The next time we were making love
I said quite casually:
I hope you realize I do this
with other women.”

The male persona has “fixed” the woman – put her firmly in her place, thus perpetuating the hegemony of male dominance over females, the enduring binary nature of relationships.

Both Kolatkar and de Souza are engaged in a process of representation, but unlike the writings of colonial literary interlocutors, most notably Kipling, Rider Haggard, and Fitzgerald in his exotic English translation of “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam”, the Indian poets’ representations have succeeded in deconstructing what Said has identified as Orientalism. Said’s primary concerns were with the representations of the colonized state by anthropologists, or interlocutors as he sometimes prefers to call them, but his arguments apply equally to literature. If we transpose anthropology with literature is the following quote, we can see how representation is tainted and compromised by colonial literature; “The point is that anthropological representations bear as much on the representer’s world as on who or what is represented”. Said argues that this misrepresentation will eventually fade in the postcolonial world, and quotes from Cesaire as follows; “and man must overcome all the interdictions wedged in the recesses of his fervor and no race has a monopoly on beauty, on intelligence, on strength/ and there is room for everyone in the convocation of conquest.”

Both de Souza and Kolatkar are appropriating English, the language of a colonizer, for their own purposes. Kolatkar, it has been argued, experiences displacement by his erudite use of the English language to portray the commonplace men, women and temples within the town of Jejuri. De Souza is displaced by her ambivalent relationship with masculine hegemony and by a personal alienation both within her own culture and the wider Indian state. But I have argued that they have broken through the delusional representations inherent in orientalism, and moved towards a discourse which in Fanon’s words ”will disrupt literary styles and themes…create a completely new public, and mould the national consciousness, giving it form and contours and flinging open before it new and boundless horizons.”

(2952 words, not including references)

References

Babbha, H.K. “Postcolonial Criticism”, in Greenblatt, Stephen and Gunn, Giles (ed) “Redrawing the Boundaries; the transformation of English and American literary studies”.1992. ” Reprinted in “Post Colonial Writings from India and Australia”, (Study Guide,) 2001. SIM University.

Fanon, F. “Les Dames de la terre”, 1976, Paris, in Hall, T. “When was ‘The Post-Colonial’? Thinking to the Limit” Reprinted in “Post Colonial Writings from India and Australia” (Offprints Collection), 2001. SIM University

Hall, T. “When was ‘The Post-Colonial’? Thinking to the Limit” Reprinted in “Post Colonial Writings from India and Australia” (Offprints Collection), 2001. SIM University

Kolatkar. A. “Poetry” in A.K. Mehotra (ed) “Twelve Modern Indian Poets”, 2008. OUP

Said, E.W. “Presenting the Colonized: Anthropology’s Interlocutors” Reprinted in “Post Colonial Writings from India and Australia”, (Offprints Collection,) 2001. SIM University.

de Souza, E. “Kamala Das” Reprinted in “Post Colonial Writings from India and Australia”, (Offprints Collection,) 2001. SIM University

de Souza, E. “Poetry” in A.K. Mehotra (ed) “Twelve Modern Indian Poets”, 2008. OUP

de Souza, E. “Selected Poetry” in “Gender and Experience – Women Poets” Reprinted in “Post Colonial Writings from India and Australia”, (Study Guide,) 2001. SIM University.

Philip Jayaretnam - Abraham's Promise

I submitted this essay a couple of weeks ago on line, when Rockwater 2 was still in Australia. It was put together in an evening which was disrupted by calls to connect up deck machinery and fix satellite communications. Hence it is poorly edited.

I was a bit upset that my main point about Abraham's sister Mercy being an archetype in western literature was misunderstood. The tutor thought I was talking about the quality of compassion ! But my argument could have been put better.

I had to have yet another dig at the awful pretentious Spivak, which I managed.

I admire Jayaretnam for the courage in publishing Abraham's Promise. It must have ruffled feathers in the Singapore Government, but kudos to them for allowing it to go out in print.

I loved the character of old Abraham - the noble failure, totally alien to the modern drive towards material comfort and instant gratification

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In this essay I will try to show how Bakhtin’s notion of heteroglossia is used in P. Jayaretnam’s Abraham’s Promise and Lee Kok Liang’s Return to Malaya, and how this usage illustrates certain facets of postcolonial theory. In particular I will attempt to apply some the approaches set out by Said and Hall, and will include Sivak where the issue of female subalternity is touched on in the two works. Much of the essay will concentrate on Abraham’s Promise, which is a full length novel, whereas the piece by Lee is a fragment of a larger work.

Abraham’s Promise is a work of great depth and maturity, albeit flawed in some respects. Written in the first person singular, the reader is immediately immersed in Abraham’s world. As a young teacher he seems steeped in colonial discourse, even upholding that English, and it’s precedent, Latin, was given by God as a medium to civilize the world – “Latin is a wonderful language. Like English, it is the language of conquerors” He values western classicism highly, comparing it with the rampant materialism which has infected Singaporean society – “ Why should it surprise us that the wicked and unjust succeed where the pure of heart fail”. This sets the tone of the novel ; a struggle between an essentially utopian world view and the reality of post-independence Singapore. Abraham is an idealist, and it is idealism which eventually destroys him. In heteroglossic terms, it is a conflict between two monolithic ideologies, two discouses of power; that of colonial discourse, and that of nationalism without regard for the individual, political expediency. In Krishna’s words ; “It’s not a question of who’s right and wrong… we have to show who’s boss”.

Abraham seems to represent a hybrid between colonial continuity and a desire for nationhood which is both free from the past, but at the same time draws on what he sees as the finest classical ideals of humanity. Interlinked with these tensions are his personal relationships. I would argue that his desire for Rani to continue her career after they are married, and his willingness to do his fair share of housework, show that he is breaking free from the paternalistic hegemony inherited from his Tamil father. Her adultery is therefore unforgivable, as is the treachery of his friend Krishna. So too is the treatment dealt him by his colleagues. Abraham has in fact done all the right things for the right reasons, but has been betrayed.

The account of Mercy’s suicide, and the factors which led to it, is conspicuous by the absence of a “voice”. It is curious that in literature written in the post colonial world, the female subaltern is a recurrent character, becoming almost an archetype. Mercy is the same woman who Spivak wrote of in Can the Subaltern Speak?”. She reappears in the works of Catherine Lim and Lee Kok Liang. In Jayaretnam, it is unclear whether this muting of female voices is deliberate or unconscious. Similarly, in Return to Malaya where Lee comments lightly on the old woman’s predicament without attempting to explore it. I would argue that Mercy first surfaced in western canonical literature, for example the “mad woman in the attic”, Miss Havisham, in Dickens’s Great Expectations, and in Bronte’s Jane Eyre , the insane Bertha locked away unseen but always present. I would go further to question the premise that subalternity is somehow the result of western colonialism, as Spivak sometimes seems to suggest. It is transcultural and has existed throughout all of history. What is encouraging in postcolonial dicourse is that the essence of subalternity is firmly recognized and is now discussed not only by postcolonial theorists but by serious writers in the post colonial literary world.

This line of thought is followed by Hall where he asks the question “When was The Post-colonial?”. For Hall there are no “clear-cut politics of binary oppositions” because this leads to homogenization and simplification. He goes on “What post-colonial certainly is not is one of those periodisations based on epochal stages, where everything is reversed at the same moment, all the old relations disappear forever and entirely new ones come to replace them”. What Hall seems to argue is that not only are there no clearly defined temporal landmarks separating the colonial from the post-colonial, but also that there are no clear ideological borders between each of the two discourses. In Abraham’s Promise, Abraham attends a cocktail party as a guest of the political elite, refuting the claims of a politician that a clear break must be made with the past, and with America in particular. In this aspect at least, Abraham is a pragmatist. Hall argues that “a world of separate identities, of isolated or separable and self-sufficient cultures and economies, has been obliged to yield to a variety of paradigms designed to capture these different but related forms of relationship, interconnection and discontinuity”. Both Jayaretnam and Lee recognize that post-colonialism does not equal post-independence, and that many voices influence the postmodern, postcolonial state. This recognition is reflected in their use of heteroglossia, giving voice not only to characters, but to the events that shape them.

It could be argued that Jayaretnam’s novel is flawed in some respects. The non-relationship with Rose is overdone, and the repeated use of the epistolary form is laboured at times, and seems to serve no purpose. Rani, Victor and Mercy are not developed or “represented” enough as dynamic characters ( again, the absence of voice). But the use of memory, and the manner in which the author alternates between memory and the present, is very effective. Abraham’s character is fully realized. Lee’s short piece is evocative, centrifugally multi-voiced, using essentialist imagery as well as lyric themes. There is a sense of detachment, and we feel that the writer has become distanced, almost alienated, as a result of his time spent in the Diaspora. Said’s notion of representation leads to a political conclusion – “representation becomes significant, not just as an academic or theoretical quandary but as a political choice”. Jayaretnam’s representation of Abraham is indeed political, but Lee’s multiple representations lean more towards a pastoral view of culture and identity – the reader is not persuaded politically. But Said continues – “exile, immigration, and the crossing of boundaries are experiences that can therefore provide us with new narrative forms, or, in John Berger’s phrase, with other ways of telling”. Lee’s work seems to embody this idea. Thus the two works exemplify the differences between Singaporean and Malaysian writing. The former tends towards a simpler mix of heteroglossia, often using only a few voices in opposition, leading to clear tensions which in turn encourage political consciousness and concepts of nationhood. The latter employs multiple voices, many of them rural and often from different ethnic groups, provoking questions of cultural identity and solidarity.

To conclude I would argue that in general both works are examples of the freedoms open to all writers in post-colonial space. Cesaire, quoted by Said, suggests that “man still must overcome all the interdictions wedged in the recesses of his fervor and no race has a monopoly on beauty, on intelligence, on strength/ and there is room for everyone at the convocation of conquest”. In particular, Abraham has struggled not only to free himself from the hegemony of colonial and patriarchal discourse by embracing his son, but is also the embodiment of the honest and good man crushed by the political compromises of an emerging nation. In his own words “ Perhaps the true value of a good life lies in its aim, not its trajectory”.

(1265 words)

References

Hall, T. “When was ‘The Post-Colonial’? Thinking to the Limit” Reprinted in “Post Colonial Writings from Singapore and Malaysia” (Offprints Collection), 2001. SIM University

Jayaretnam, P. “Abraham’s Promise”, 2004, Times Editions, Singapore.

Lee, Kok Liang, “Return to Malaya” Reprinted in “Anthology - Post Colonial Writings from Singapore and Malaysia”, 2001. SIM University

Said, E.W. “Presenting the Colonized: Anthropology’s Interlocutors” Reprinted in “Post Colonial Writings from Singapore and Malaysia”, (Offprints Collection,) 2001. SIM University.

An enlightening chat about gurus

I was having an e-chat with a friend of mine just recently, she practices Tibetan Buddhism, and we were chatting about enlightenment. She said veryclearly to me that she cannot be enlightened unless she is guided by a guru/master and that doing it alone is impossible.

Cute. Here is a woman who is following a guru who is following a teacher who said don't follow me. "Be a light onto yourself." "If you meet me on thepath, kill me." "Don't make any images of me."

Many like to think we need a master -- because we are lazy, and to delay theinevitable. If someone says they are a master -- beware -- they are fooling you. True masters know they are not masters - anymore than you are. Everyone has an experience of value to share with someone else.Maybe we are all enlightened. It’s just that we are not realising it.

I don’t really know of anyone who has become enlightened by being witha guru? I don't even know what enlightenment is. How does my friend think she knows what enlightenment is? And how can she if she is not enlightenedherself? And is there such a thing as enlightenment anyway? Beware the blindleading the blind.

I have met a few people who are said to be awake. As far as I know, Eckhart Tolle did not have a guru when I met him in Singapore and recently here, nor did J Krishnamurti…. or did he? He did grow up around fanatical Theosophists?

Incidentally, it is said that Buddha did not have a guru either. It is said that he went to many but none of them had anything worthwhile to say, so he let them all go and sat under a tree. He is quoted as saying it was the letting go. He is also quoted as saying that after he had an awakening he realised that all his searching had not added anything to his realisation. He said when he awakened he realised that he had been awake all the time, but because he was looking for something he thought he missed.

The best thing is not to take all so seriously.
Tom

Food for thought No.1

Food for thought No. 1

Happiness is not balanced - it is just the opposite of unhappiness.
More pleasant than unhappiness, for sure, but not balanced, and thus not
stable. Happiness is usually balanced by equal periods of unhappiness.

In the East they talk about Bliss. In most cases, what we interpret as bliss
is not what they are attempting to share. Bliss is not actually 'blissful.'

In the West we tend to think of bliss as being an 'up' energy.
What they are describing is not up, and not down.
It is not dependant on an outside situation.
It is not 'dependant' at all - it just is.

I had some more thoughts come up - about living.
This morning I was asked if I was happy.

No I am not happy. And I am not unhappy.
The concept of happy and unhappy now seems redundant.
It is something else. I have not seen a good description.

Teachers have used the image of a carrot on a stick to describe how most
people live. I see it more like throwing out a grappling hook - to grip the
'future' so we can drag ourselves along through the unexciting moments of
day to day life.

Of course when we get to what we are calling the future we find it is not
what we thought it was going to be, and even if it is fun, it doesn't last -
so we have to throw out another hook.

In one way, living the usual moment to moment could be seen as mundane.
Maintenance. brushing teeth, showering, shopping, cooking, eating, cleaning
the dishes, putting them away, fixing things, filling in forms, driving in
traffic....

If one is not 'in this moment' in what is being done, and comparing to what one could be doing - looking ahead, then they do seem like chores, and insignificant.

Tom

Petition to save a Madras beach

To all Theosophists, (active or lapsed), old hippies, dreamers and idealists, please sign this petition to stop a raised highway being built over the stretch of beach that adjoins Adyar.

- Ancient Mariner

Dear Friends,

The Tamil Nadu State Government is planning to build a 47 km elevated express way which will include parts of the Chennai coastline. The first studies show that around 14 fishing communities (kuppams) and over 560 families will be affected by the project. The proposed route includes the Adyar beach near the Theosophical Society's compound. The entire unique ecosystem in that area will be severely disturbed.

The Adyar beach is one of the last undisturbed beaches in Chennai. Many residents from Chennai go there every day, through the TS compound, to enjoy the beach and the vastness of sea and sky. The beach is also a landmark in contemporary India as it was the place where renowned philosopher J. Krishnamurti was discovered a hundred years ago.

The Save Chennai Beaches movement has organized a petition addressed to the Environment Minister of the Central Governement in New Delhi, asking for the project to be abandoned. The link to the petition webpage is given below:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/abandon-the-elevated-highway-and-save-chennai-beaches

As a resident of Adyar I would like to ask you all to consider signing the petition and support this important initiative to save the Adyar beach from unwanted development. Kindly also consider sending the petition to concerned persons in your contact list. Thank you.

With best wishes to all from Varanasi,

Pedro Oliveira

Krishnamurti to Himself

Our life is so short and during that short period there is nothing to learn about the whole field of the psyche, which is the movement of memory; we can only observe it. Observe without any movement of thought, observe without time, without past knowledge, without the observer who is the essence of the past. Just watch. Watch those clouds shaping and reshaping, watch the trees, the little birds. It is all part of life. When you watch attentively, with diligence, there is nothing to learn; there is only that vast space, silence and emptiness, which is all-consuming energy.
~Krishnamurti to Himself

John Wren Lewis

John Wren Lewis was a mathematical physicist. He was originally acynic of anything spiritual or mystical whose NDE experience suddenlyand unexpectedly catapulted him into an altered state ofconsciousness. His two web articles make enlightening reading.
John Wren Lewis’s article “The Dazzling Dark A Near-Death Experience Opens the Door to a PERMANENT TRANSFORMATION”.http://www.nonduality.com/dazdark.htm
"Conversations with the Down-Under Mystic: An informal interview"http://www.capacitie.org/wren/Conversations.pdf

Tom

Catherine Lim & Lee Kok Liang ( Post Colonial Prose)

This short essay compares Catherine Lim’s Adeline with Lee Kok Liang’s Return to Malaya, and tries to highlight the use of heteroglossia in both pieces, and how this technique foregrounds certain post colonial aspects of the writing.

Lim’s Adeline is stylistically simpler than Lee’s and uses four separate, distinct narratives. There is no writer’s persona except an omnipotent, neutral one. The first voice, that of the newspaper report, is centripetal, non-dialogic. The letter by the teacher is authoritative, what Bakhtin would call monolithic. It seeks no response. The third is a mix of voices as teachers discuss and interact dynamically, and it is therefore centrifugal in that ideas are thrown outward to collide and react with others. The final voice, that of Adeline herself, is again monologic, but perhaps addresses an unseen other, or alter-ego, as diaries often do. Adeline’s suicide reminds us of Spivak’s menstruating girl, who finds no voice in response to paternalistic oppression.

By comparison Lee’s piece is more multilayered, dynamic and heteroglossic. Many voices are heard, each themselves unique utterances arising from an infinity of influences. The story includes elements of essentialism in the description of the Englishman and the Malay boys. The persona appears to drift through the town, detached, as if alienated from friends and family after a long sojourn abroad. There is a sense of ambivalence concerning his identity as he meets people from his past. Returning from the diaspora has distanced him from them. Lee’s story emphasizes problems of ethnic and cultural identity, a characteristic of Malaysian literature.

John

John,

I will not comment on your application of theory as I would like the class to add their comments to your interesting reading. You may want to re-think the role of author/writer in heteroglossia though--can objectivity really truly exist? Also, I do want to draw attention to the structure of your work as a way of example of how to write a well structured piece.Your work begins with an introduction and provides a thesis and a preview statement of what the reader is to expect. The body examines the two pieces of fiction in a logical manner and you include the comparative element. A breif conclusion would have made it complete and yet the work appears compact.
Such an example can help others to see how to present ideas of such complicated nature.
thanks,

priti

Priti,

I beg to venture that your question, “can objectivity really truly exist?” is wryly rhetorical. I think Bakhtin would say that all utterances, and indeed all individual words, are loaded with what he calls “taste”. His theory of heteroglossia seems not confined merely within the text, but extends to the reader, who reacts and interacts dynamically with the texts. Thus each reader forms his own unique impression, dependent upon an infinite number of influences. I think it could be argued that Lim has used this dynamism very consciously, splitting her story into narrow segments of separate narratives. Although the persona is absent in terms of style, in heteroglossic terms she compels readers to confront uncomfortable truths. Lim’s piece is not a political statement per se, but it foments political consciousness.

John


Hi John,

I agree with your theory of voices, especially that of the diary. I would also like to suggest that there is a difference between Adeline and Bhaduri's suicide. Bhaduri has left behind no written explanation except the deliberate wait till she menustrating, thus subjecting her suicide to be read as any but the 'outcome of illegitimate passion' (Offprints Collection, p.48) and denying herself a voice. Adeline however, has left behind her 'alter-ego', the diary which is perfectly capable to speak for her but however, because of her inability to connect with the people around her who speaks the colonial language and which ultimately results in her father's perception that there is no need to read the diary in order to understand her attempt, has thus denied her that speaking voice.

Siew Hoon

Siew Hoon,

I agree with your view that the circumstances of Adeline’s suicide are different from Bhaduri’s. Adeline left no significant message other than her monologic diary, whereas the manner of Bhaduri’s demise was itself significant. Reading beyond the text it could be argued that Lim has provided Adeline with a true voice. In this way, the dynamics of heteroglossia, and especially that which exists between the reader and the text, has enabled Adeline to speak. Heteroglossia, it could be argued, is a by-product of globalization. Whereas the economic effects of globalization can be regarded as a new form of imperialist hegemony, heteroglossia is a positive phenomenon. Lim and many other post-colonial writers use it very skillfully in order to obliquely allude to, rather than to directly expose, societal injustices.

John

Shirley Lim - My Father's Sadness (Malaysian Post Colonial Poetry)

(Question 2)

The poet’s tone in ‘My Father’s Sadness’ is one of melancholy and loss. Lim’s father is represented as a victim of circumstances beyond his control; an idealistic young man, incapacitated by the multiple hegemonies of British colonialism, the Japanese occupation, and the ensuing Malayan Emergency. His dreams of continuing a patriarchal family tradition within the Malaccan Peranakan community are shattered, as are the innocent dreams of ‘a young man with a full moon / and no woman in sight’. The poem is a powerful indictment of colonial imperialism which ruthlessly subjugates and alienates Malayan indigenous communities.

John


I see Fanon has been introduced here--wonderful. What more can we say about Fanon when reading the poem.
As for Lim breaking free and starting afresh--I am not sure if I see this. At best I would say the poem uses strategic essentialism to get various representations across. But if so, then yes, there is an element of understanding of the "idea" of wanting to break free...but does it happen? THere are too many layers of representation here that drown the voice of the persona, who although the speaker, is lost in the discourse of patriarchy--the very discourse she represents--how ironic.
But this is my view. I really want to hear what you wish to add about Fanon, John.

Priti

Priti, I do think the poem is autobiographical because Lim seems to write poetry as part of a lifelong confession. The persona in this particular poem, however, seems absent, a subject in a diasporic vacuum. Perhaps breaking free is going too far, as you point out. In Lim’s short essay on her early life, she describes her father as a romantic who once serenaded his fiancé under a fulll moon, hence the opposing image of a man whose dreams were shattered by colonial wars; “a young man with a full moon / and no woman in sight”. Fanon appears to recognise this process of alienation within colonized communities, bringing together “psychoanalytic notions of the alienation of the colonized, with Marxist notions of the economic and social forces that have brought about that alienation” ( Fanon, 1968). Although he was referring to the Algerian Arabs, the same project applies to the Malayan Peranakans.

John

Fanon F. (1969) Black Skin : White Masks trans. Markmann, C.L. London, 1968. in Study Guide, p9, SIM University, 2001.

Lim, S.G., War and Marriage reprinted in Offprints Collection, SIM University, 2001.


Hi Priti,

As you ask me to elaborate, I try but can't keep it within the word count of 80 words. Anyway this is my 4th response. Hope this is OK.
The voice is unmistakably a woman but she is still the object; the father is the subject - his sufferings are glorified.This first sentence sets the poem in a surreal setting: a dream. It seems the female persona is not able to articulate her emotions in a ‘real’ day-to-day setting except in her dream. Dreams emerge from our subconscious mind, in that sense, she is actually speaking to her inner self and in reality she is still not heard. And even within her dream, she is still not able to be heard in the family of males. The female essentialist image and voice is that of passivity, she lives behind the shadows of the males in the family. The tone is that of a discerning voice that is still ‘hissing beneath the surface’, never ever to emerge.

cheryl

Cheryl, I respectfully disagree. It seems quite possible that the persona is the author, writing of her father’s experiences during the 1940’s. There are close similarities in the poem with Lim’s own account of her early life. As such, the object is her father, and the subject is the persona, the author, the “I”. But although Lim’s tone is sorrowful, she has escaped the multiple hegemonies I mentioned in my earlier response, which reduced her father to a mute subaltern. To paraphrase Fanon, (Fanon 1952, p231) she has “become her own foundation. And it is by going beyond the historical, instrumental hypothesis that she will initiate the cycle of her freedom.”

John

Fanon F. (1952) Black Skin : White Masks trans. Markmann, C.L. London 1968 Reprinted in Ascroft, Griffiths and Tiffin Post Colonial Studies - The Key Concepts (p207) Routledge 2007

Lim, S.G., War and Marriage reprinted in Offprints Collection, SIM University, 2001.

email to a shipmate on leave

G' day

I expect Pete has already told you the latest news - we should be in Singapore around 23rd I think. But there have been umpteen changes over the past few days, so don't count on it. At one time we were held by the union alongside in Dampier. The stewards wanted hard line money for not having a juccuzi or chocolate gateau with meals or something.

The engineroom is pretty quiet. Sometimes you may be lucky and see a motorman down there with a rag wiping a spanner, but mostly they are on the boat deck taking the sun, or surfing the internet. One was found curled up asleep in the darkroom by Jim.

New faces come and go at an alarming rate. One morning I came down to the control room and a bloke asked me to get out. He was yet another motorman just joined who thought I was a cook. Tried to get some welding done but of course none of them know how, and anyway they would need a union meeting before a decision could be made. In the end Anton did it for me.


Enjoy your leave

John

Message from Rev (Dr) Brian Harding

Brian sent me this reply to an email:-

I think the general Liberal Catholic view of Jesus is that he was "a Self-realised human being." That is, he achieved what the Hindus would call "enlightenment" becoming One with the Divine within. Hence "I and my Father are One" and many other of his sayings in the Gospels. His I AM sayings, too, link with the words God (Yahweh) spoke to Moses - "I AM THAT I AM". These are so reminiscent of the Buddhist "tat tvam asi" - Thou art That." I think there is good reason to assert that this enlightenment occurred at Jesus' baptism, when the heavens opened and he saw a dove descending upon him, and he heard God's voice - "this is my Beloved."

This view, and more, leaves me much greater hope than the view that Jesus was a "one off" and entirely beyond our reach. He is the Great Exemplar, who points the Way (as Buddha did) - "Follow me" he often said. When he said "I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life" he didn't mean the "little self" that was Jesus on earth - he meant the I AM, the greater Self in him, that is the Divine, God, the One. He meant us to find that I AM which is the Way, the Tao if you like.

The vast majority of Christians, including many clergy, today have lost this mysticism and the deeper meaning of the scriptures. There is so much more than just a literal, surface, meaning to be found in them if one bothers to look.

David Williamson - "Heretic"

My essay on Williamson's play, Heretic.

As the tutor pointed out, the arguments sometimes contradict each other and there is a lack of focus. My dig at elitist postcolonial theorists, comparing their Marxist dogma with the literary sensors of the Soviet Union, was not well received. But I simply could not resist, even though it probably cost me some marks. I find Spivak, in particular, to be a poseur of the first rank - she simply spouts dense theory whilst in no way improving the lot of the sabalterns which are the subjects her study. I am not an academic and speak from the heart, which is a fundamental weakness where theory is concerned.

++++

In this paper I would argue that Williamson’s “Heretic” does not attempt to subvert the canon by ‘celebrating the neglected or marginalized Other’, and that the imperialist’s construction of the Other is in many ways upheld and reinforced by the play. The identity of the Other is indeed compromised and undermined, but quite intentionally, as I will attempt to show. Australian postcolonial literature has often been criticized for denying the indigene, in this case the Australian Aboriginal, a true voice or persona. It has been left to the Aboriginals themselves to attempt to speak from a disadvantaged position, one in which they are handed the tools of expression by the settler-colonizer, the most practical tool being the English language, without sufficient encouragement or instruction. As Sneja Gunew notes, “The land… speaks most authentically through the oral literature of the indigenous nomads: in translation” The subaltern cannot speak with his own voice.

Williamson’s play is a multilayered. It touches on gender issues, the Oedipus complex, and questions of professional probity, but the crux of the play concerns the conflict between two opposing anthropological viewpoints. On the one hand, that social behaviour is shaped by the inexorable forces of genetic inheritance, a view upheld by Freeman, and on the other, that is culturally determined, a view supported by Mead. The historical facts of the dispute are well known, and lead ultimately to the conclusion that elements of truth can be found in both theories. However, throughout the play, and to some extent throughout the historical record, the voice of the Samoans is conspicuous by its absence. (We could allow that Fa’apua’a does indeed speak at the play’s denouement, casting doubt on Meads assertions, but her speech is used solely as a ploy to win a point in an anthropological argument, which could appear as coldly academic.). As Said has noted, “…anthropologists should spend more time thinking of textuality and less of matrilineal descent” and further ; “issues relating to cultural poetics (should) take a more central role in their research”. Said goes on to suggest that interlocutors (i.e. anthropologists) are “driven increasingly to more and more desperate remedies as they try first to fit the categories formulated by the colonial authority”. Mead and Freeman could both be regarded as being ‘driven’ in this regard. Said’s seminal theory is that of Orientalism, which, in his view, is “a structure erected in the thick of an imperial contest whose dominant wing it represented and elaborated not only as scholarship but as a partisan ideology”. Hence Mead and Freeman’s debate tends towards a distancing of the indigene, not towards an engagement, which leads to the representation of the Samoans as something Other, without tangible form or identity.

“Heretic” neither endorses nor refutes this position. Williamson seems content to show rather than tell, and leaves the audience to construct their own meanings and interpretations. The play cannot be regarded as didactic, and in this regard it encourages speculation and engagement with the ideas played out on the stage. Williamson does hint, however, that the Other is an unseen member of the dramatis personae, in his use of a continuous dream sequence. Not only does this device allow for dramatic temporal discontinuity, but it also introduces a subtle representation of the aboriginal dreamtime where shared cultural memories, described by Jung as the collective unconscious, are awakened and vocalized. However, dreamtime is the domain of the Australian Aborigine, foreign to Samoan culture, and so ironically, Williamson could be criticized here for homogenizing or subverting the Other to fit his own purposes.

Williamson’s main concerns are not directed towards a representation of the Other, although he has obviously allowed for this interpretation. Rather, he seems to be inviting inquiry and speculation, leaning heavily towards Freeman’s side of the argument. As Freeman exposes Mead ‘s flawed hypothesis by using the testimony of the aging Fa’apua’a, it is presented as the final coup de grace. The parallel drawn between Mead’s utopian vision of a society without greed or jealousy, and the halcyon days of the 1960s, is another indication that Williamson regarded Mead’s premise as misguided. The experiment of the 1960s was doomed to failure as the alternative society disintegrated from the inside out, torn apart by materialism and commercialism, thus proving Freeman’s point. The Other is appropriated in order to illustrate these truisms, but plays no real part. Williamson may be engaging in cultural imperialism, albeit unknowingly, when viewed from this standpoint. But perhaps the following questions should be asked; is it the duty of the writer in the postcolonial world to introduce a considered representation of the Other into his or her works? Are the postcolonial literary elite imposing their own standards on writers? And by extension, is this not reminiscent of the Soviet era, when authors were sanctioned only to write within the genre of social realism? The answers are self apparent.

The paradox that Williamson illustrates in “Heretic” is that “the indigene is a semiotic pawn on a chess board under the control of the white sign maker” as Goldie puts it. By not allowing the subaltern to speak, Williamson portrays himself as the white sign maker, perhaps intentionally, in order to expose the conundrum in which the white colonial settler finds himself; that of being a member of a white literary elite whilst being incapable of representing the voice or culture of a colonized people. Williamson shows awareness of the paradox in his play, and probably avoids any attempt at representing the Samoans directly in order to avoid falling into the trap of misrepresentation. He leaves the Samoans out of his main view, preferring the audience to build on his bare framework, a technique employed by many playwrights. As Goldie goes on to state; “imperialist discourse valorizes the colonized according to its own needs and reflections.” Hence, Williamson avoids the trap but shows that both Mead and Freeman have fallen in to it.

To conclude, “Heretic” does indeed ‘compromise and undermine the identity of the Other’.
But in my view Williamson has done so intentionally, in order to show how the Samoans have been unfairly represented by Mead , and to a lesser extent by Freeman. The Other is nowhere to be seen, highly inconspicuous, silent, but nevertheless present in the form of a pawn in a chess game, to use Goldie’s analogy. The play highlights the dangers inherent in attempting a representation of the indigene by colonizers, and Williamson rightly avoids the attempt. Instead, he shows his two central characters waging a war of ideas on stage, both guilty of denying the Samoans a true voice. Williamson’s depiction of this denial foregrounds the colonizers’ tendency to subvert the Other in order to suit their own purposes. It does not appear to be the playwright’s intent to comment on the indigene’s identity himself, or on the characters’ manipulation of their identity. Williamson positions himself as a neutral observer, for the most part. That Mead has appropriated the identity of the Samoans for her own ends is self-evident. As Goldie notes; “…cultures without writing operate within a different dimension of consciousness. This different dimension…suggests mysticism, in which the indigene becomes a sign of oracular power, either malevolent, in nineteenth century texts, or beneficent, in most contemporary ones”. Mead chooses the latter sign, and consequently her observations of Samoan society, far from being empirical, are biased towards this view. She sees what she wants to see. Although Freeman does not wholly embrace the former view, he views Samoan society as imperfect, much as western society. However, Goldie reminds us, that both these views are constructions, created in part by an imperialist project which is designed to fix the Other as an homogenized entity, a reflection of western power and hegemony. What Williamson has achieved in “Heretic” does not concern the empowerment of the Other by giving him a voice. Rather, he has enabled his characters, by their very subversion of the Other’s identity, to show how in a post-colonial world, consciousness is still encumbered by imperialist colonialist discourse. As such, “Heretic” cannot be said to subvert the canon, on the contrary, it could be said to have now entered the modern Australian literary canon.


(1366 words, not including references)
References

GOLDIE, T. “The Representation of the Indigene” Reprinted in “Post Colonial Writings from India and Australia”, 2001. SIM University.

GUNEW, S, “Denaturalizing Cultural Nationalisms: Multicultural Readings of ‘Australia’”
Reprinted in “Post Colonial Writings from India and Australia”, 2001. SIM University.

SAID, E.W. “Presenting the Colonized: Anthropology’s Interlocutors” Reprinted in “Post Colonial Writings from India and Australia”, 2001. SIM University.

WILLIAMSON, D. “Heretic”, 1996. Penguin Books, Melbourne.

Brian Harding - The Practice of the Presence of God

This is a talk given by a friend of mine, Dr. (Rev) Brian Harding, who first I met in Adyar a few years ago and later in Singapore. He now preaches at the Liberal Catholic Church in Brisbane.

For those interested, the Liberal Catholic Church is not affiliated to the Church of Rome. More can be found at their website.

( C.W. Leadbeater was one of their founding bishops, but I am prepared to overlook that ! )

RETREAT TALKS 2009

THE PRACTICE OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD – 4. A constructive postmodern view
The Rev Dr Brian Harding, St Alban’s LCC, Brisbane

We have looked at the Presence of God in a medieval theology, in Sufism and even in Buddhism. Now I want to introduce you to Process Philosophy. The generally acknowledged founder of this movement was the English mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead. His key books were published in the 1920s.

However, many ideas in Process Philosophy have a long history which can be traced back to pre-Socratic philosophers such as Heraclitus, and the Egyptian sage, Hermes Trismegistus, founder of what became known as the Hermetic Tradition. This thinking, which has been called the Third Tradition, has come down to us through such people as Paracelsus, Bruno, John Dee, and later philosophers such as William James and Henri Bergson. One may even include Alan Watts and David Bohm in the list.

The Third Tradition can be described as organic as opposed to materialist/mechanistic. Whitehead’s writings gave rise to Process Theology, developed by American Charles Hartshorne. (Note, as an aside, that this has something in common with faith traditions such as Buddhism).

So what is Process Philosophy? This is difficult to explain in a few words and, indeed, we don’t need to go into too much academic detail here. Charles Birch, a retired evolutionary biologist from Sydney University, presents a relatively easy summary in his most recent book, Science and Soul (2008), for those who wish to read further.

Birch groups his account of Process Philosophy under two main headings – Pansubjectivism and Panentheism.

Pansubjectivism
This is a big word but the idea behind it is straight forward. Instead of regarding material things such as atoms as the basis for understanding nature, Whitehead looked to living organisms as his starting point.

He reasoned thus: the only entity we know from the inside is ourselves and we know there is more to us than a collection of atoms and molecules. We have an “inside” as well as an “outside.” We “experience.” So Whitehead extended this idea to other “entities” right the way down to quarks – they too have an “inside,” they too “experience.” Note the parallel with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. He also held that all entities have an “inner aspect” as well as an outer one. His work was published in The Phenomenon of Man in 1955.

So Whitehead saw all entities as possessing what he called “mentality.” All entities from humans down to quarks are seen as centres of subjective experience and not simply as objects of experience for others; hence the name “pansubjectivism” or “panexperientialism.” Whitehead believed that mentality existed right from the beginning, from the Big Bang. I am reminded of one of my favourite books – Intelligence Came First, by E Lester Smith. Note, however, that for Whitehead, mentality is not the same as consciousness. He says: “consciousness evolves from a mentality that is not conscious in atoms to one that is conscious in higher organisms.”

This sounds all very academic, but the existence of an “inner life” in all things is more important than you may realize at first. If creation is made up of these “units of experience,” which become “units of consciousness” in higher organisms, what happens as we study more and more complex living forms? What happens when these units of experience combine together and evolve into more complex units?

Whitehead’s answer: “The many become one, and are increased by one.” That is, one plus one makes three. Charles Birch says “The experience of consciousness is not made up of neuronal events added together, one to the other. They are integrated into a single coherent “unit of experience” with its own memory and its own anticipations … The new unity is no mere arrangement of old units. It is a new singular actuality.”

In simple terms, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. If we extend this process of complexification to the ultimate, surely we arrive at Unity, the One, the Ultimate Experience, the Universal Consciousness – which is surely God, remembering what we said last night? In a somewhat similar way, Teilhard saw all things as evolving towards an ultimate Unity which he called the “Omega Point.”


Panentheism
We come now to the next big word – “panentheism.” In contrast to classical theism, which separates God from the world, the theism of process thought is known as panentheism meaning “everything is in God.” God is everywhere and permeates the world (including us) but is not identified with it. God is in creation but is more than creation.

Panentheism is very much an aspect of Liberal Catholicism. Remember the beautiful passage in our Liturgy when the priest makes the sign of the cross with the large wafer over the chalice three times as he says “…by Him were all things made, yea, all things both in heaven and earth; with Him as the indwelling life do all things exist and in Him as the transcendent glory all things live and move and have their being.”

But there is more. We also say, in the beautiful Longer Form, “…thou dost continually uphold all creation, resting not by night or day, working evermore through that most august hierarchy of thy glorious saints…” and again in the next paragraph, we read of “the enduring sacrifice by which the world is nourished and sustained.”

Have we ever really thought what these passages mean? St Paul in his letters repeatedly refers to the followers of Christ as “the saints.” To him, they were not people whom the Catholic Church has decided worked two miracles (or is it three?) but ordinary Christians. So, in his thought, we are “the saints.” So our Liturgy is clearly saying that God continually upholds all creation working through us. We are co-creators with God.

The writer Charles Kingsley said “God makes things that make themselves.” This idea is now known in science as the principle of self-organisation.

Whitehead puts it beautifully: “God is in the world, … creating continually in us and around us. …In so far as man partakes of this creative process, he partakes of the divine, of God … His true destiny as co-creator of the universe is his dignity and his grandeur.”

So we partake of the divine. For Whitehead, Jesus fully reveals the divine in the human. He says: “The centrality of Jesus for Christians is not that he is a God who is to control our lives but that he reveals the divine possibilities of human life. The more fully God is present in human life the more fully we are humans. The divinity that was in Jesus is the same divinity that is in us.”

Is this not precisely the view of all mystics? Remember the exclamations of the “intoxicated” Sufis?

The Presence of God in the world and God’s activity in the world.
In Whitehead’s view, God’s activity in the world is one of persuasion and compassion, as we see in the life of Jesus. “Behold I stand at the door and knock” is the image of God’s relation to human beings. “There is no forced entry, just patient persuading,” says Birch. “We have our own degree of freedom to respond or not respond.”

In every event and happening in life, we are addressed by God’s compassionate love as is the whole of creation. God is the “lure of the world,” says Birch. God’s power is not the power to do anything at all, to manipulate things and people. It is the power of persuasive love working in the world of entities endowed with a degree of self determination. However, for Birch, our “only adequate response to God’s love is infinite passion; with all of one’s heart and mind and strength.”

Here I have to introduce another important process idea. Whitehead says that God has two natures – his primordial nature and his consequent nature. God is unchanging, unmoved, only in His primordial nature – in His love and compassion, His justice, His urging us on always towards the good.

However, in God’s consequent nature, God reacts to the world – He is moved by the world – as it is created moment to moment. In God’s consequent nature, God suffers with the world. God works in us in the struggle for justice and mercy; He also shares our sufferings. “God is the Great Companion – the fellow sufferer who understands,” says Whitehead.

Process theologian John Cobb writes: “What happens is not a moment of private feeling that occurs and is then forever lost. Instead, it is forever a contribution to the divine life. God suffers with us in our suffering and rejoices with us in our joy. When we inflict pain on an animal, we inflict pain forever on God. When we ease the thirst of a neighbour, God’s thirst is forever eased as well.”

Whatever we do, then, is a contribution to the divine life. Should we therefore not do exactly as Brother Lawrence says? We should do everything for the love of God, whether it be a small task or a big one.

Cobb’s words bring to mind the story in Mark 25:34-40:

Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him; ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them; ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’

Process theologians see God as being so intimately involved in the world that no experience is ever lost. This follows from what I said about the addition of units of experience in the evolutionary process – that we arrive eventually at the Ultimate Experience which is God who therefore embraces all experience. Thus, says Birch, “what is of value in all existence is somehow saved as memory forever in the life of God. Our own feelings [experiences] are added to God’s ocean of feeling,” [God’s ocean of experience if you like]. (What comes to mind? - “the dewdrop slides into the shining sea” or “we are God experiencing the world”).

I recall my mother’s favourite hymn, especially the last three lines:

O love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in Thee,
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in Thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

We therefore see that the ideas of Process Philosophy lead us to a realization of the nearness of God, a realization that all we do matters to God, all we do is shared by God. For me, as I said just now, it adds a further dimension to Brother Lawrence’s teaching, that we should do everything for the love of God. We should do it with love so that our love is added to God’s ocean of love. Remembering that we are co-creators with God, then we should endeavour at all times to Practice the Presence of God.

The Acid Trip and a Rant

I was searching through Jed McKenna's book Spiritual Enlightenment : The Damnedest Thing because I remembered a pearl that he quotes from Dr. Stanislav Grof. It is the best short description of the acid experience I have so far encountered. Aldous Huxley managed to convey the same sense of wonder in his Heaven and Hell and Doors of Perception. The experience craves good writers to impart some of the taste of heaven (or hell) that lies at its core. Most old hippies can't get further than "Man, It's amazing, far out". There must be hundreds of thousands of old freaks entering their 60s and 70s now, remembering wistfully their halcyon trips, never really able to communicate them.

A Byronic digression follows now on Jed McKenna. I am now going to throw the book out. McKenna strikes me as just another smug "hey look at me - I'm fully enlightened" heretic who may actually believe he is special. What I suspect, however, is that he wakes in the night feeling guilty. I can't prove it though. His book reeks of American Hollywood sugariness. The egotistical accounts of his heroics in the skydiving arena (what a tough, all-American enlightened being I am ), his ruminating bike rides, his repeated references to the cute little girl who curls up purring in his lap as he dispenses words of wisdom to the Great Un-enlightened ( what a lovable, cuddly, thoroughly enlightened being I am). He's just another fake.

A friend recommended the book. I forgive him.

Acid makes one a cynic for life. Theosophy looks too much like old men and women dissecting dusty old books for grains of truth. C.W. Leadbeater was a charlatan - his treatise on the chemical elements and their alignment with cosmic forces was disproven years ago as being pure gobbledegook, but still the faithful proclaim his brilliance.

I remember my father telling me a story told to him by Clara Codd, a well-known Theosophist who stayed with us when I was a small child. She recounts the cold stares she received from Annie Besant, the great matriarch, when Clara mounted the podium to make a speech after one delivered by Besant. Apparently Besant did not like competition.

Freemasonry, the fraternal society with close links to Theosophy, reeks of mediocrity and degeneration.

Organised religion produces opposition, duality, hatred and war.

There are grains of truth everwhere, jostling for attention, but the answers can only be known for oneself by applying the truths to one's own life. Faith is a shot in the dark, although Catholicism is attractive ( I like the ritual, the mass is mystical - heretical thought !)

Digression over, here's the quote ( down the rubbish chute goes McKenna )


It is an ecstatic state, characterized by the loss of boundaries between the subject and the objective world, with ensuing feelings of unity with other people, nature, the entire Universe, and God. In most instances this experience is contentless and is accompanied by visions of brilliant white or golden light, rainbow spectra or elaborate designs resembling peacock feathers. It can, however, be associaited with archetypal figurative visions of deities or divine personages from various cultural frameworks. LSD subjects give various descriptions of this condition, based on their educational background and intellectual orientation. They speak about cosmic unity, unio mystica, mysterium tremendum, cosmic consciousness, union with God, Atman-Brahman union, Samadhi, satori, moksha, or the harmony of the spheres.

(Stanislav Grof)

2nd brood

The adult pair returned to the nest about one month after the first fledglings had flown, and produced another two or three eggs. These birds left the nest and flew about a month ago. So it seems a pair will produce two sets of offspring in a season. The nest lasted until today, finally dropping off the twig. This miraculous structure lasted four months. Incredible endurance for such a seemingly fragile nest.

Imtiaz Dharker - The Word

This poem was the subject of my first essay on postcolonial poets from India.


The Word

It is pure power,
not in the throat or on the page
but sliding, coiling and uncoiling
in the minds of men
and women, lifting itself to creep
out of their eyes. It slithers
everywhere, over the shoulder, right or left
prepared to heal or wound,
give birth to a whole nest
of hungry thoughts. This way madness,
this may change the world, this
tame a thousand beasts, or make monsters
of a million sheep.

And I the keeper, with my
small signs and codes. How long
will it obey my commands? I,
wary of this thing
hissing in its box. A quivering of hands,
It is waiting to be fed,
let loose, one day,
when its moment comes,
upon a world unready
to be stung from sleep.

(Imtiaz Dharker)

The qustion asked students to apply Spivak's theories as propounded in "Can the Subaltern Speak", which I found very difficult to do. The poem struck me as being one of Dharker's less typical ones in that there were no direct or implied references to women or the subaltern.

My essay is flawed by a lack of sustained postcolonial analysis. The tutor was very generous with her marking.

Essay :

Imtiaz Dharker’s “The Word” is written in a sparse, condensed style which could almost be described as blank verse, apart from the three salient assonances spread over the two stanzas, in “creep’, “sheep” and “sleep”. The form of the poem omits any attempt at introduction and launches itself directly at the reader, demanding reaction. There appear to be two archetypal images work, both religious in origin, which intermingle to produce a powerful metaphor of defiance, almost of menace. If we accept Bakhtin’s premise that texts are dialogic and heteroglossic, there is a dynamic relationship between texts and their receivers. Poststructuralists would argue that the reader brings experience and unique interpretation to static texts, and that readers will respond in an infinite number of ways..

The first image arises from the title, and for the Judeo-Christian reader it will evoke John 1:1 – “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was with God”
( New Testament, King James Version). John’s introduction to his gospel is in turn a paraphrase of the much earlier passage from Genesis, describing the origins of existence. The second image which binds the poem together throughout its full length is the evocation of kundalini, a branch of Hatha yoga which seeks to awaken the dormant serpent of knowledge, where “kundalini” has the dual meanings of serpent and an awakening of unlimited potential which resides in every human being. Kundalini lies curled within the human form, from the lower end of the spinal column upwards to the top of the head. In Dharker’s words, “…sliding, coiling and uncoiling / in the minds of men and women” to be “let loose, one day”.

Dharker uses these two powerful images as metaphors for the condition in which all humans find themselves, that is, ultimately silenced and unconscious of their inner wisdom and power to change. Her poems are noted for their illumination of the crisis of identity experienced by Indian expatriates in the diaspora, and by subalterns in the Indian subcontinent, and especially female subalterns. But “The Word” seems to address a more universal theme of alienation within society which can apply to all people. Dharker takes pains to emphasis this wider sphere, as in “the minds of men or women”, and by the absence of any local or cultural landmarks in the poem.

A postcolonial reading of the poem would identify the concept of the Other, (Lacan, 1968, cited by Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin, 2007, p155) where the writer conjures the image of kundalini as the unconscious “Other” which resides within. Conversely, the “other” is anyone who is apart from oneself, and so the persona represented in the poem is apart from the self of the reader. Thus the poem operates in both senses of the word. But Dharker’s main concerns would seem to be the power of silence and the concept of being aware of this power, and of being able to control potentially unpredictable consequences which could follow the unleashing of this power. She asks the question “How long / will it obey my trivial commands?”, and she has become aware of the forces at work within, which can be “let loose” to bring forth madness, totalitarianism or utopia.

The “otherness” of the inner serpent could also function as a metaphor to describe the latent powers which have been silenced in countless colonized men and women over the centuries, although there is no direct allusion to the underprivileged masses. Dharker is an educated, eloquent writer, an expatriate Indian far removed from the daily realities of the colonized subaltern. That she may include them in the universality of “The Word” could be seen as ironic, for the postcolonial writer is possessed of the tools of self-expression which are denied to the colonized masses she hopes to give voice to. Similarly, Spivak is a self confessed “postcolonial intellectual” (Spivak, IV,1988.) who argues against the subaltern studies groups’ claim to speak for the subaltern masses. She argues that the attempt to speak for the subaltern recreates imperialistic, patriarchal control over the masses and defeats the object. She uses the Sati as a case in point, arguing forcefully that western aversion to the practice of the widow’s self-immolation has superimposed imperialistic values over the issue. According to Spivak, the banning of the practice was a colonial conceit, and utilized the colonizer’s understanding of local customs as primitive and barbaric, without any attempt to grasp the religious or cultural sensibilities involved. It could be argued that Spivak’s test case is an extreme one, but it does nevertheless expose the dichotomy faced by post colonialists; on the one hand the post colonialist writer gives voice to the subaltern, but on the other, the voice is silenced in a fog of patriarchal condescension with which the writer clouds his subject.

In conclusion, I would suggest that to apply Spivak’s argument to “The Word” is not a straightforward exercise. The poem does not appear to be an example of the typically postmodern utterance; that which seeks to give voice to underprivileged subaltern, and which often centres around issues of alienation and subjugation, and in the case of many of Dharker’;s poems, the double colonialization of women. “The Word” touches on more universal themes of human identity and inner potential that apply to all of us.

(876 words)
References

ASHCROFT, B., GRIFFITHS, G., TIFFIN, H. “Post-Colonial Studies, The Key Concepts” Routledge, 2007.

BAKHTIN, M (1981) adapted from “Discourse in the novel” in The Dialogic Imagination, University of Texas Press, 1981.

DHARKER, I. “The Word”, reprinted in “Offprints Collection”, SIM University, 2001.

SPIVAK, G “Can The Subaltern Speak?” reprinted in “Offprints Collection” SIM University,2001.

High Tide - The Joke

"The redeeming factor here
Is very clear
A voice gently spoke.
His crime is hardly one to cause concern
Or hinder the joke.
This joke belongs to everyone
Since the game began.

The defendant begs to say
That since that day
His laughter recedes.
He since has realised the heresy
Involved in his deeds.
To laugh before the given time
Is his only crime."

(Tony Hill)

My obsession with this band continues. I found The Joke on You Tube after it had been running around in my head for nearly forty years.

The song shows why this band disintegrated. The first part of the song is a cacophony of random ideas, odd riffs and unconnected themes, finally resolving into the main part, the lyrics of which are a priceless example of psychedelic irony .

Then follows a typical spine-tingling Tony Hill guitar solo, offset by Simon House's violin interplay.

The song really ends there, but is followed by a folk ditty that would have felt at home on an Incredible String Band album.

The Joke contains ideas for three or four other songs which were never fully developed, just lumped together in a recording session.

It seems that the vast quantities of LSD the band were consuming at the time is reflected in the overall non-coherence of the song as a whole.

A great pity.

The Joke

Bug Key emulator for single paddle keys, design by JA3KAB

Elecraft K2

1.6-30 MHz broadband low noise loop amplifier (for receiving only)