Thinking

I've just started a Goethian Thinking workshop. A thinking workshop, what could be better? (apart from a thinking workshop followed by a good meal and a dance).

Thoughts - lovely juicy living pulsating thoughts, crystallising, dissolving, reforming - challenges, inspiration, renewal.

Sanskrit has words for many things which we haven't thought to name, and the word samyojana which means 'to crystallise', and speaks of knots and blocks of pain anger and frustration which can set up permanent residence in us, comes to mind. Perhaps the same word can be applied to rigid thoughts. Hildegard of Bingen (my heroine, on the left, self portrait) spoke of veriditas - 'greening'. She wrote: 'the world is all verdant greening, all creativity' that 'greening love hastens to the aid of all', an antidote to a dryness which causes our 'souls to waste away'.

'I am the breeze that nurtures all things green

I encourage blossoms to flourish with ripening fruits

I am the rain coming from the dew

that causes the grasses to laugh

with the joy of life.'

Senhor H and the Jehova's Witnesses have written short stories in our lives, and they will continue their own stories with their own people. Senhor H and the JW's are sincerely and undoubtedly on a spiritual path, and they believe, they know they are right, and yet they are painful to live with! They have something, they have something that is right...and yet...something...not. We could dismiss them as mad. We could dismiss all spirituality as nonsense. What can J-C and I learn?

The JWs, with their index fingers pointing at what is true in the Bible. Above them, another finger points down what is right way to interpret the Bible, as dictated by their belief system, enthusiastically applied by their leaders. No worries about interpreting the Bible. Not much room for maneouvre on the thought front. In the case of one JW, not much place for heart and hara - what drives him to spiritual cold-calling? The other more intriguing, heart, humour were present, warmth, but once reaching the head the thoughts were firm - firmly closed to me. They seem to seek and see only what is in their original belief system, as it is taught. As do so many of us. As could J-C and I.

Senhor H, extraordinary man! Powerful will, the guts to carry it out, the metabolic renewal be young and strong, the heart open to the pain of injustice, driven to help the world, the consciousness open to the spiritual world...and yet. J-C, having read very carefully Senhor H's World Improvement literatures, believes that Senhor H needs to develop his thinking - his intellect if you like, but in the most living pulsating sense! As the thinking is stunted and rigid, everything backs up there. His analysis of the problem is good, but his political solutions are ill-formed and ugly, useless to the world. He lives with this frustration. Everything he does comes from God he says, but when I question him on whose idea is it to make the political changes he suggests, he says 'mine', and his writings on the subject pre-date his spiritual transformation. I can only imagine the frustrations of his spiritual team - or perhaps not, perhaps it is his mission to bash at the gates of political injustice, with meaningful message for politicians' wives. I doubt he would see it that way.

Senhor H and the JWs, proclaim that they are inspired by God. If there are, this does not mean that we have to believe all they say and follow. We do not have to cry out hysterically, 'A miracle, a saint, our saviour' just by the fact they have contact or an experience of the spiritual world. I have always been very impressed by people who have spiritual evidence, as I was brought up an atheist, and the merest hint of something not material was for me a miracle. I have come up against this challenge over and over again in my life, people who call themselves people of God, and yet are painful to live with...having something...but yet not.... At last, at last, I can report, insight begins to dawn!

For JC and me, Senhor H and the JWs are loud and clear reminders that this is the time of Humankind's independence, and it is vital that free, living thinking be developed! I do not confuse this with current scientific thinking or intellectual thought. But I do not dismiss scientific thinking or intellectual thought either, it is an essential starting point for a noble purpose. We cannot be thoughtless channels of the spirit any more, we cannot be rigid thinkers in the face of the adversity of our time, determed to hold true to our right beliefs. Now, we must continually set ourselves right! An act of will, heart and mind.

Edward DeBono has it - revolutionary thought! He illustrates that what was right may not continue to be - what was right for one people at one time and at one stage of their development need not become crystallised as Right for all time, nor damned as Wrong for all time for that matter. It's all so freeing!

Now I have to confess that as an 'oooh aaah isn't it lovely' sort of heart and feeling person (applicable to both inner and outer experience) the thinking thing comes as a bit of a shock. Do we really have to clarify and quantify the obvious? What is the point? It all seems rather dry. The possibility that purity of thought, and universally true thought at that, could be The Path is rather daunting. And for J-C who thinks everything out with extreme clarity and doesn't know if he has that 'oohaah' thing until much later, if at all, would rather like experience reinforcements. But I do think and he does feel and we are working on it.