Right. Wrong. We all use those words a lot. But often we don’t really understand what they mean.
Most of us, me certainly included, typically view right and wrong as moral dichotomies. As in, Trump’s immigration policy is right; Trump’s immigration policy is wrong. But actually that sort of black and white attitude is itself wrong, because life usually is composed of shades of gray.
Here’s an example.
I’ve been playing Klondike, a solitaire game, for many years on my iPhone. In 2011 I wrote about the philosophical side of the game: “Klondike solitaire — a fine philosophy of life.” Now I’ve got an update.
I’m pretty skilled at Klondike, given how many times I’ve played it. I have a set of guidelines in my mind for what to do in certain situations. Following those guidelines, I win considerably more often than I lose. Of course, some randomly shuffled games aren’t winnable. But my iPhone’s Klondike app has a Daily Challenge option where the game presented on the screen is definitely winnable.
More often than not, I win those Daily Challenges on the first try. If I don’t, almost always I win on the second or third try by adjusting my usual guidelines to playing the game. As in, faced with two options for playing a card, I usually choose the card on the stack that has the most facedown cards. But if I’ve lost a game, I’ll break that guideline and play a card on a stack with fewer facedown cards.
However, a few days ago I mightily struggled to win a Daily Challenge. I kept trying different approaches to playing the cards that were dealt. When faced with a choice that seemed right, given my well-established guidelines to playing Klondike, I did the opposite, choosing a wrong move.
I must have played a dozen games this way. No success.
I’d jot down notes about which columns in the game were the most likely to have hidden cards that needed to be revealed in order to win. Still no success. The game I’d been dealt was one of the toughest I’d ever played. I almost felt like giving up, it was so frustrating to come close to winning the game, but be stopped by an inability to play any more cards.
Then, last night as I was taking my habitual hot bath after writing a blog post, I picked up my iPhone and gave the Daily Challenge game another try. This time I vowed to go all-in on playing the game wrong. Meaning, almost every time I played a card, I’d ignore my usual approach to Klondike and do the opposite of what felt right.
That worked. When I won the game, I felt amazingly happy. Partly because I’d figured out that Daily Challenge. But also because it seemed that something philosophically important had been revealed to me through this solitaire game.
Sometimes it’s necessary to do everything wrong in order to get something right.
It’s easy to fall into habits that work for us. Usually this makes sense. As we experience successes and failures in some aspect of life, we naturally become inclined to repeat what led to success and shy away from what led to failure. This is how we become more skilled at whatever we’re doing. However, a problem arises when we face a situation that doesn’t match our previous experience.
Then our usual way of doing things can become a hindrance rather than a help. It may be necessary to head off in what used to seem like a wrong direction, because changing circumstances have flipped the script on right and wrong.
For thirty-five years I meditated in a certain way taught by the Eastern religious organization, Radha Soami Satsang Beas, I was a member of. I also followed certain practices that RSSB said were necessary to be spiritual, such as not using alcohol or recreational drugs. Eventually, though, I arrived at the same place as my inability to win the solitaire Daily Challenge.
What had worked for me before, wasn’t working now. I felt dissatisfied and inauthentic. I was playing my familiar religious game, but I’d lost interest in it. The “moves” I”d engaged in for three and a half decades — daily meditation, going to RSSB meetings, listening to recordings of my guru’s talks, doing volunteer work for RSSB– all that left me feeling dry and listless.
But once I broke out of that rut and started acting differently in my spiritual life, I felt much better. By breaking rules I’d followed for many years, I opened myself up to a more satisfying form of spirituality. Less dogmatic. More natural. Unlike my Klondike experience, I didn’t have to do everything wrong. I’m still a vegetarian, for example, and I rarely drink alcohol.
I just had to loosen up on some rigid rules that I’d followed for many years, because they no longer were serving me well. Which is pretty damn close to what winning the solitaire game last night taught me.
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I doubt if it is a matter of “right and wrong”… “loosing up” of that attitude to “stick to the the rules” is closer to what is at stake here .. I guess.
Have a look for a couple of days at the faces people around you have while performing this or that daily routine ..at work and at home.
Do you see a soft smile of contentment on their faces, or a little grim expression of grudge?!
If you see most of the time the last, what I think you will see, ask yourself ..WHY
Why, for heavens sake would the young lady in the supermarket look at you with such an face and yet use polite words, trained to do so like a robot?!
WHY … why are all these people have these grim, unsatisfied faces, day in day out, from the morning to the evening …. while having everything the need to live .. shelter, food, safety and all the modern extra’s as cars, media, the internet etc etc.
WHY?
Why, do Satsangi”s most of the time are not an exception after being told at the time of initiation that their karma that binds them to this world is taken care of?
Why?
Why is the practice reduced to scrupulous analizing any food they eat on “forbidden” items? Why, do they go on looking at them self as “sinners before god” and go through life with grinding teeth
This goes on endlessly.
And the answer is simple …because what they DO is what |OTHERS have asked them to do, …reason why everything the do, think of and feel is related to doing ….. GOOD AND BAD, …. WRONG and RIGHT and the OTHER being the “task-master”
That is how it was from the beginning, starting at home, later school and a professional career.
So most people would stop doing what they are doing if there was not something at stake that they needed .. money, attention, graduation etc etc.
Now back to Sant mat and its CORE practice .. meditation ..being divided in simran and Bhajan. For a moment ponder about why there has always been little talk about Bhajan and mostly about simran. Simran being the training for the real thing. Getting into position and condition … listening to sound, if there is sound, pleasureful sound comes natural without effort ..it is going with the flow
If simran is done the same way generaly people do tasks at home an at work, it creates the opposite state of mind, simran was developed to create in the first place … peace of mind.
So …the late MCS would again and again encourage his audience to do simran … not just simran …not just as the house hold chores at home and the tasks at work …but he said always do it with love and devotion
People have to take any chore or task out of the hands of others and own it as done for their own good. Only then and then alone it will work its effect.
To understand this fully ..just read the biographies of those that mastered the game, they all WON because they gave from themselves without grudge …or as the french say they stopped acting…. “contre coeur” …
CONTRE COEUR = AGAINST YOUR OWN HEART
and do the same thing WITH heart or love and devotion.
And if you do not have it, just drink coffee and look outside the window AND wonder about the trees and and crows.
Let go of that Calvinistic state of mind, that lays at the root of WESTERN culture on which the society is built.
Having gone this far let me add this much …. paying attention to whatever the Guru or anybody else does or does not, is just an distraction of walking ones own path
And …
Those that found that key, will have discoverer that they could expand that attitude of mind to everything they do in life …. and that is exactly what a zen monastery has to offer ….. IF You do a thing to it with heart, no matter what you do
“How to Cook your life”
From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment
Zen Master Dogen and Kosho Uchiyama Roshi
Shambala, Boulder, 2005
Do not walk any practical path the way you do things at home and/or at work …I f you cannot …stay at home and at work and do not set a step on any path, and enjoy the things that are offered at home and at work.
At Um
Can u explain what u mean by Calvinism?
If you grasp the meaning of what I wrote you will know what I meant by Calvinistic.
Thanks. How to cook your life is a great.
In our daily lives, if we live fully aware of the
most fundamental reality, which is that our lives are
everything we encounter, that everything which befalls us
is our true Self, then it has to become obvious that,
practically speaking, gaining is delusion and losing is
enlightenment.
From how to cook your life.
@Alex
wrt “Calvinistic” and cooking one’s own life.
There is that funny Zen story of the young lad that was asked to perform a simple task, keeping the veranda snow free’, and was hit with a stick by the Roshi in function, while doing his job and a gain after he quit his job. Demanding an nexplanation why he was hit doing his job and also not doing it, the Roshi said that he had to do his job.
As I understand this funny story, is that it doesn’t matter THAT one does a job, whatever job that might be, but HOW it is done ..the inner attitude.
So a cook that loves his job, does the job well but doing everything well in the kitchen might make a person a good “calvinist”but not necessary a “Good cook”>
That attitude of mind is addressed very well in the books of HON. Kodo Sawaki and his successor Kosho Uchiyama, describing live in general and in particular their monastery .. antaiji ….
Writing this makes me remember something the late MCS used to address often .. never to fight the negative, kaal, or [Calvinistic] sins in whatever form it presents itself as unpleasant, unwelcome etc etc. in once life and the many examples he used to make his point like:
There is no way to get ink out of the water but one can clean the water by adding ever more c;lean water.
Lust in any form is like a natural fire, let it burn and don’t throw oil on it ..it might easily burn you. ..BUT … certainly do not throw water on it as you will have to inhale poisonous fumes.
And remembering the answer of my father on in seeking why a part of the monks of our school had those grim faces all the time . He explained that it was due to the vow of celibacy .. if a human does not understand the background of it and it has become just a rule to be lived by [Calvin| it becomes a a millstone around one’s neck.
Rules and regulations are there for the “pleasure” in order to make life more easy. Humans di not live for the sake of these rules.
The rules of Sant Mat are there to help to walk the path otherwise they are meaning less. As far as I am concerned there is no God that is interested whether anybody lives by any rule or not .. he doesn’t care at all .. he doesn’t need anything or anybody and certainly no worship .. but an heart filled with devotion does help and if it is not there, it is just not there and there is nothing one can do about it …hahaha …I know by long personal experience what that means and had to let go whatever ambition I thought to have had …..hahaha .. and I am “lucky” that I do not need anything or anybody to blame for it …not even “perfect gurus”
Thanks Um. That was helpful.
I can’t wait until we have a new living spiritual master .
Since it’s been proven to my satisfaction that perfect Masters can reincarnate perfectly. I’m still going to wait for Jesus to return. Nobody recognized him while he was alive last time. Very few. So if you need an official announcement from the church don’t hold your breath.
@ Ronald
Hahaha ..your words remind of an incident with a very orthodox Christian {reformed protestant} couple. The made the “mistake” to ask me about my affiliation with Christianity etc.
For I moment I just did not know what to say, How could I possible explain my experiences with eastern spirituality, leaving my RK Christian history behind, knowing quite well how in these circles religion is perceived.
So instead of talking about reincarnation, karma, guru’s and in paricular inner experiences and regions etc I in vited her to put what they knew about the live of Christ, in the here and know.
I told them that in those days the people in Jerusalem were all believers in this or that stream of Judaism, and that there were in those days people like themselves.
Then I suggeste to imagine, that this coming Sunday, during their service under the guidance of their pastor, a young men would come in dressed in a modern office suit and in his hand an laptop bag walking up to the pastor and talking to him in the way had talked in his days to the Rabbi in the temple.
Upon witch I asked them .. Now tell me how would you and the congregation in your church react??? Do yo think he would be received as the expected Messiah?
For a moment I thought to see her blood disappearing from her face and turning pale as a bed sheet and than she said ..softly No, of course not.
And then I did something I should not have done …asking here and where would be after he was arrested for blasphemy and shown to the masses? would you have been there too on the market shouting what brought his death over him??
Why this story .. well nothing has changed and a knew saviour would have to face the same future by the religious authority of these days.
By the same token very few would have cared or ever known who Mr Jasdeep Gill is or was before the reborn Jew Gurinder put in his two cents. You’d think someone would just know without having to be told. The ignorance of the masses. And of the mass.
Everybody knows only what has been told to him or her and what they ingested as milk from their mother. …and even those that have experiences of their own have to digest them with the tools that their culture has handed them .
If anybody wants another person heeds his or her words, he has to speak the language of the listener.
Even animals get to understand what is safe and what not, what nutritious and what not from their herd and parents.
I remember the late MCS sometimes saying that there are many unknown, saints, mystics etc in every society around the world ..they just go unnoticed, unrecognized.
Tsar Peter learned the craft of schips building in the Netherlands, nobody knew he was the Tsar .. how could they and in ressia all kew because they were told he was.
At least MCS saw himself as the servant of all but GSD sees himself as the Big Cheese. Unfit to be anyone’s servant.
It is all a matter of charisma …. many musicians are followed by a herd of fans, …does the way they, these fans, adore their idol, make the arist into a deserving one|??
One can focus on the action of OTHERS as the cause, source, justification of one’s RE-action. ..but on closer inspection the real source is to be found in a person.
Nobody is forced to buy a book, and have an opinion on the book the writer and the other readers etc.
In the 10 commandments it says honor your parents, it does not say , those that are seen by their offspring as good or as bad … and .. that is not said to justify the behavior of the parents but is in the [psychological] interests of the off spring.
Replace “parents” by [worldly and spititual] institutions, authorities etc
Since 1968 and the birth of the anti-authority-movement , humans are no longer seen as just wearing the mantle of their role, ..
They the protesters, took away the mantle of the role and what remains is a human like themselves ..
And than the next step is easy ..who the hell he thinks he is ..
So no we have endless talkshows, and other podia where people, often without any knowledge of affairs and certainly not bearing any responsibility, discuss the behavior of those in function.
People that cannot read even the simple scientific paper, have not qualified in a particular field themselves, ans jet express themselves as if the were the all knowing goid themselves ..demanding from those in function that they account themselves professionally before them.
I can like a guru or not but not being at their level I would not know who qualifies as such or not let alone in a PERFECT way,…so I just stick to my thoughts and feelings for making decisions.
@ Alex
For the final touch …
Recently I came to know about the life story of Mrs. K. Armstrong, known for her publications on anything religious.
After 7 years in a monastery, living as a nun, she had to leave again because she had found out that she was not only fit for such a life in the long run and that she was never interested in the divine in the first place.
I found many other similarities in her biography with regard of my own interaction with religion in general and eastern religion in particular.
She shifts the focus from the search for God, from God to the seeker and her motivations and in doing so she entered the domain of personal psychology.
Strange enough, I did find, in retrospect, also in the way the late MCS answered questions on sant mat …these answers were almost all related to what the divine means for a person, what he does with it and how and why he became interested and seldom did het speak of abstract religious or spiritual issues and if he did it was done in a psychological sense.
There and then I came much to understand about psychology of how humans handle the divine, which still serves me to this very day and for which I am really thankful having had that occasion .. hahaha …. if that matters at all
There I learned that If you want to walk a practical path it has to serve you, it has to feel good, and with whatever shortcomings one has, in terms of dedication, talent, circumstance, one must be able to continue with heart felt willingness.
He was a living example of a human being that lived that way, walked a path that was not of his personal choice, with heartfelt dedication .. in that human sense he could be labeled as a master in arts.
Hahaha and …”I” … I am made of other wood so ended up in the way what Mrs Armstrong had to do ..make up her mind and leave everything behind and that is what I did …but .. that has not been simple and much coffee had to be swallowed … hahahaha
That said .. I do agree with Mrs Armstrong, there is nothing wrong at all with people find their live purpose in a monastery or in my case in any [eastern] spiritual practice, even in the light of the many shortcomings in the organisation, the staf and others following that path.
People do stap upon a path for their own psychological reasons, if it turns against them, they are well advised not to see excuses outside themselves but just own your own responsibility for what you do and step back
>> Sometimes it’s necessary to do everything wrong in order to get something right <<
Yes in retrospect it was wrong to step in a religious / spiritual path but that was necessary for me to realise that I was not fit for it nor could it solve what unconsciously motivated me to step on it.
An yes, it did not leave me empty handed, I am daily enjoying the fruits of it.
Gurinder the current guru told me directly 2 weeks ago that I’ll get nothing and he will give me nothing. lol.
@ Alex
And that is correct .. the man you saw in the eyes has nothing to give .. the real giver is “another” master the Shabd .. ACCORDING the teachings and in answering in that way he proves to look upon you as a mature human being and “helps”you to walk on your own feed ..do forgive me if this answer goes against the grain
@ Alex
You see there is Sant Mat of the teachers of thi lineage and a sant mat of its consumers of these teachings.
What Hon. Gurinder told you is just of what his uncle tried to convet when he during Q&A sessions now and then would grab his own legs and at the same time addressing us his western audience sitting in front of him … LOOK ….THIS is ..NOT the master and pointing at us and YOU are not the soul.
I would I could describe the intonation of his voice as it contains most of the information