Confluence Lecture by Mr. Lambie

On Saturday August 17th, Mr. Lambie, Global head of The School of Practical Philosophy, visited Toronto and spoke to our students and guests at 29 Madison Ave.

The lecture was recorded and transcribed. Please enjoy the recording below:

Audio file here: Confluence, Podcast Audio File (Run time: 29min 34 sec)

Transcript

Meeting at School of Practical Philosophy, Toronto, Canada on August 17, 2024

I found this piece of calligraphy on the wall upstairs about the river Ganges which I would like to read this to you.  This is a nice place for us to begin, because I’m going to talk about the river Ganges and here she was when we came in.  “If there is a desire for Truth no doubt there will be barriers, but in the course of time they will be overcome.  The desire for Truth is like a river, like the river Ganges.  She starts somewhere with a small beginning facing all sorts of high mountains which hold her up, but she fills up and flows over them, intertwines around them for nearly two hundred miles of high, low and deep mountainous ranges, and she finds her way to the ocean to which she belongs.  These mountains are also there in search of Truth, but have now become established as traditions and cannot move.  Even in their earnestness they’ve become obstacles, like all the traditions of philosophical or religious thought.  They lead to a point and stop.  One need not be lured by high peaks nor sink into deep ravines, but keep going.  One day Truth will be found.  No attraction, howsoever lofty, no obstacle, howsoever deep, could force a spirit to stop if the search for Truth is true.  Spirit will find the Truth one day.”

That’s the statement by Shri Shantananda Saraswati and it’s a good place for us to begin this morning because the idea that I wanted to discuss is that of confluence, which means flowing together.  When I visit the Shankaracharya, it’s at a place called Prayagraj which is close to the confluence of two great rivers, the river Ganges, which we’ve just heard referred to and the river Yamuna, where they come together. Coming together, they then flow together.  This is one of the most sacred spots in India. There is said to be a third river, the Saraswati, which isn’t a physical river. Some people say this is historic – that there was a river once upon a time many, many years ago.  Others say it is metaphorical or allegorical.  Saraswati represents knowledge.  The idea is that these two, or maybe these three rivers come together at a particular point and that is the most sacred spot. And when two rivers come together, they combine their force.  The description given here is of the Ganges starting high up somewhere and having to overcome mountains and ravines until the river finds its destination of the ocean.  To find the destination a certain strength is necessary, it needs to flow.  It’s not helpful just to get stuck, to stop.  The coming together of these forces strengthens that sense of flow. Allegorically, the Ganges represents the way of love. The Yamuna represents the way of action, and the Saraswati represents the way of knowledge.  For all of us we can accept these currents, these forces in life, and accepting them, we can be strengthened by them. We can flow together with them.  For example, Shri Shantananda Saraswati described this very beautifully; he said: “An active person would note the systematic simplicity of knowledge and appreciate the tenderness and beauty of devotion.  This is how craft is turned into art.   Because it is enlivened and enriched by a message and a smile from the Absolute.”   So here the description is given of an active person – competent, energetic, skillful – lets say.  But with the extra element of devotion and the extra element of knowledge, then that competence and skill can be made even finer.  Craft can be turned into art.  It can carry a message and a smile from the Absolute.   

Another description: the heart of someone on the way of knowledge will be cleansed by love and devotion which turns the power of reason into a sharp yet sweet instrument. Sometimes reason can be rather cutting, forceful and maybe even damaging. With the sense of love and devotion, it’s still penetrating but it doesn’t cut, it doesn’t harm in the same way.   So, these are just a couple of descriptions of how when these forces come together, there is something finer.  We are enriched.

About 50 years ago I was initiated into meditation and really at that time I had no idea at all about meditation – what that was or where it came from, or anything at all.  But this was like a new current being introduced into one’s life, not something I would have possibly thought of.  And for 50 years that current has continued to run through life and unhesitatingly, I would say, it has enriched life beyond one’s ability to describe.  So this is an example of how it can be helpful to flow together.  Life will flow one way or another, but in the example, it has flowed with the additional element of meditation. 

The Shankaracharya referred to the pure stream of Advaita and it’s a beautiful thing to flow together with the pure stream of Advaita.  Any individual life, as likely as not, will have elements of purity and perhaps even elements of impurity.  This is the common enough situation.  But if we introduce the pure stream of Advaita, that purifies everything and life can flow in a beautiful way, a way which will find its destination of the ocean if we take the previous analogy.  So individually, we can accept these various confluences.  Things which are really beautiful and fine.  Accepting them, the flow of our lives becomes stronger, more beautiful and more likely to reach the ocean.  

Now, in a similar way, the School itself, is a confluence of forces, Eastern and Western, you could say.  We are here in Toronto, which is in a Western country.  We have as part of our Western culture Plato, Shakespeare, Christianity, and lots and lots of things of this nature.  It’s a rich culture.  Last night I stayed at a hotel, and as you probably know, at a lot of hotels, when you open the bedside drawer, there is a Gideons Bible.  Somebody has so thoughtfully kindly put it there.  And this is just an example of our Western culture.  I read St Luke, and he records Jesus as saying “where the body is there also the vultures will gather”, which is quite a powerful image.  He is saying if we are identified and attached to the body there will be vultures, which will come and pick at the body in due course.  The vultures cannot attend upon Spirit.  They can only attend upon the body.   So there it is, our Western culture in the hotel, right by the bed.  It’s a most rich, full, expansive culture that we have.  Part of the work of the School is to educate people in this because it is not always known.  For example we very much like Shakespeare in the School.  A lot of people now would find Shakespeare extremely difficult, it would be a closed book, or if it is an open book it would only be open a very little bit.  But with a bit of time and attention it is possible for people to read and connect with Shakespeare, and it is such a beautiful thing.   It’s exquisite.  It’s delightful to see somebody connecting with Shakespeare for the first time.  Thus part of the work of the School is to remind people of this, to tell people about the various aspects of our Western culture.  There’s only so much which is possible, but a lot is possible one way or another.  So this is one river, if you like, the Western river.  

Sixty years or so ago, we met for the first time with the Shankaracharya, and another river became available, what I’ll call the Eastern river, the pure stream of Advaita.  With that is the meditation, the knowledge of the Self and so much which goes with that.  Now we’re not an Indian School.  We’re not here dressed in orange robes and saris, and we don’t have Indian names, we’re in Toronto.  But that doesn’t mean to say we can’t accept what is fine and beautiful and true from somewhere else.  A few hundred years ago, about six hundred years ago, the whole Greek philosophy and literature was made available to the West.  This happened in the15th century.  What had happened is that in the Western World, knowledge of Greek literature and philosophy that had been lost and forgotten and hardly anybody spoke Greek.  But in the 15th century an effort was made to bring the Greek culture to the West and so Plato, Plotinus and all these other people like Homer – a whole world became available.  It enriched the Western world enormously.  We had a few days, finishing yesterday, in the country, and we were reading one of the dialogues of Plato, which is a very beautiful piece of literature.  But it contains messages from philosophy which were true two and a half thousand years ago and which are equally true today.  So that was an influence which became available to us. Now in a similar way, the influence which I’ll  call Advaita philosophy, has become available to us.  The real knowledge of the Self.  For example, the Self is described as being Satyam, Truth;  Jnanam, Consciousness;  and Anantam, Infinite, Limitless.   

Now how often do we think of ourselves as limited – ‘I can do this but I can’t do that.’  As often as not the can’t do’s outnumber the can do’s by quite a lot.  So we place limits around the self.  But, the philosophy says, anantam, the Self is without limit.  It becomes most practical knowledge, because we might be faced with some situation which may be challenging or difficult or beyond our usual scope in some way or another but if you remember the Self is limitless in that very moment, at that particular working surface, it’s marvellous because it helps to overcome the limit, and you feel the sense of being limitless.  It may not be, if I can put it this way, completely limitless, but there’s an experience of something of the limitless.  One feels oneself.  This is just an example of the Advaita teaching and how immediate and practical it is for all situations.

So the School accepts this river, this stream of knowledge.  Then of course there are all sorts of other streams as well which are interesting and enjoyable to look at.  In one group we were looking at African proverbs. There’s a very nice African proverb “If you are going to fire the arrow of Truth, first dip it in honey” because the arrow of Truth can be cutting.  It could be hurtful.  The proverb is “dip it in honey first”.  It’s still Truth, but it’s a kind Truth, rather than a vicious Truth, if I can put it that way.  A compassionate Truth rather than a cruel Truth.  Anyway, we had a lot of enjoyment in finding lots of these beautiful African proverbs, all of which contain such a great deal of wisdom.  So, there are many streams which can come and flow together.

The Advaita stream is open.  It’s broad, and it moves towards the ocean.  This is the idea that we have with the School.  If we were in England, and if we were at our School house, in our country house, there would be a door on the left and a door on the right, with me in the middle.  Can you just try and imagine that, and if you were to open the door on the right and go out of it you would see an extensive work of paintings which have been done, all of which illustrate in one form or another the Advaita teaching.  It’s made out of glass and wood and is quite a modern aspect of the house.  So that’s what you would see if you entered through one door.  We are in what’s called the Ballroom.  In our mind’s eye, this is the Ballroom.   And if you were to go out of the left hand door, you would see the Georgian 18th century house, with a lovely big, sweeping staircase going down, a sweeping- a bit like Downton Abbey.  On the wall just ahead is a big stained glass window which consists of lots of different panels.  All those panels depict some story of saints of one kind or another, Christian saints.  Those panels come from the 16th century and somebody put them all together in this beautiful window.  So we’ve got the Vedic door on the right and the Western door on the left, and they come together in this room where we are in our mind’s eye called the Ballroom.  Now this room where we are represents the heart.  In Sanskrit, the chitta, which both leads out to the Vedic and leads out to the Western, but also receives the Vedic and receives the Western.  

In the heart lives the Self – us.  This is the idea.  We are not at Waterperry, but we can imagine it.  I’m having a meeting in October where we will be at Waterperry. It’s a global meeting it’s for everyone in the School, and we’re hoping to show and give the experience which I’ve tried to describe.  It is to illustrate the confluence of these two great Traditions which come together in the heart, the chitta, an open heart. If the heart is closed then they don’t come together so easily.  If the door is shut, it doesn’t happen.   It’s necessary to open the door. The idea is that the Self lives in the heart.  

So this really is what I wanted to talk about, and I was pleased to see this  beautifully done calligraphy, talking about the river Ganges on the wall, and so poetically put: No attraction, howsoever lofty,  no obstacle, howsoever deep, could force a spirit to stop if the search for Truth is true.  Spirit will find the Truth one day.  In the School this is our inspiration.  This is what we’re seeking.  

It’s wonderful to see so many people here.  I mentioned we had an event in the country, and there’s no doubt that when people come together it’s like little rivers merging.  All these rivers come together and they make a big river.  There is an energy and a light which becomes available which individually would be difficult to have access to- not necessarily impossible, but it would be difficult.  The coming together, the physically coming together, is really most valuable, and it continues to be valuable. 

We’re going to have some memories and recollections of Mr. and Mrs. Fox.   I think many of you would have known Mr and Mrs Fox.  Here’s a photograph.  They were an American stream which joined the Canadian stream and both streams were thereby enriched.  He and his wife worked very hard on this building and we are sitting here because of them.  They both passed away a couple of months ago.  They’d be married for 70 years, which is quite something.  I don’t know too many people who have been married for 70 years. And that’s like another confluence.  Two people come together and they marry and they flow together.  Sometimes it doesn’t work out and the flow parts, but they flowed together for 70 years. She passed away, and a couple of weeks later he passed away.  There’s a certain sort of beauty in that.   But it would be good for the work that they did, and many, many others, both seen and unseen, to move forward, to flow towards the ocean. The more people who come together and join together for this, the better.  The desire is to see the School here in Toronto really just flourish.  So that the flow is a healthy one, a strong one.  So the door is always open.  It is very nice to see some old faces and nice to see some new faces. Whichever faces there are, it’s strengthening to flow together.  

Now, ultimately, the Self doesn’t go anywhere.  You can’t say the Self is flowing. Ultimately, the Self is universal.  There isn’t one place from which it can flow and another place where it can find its destination.  This is a manner of speaking.  But as it seems to us, as it is experienced by us, the Individual soul seems to move, it seems to flow.  The culmination of that movement is the realization of the universality.  And in that flow, in that process, the individuals are enriched and we hope also many other people as well are enriched, because anyone moving in this direction, his or her life will have that effect.  It will tend to enrich others around them.  If someone really meditates and puts the teaching into practice, that person becomes a kind of beacon of light which is more obvious perhaps to the people around them than to that person or those people themselves.   But this is what happens, the light of the Self grows stronger and that enriches everyone.  So the hope is that coming together on this occasion will encourage some people to come together again after this occasion. I’m sure that Allison will be very happy to speak to anyone who wishes to do that.  Because a lot of work has been done and it’s a very propitious situation.  People who are like-minded, dedicated, good-hearted and a teaching which is exquisite, so it’s a most propitious situation.  So, confluence, that’s what I wanted to speak about💠