Tag Archives: form

September 16, 2022 · 6:49 pm

… dear old, dear new, how do we marry you …

I watched some of the pageant ceremonies, processions of dignitaries, colourful guards and regiments under hundreds of flags, and I watched the new King’s formal appointments in the wake of his mother’s death. I watched in wonder at the order and precision with which the various events were executed, with drums and trumpets, every footstep synchronized, left, right, left, right … all in the presence of thousands of people lining the streets, or witnessed through the BBC coverage by innumerable viewers around the world. The deep gratitude people express for Queen Elizabeth the second is not surprising considering the innumerable people and organisations she engaged with and visibly supported from her anointed position, but as the display continues, day by day, the commemorations edge on the surreal.

Any momentous public outpouring of grief tends to compound our experiences of personal bereavements, and, of course, reminds us of our mortality. This event, however, is about more than the loss of a beloved Queen who used her privilege and symbolic power through seven decades to serve as best as she could. Her loss rocks the solid traditional constitution she represented. While the centuries’ old tradition of this monarchy sits uncomfortable within modern society, it is nostalgically clung to and treasured.

The queues of people eager to pay tribute to the Queen’s lying in state in Westminster Hall have been, and continue to be many miles long, presently with a wait of 24 hour during a chilly night. All recorded: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-629217 And there’s a queue tracker on You Tube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJxDwDzAwEs

Within the crazy weaving of my mind I was searching for a thread to make sense of the unfolding pattern of unavoidable changes that loom to endanger the old order, which always calls for transitional objects that sooth the loss and helps to honour both the familiar old and the unknown new potential of the future. What can serve here as a transitional object, something to hug for comfort, equivalent to a Linus blanket?

I was reminded of a theme my former Sufi friend and teacher, *Fazal Inayat- Khan*, often explored. In the prologue to a book, *Old Thinking, New Thinking*, containing a handful of his lectures he reluctantly agreed to have published during the 1970’s, long out of print, Fazal gave credit to both, the old ways (formal and reliable) and the new ways that seek essence.

**‘Old thinking is a claim and new thinking is an aim.’**

Could there be an equal validation of form and essence for the UK monarchy?

When my mind floats in a vague space, I tend to express my ambivalent thoughts through Haiku:

a pendulum swings
left right ahead back
circling by the gravity
of hidden forces

dryness is conservative
until it overheats
moisture conducts the traffic
of novel ideas
until rain floods the bedrock

Kings or Queens were historically regarded as divinities. The afterglow of such divine aura still glimmers around the mantle of monarchies in our world, and a yearning for the divine remains, with the need for an ideal, something whole to give meaning to our lives. But can a monarchy still serve as such an ideal?

**Ultimately, the Kingdom to come is of course the Kingdom within, where archetypal qualities can spark a force that steers and rules our destiny.**

As familiar faces of relatives and friends leave an imprint in our psyche, so do faces of people in public life. The media showers us with faces of celebrities, providing icons and avatars that embody qualities we aspire to, or despise.

Dissidents against England’s monarchy highlight the extravagant financial privileges of royalty, and the historic trail of devastating exploitation during its colonial past. Apologies and reparations must surely be ongoing. And then there is the Commonwealth, which some proclaim to be a post-colonial club: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43715079

I’m a dreamer, without allegiance to a crown or state. I’m wary of crowds and any hive mind, totally unsuited to get embroiled in arguments about the monarchy. My gripes are with the unpleasant character assassinations of individuals, found on popular internet platforms.

**Character assassination resembles kleptomania, an irresistible urge to steal someone’s glamour.**

What further is there to be said right now? Do my readers here envisage a Kingdom within?

Filed under Blog

Tagged as archetypes, ceremonies, character assassination, colonies, commonwealth, constitution, divine glimmer, essence, Fazal Inayat-Khan, form, glamour, gratitude, grief, haiku, ideal, Kingdom within, loss, monarchy, new, old, order, pageant, rituals, the Queen, theft, tradition, transitional object, UK

August 18, 2019 · 6:31 pm

… old thinking, new thinking …

We mostly think through conventional forms and givens, for practical reasons, while another way of thinking embraces invisible and unknown dynamics via intuition – like the seeming particle/wave paradox in quantum mechanics, where a local particle also exists as a non-local wave. The two perceptions can potentially mingle creatively, but, notably in times of social uncertainty, they clash, and fewer people maintain the ability to tolerate negative capability.

The way autocratic opinions over divisive issues are sensationalised by some tabloids, sends my thoughts flitting through the mutable and nuanced zones of shadow lands. I write the glut of absurdities off my chest, only to delete the drafts, not having the talent or guts for the iconoclastic fun Marina Hyde pours into her articles for the Guardian.

The tit for tat race of opposing interest groups that blame, attack and counter attack each other eludes any balanced comprehension of events. Opportunists, generously funded, like to whip up the chaos for their own benefit. Fertile ground for tyrants. This will go on until the churning oceans calm and offer deeper reflections.

My early education was unremarkable, but I fondly recall a few teachers who made space for ambivalence, encouraging us to question everything and value respectful, if inconclusive, debates. Glib opinions and self-righteousness were mocked and laughed at.

In the early seventies, doing a short apprenticeship with a small Dutch advertising firm in London, we had weekly meetings, where ideas, no matter how crazy, were explored. Every person working in the building was asked to the table, including caterers and cleaners. This inspirational seedbed sparked successful projects and maintained a motivated team.

Decades later, during a part time stretch at Social Services, policy makers introduced a new computer programme for tick-box client assessments, a software developed without involving the people who were meant to use it – us. Sparing you the specifics of this nonsensical scheme, the nightmare in its wake resulted in multiple nervous breakdowns by employees. Since I had a private psychotherapy practice I escaped the hell and resigned.

A relentless trend towards greater efficiency continued despite loud social backlash. Over and over I listened to the stories of my stressed clients suffering from the overbearing changes in public institutions and private companies. The forced procedures insulted the intelligence of workers, who felt the stupidity and pain of it all in their guts, as did I. The harmful effect on mental health, family life, education, small traders and community venues … is ongoing.

Recently I re-read a 1970s lecture by my Sufi teacher, Fazal Inayat Khan – Old Thinking, New Thinking – also used as title of a small collection of his controversial talks, published in 1979 by Harper & Row. Some of Fazal’s students insisted on this publication. He reluctantly agreed. I’ll share here a few notions that struck me form the lecture, Old Thinking, New Thinking:

The end of real is false, while the greatest false is real.

The real is about form, the false (non-evidenced) is about essence. Fazal addressed two qualitative different ways of thinking, both beneficial if used in the right time and context. Those supporting form and tradition set out to protect stability, whereas those who seek essence knock over the stable towards the freedom of the unknown. Imaginative people, including scientists and artists, tend to overshoot crumbling realities.

The sad logic of power driven politicians is to manipulate social anxieties by promising simple fixes to allay feelings of uncertainty. In such times people tends to grope towards old thinking, to what can be predicted and depended upon, thus moving away from the immeasurable independence of anything beyond facts.

Old thinking relies on valid knowledge; however, to apply this knowledge intelligently requires new thinking, so essence can find expression once more.

Old thinking will bring achievement, notwithstanding that without new thinking it will have achieved nothing. Traditions wedded to established forms exemplify old thinking. Yet for a tradition to remain sincere and dynamic new thinking is required.

In other words, only what changes stays functional. Much as we dislike it, life could not continue if it were not for the transient growth and death phases of nature. The same applies to cycles that call for the expansion of consciousness.

How is one to value both form and essence in complex times and stay sane? No way around it, we must suffer the anguish of holding the tension between static knowledge and intuition in our hearts. Not easy. Perhaps because I experienced the 1960s new thinking surge, any leaps of goodwill from young people still brings tears to my eyes. I’m interested in everything. I’m interested in bridging divides. I even occasionally delight being in the spirit zone, with the effortless flow of things. (A Zen concept)

Deep, maybe very deep down, every one of us knows the bliss of being in the zone.

… Old thinking is a sorting process – new thinking is a melting process …

… Old thinking is a claim – new thinking is an aim … Fazal Inayat Khan

20 Comments

Filed under Blog

Tagged as ambivalence, art, autocracy, bliss, change, clashing opinions, consciousness, creativity, dynamic balance, essence, Fazal Inayat-Khan, form, Guardian, imagination, in-between, insecurity, inspiration, Marina Hyde, negative capability, new thinking, old thinking, particle, politics, psyche, quantum paradox, questioning, science, sincerity, spirit, the flow, tyrants, water, wave, young people, Zen

September 23, 2017 · 3:26 pm

… rose is a rose is a rose …

The rose-phrase is the enduring refrain of Gertrude Stein. In her surreal 1939 children book, ‘The World is Round,’ for example, rows of three words appear throughout. A girl called Rose carves her name round a tree in an endless loop to affirm her existence .

Rose is a rose is a rose – rolls from the tongue much like the prayer beads of a rosary roll through nimble fingers.

You want to stay with the rose, let it take root in your psyche, and from there let roses after roses grow.

By comparison – BrexitisBrexitisBrexit – sounds like the rusty hinges of a rotten door, or the croaking of a parrot with a sore throat. I try to resist the word’s grating in my skull, but it’s difficult to avoid its ugly edges from day to day, in bizarre discord with the rousing refrain of Britannia rules the waves.

There’s repetition and repetition. Applied with intention in literature, music, dance and the visual arts, repetition can strip the familiar to its essence. The arts, at best, alert us to nature’s spellbinding repetitive rhythms. Shield your ears and hear the blood-river rushing through your veins – touch your wrist and sense your heart pump the river round and round. Spirit is seduced into this trance-dance, or it would never get trapped in forms. Repetitive behaviour settles us into mollifying routines and gives us a sense of stability, as well as addictive habits. Beneficial as they can be, customary routines also have a tendency to dumb us down.

In this time of rapid changes, words and images topple over each other’s associations. Type ‘apple’ into a search engine and up pop pages listing Apple Inc., the multinational technology company that has seized the apple, bitten off a chunk of knowledge, like Eve, and deployed it as a metaphor for its corporation – brilliant, and disconcerting. It had trouble finding a title for my novel, where ‘mirror’ was not already owned as a label by tabloids or rock bands.

Most young folk today move along the electric cultural highway in fast gear. Facebook’s Zuckerberg famously said ‘Move fast and break things.’ Maybe he’s a speed-hatched modern-day mystic. I’m reminded of Hazrat Inayat Khan’s profound quote regarding the journey of life – ‘The ideal the means, its breaking is the goal.’

I suffer a long view. My first experience of TV was Queen Elisabeth’s coronation. What unnerves me is the speed of spear-heading elites, leaving ordinary people no breath to digest events, especially as history and the arts are being replaced by computer science in education. With automation the rage, the journey happens in a blur, as do thinking processes. Keywords have become mechanical codes, and shareholders bow to the omnipotent algorithms’ patterns of, let’s say, how existential fears relate to consumer behaviour. We hardly notice our choices being manipulated. How to catch snap assumptions that keep consciousness caged, or one’s imagination buried under debris of glib answers? With traditions and ideologies on trial, how to develop a filter of authenticity to stem the flood of information? Reflective minds are turning cynical. I have that tendency. Doubt is the new lodestar.

Like never before, we perceive phenomena through multiple eyes, tap into the states of other beings – their joy, their ignorance and excess, their poverty, suffering and distress. We may blank out what upsets, but can’t escape the increasing experience of contradiction, the very function of reality. Greater awareness deeply conflicts us, as much as it inspires creativity. There’s hope. Seeing does not require physical eyes. Collective consciousness will expand, be it through chaos. The least we can do is to still our own mind, which is why I return to the rose.

The genus Rosa, according to fossil evidence, is 35 million years old and begun to be cultivated circa 5000 years ago. Due to its tessellated structure, dome-like shape and its delightful perfume, the rose has become a symbol of the heart, of wholeness, love, beauty and perfection the world over, frequently with mystical connotation, and often highly stylised, as in Islamic art.

When held, thought or spoken of, the rose lingers on and generates a mood. It may appear in different stages of opening or beautiful decay, in a particular colour, light. The name alone conjures up memories of scents, places, relationships, delight or melancholy. What ‘rose’ evokes derives from a time-wrought cypher that evokes all roses that were, are and will be. Rose is a rose is a rose – depicts a rose, no more, and yet, it kindles all the experiences and ideas humans formed around roses.

While fear of loss and abandonment engenders life, it also draws us towards the mystery of infinite consciousness, the one being with countless names. Various practices, derived from spiritual traditions, can calm a turbulent mind enough for a glimpse of harmony beyond divisions. For a while, at least, we sense the larger presence, the effortless zone, the flow – and given patience, come to realise that consciousness is what we are.

I invite you again to This guided rose journey I shared here three years ago, requires only your imagination.

It is a short imagery, easy to memorise. Enter with eyes closed, and it may work for you as a bridge to the recurring presence of rose – a reminder of continuous becoming and expanding consciousness.