THE SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY
Although
we were now fairly financially comfortable, this did nothing to alleviate my
inner problems, my lack of self confidence and my shyness. I did have one or
two friends with whom I went out, but there was no-one with whom I could share
on anything other than a superficial level. Parties were torture to me and so I avoided them. I would read books purporting to
overcome shyness, without success.
And I had recurring periods of depression, which usually came in the
autumn.
The
huge range of self help books that we have now did not exist in those days, or
certainly not in Brussels. So it
was with great interest that I saw an advertisement in the Brussels Bulletin,
an English language magazine, for the School of Philosophy. Drawing upon the teachings of all the
world philosophies, it claimed that it could help you with your life’s
problems.
I
did not hesitate and in September 1970 I went to my first class at the School
of Philosophy. Along with several
others, I sat waiting expectantly.
The first thing we were told was that we were all sound asleep and that
we needed to wake up. I was
introduced to ideas which were completely new to me, but which immediately
aroused my interest. I felt I had had occasional glimpses of them in some of
the books I had read. These ideas
were based on the teachings of George Ivanovich Gurdieff, an esoteric spiritual
teacher of Armenian Caucasian extraction, who lived in the early part of the twentieth
century.
By
the end of the first term, through an entirely logical process, I was led to
believe in the existence of a Creator.
The Gurdieff teachings were replaced by the teachings of an Indian holy
man, the Shankaracharya of the North, who had left his post in order to devote
himself to teaching the School.
We
were taught about the Hindu concept of the Self, which is not born and never
dies, but is eternal. This divine
Self is in all of us. This idea
was a revelation to me and I believed it implicitly. My whole view of myself began to change.
We
were given exercises on self observation, watching our thoughts whilst carrying
out mundane tasks. I began to
notice how my thoughts were totally negative and how I constantly dug a hole
for myself in the ground. I was my
own worst enemy!
We
were taught to sit still in the class, simply being aware of our bodies on the
chair, aware of the sights and sounds around us, without thought. We were asked to practice this exercise
at home, extending the time to ten minutes, and to see what effect it had on
our day. We were also asked to
pause between activities, even just a few seconds, so as not to carry on the
energy from one activity into the next.
We
were told not to accept anything we heard in the class as the truth, but to
verify it from our own experience.
Another
very interesting Hindu concept was that of the energies, which were called
‘tamas’, ‘rajas’ and ‘sattva’, the forces by which we were governed. In the simplest terms, ‘tamas’ could be
described as inaction, ‘rajas’ as action and ‘sattva’ as the balance between
the two.
‘Tamas’
could range from anything such as sleep, to sloth, inertia and torpor, whilst
‘rajas’ could range from normal activity up to rage, violence and
destruction. ‘Sattva’ was a state
of serenity, of calm and balance.
I saw a beautiful description of it once as riding on the back of a
large bird, seated between the two wings.
Too much ‘tamas’ could lead to ‘rajas’, whilst an excess of ‘rajas’
would induce ‘tamas.’
It
became an interesting exercise to try and observe these states within oneself.
The
classes were held in a private house on the Avenue de la Couronne, a long,
broad, straight avenue which led into the centre of Brussels. It was owned by the head of the School
and his wife, who lived there and took the classes. Mr. Schoup, pronounced scoop!, was a well known Dutch
journalist, and his wife, who came from Scotland, was also a journalist.
These
classes became the highlight of my week and I would speed down the Avenue de la
Couronne as though I were going on a date! At the end of the first term we were asked to volunteer for
a second evening, either to help with preparing and serving coffee in the
break, or preparing the lecture room and sitting in on the class to act as a
secretary.
There
were three forms of service we were told:
service of the Absolute, service for others and service for
ourselves. I was a willing
volunteer and so on a second evening I was able to sit in a class and hear the
teaching all over again.
I
also found a confidante in Mrs Schoup, as we were able to ask for help and have
an individual interview. Thus I
came to see her regularly and would pour out my life story and all my troubles
to her. She would sit very still,
listening, occasionally making a comment. It was very much like a form of
therapy, though I did not realize it.
My
mother was bewildered by this new found interest of mine and somewhat
suspicious. After all, it was not
like a man or a religion, which she might have been able to accept. It was not
something I could share with her or explain, as I knew she would not
understand. This was something
which touched me at a very deep level, at the level of my soul, and which I
found intellectually and emotionally satisfying. I think, subconsciously, my mother saw it as a threat, as
something which might take me away from her.
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