Spirituality and Human Development

I listened to an interesting interview with Eckhart Tolle on the "The John Murray" show yesterday. Though I was indeed already aware of Eckhart Tolle as one covering similar ground to Chopra - and who is now arguably more successful and influential - I had never actually heard him speak. On the merit side he came across as genuine and sincere probably helped by his Germanic accent lending an appropropriate touch of gravity to his words. He spoke about his "conversion" experience at 29 which undoubtedly deeply shaped the rest of his life. I agree fully with the central basis of his teaching which is the spiritual realisation that only the present moment truly exists. So the secret of deep happiness and fulfilment is to simply learn to live in the continual now of the present moment. I would also agree that the ego in practice is the big obstacle to such realisation with both thought and sense predisposing us to make absolutes of phenomena (which in truth are of a mer...

I was watching Gay Byrne's series on the "Meaning of Life" last Sunday with his guest Deepak Chopra which certainly made for an engaging half hour. Chopra is clearly a very gifted individual with well honed communication skills. Also hearing his account of his privileged early background in India was very interesting providing a fascinating intersection as between both Eastern and Western perspectives. He has of course been very successful in bringing the spiritual mystical worldview to bear both on popular medicine and modern living. Indeed I remember when reading his "Quantum Healing" some 20 years ago readily resonating with his accounts of how mind and body form an indivisible unity with illnesses of all kinds potentially ameliorated through an appropriate spiritual outlook. However I still have certain reservations regarding Chopra whose greatest talent seems to be his ability to market himself with amazing commercial success. He has that capacity - i...

It is strange! Only recently I have been contemplating the prospect of retirement from my lecturing job (perhaps leaving a couple of years early). Then paradoxically having adjusted to that prospect I have begun to actually enjoy - perhaps for the first time - what I have been trying to do all these years. No doubt some of this is due to the characteristic release of tension following the resolution of any major issue in life. However in my case it probably relates more to the unfolding of a new period in - what I have long referred to as - the spiritual life. I am now beginning to see how strongly immersed I have been - indeed for all my adult life - in the depths of the unconscious. This has certainly enabled a certain kind of development entailing direct experience of many specialised intuitive states; however it has also proven remarkably restrictive and at various times incredibly stressful. Though valuable in enabling the development of new holistic mathematical understanding (as...