The Reason Why...I
I wonder how much of our trouble may be due to misunderstanding of oriental scriptures ambiguously translated? A translator is not necessarily, indeed perhaps not often, a man who fully understands that which he is translating, and if he understands it intellectually, does that imply that he understands it intuitionally? But the oriental scriptures with which we are concerned were composed in order to stimulate intuition rather than to satisfy the intellect, for the former alone is capable of leading to the desired result. In the West, however, we have all been educated to cultivate and rely upon the intellect alone, and to ignore and distrust intuition, closing our eyes to the evident fact that approximately every discovery made by man has been due ultimately to intuition and could never have been made solely by intellect.
The Reason Why...II
Perhaps the outstanding example of one of our major troubles being due to misunderstanding of the oriental scriptures is our widespread attempt to apply literally the exhortation to achieve Detachment and to abandon Discrimination. But these are effects, not causes. Attachment and Discrimination are direct manifestations of the emprise of the ego-notion.
People in the West settle down to a determined effort to feel detached, and, by exercise of the so-called will, to avoid discrimination. The effect of this should be obvious: such a proceeding inevitably strengthens the ego-notion which makes the effort. But it is the elimination of the ego-notion that is the primary aim of all the teachings, and things are not eliminated by being strengthened!
Detachment and the abandonment of Discrimination are the inevitable and automatic result of the elimination of an ego-notion, and cannot be brought about by any other means.
We have been doing what primitive medicine did - attacking the symptoms in order to cure a disease, and aggravating the disease by so doing. For instance, a fever is a defensive measure on the part of the body controlled by organic consciousness, and where, by artificial and violent means, doctors counteracted the fever they thereby thwarted the body's defensive mechanism and aggravated the malady.
Need we be surprised at the unsatisfactory results of our efforts? Did the Masters not warn us not to make them?
We have only to eliminate the ego-notion by succeeding in the difficult task of understanding that it does not exist except as a notion. Which, by the way, is the subject/object of this book!
