The political Left is stuffed with shibboleths, high-minded principles and ideologies. Every potential decision is examined for its conformity with a tangle of intellectual notions supposedly essential to the cause. The real world is passed by with a sniff.

That’s why the Left always fails in government and why the Conservatives have to dismantle its Heath-Robinson creations before getting on with their own agenda.

The last period of Labour administration lasted an interminable 13 years, leaving a calamitous mess behind for the Tories to clear up. Almost every Whitehall ministry is still in intensive care, especially the Treasury.

To make matters worse, their coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, have a similar tendency for ideological rigidity. The result is that David Cameron is getting a fatal reputation for being one of them and not a true Conservative.

In his zeal for high office, he has probably accepted the worst of all possible worlds: floundering in power and not being “one of us”. It seems a poor reward for holding prime-ministerial office.

It’s perhaps no wonder that he spends so much time abroad. Currently he is doing the rounds in China, giving the impression he’s more of a supplicant than a partner to a still hastily developing third-world country. China’s wealth lies in its government’s control of the modest earnings of a vast population, coupled with a ruthless command economy.

What Britain needs are more world-class companies and superior products. We take Burberry for granted, but it’s wildly successful in the Far East — without number 10′s help. There are many more like that, but they tend to be relatively small. They do, however, stand out for being quintessentially British and a bit toffish, just what a new ruling class is looking for.

Selling services to China, as Cameron is trying to do, will be a hard slog. It doesn’t help that George Osborne has already begged cash from them for new nuclear power stations, which the EU seems to be contesting, and for HS2.

Isn’t it time to draw breath and work out a proper strategy for Britain’s exports? For example, assisting companies to take on their own sales efforts abroad.

John Evans

Publishing soon: Mystology: A different way of looking at the world.

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I had written a piece on “the contemplative” for this slot, but was then deflected by Damian Thompson’s very interesting Telegraph article on Pope Francis’s latest pronouncements in The Joy of the Gospel, which have a bearing on the subject.

Damian Thompson writes: “[The document] says that traditional styles of worship are not necessarily suitable for newly evangelised non-Western people, or the modern world in general; and, in a passage that will truly trouble some conservatives, it raises the possibility that non-Christian religions are performing God’s work, enriching souls albeit imperfectly.”

Despite the “albeit imperfectly” — a very Christian declaration of superiority — it does at last recognise that religions, such as Buddhism, Hinduism and the best of non-religious mysticism, do have a profound understanding of the practical means of attaining a definite response from the Almighty, and not just the emotional outpourings of traditional church services.

Pope Francis writes: “Non-Christians, by God’s gracious initiative, when they are faithful to their own consciences, can live ‘justified by the grace of God’.”

He continues: “… due to the sacramental dimension of sanctifying grace, God’s working in them tends to produce signs and rites, sacred expressions which in turn bring others to a communitarian experience of journeying towards God.”

The word communitarian strikes a false note here since most mysticism is intensely personal in nature, even if performed in a group. Lusty church singing drives away the most advanced forms of spiritual experience, for earthly emotion is incompatible with the heights of contemplative practice.

Here’s another “wrong end of the stick” moment: “While these [non-church practices] lack the meaning and efficacy of the sacraments instituted by Christ, they can be channels which the Holy Spirit raises up in order to liberate non-Christians from atheistic immanentism or from purely individual religious experiences.”

Well, you can’t blame a chap for supporting his own football team.

Francis is certainly true to his calling: “Here I repeat for the entire Church what I have often said to the priests and laity of Buenos Aires: I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security. I do not want a Church concerned with being at the centre and then ends by being caught up in a web of obsessions and procedures.”

Don’t spare the rod, Your Holiness, against “obsessions and procedures.” It is often well deserved.

Thompson writes that he “is haunted by Francis’s insistence that reality is more important than ideas”, and it does seem to be a significant advance on conformity. As the Pope puts it, “This calls for rejecting the various means of masking reality: angelic forms of purity, dictatorships of relativism, empty rhetoric, objectives more ideal than real, brands of ahistorical fundamentalism, ethical systems bereft of kindness, intellectual discourse bereft of wisdom.”

It’s hard to be objective and disagree with that. However, arcane theology raises its sticklebacked head: “… adoration is what is most important: the whole community together look at the altar where the sacrifice is celebrated and adore.”

As Anglican-raised, but now a much more broadly based student of mysticism, I gag at that in several ways. How can you adore an idea, an invisible being that most people never get to encounter? Moreover, how is it possible to “celebrate and adore” a vicious sacrifice? Buddhists widely regard passages like that as barbaric and they are right.

Francis has made a lunge for modernity, but he’s still stuck in the old rhetorical language of his church which few outside it will countenance.

But he’s made a start and that’s welcome. Thompson writes: “… surely we’re going to see a shift away from some of the familiar structures and practices of Catholicism.”

We certainly live in revolutionary times.

John Evans

To be published: Mystology: A different way of looking at the world. Also a website, mystology.com

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Young people occupying cathedral in protest about everything

Radio 3′s Petroc Trelawny was on the Sky News Channel recently and had an interesting take on the energy bill uprising — in both senses of the word.

Like many of us he wondered why his direct debits are rising so fast, so he went to his account online. I dare say not many of us do that regularly, if at all. I certainly didn’t.

What he found was both unsettling and incomprehensible. There was a surplus on his dual fuel account of £800, which suggests that the DD being charged is way over the top and that his supplier is raking in interest payments that really belong to him.

Naturally, I immediately looked up my NPower dual fuel account online and found a surplus of around £300. The company was due to take a monthly sum of around £100 the very next day. Shocking, or wearily inevitable?

My note to them remained unanswered three weeks later. I have now cancelled the DD with my bank and asked NPower to remit the surplus to my bank account. Not even that has been done.

In fact I did receive a belated letter protesting that my DD had been cancelled and outlining the many disadvantages of paying a paper bill every three months. No mention of my email or surplus on account.

We really should despair at the way this cavalier cartel of energy giants treats us.

It was good to see Andrew Marr getting back his mojo on his TV and radio shows in recent weeks.

His tentative return after a massive stroke revealed a good physical recovery, except for the damage on the left side of his body. But mentally his spirit seemed subdued — not surprising after such an ordeal, and the prospects of a life in the slow lane.

In the past two weeks, though, he appears to have recovered his humour and zest for life. These are always the last elements to recover, and bodes well for his continuing career.

He was also on good form on his old programme, Start the Week 10 days ago, especially when talking to John Tavener, the celebrated British composer who, eerily, had suffered the same physical blow as he had.

It must have been a shock to Marr when Tavener died the very next day. At least he had one last outing to demonstrate his unusual genius, plus a few snatches of his marvellous music.

I hope he read this website, with its many consolations about life and death in a wider context than they receive from our dismal cod-scientific culture.

Poppycock Watch
PMQs (Prime Minister’s Questions in Parliament), was brutal this morning with David Cameron hammering Ed Miliband on the Paul Flowers appointment at the Co-op bank, which has strong affiliations with the Labour Party.

Can you believe that a man with no knowledge of banking and a taste for smoking crystal meth, among other mind-altering substances, was appointed Chairman of the Cooperative banking group? And he had previous form for this.

Is it possible that Miliband and the leadership of the party knew nothing of his CV and behavioural record when nodding through his appointment?

Alas, this is the crew that presided over the biggest banking collapse since at least the Great Depression just five years ago.

How can they possibly submit themselves for re-election in 2015 and, worse, act as if nothing of the sort happened?

Profundity of the Week
The always reliable A.N. Wilson has an excellent article in the Telegraph today questioning whether Christianity can survive in any meaningful form in England. Apart from some elderly folk, the next generation seem to have completely deserted the old faith, especially in the big cities.

Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has been saying that the Church is only one generation away from extinction. This is palpably true. Young people find the whole business achingly boring and lacking in relevance to their lives. It’s hard to condemn them for that.

The Church relies on old forms of texts that were written in the Near East millenia ago in languages long since forgotten. Today, the ancient names are incomprehensible and unpronouncable, the whole ethos of the era as outdated as dinosaurs. Why should vibrant youngsters go along with what seems like a baffling charade that rings like a shattered bell.

And yet … as this site frequently points out, the practical side of Christianity — spirituality and mysticism — are wildly popular among all age groups, with an eager following of younger people who, like all generations, ache for real meaning in their lives. My weekly column Midweek Mysticism is widely read and, if I may say so, silently quoted in the national press and online.

Archbishop Welby, a former businessman, is a very modern figure who appears to get it. But will he be able to wrench the old institution far enough away from its fading methodology to make a real difference?

The furore over women bishops suggests not.

John Evans

Coming soon: Mystology: A different way of looking at the world. Also a website, mystology.com.

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Anyone who reads this column regularly will know that it rarely, if ever, deals with frauds, so the title of this piece should not to be interpreted cynically. As an Indian poet wrote, “India is mad with the madness of miracles.”

I’m indebted to Andrew Harvey’s reality-expanding book, Hidden Journey — A spiritual awakening, which traces his relationship with Mother Meera, formerly Kamala Reddy, a girl of startling beauty and just 17 when he met her.

Harvey was born in the subcontinent of India, among the remnants of the British Raj after independence. Many Brits stayed on, unable to face the sunless cold of England with its equally cool cultural climate.

At the age of six, he was sent to an independent school in Britain which appeared to him as an act of abandonment by his mother. This impression stayed with him in later life and coloured his character thereafter. Not his academic work though.

At 21 he gained a First at Oxford together with a Fellowship of All Souls, a background almost demanding a career as a university lecturer. And so it turned out.

Nevertheless, nothing could keep him from his beloved India where he met — by chance? … surely not! — Kamala Reddy, then known as Mother Meera, which changed the trajectory of his life.

Eventually, he went to live in her house in Thalheim, Germany as a devotee, where he received the first stage of enlightenment: the Divine Light experience — see my description of it here: The truth about halos.

According to Harvey, Meera was often wreathed about with this Light, and spoke about it as a revelation of heavenly power, harbinger of what is to come.

He writes: “I sat in front of her photograph, staring into her eyes. The photograph became alive. It was the first time that had happened to me, although others had described similar experiences. Her face was present, as if behind a veil of quiet light. The light grew, until her whole face was burning in the light. Her eyes grew larger and more intense. My body filled with the light pouring from them. Everything I looked at — the plant in the windowsill, the book open before me, the tablecloth, the small plastic animals hung on a string above the bed — was shining … I was being shown, I realised, how I would be “taught” by her. Directly by the action of the Light.”

Increasingly, his need to earn money took him away from Thalheim, on writing commissions and for whole terms on academic contracts. In his later book, Return of the Mother, which is on Kindle, he reveals that he had not spoken to, or visited Meera for almost a decade. It seems he is taking on the burden of spiritual teacher of others himself.

I don’t know him personally, but to me this looks like a touch of hubris. His own text shows what remarkable powers Meera possesses. There’s no doubt the path is very painful, demanding great sacrifices and even isolation at times. One must bear all to receive all.

It is a time-consuming process requiring the larger part of a lifetime of dedication to accomplish. But a great teacher can speed up the work — if a promising candidate is prepared to take the pain of a complete psychological and spiritual transformation. Clearly, many are not.

To declare a personal interest, I once wrote to Meera in Thalheim outlining my own experiences and path and requesting advice. I received a detailed letter from Adilakshmi, her cultured aunt and secretary.

At that time I had profound dreams of passing down a tunnel towards a blinding light. It was not a coincidence and has reinforced my conviction that Mother Meera is the genuine article.

As Harvey writes: “Once the contact has been made with her, it can be received anywhere.

John Evans

To be published: Mystology: A different way of looking at the world. Also a website, mystology.com

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The connection and subtle interaction between the familiar ego-I of the personality, and what might be called the God-Self, is not widely appreciated, even by psychiatrists and academic philosophers.

Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time on Radio 4 this morning was a case study of the small circular obsessions of philosophers of the “logical positive” sort — think Bertrand Russell and a young Ludwig Wittgenstein.

At one stage the interviewer, almost in despair, was reduced to: “But where are the big ideas about life, our place in the universe and the meaning of it all?” I paraphrase, but you take the point.

It seems the Oxford Philosophers of that era were only interested in language and precision of thought by deriving perfect definitions — Zzzzz! It must have felt like being among a group of people holding a dance in a small cubicle.

Back in the real world, let’s look at the inner means of what and how we know anything at all.

There are as many names in the world as there are forms. Each thing observed is called A or B to distinguish it from C and D. People also have different names to define their separateness from the rest. These individuals, however, have only one name for themselves, “I”.

On Earth there are countless millions of “I”s. It is the most common name of all. But, in reality, all these “I”s are merely references to one supreme I, the God-Self.

From our ego-ridden viewpoint, we think our own I is the personal property of this body, this person called A or B, Peter or Jane. It is the dualistic barrier that prevents us from seeing into the very nature of ourselves and reality itself.

When the writer Paul Brunton was asked who he was by his spiritual teacher, the Englishman could only point to himself.

“But that is just your body,” came the rejoinder. “I say again, who are you?”

Most of us tend to associate that sense of “I”ness with our bodies and minds. What a person sees in a full-length mirror is “me”, another word for “I”.

On the other hand, in the schizoid fashion characteristic of humans, we also say, “my body, my mind, my thoughts” and so forth, thus postulating another entity apart from the body-mind. This is the subtle clue to the conundrum.

Who then is this real I that owns the body, mind and thoughts? Why do we refuse to acknowledge its central position in our existence when, as the German philosopher Schelling observed, everyone shares the feeling that they have been as they are since the dawn of time?

The answer is that we are almost totally dominated by the ego, which is made up of a string of mental tendencies masquerading as the real I. This ego accredits to itself all the powers of the organism.

The God-Self abides within, beyond thought, as the I-without-attributes: I Am. The I-thought, or ego, emerges from the God-Self as the principle of discrimination. It has a tendency to run away with itself.

It can be observed to be the first thought to arise on waking in the morning, and the last to set before sleep. Its rise accompanies awareness of the material world, while its fall coincides with the absence of this consciousness in deep sleep.

In dreams, the ego is still present, albeit in modified, or causal, form. Some teachers recommend a special method for catching the ego-I off-guard. As you relax just before sleep, you direct your consciousness to be aware of the God-Self immediately upon awakening in the morning.

This auto-suggestion switches the attention towards spiritual practice before the ego-I has had time to get into its jamming mode. It allows the contemplator a direct, if brief, feel of the God-Self. The state can be prolonged by simply staying with it while keeping the I-thought quiescent. That comes with practice.

The I-thought is the generator of all other thoughts, which constitute the ego’s principal activity, mind. This ego-I delineates the “I am this” and “I am that” of relative existence. The ego-I has been described as a knot between the insentient body and the sentient God-Self.

This formless and ghostly ego-I comes into being by grasping a form, which gives it a body, whereby it endures. Feeding on other forms it grasps, it waxes more. Leaving one form it grasps another and so on.

In short, it is nothing more than a parasite which lives on illusion and grows fat on human suffering which is separation from the God-Self. In the full light of relentless enquiry, the ego-I dissolves away like a phantom apparition: “When sought for, it takes to flight.”

Most folk become addicted to the ego-I. They are the lost souls that will continue for life after life on the merry-go-round of physical existence with its endless pain and suffering.

There is another way, but you have to want it. The wanting is a sign of spiritual maturity and the desire to move up to another level.

John Evans

To be published: Mystology: A different way of looking at the world. Also a website, mystology.com

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