Religion, Altruism etc

I woke up late this morning and, as I lay in bed enjoying my first coffee, the radio started broadcasting the Sunday Service. If I’m still listening at this point I normally switch off. This morning I was a bit slow to move so I caught the vicar’s opening words which, unusually, resonated with me.
She said “God wants us to bless the communities in which we live and work”.
I switched off part way through “Bread of Heaven”.
Nothing Earth shattering about what the vicar said, but it got me thinking. As it happened, I was thinking about the oak trees that I’ve planted over the years at the time. That is a way of blessing the community that I live in. Of course, I derive some personal pleasure from it. The trees I planted 30 years ago are now grown up and, with the help of the Jays, spreading their acorns each autumn to begin more trees. I love to see this, and I love to check on the younger trees and imagine the beautiful woodland that they will form.
They will provide homes for countless creatures and spiritual uplift for people who walk amongst them. They will also sequester carbon from the atmosphere, much needed on our overheating planet and, perhaps, eventually, provide timber for a future generation of wooden boatbuilders.

Of course, I won’t see most of this. The best I can hope for is to view the adolescent oaks in 30 years time from my wheelchair. This is my way of blessing the community where I live and work.
A few days ago one of my friends posted on Facebook “What’s the point”? A more complicated question than it appears. The ruling idea in Western culture is that the only point is personal gratification. Liberals have an idea of enlightened self interest, where pusuing your own personal gratification has the happy spin off of benefitting others. Sometimes it does, but, often, the pure pursuit of personal gratification really benefits no-one, including oneself. I think of the Simon & Garfunkel song “Richard Cory” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euuCiSY0qYs
Interestingly, when the self interest of a political leader, normally backed by that of the owners of the military industrial complex of whatever nation or political bloc, require us to go to war, then the self interest of ordinary people is thrown out of the window. Young men (and women nowadays) have to sacrifice themselves for the ‘greater good’ and their parents, spouses and lovers have to grin and bear their losses whilst working all hours to keep the production lines running to supply more military hardware.
So, where does religion come into this. As a child I rejected the Christianity that I was born into because, despite including the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” it’s leaders clearly condoned warfare. It was also, in my mind, associated with a hypocritical establishment and seemed to be offering a promise of everlasting life that was a claim that could not be substantiated.

re hypocrisy- Malcolm Muggeridge, for all his holier than thou ness was a serial philanderer, Bishop Mervyn Stockwood was a closet gay.
Despite this, I’ve always had a sense of there being something more than the here and now. The idea that we are more than mere mechanical creatures and contain a spirit that lives on when our bodies die. That does not necessarily mean that our consciousness lives on.
In trying to understand this I’ve worked my way through paganism and pantheism, finally (perhaps) arriving at Panentheism. This is the idea that there is a deity that is within every atom of the cosmos, including each of us, and beyond. That includes before the big bang and after whatever finally happens to the universe. It is what I call The Great Spirit, but others may call God, Allah, Rama or whatever. I have a spirit, you have a spirit, everyone has a spirit. They are sparks that have come from the great spirit and will ultimately return to it, only to be sparked off it again to inhabit another being.
We can choose to grow our spirits by living in a way that brings joy and growth to others, or we can choose to diminish our spirits by living selfishly, concerned only with our own short term gratification. If you’re looking for enlightened self interest it lies in the true joy that this brings, so much greater than the brief enjoyment of owning things or experiencing physical sensations.

My way of communing (for want of a better word, the English language is reaching its limits here) with the Great Spirit is through the Latihan, a spiritual exercise organised by an organisation called Subud. Each Latihan is a unique 30 minute session of a spiritual experience that I cannot describe, words fail me. While I call myself a Panentheist, others, beside me in the Latihan, may call themselves Muslim, Jew, Christian, Buddhist etc etc. It really doesn’t matter.
It’s a great shame that so few people know (or care?) about this.



Concerning Subud (18th November 2013)

Concerning Subud

This blog is mainly about my work on the wooden boats but, consistently, by far the most common keywords used to find it are "Subud Cult". This is strange as I've only made a couple of references to Subud and the Latihan. However, as I've been saying on the Subud Facebook page that we need to stop hiding our lights under bushels, I thought I'd better try to explain it a bit.

Let me begin by pointing out that I do not do cults or gurus and have never joined any religion (Subud is very clear about being an adjunct to faith, not a religion in it's own right).

The problem is, where to begin. Subud is weird. It is very weird, but it's also very real. My lifelong search has been for reality among all the illusions of the World and in Subud I think I've found it.

Now for the weird bit. Subud began in the mid 1920s when a young railway booking clerk was out for a walk and saw a light in the sky. This came down to engulf him and he had an intense spiritual experience that went on for months.

Have I lost you yet?

The man realised that he could and should pass a little bit of what he had experienced to others, so he did. A little group of people were "opened" to it in his homeland of Indonesia (then a Dutch colony). Those who had been 'opened' were able to experience at will, normally in 30 minute sessions, a spiritual exercise called the Latihan, which is Indonesian for 'Exercise', An organisation was formed to administer it which was called Subud, short for Susila Buddhi Dharma,

Susila Budhi Dharma is a book written by Muhammad Subuh Sumohadiwidjojo, the founder of the World Subud Association, in the city of Jogjakarta, Indonesia, in 1952. Its name corresponds to the three main qualities that are to be developed through the training in the Subud path. The name "Subud" is a contraction of these three Javanese words of Sanskrit derivation.

In the 1950s the practise of the Latihan was spread Worldwide, reaching Britain in 1957. Here it was taken up enthusiastically by many people who had been involved in Gurdjieff work.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gurdjieff and particularly J G Bennett http://www.bennettbooks.org/AboutJGB.html

I joined in 2006 as a result of a strange combination of events. I feel like I was led to it. Joining Subud is not easy. They make you wait 3 months to make sure that you are serious. Subud is not eager to recruit spiritual tourists but only those who are genuinely interested in growing their spirits.

After my 3 month wait I was opened. This is when the ability to experience the Latihan is passed on. After answering a simple series of questions satisfactorily one of the more senior members said the words "I open you" * and the Latihan began. I stood there with my eyes closed wondering what on earth I'd got myself into. People around me were calling out "Allah" or stomping round like a native American war dance. This is nonsense I thought, then my hands became as heavy as lead and I had to lower myself to the floor. When my hands touched the floor the weight went away, but as soon as I lifted away they became heavy again. When the Latihan was over we all went to the kitchen for a cup of tea. Emuna, my partner (then known as Marilyn) told me that i had gone as red as a beetroot. Something had happened that was extraordinary, but I didn't know what.

Since then I've done the Latihan regularly. In the Latihan you stand still and wait. Amazingly, things happen without you willing them. My Latihan developed from simple twitches through walking backwards and spinning to loud, sometimes operatic, singing. What's the point? I don't know, but I am now in many ways a better person. It's very hard to explain, but I wouldn't go back to my pre Latihan existence for all the tea in China. In 7 years I've only met a couple of people in Subud who I haven't liked and I've never been asked for money. I've only once felt slightly pressured to study the writings and talks of the founder, who is known as Bapak ( Indonesian for Grandfather) as his real name is quite a challenge to Westerners. There certainly are people who treat Bapak as a demigod and would like it to be a cult with strict rules, but, at least in Britain, it's a very free and democratic set up. Although Bapak was, like most Indonesians, a Muslim, I've never known any pressure to join that faith. Having joined describing myself as 'vaguely Pagan' I now call myself a Panentheist

Panentheism (meaning "all-in-God", from the Ancient Greek πᾶν pân, "all", ἐν en, "in" and Θεός Theós, "God") is the belief that the divine interpenetrates every part of the universe and extends, timelessly (and, presumably, spacelessly) beyond it. Unlike pantheism, which holds that the divine and the universe are identical,[1] panentheism maintains a distinction between the divine and non-divine and the significance of both.[2]

In pantheism, the universe and everything included in it is equal to the Divine, but in panentheism, the universe and the divine are not ontologically equivalent. God is viewed as the soul of the universe, the universal spirit present everywhere, in everything and everyone, at all times. Some versions suggest that the universe is nothing more than the manifestation of God. In some forms of panentheism, the cosmos exists within God, who in turn "transcends", "pervades" or is "in" the cosmos. While pantheism asserts that 'All is God', panentheism goes further to claim that God is greater than the universe. In addition, some forms indicate that the universe is contained within God,[1] like in the concept of Tzimtzum. Much Hindu thought is highly characterized by panentheism and pantheism.[3][4]Hasidic Judaism merges the elite ideal of nullification to paradoxical transcendent Divine Panentheism, through intellectual articulation of inner dimensions of Kabbalah, with the populist emphasis on the panentheistic Divine immanence in everything.[5][further explanation needed]

There are members who come from most mainstream faiths, and many with no particular religious allegiance.





* Since writing this I've been told that is not the form of words used, though that is how I remember it. Possibly I remembered it wrong. Memory is an inexact tool at the best of times, though most people prefer not to believe the psychological research that proves this.


Cult Member? (5th December 2012)

Cult Member?

I've noticed that the most popular search to find this blog is Subud Cult. That's strange as I think I've only mentioned my membership of Subud once or twice. It's also a bit unfair to Subud as it's about as uncultish as you can get. There's no glorious leader, I've never been asked for money, there's no orgies (shame but there it is) and there's no set of beliefs that you have to pledge your allegiance to. Emuna, my partner, reckons that the Church of England is more cult like than Subud. What it is is a vehicle for the sharing of a wonderful spiritual exercise called a latihan (Indonesian for exercise) that was first experienced by the group's founder Mohammed Subuh Sumohadiwodidjojo ( I hope I spelled that right)in about 1925). There are now small groups all over the world, but there is an understanding that Subud doesn't evangelise. Those who are ready for it will find it. I've certainly found the latihan has made me into a stronger and better, more human, person in the 6 years that I've been doing it.



Rural Riding 11th February 2011

Rural Riding

As I plodded along the A444 on my overburdened little bike I soon began to regret taking this particular course. I could have followed country lanes a short way to the West. The main road was slightly closer to my straight guiding line, and ran through pleasant undulating countryside, but my enjoyment was interrupted all too often by a miniature tornado as another great juggernaut passed me with inches to spare. Coupled with these frequent interruptions was the awareness that a lapse of concentration by the driver of just one of these tarmac hungry leviathans could permanently terminate my journey.

The road seemed endless, though the map shows me that it was only a few miles. Eventually I reached the roundabout junction with the M42. I was pleased at this, as I knew that I was now near to my turn off, back on to the little roads. I stopped on the grass verge opposite a service station for a drink of water. I thought I'd better record my strange velocipede for posterity, so here's a picture of it http://www.care2.com/c2c/photos/view/186/483743566/My_cycling_holiday_July_2010/Bikeride%20laden%20bike%207%2010.jpg.html

I left the mad main road at the delightfully named Appleby Parva and followed a little lane uphill towards a prominent radio mast. Over the summit, I coasted downhill into the village of Austrey. From here, strictly speaking, I should have headed for Orton on the Hill, but the on the hill bit didn't appeal to me, so I veered westwards a little along Warton Lane. This was arable country, with dry dusty fields of wheat and barley on each side of me,basking in the afternoon sun.

I stopped in the middle of nowhere and dug out my food bag. I climbed over a gate and struggled through the parched weeds of the headlands to reach a willow beside a dried out pond. Perching myself in the arms of this friendly tree, I hungrily demolished the remains of my loaf, whilst reflecting on what a comfortable campsite the dry pond looked, as long as it didn't rain.

It would have been pleasant to stay there all afternoon, such a comfortable spot I had found,but, with my belly filled, I remounted my cycle and carried on towards the brick houses of Warton village. From here my route took me back, South Easterly, towards my straight line. The road fell steadily into the Anker Valley and the harvesting activity seemed to grow more intense with huge shiny tractors rushing about http://www.care2.com/c2c/photos/view/186/483743566/My_cycling_holiday_July_2010/Bikeride%20tractor%20grain%20harvest%207%2010.jpg.html and the moaning hum of combine harvesters trailing dust behind the hedgerows.

Not far away was the large mining village of Polesworth. Our boat "Forget me Not" was built here in 1927, but, sadly, nothing remains of Lees & Atkins boatyard. My route would take me through the nearby town of Atherstone instead.

I've often passed through Atherstone. Mostly along the dual carriageway bypass which is part of the A5. At other times I have flashed through in a speeding train on the Trent Valley main line. A few times I have travelled through by boat on the Coventry Canal, the main focus being the flight of 12 locks. On my first holiday on my first boat I stayed the night on the margins of the town, camping by the towpath as at that time my boat had no cabin. Despite all these fleeting encounters with the place I still knew little of it and was pleasantly surprised by what I found.

I had in mind the need for provisions, ready for my evening meal. My route into the town, along Sheepy Road, brought me straight to an old fashioned open market, lively with stalls and shoppers. I stopped to buy vegetables, then remounted and carried on under an archway that led into North St. I found Long St, the route of the pre-bypass A5, busy with shops and shoppers, unlike so many old high streets that have succumbed to the out of town superstores. Here I bought more food then, with my bags bulging, peddalled uphill to the top lock.

I had purchased some cake on Long St and intended to sit by the top lock to eat it. I was disapointed to see that Rothen's coal wharf was now empty and up for grabs. The business has relocated elsewhere but is no longer shifting coal by boat. It is little places like this that make our canals interesting. I expect it will be replaced by yet more upmarket housing. Nevertheless, it is a pleasant urban spot and I enjoyed watching a long steel boat work up the lock and set out towards Coventry.

Coleshill Road is a long slow drag out of town. This country has been quarried and mined extensively in the past, but now, with the extractive industries gone, it is interestingly hilly and wooded. I turned left and rode along a little lane with the huge Monks Park Wood to my right. I came to the village of Ridge Lane and turned left, until soon I came upon the embankment of a disused railway. Checking my old O.S. map I realised that this was the old Stockingford goods branch. The part that I had come across was actually a headshunt at it's terminus, the Ansley Hall Colliery being accessed by a trailing connection.  I though about following the route to find a place to stay for the night, but it was still a bit early and I had an idea about staying beside an active railway.

Riding on I passed the site of the old pit, now an industrial estate. A right turn on to the B4114 brought me past Ansley Hall and onwards through green and pleasant land to Church End. Here I turned left at the beginning of the village towards Ansley. This turned out to be a rather unremarkable brick village, made up largely of 1930s semis. I passed a pub with jolly looking people standing outside smoking.

At the far end of the village is a roundabout. Here I turned left and cycled along looking for the start of a footpath. I found a stile and lifted the bike over, then set off, pushing my bike across a grassy field. As I breasted the brow of a low hill I looked across the panorama and registered a brief disapointment. I had my eye on some woodland shown on the map surrounding the Easterly portal of Stockingford Tunnel on the railway from Nuneaton to Birmingham. My disappointment was in seeing that this wonderful wood seemed to be completely surrounded by the kind of security fence that Network rail now use to protect the railway from mischievous children, and vice versa.

I carried on down the hill and was delighted to find that the Northern edge of the woodland, with a public footpath bordering it, was only protected by the olders style fence of concrete posts and steel wires. This made the expense of the newer, inpenetrable, border rather pointless, as one can just walk round and enter here.

I locked my bike to the security fence and unloaded it, climbed a stile and pushed my bags between the wires into the woodland. I climbed over to follow them and began to construct my shelter.
With the shelter constructed I turned my attention to cooking my tea. There was a hollow in the ground in the corner of the wood. I used some bricks that were lying around to build a fireplace into the bank of this hollow. I collected dead and dry wood and, using a few scraps of paper that I had saved, lit a fire. http://www.care2.com/c2c/photos/view/186/483743566/My_cycling_holiday_July_2010/Bikeride%20camp%20Arley%207%2010.jpg.html Soon my pan was bubbling nicely on the heat. I sat and looked down into the cutting and watched trains passing. The smoke from my fire began to drift into the cutting and hang there in a blue grey haze, resolutely refusing to disperse. I began to worry that a train driver could bring the authorities down on me by reporting that the woods were on fire.

Soon my meal was ready and I found a comfortable perch, high over the tunnel mouth, where I sat and ate while watching trains. I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of freight traffic, mostly container trains headed by Canadian built class 66 locomotives. http://class66.railfan.nl/ The passenger trains were all diesel multiple units, travelling between Birmingham and East Anglia.

Nicely full, I was feeling tired after all my travelling. I had an idea that I might be able to go for a latihan http://www.subud.org.uk/latihan-inner-awakening.html in Birmingham. However, the idea of traipsing into Nuneaton to get a train, then finding my way from New St Station to wherever the Subud house was, then finding my way back late at night, was becoming rapidly less appealing. I decided to lie down for a bit in my shelter. The footpath, which was next to my shelter, was unpleasantly busy with dogwakers. I decided to ignore them, and they mostly studiously ignored me, walking past quickly with eyes averted. A black and white cat slinked up the footpath and, seeing me, crouched down in fear before darting back whence it came. I wondered where it had come from as the map showed no houses nearby.I lay enjoying the birdsong and the sound of passing trains. Gradually I drifted off to sleep.



A Wintry Week 20th December 2009

2009-12-20 @ 22:08:36 by ashtonboatman

A wintry week

Oh the joys of looking after old boats in the winter. For a while I've been putting off searching "Elton" to find where she was leaking. Steadily the leak got worse until last Sunday she virtually sank and I had to start the 2" pump to bring here up again. I kept changing batteries for the bilge pumps, which were running constantly, sometimes getting up at 3 AM, until on Wednesday I decided I would have to drop everything else I was supposed to be doing to trawl through piles of useful items in her hold and try to find it. My delay in dealing with this was partly because I was feeling rotten with a virus that just won't go away. Paddling about in freezing water is not a recommended cure for the flu!

I was all day shifting stuff around and lifting shutts ( floor sections) until it was getting dark. I was on the verge of giving up when I spotted a commotion in the bilge under the back cabin. I lifted the shutt to reveal a little fountain where a knot in the elm bottom had dropped out. A quick squirt of expanding foam plugged the leak and I headed thankfully home. An evening inspection showed that she was still taking a lot of water. My theory about this was that moving stuff around had altered her trim and put a leaky seam under water. Early on Thursday, before starting my day's gardening work, I re-trimmed the boat, changed the bilge pump battery and hoped for the best.

A quick check after work showed that she was OK, but on the way to Latihan it started to snow. Frost and snow themselves cause problems with frozen up bilge pumps and snow weighing down float switches so that they don't work. The last couple of days have seen me running round with blowlamps and kettles of hot water to keep the pumps working while the scene has become steadily more christmas cardy.

Tomorrow is the Solstice and I plan a celebration with a bonfire to remind the Sun to come back. The winter weather is causing a few logistical problems in setting this up though.


Containing my Anger

Containing my Anger.

It was 6PM on a Tuesday evening and I had had a long day cutting planks for "Hazel" with the chainmill http://www.care2.com/c2c/photos/view/186/483743566/Cutting_planks_for__quot_Hazel_quot_/Chris%20cutting%20greenheart%20with%20chainmill%203%2011%20picbri.JPG.html
In order to minimise disturbance to residents in the various flats I worked on this across on the towpath side, next to the junction with the Peak Forest Canal.

It had been a long day, made less comfortable by a vicious wind that whipped up the sawdust into a desert storm. As I inserted the resharpened saw into the groove for the final cut, an Anderton Marina hireboat emerged from the Peak Forest Canal and started to turn into the wind towards Manchester.

The lady of the boat, a solidly built cheerful scotswoman, walked by on the towpath with a big collie dog. We exchanged smiles and she carried on, then backtracked to ask about a safe mooring for the night. Her husband was now frantically backing up to avoid the boat hitting the newly repainted "Community Spirit" on the outside of the turn. The wind caught the flat cabin side like a sail and took the boat sideways.

I suggested that they back up and tie on the outside alongside the flats, the site of the prophet John Wroe's magnificent but long disapeared house. This was good advice from the point of view of having an undisturbed night, but would involve some manoevring that beginners would find challenging even on a still day.

As we spoke the boat reversed into the shallow water on the far side of the bridge and the rudder crunched into the stone copings. The bonny lady hurried over the bridge to help push it off and pass on my advice to her partner. He engaged forward gear and attempted to get the stern away from the bank, but an ominous underwater clattering indicated that the blade had picked up something that was battering the bottom of the counter as it rotated.

Its ability to manouvre further inhibited by rubbish on the prop, the boat moved slowly forwards, still in the grip of the wind. I could see that he wasn't going to get the boat to its destination without hitting one of our boats, but I wouldn't have minded if he simply scraped his bow along the side of "Southam". The sensible thing to do would have been to forget about engine power and use the shaft, which lay idle on the cabin roof, to get control of the errant fore end. I have always, however, found a great reluctance among trainee, and sometimes experienced, boaters to use the shaft.

The strategy employed to control the boat was a surprising one. As the bow headed into the arm where the boats awaiting restoration float in shallow water I expected to see a flush of sterngear from the still clattering prop. Instead the boat carried on until it impacted "Elton"s stern. She gave a lurch, then resigned herself to being used as a fulcrum as, still in forward gear, the man put his tiller over to lever the boat round. As soon as he backed up the wind caught the bow and he lost control again. He repeated the manouvre, but this time, the hireboat's bow having moved a few feet Eastwards, it was "Queen"s turn to suffer the indignity of a ramming.

I stood watching, open mouthed and dumbstruck. I knew that both boats were tough enough to withstand these blows, but I was amazed at the sheer disregard for other peoples craft.

The boat backed up again. The next boat in line for a blow from its bow was "Hazel", our most fragile boat. Somehow he managed to miss her, but, as anticipated, scraped his bow along the side of "Southam" instead. As his stern end approached the footbridge he threw a line up to his wife, who sensibly led the boat back to the overnight mooring that I had suggested.

I started the saw and quickly completed the last cut, by which time my anger had subsided a little. I shafted "Lilith" back across the basin to tie up abreast of "Southam", then went to dig out some leaflets from "Forget me Not"s cabin. I walked over to the moored hireboat and tapped on the roof. The woman emerged and reddened when she saw me. I sought to defuse her embarrasment with a smile, it wasn't her who had been steering, and handed her the leaflets. I said "Here's some information about the historic boats you just rammed". She was full of apologies, but she didn't call her husband out to face me. I diverted the conversation away from the incident as she was clearly uncomfortable, but it was her partner that I wanted to feel that discomfort. He had not once looked in my direction as he carried out his cavalier careering around the basin.

I went off to get some food. Early in the morning the boat left to work down the locks to Manchester. I wonder what sort of night the arrogant man had. It would be no surprise to me if the ghost of Jack Monk ( "Queen" was his first motor boat and remained his favourite) had visited him in the night and given him terrifying dreams of boatmans justice.