Absolute truth

Truth exists only within a chosen context. Truth believed becomes a lie.

In Erleichda, we are great admirers of Ludwig Wittgenstein, and many of our major protocols are based on our ideas about his ideas. Someone once said to Ludwig that people who lived before Copernicus must have been stupid, because they believed that the sun rotates around the earth. Ludwig considered this for a moment, then made a very important reply: "I agree. But I wonder what it would look like if the sun had been circling the earth." He understood paradigms.

Wittgenstein was greatly concerned with the scope and limits of language, and particularly with the consequences of being bound by the limits of language. The world, he wrote, is the totality of facts. The theoretical limit of analysis is atomic facts, which cannot be analysed into simpler facts, and which are mutually independent, the existence of one never logically requiring or excluding the existence of any other.

We've taken it a step further in Erleichda. We search for atomic beliefs, the basic beliefs which form our paradigm, the context of our lives, the template through which we restrict our idea of the universe, our reality. We have discovered the possibility that, if your reality doesn't suit you, then it's usually because you've got conflicting ideas about what you want, or what you're entitled to. Identify the beliefs, and you identify the confusion. Then if you don't like the beliefs, change them.

Change your beliefs, change your reality.

The close examination of our beliefs and their origins is taken with some seriousness in Erleichda. We have abandoned our search for absolute truth. Absolute truth, we have decided, is, for the time being, the atomic beliefs we choose to create reality. We choose to believe that what we choose to believe is true.

Sh'am Buddhism and God

I’m a sham Buddhist, not a real Buddhist, because I choose to believe in God.

Not the god that fundamentalist monotheists believe in, and atheists don’t. This paranoid old man is nothing more than a projection of their fears, an anthropomorphised god they have created in their own image.

What God do I choose to believe in?

“I am o’erwhelmed by the only experientially discovered evidence of an a priori eternal, omnicomprehensive, infinitely and exquisitely concerned, intellectual integrity that we may call God, though knowing that in whatever way we humans refer to this integrity, it will always be an inadequate expression of its cosmic omniscience and omnipotence.”

That’s how Buckminster Fuller described his conviction that there is an ultimate order to the universe, and I am happy to adopt it as expressing my own chosen belief. It’s worth examining in a little detail.

Firstly, God is ‘experientially discovered’. Ch’an Buddhists renounce their desire to achieve Nirvana, which doesn’t mean that they reject the concept of Nirvana. Sh’am Buddhists renounce the idea of an anthropomorphic god who rewards believers and cruelly punishes non-believers. In letting go of the idea of this interventionist god, we are free to experience what is, which is God. Observation is revelation.

‘A priori’ means that this belief is based on theoretical deduction rather than empirical observation. I start with a hypothesis, I choose to believe, I have faith, and I experience the reality of God.

God is ‘omni-comprehensive’, which means all-knowing, and ‘intellectual’, which implies wisdom. Non-interventionist does not mean unaware or disinterested.

God is ‘infinitely and exquisitely concerned’, which seems a wonderful way to say that God is Love.

But no matter what I may say, what I may choose to believe, I will always fall far short of fully comprehending the truth about God. My description will always be an inadequate expression.

Which is another way of saying that belief in God is irrelevant. I choose to believe that my eudamonia is dependent on my living my life in accordance with an order which will reveal itself, rather than a belief in that order.

Sh’am Buddhism is the study of directions, acceptance of the feedback which will be forthcoming, and the development of methodologies (rituals?) which enhance my consciousness of what I am doing and how I control my own life.

Ultimately, and somewhat paradoxically, it implies that in total submission I achieve total control.

Fighting for peace

“They’ve asked me to go to a protest about logging.”

“So, are you going?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why? Don’t you want to save the forest?”

“Yes I do. But I feel a bit uneasy.”

“Uneasy?”

“Well, I know some of the loggers, and surely they’re entitled to make a living. But I don’t want to see the forests disappear.”

“What do the loggers say?”

“They say they’re entitled to make a living. They say they want to preserve the forest even more than the greenies - it’s their living!”

“What do the greenies say?”

“They say the forest has been logged to death by loggers, and they don’t want any more.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“Yeah - but the loggers say that was then, this is now. They say that everyone is responsible for the damage that’s been done in the past, that’s what everyone believed, and now everyone knows better, and they don’t want it to happen again either.”

“So everyone wants the same thing?”

“Well, not quite. I mean, there are radicals on both sides - some want us to leave it all alone for ever, and some want to clear fell it, even now.”

“But most of them...?”

“Well, they all say they want to save the forest.”

“Do you?”

“Yes!”

“So what’s the best way to do that?”

“Well, we’re going to protest.”

“Chain yourself to trees, that sort of thing?”

“Yes.”

“And that’s the best way to save the forest?”

“Well, I don’t know. That’s why I’m here.”

“You know, someone asked Mother Teresa once to sign a petition against nuclear warfare, and after she prayed, she said she couldn’t.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know. I didn’t understand it either. I had to give it a lot of thought. I hate the thought of nuclear warfare, and I almost certainly would have signed the petition.”

“So, why didn’t she?”

“She said that in doing so she would be taking sides, and not loving everybody equally.”

“Well that’s a copout, isn’t it?”

“I thought so, but I don’t think so now.”

“Why?”

“Signing the petition is empowering the argument.”

“Empowering the argument?”

“Yes. I mean very few people in the world want nuclear war, you know. But if you just argue against it, you make them argue for it, if they’re scared, or whatever their reason is.”

“I suppose so.”

“Well, look at what’s going to happen if you chain yourself to a tree.”

“What?”

“Well, lots of people will love you for it.”

“Yes.”

“What about other people, people who might want the forest saved just as much as you?”

“I suppose a lot of them will think I’m some sort of radical, and not love me for it.”

“So there’ll be people who are positive, and people who are negative?”

“Yes.”

“And a positive plus a negative equals zero.”

“I suppose it does.”

“So chances are you’ll be playing a zero sum game.”

“So what else can I do?”

“What’s already been done.”

“What’s that?”

“Tie yourself to a tree.”

“Or?”

“There are areas where local people, who understand the issues of their area, sat down and negotiated an agreement, and guess what they found.”

“What?”

“They found that generally speaking, everyone wanted the same thing. Except some wanted it now, and some wanted to work towards it. They had some disagreement about when and how, but not about the desirability of doing it.”

“So they worked it out?”

“They worked it out.”

“I see.”

“Do you?”

“Well, I see that force creates force.”

 
“Yep. Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity.”

Being an elder

We don’t have leaders in Erleichda. George had a lot to do with that. Being an Aboriginal, he understands the difference between being an elder and being a leader, and he doesn’t want anything to do with being a leader. I remember our conversation:

I ask him when a person becomes an elder. "Is it just a matter of age?"

"No," he replies, "People become elders when they are too old to chase kangaroos, but it's not automatic. You can be old and stupid."

"So is it because they know all the stories, and the law?"

"No. In my culture, everybody knows some of the stories, it is their duty; and everyone needs to know the law. This is a matter of survival, the stories are passed down from our mother or our father, and they are passed down to more than one person. Nobody has all the stories, or exclusive knowledge of any of them. Everybody knows the law, because if they didn't know it, how could they respect it? Everybody is important in preserving the culture, which is dependent on all the people, not on any individual, even an elder."

"So it's not a matter of knowing the stories, or being expert in the law?"

"Definitely not, although you couldn't be an elder if you didn't know your stories, and your people's law."

George is playing games with me - he won't tell me the answer, but he keeps encouraging me to look for my own answers. George is a teacher, but not in the normal sense of that word. I can't remember him ever actually telling me anything. What does he do, to make me think that he deserves my respect, to make me see him as a beloved teacher who empowers me to learn willingly, eagerly, without resentment?

I know that I feel safe with him, safe to be myself, safe to share who I am. He creates this safe space for me, I feel empowered to be who I am, to recognise my own wisdom, to speak out without fear.

George agrees with me that this is a quality of elders. "When my people meet, it is the elders who keep order, who ensure that everybody is heard, and treated with respect."

"You have to realise," he says, "that we have different ideas of the roles people play. There are children, there are adults, and there are old people, which includes the elders. In our society, it is the responsibility of the adults to look after the children, because they are our future; and the old people, whom we respect, and carry wisdom about who we are, and the way we should be. The adults are the least important people in our society, not like yours. You put your children in front of the TV, and your old people in nursing homes, so that you can get on with life; so you don't really have elders, and you don't understand their function."

Respect for other people, he tells me, is an important part of Aboriginal tradition. In Aboriginal society, the transition from child to adult is marked by a ceremony of initiation.

The ceremony is not initiation, it is a formal part of initiation. Initiation is an ongoing process of learning, punctuated by formal ceremonies.

George tells me that the first stage of his initiation started when he was fourteen, and lasted until he was twenty eight. "We are expected to go out and visit other tribes, to live with them, so that we understand their culture. This is the way we gain respect for other people. You cannot become an elder without giving this respect, and you cannot give this respect unless you understand other people. When you understand other people, and their law, only then can you understand and fully respect your own law."

This respect, I realise, empowers me. This, I see, is another quality of an elder.

"That's right," says George. "My people are taught to respect themselves. Everybody has a part to play, a responsibility for part of the whole, and we know that our welfare is dependent on the welfare of the whole. The elders encourage us to accept this responsibility, to speak up for our knowledge of our part of the whole."

"The whole what?" I ask.

"The whole tribe, for a start. The welfare of the people will be no greater than the welfare of any individual member. For the whole country, our land, because if the land isn't healthy, how can we be healthy? Each of us has a responsibility, and if any one of us is prevented from exercising this responsibility to the fullest, everybody suffers."

"So the elders gain respect by ensuring that everybody is treated with respect?"

"Right," says George.

George has experienced parts of life that I haven't, but he never belittles my experiences. Rather, he will share with me his experience of something similar or relevant. He shares, rather than arguing, and always his experience allows me to see things in another light, I learn from his experience. Learning comes from stories rather than lectures.

"So an elder creates a safe place, empowers people to speak their own mind, and teaches by sharing his experience. Is that what makes a man an elder?"

"No. Elders understand the law, which tells us where we are going, and what to do. They understand their responsibilities in relation to the law, and they help us to understand our responsibilities. They create a safe place for us to learn and discuss these responsibilities, where everybody can speak and participate. They encourage our participation by asking us questions that allow us to grasp this reality by speaking it. They act as guides and mentors by sharing their experiences and knowledge. All these things are true.

"Those are things that an elder does, but doing them does not make him an elder," says George. "Being an elder makes him do those things."

I recall an Aboriginal conference in Sydney, where I met an Aboriginal elder I’ll call Aunty Ella. "Aunty" is a term of respect with her people, an open acknowledgement that she is an elder.

As we walk towards the conference room where she is to present a paper, I ask her if she is nervous. She's not. I ask her if she has her notes ready. She doesn't have notes. I express surprise, and she tells me to look at the title of her paper. "The Knowledge is Within Us", I read.

I get the message - what makes Aunty Ella an elder is so deeply ingrained within her that she only has to speak and you recognise it. It's a part of her that has grown out of a lifetime of service to her people. Her audience is spellbound, not by anything she does, or the eloquence of her speech, but by something she is.

You become an elder when you develop this quality that is recognised, and when you have it, the acknowledgement of the people makes you an elder.

Part of this quality is vision. David Mowaljarlai was an elder of the Ngarinyin people of the Kimberley region. He said: "The elders must have a dream, for without this dream, how can the young people have a vision?"

"So the elders are keepers of the vision?"

"They are people who have spent their lives in service of the vision, of the law, and whose service has been recognised ceremonially and by the acknowledgement of their people. They have accepted their responsibility to the law, and demonstrated their respect."

"But you say they are not leaders?"

"Nope. We don't have leaders like you have leaders, and we don't want them. We know where we're headed, and we decide what to do by consensus, not because some leader tells us what to do. Elders certainly speak with authority, but their authority comes from the law. They guide us to understand what is right, your leaders argue about who is right. Elders create consensus and participation, leadership creates division and exclusion."

I'm beginning to understand what an elder is, what an elder does. An elder has vision, and having spent a lifetime in refining this vision, and in service to it, passes the vision on by empowering others to share and participate in it. Rather than acting as judge or jury, they hold up a mirror that allows others to judge for themselves.

Being an elder is not a matter of age, nor is it dependent on exclusive or even comprehensive knowledge of history or the means of physical survival. Being an elder is a quality of spirit that transcends the physical, that can be earned only through service to the universal good.

Initiation is an important part of Aboriginal culture, and initiation ceremonies mark important milestones on a journey which is essentially spiritual. Each ceremony marks the death of something old to allow the birth of something new. For an Aboriginal man to be an elder, traditional society demanded that he be fully initiated. Women could become elders when they passed the age of menopause.

In many Aboriginal societies, when a person was regarded as an elder, men could learn women's business, and women could learn men's business. Thus they achieved balance in their view of life.

To be fully initiated, a person was required to spend a lifetime learning and being of service to the people. Perhaps the final stage of initiation, which is necessary to become an elder, is the death of ego, and the recognition that your own welfare is intimately connected with the welfare of all people. Such a person has come to terms with themself, acknowledges both their masculinity and femininity, values consensus rather than the gratification of winning battles.

This is a man, or a woman, who is truly in touch and at one with the Universe, and surely such a person is entitled to be called an elder.

A good cup of tea

Leslie is our village teamaker. It is his job to make cups of tea, and this he does with excellence. He hangs around the communal area, the village centre, the heart of Erleichda, and he will come up to you and say "Would you like a cup of tea?"

If you say "Yes" Leslie will ask you "Would you prefer English Breakfast Tea, or Ceylon Tea, or Earl Grey, or Irish Breakfast, or ....." and so on, and whatever you want, Leslie will provide.

Then he'll ask "Weak or strong?", and whatever you want, he'll qualify it, like this: "Very weak?", or "Very strong?"

Then "Black or white?", and if white "How much milk?", and "Do you prefer it added before or after?"

Leslie seems to live in a world of endless, overwhelming data, as if some internal filter doesn't work properly, a filter that makes the world manageable for the rest of us. So he can't seem to make a decision, because there are just too many factors to consider before he can do anything, and so you have to provide every detail for Leslie, and then he will do it. And you'll get a wonderful cup of tea.

Outside Erleichda, people like Leslie can get into a lot of trouble. People think they're lazy, or stupid, or even sexually dangerous, because sometimes they get so lonely, or so involved in admiration, that they might touch you, or some other object of their affection. So they tend to be hidden away by relatives or friends, and they live inside, where they can cope, and life doesn't hold much hope for people like Leslie.

But in Erleichda, everyone knows him, everyone chooses him to be there, everyone is responsible. Leslie is part of the family, and he is loved. Just like idiots have been loved throughout history, before we decided that they were unacceptable, and had to be looked after either by their blood relatives or by the state, both of which proved incapable of the task, for one reason or another.

But in Erleichda, everyone is responsible, and everyone helps. They don't do it for charity, like the state, and there are enough people involved that no-one gets overwhelmed.

In Erleichda, every one shares, and it is not a burden. Leslie performs a useful function, and he feels good about that, and so do we.

As time goes by, Leslie is joining in more and more, and he is very intelligent, and, increasingly, very good company. Occasionally, he'll even take a risk and tell you what kind of tea you want, partly because he always remembers, and partly because, knowing you, and knowing you trust him, and love him, he feels confident to speak.

So if you come to Erleichda, and Leslie asks if you would like a cup of tea, be patient, and answer his questions with the respect which they deserve, and say thank you. You'll get a great cup of tea.

When people ask us how people like Leslie, who seem to see different realities than most of us, and are therefore of questionable competence when it comes to making important decisions for themselves, can take the oath of allegiance, we say that they have chosen to, and that their day to day living in Erleichda is consistent with their choice. That's all it takes. They are just as sane, just as competent, as any of the rest of us. We can only judge them by their actions, because you can't always rely on what they tell you, or fail to tell you.

In our chosen reality, people like Leslie are valuable, they give us insight into things we may not have seen, they are an extra dimension, and worthy of our support. They have taken the oath, they are willing to play the game. Just like the rest of us, they have their little eccentricities, they yearn to be loved and understood, they are willing to look at the past and the present and say "So what, now what?"

They choose not to be victims.

So what, now what... (1)

Elizabeth was the girl with everything: good looks, high and active intelligence, and a wealthy family. Beyond these advantages, she bubbled with life, she loved people and people loved her.

She was confident after the final school exams, relieved they were over. All those years of school finished now, the excitement of university, a career, a family, travel; these things were hers to choose. But tonight was a night for letting her hair down, so Elizabeth was happy to join her friends as they drove off to celebrate.

No-one accused them of drinking to excess, or speeding, although they did have too many passengers in the car. Put it down to youthful exuberance and lack of skill. Elizabeth, sitting on her girl friend's lap, unrestrained, was thrown forward by the impact, and snapped her neck at the fourth vertebrae. She would be lucky to live. Or perhaps unlucky in the eyes of some, because she would certainly never walk again, would spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair, would have minimal control over her body functions, would require constant attention and nursing.

She was a road victim.

“I didn’t need you to tell me that everything in my life, even this, was there because I chose it. Not that I believe that, of course, it just seemed to be the only productive belief to choose. It got me off my grief and anger and denial, and from that moment life got better, not worse.

“I prayed a lot, and everything changed when I changed my prayer from ‘Why me?’ to ‘Show me!’

“I mean, it doesn’t seem much of a life, does it, in a wheelchair for the rest of my life, my body has spasms that exhaust me, I am totally dependent on other people. So I could sit here and be bitter, and gather people around me who sympathise with my plight, and blame my friends for what happened; and I did that for a while. But that’s a pretty dark, narrow dead end, it leads nowhere. What happened, happened. And I really got pissed off with people treating me like this poor victim, and they were pissed off with it too, and embarrassed. They thought I was helpless.

“The only way forward is to take responsibility for it and for the future. So choosing to believe that I chose it gave me the power to choose the future. Choosing to believe that it was the best thing that could ever happen to me, because I chose it out of love and wisdom for myself, gave me the power to look at the future positively, to look for the value in my situation.

“So I concentrated on what I could do, not what I couldn’t, and now look at what I can do! I live in a world of can do, not can’t do. People talk to me about what I can do, not what I can’t do, and we all get excited about it. I live an exciting life.

“I’m insane, aren’t I, to think like that! But it works for me. And the more I choose to believe it, the more I believe it.”

Elizabeth has very little control, even movement of her body below the neck. She has learned to work her wheelchair by knocking the controls, by moving her hands a few centimetres, which is all the movement available to her. With the same movement she paints.

Her paintings are full of wonderful movement. She illustrates books and win exhibitions, and nowhere is it mentioned that she is a quadriplegic. Her paintings stand on their own merit, Elizabeth pours life into them.

Elizabeth chooses a life of beautiful expression that most of us believe to be beyond us. She is an artist.

Old habits...

Molly arrived back at Erleichda shaken and upset. She had run over a wombat.“I wasn’t driving fast,” she said, “and all of a sudden there it was. Just ran out and I couldn’t stop.”

 

It’s like that out here, driving, especially at dusk. Kangaroos, rabbits, wombats.Kangaroos and rabbits seem hypnotised by car lights; they freeze, then suddenly run, and their direction is never predictable, and is most often in front of you. Wombats just decide where they’re going and go, in as straight a line as possible, and if there’s a fence in the way, hard luck for the fence, because the wombat will try to go straight through it. They are not popular around here for what they do to fences.

“Don’t fret, Molly,” said George. “We know you didn’t do it deliberately, it happens to everyone sometime. It’s their instinct to run, so they run.”

“Well it’s not a very good instinct,” sobbed Molly. “They should change it. Why don’t they just stand still! I don’t want to hurt them.”

“They can’t change it,” said George. “Not so long ago their instinct served them well - if they stood still one of my ancestors would have speared them, they’d end up tucker. So running was right then, wrong now, but they just keep doing it.”

“Just like humans,” said Molly. “All the things we do that were appropriate then but aren’t any more. At least we can change.”

“Mind you,” said George, “it’s not quite that easy. I mean now they might get shot if they stand still. Dead if they do, dead if they don’t. Sometimes the old way of doing things isn’t all that bad. I guess cars have made all the difference. Now they have to make a choice - right ain’t right, and wrong ain’t wrong.”