A Way of Truth for the West
Speaking to his meditation group in London, 8 July 1981.
The objective of the truth to date has mostly been to enter the body. The Eastern religions have taught wisdom through ‘grounding’, through entering the body in meditation. In the days of the Buddha it was a physical and emotional life in which the attention was forced into the ground; and the person with a religious background would enter the ground of the body, bringing stillness.
We recognise the truth of the East and have been into the ground of ourselves, into the love of God in our feeling being, into nature, into immortality. We have been there. But here we are in the West. And now the Western intellect has taken over the world. So this is where we must work as the truth - even though we also represent what has been. We represent all that the Buddhists have done and all that the love of Christ has done. But what we have not done is face up to the tremendously powerful phenomenon of the Western intellect. Going out into the world preaching the love of God does not face it. The intellect is faced by saying: 'I love the truth. I love God. And I am demonstrably more intelligent than you’.
The Western intellect can be converted, can be reached, through the ground of the individual: 'Do you live an ordinary life, like me? Do you earn enough money to pay the rates? Do you pay your taxes? Do you sleep in a bedroom?’
That establishes the ground for you to converse with the intellect. Your intelligence - the intelligence of God - brought up in the West but having come out of the East, joins the Western intellect. And you don’t tell someone, 'You must love God. You must praise the Lord and say your prayers’. Or, 'You have to be self-realised’. You say, 'I am more intelligent than you because I love God. I have right values. I can demonstrate to you anything in the truth, if you can listen.’
A Star Diamond