Blessing the Ordinary—New Books Bring Old Traditions of “Enlightenment" Down to Earth

Reviewed by Kurt Johnson

Freedom Dreams: An Invitation to Awakening.
Dasarath (David Davidson)
Booktree, 2002.
ISBN 1-58509-130-8.
200 pp. $18.95
The Booktree

Passionate Presence: Experiencing the Seven Qualities of Awakened Awareness.
Catherine Ingram
Gotham Books (Penguin), 2003.
ISBN 1592400027
240 pp. U.S. $24.00, Canada $36.00
Passionate Presence

Ethical Culture’s founder Felix Adler was never able to separate his sense of the ordinary from what he also felt was truly extraordinary, in fact “holy”, about humankind. “To say that man has ‘worth’”, he said, “or ‘end’ per se is to make a cosmic pronouncement, is to affirm of man, that is of the spiritual nature of man, a preciousness that would remain through all the finite world.” (Reconstruction of the Spiritual Ideal, 1923). The language may be somewhat dated, but the message is clear—for Adler there was no divide between what was ordinary and what was truly extraordinary.

In this spirit new books emanating from old and venerable “wisdom traditions” can be welcomed. Recently, one of the most popular books of this venue has been Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now [New World Library, 1999]. Interestingly, Tolle identifies himself with the same wisdom tradition as the two books reviewed here (“Advaita,” or “nonduality,” rooted in Hinduism). Significant to the comments here, however, Tolle came to his own understanding through an independent and spontaneous experience, in a time of his life filled with great angst. Tolle’s strong voice, rooted in hard times, is perhaps what has made his book so popular. In this same spirit, Dasarath (Dr. David Davidson, in workaday world a motivational advisor for a leading corporation) and Catherine Ingram (a well-known Dharma teacher also acclaimed for her journalistic works on world religions and social activism), offer us books that aim squarely at placing the transcendent experience, in the sense that it is liberating, completely in the context of the day-to-day and the lessons learned from the “school of hard knocks.”

Reading these books, one is struck that the great life lesson these authors are trying to teach is: whatever wisdom is, it is totally locked into the “nuts and bolts” of how we live our daily life; whatever true happiness is, it too is grounded in the commonplace and the “now.”

Consistent with this direction, both authors clearly aim autobiographical elements in their books toward an ultimate destination shaped as “commonplace,” appreciating the ordinary in an extraordinary way. This discovery is the most important thing both Dasarath and Ingram want to share.

Dasarath brings to his work an academic background as a historian (thus affording rich analyses in historical perspective and language) and decades of spiritual training in both Zen and Hindu traditions. Catherine Ingram’s words emanate not only from years of spiritual practice but from decades of travel through many of the world’s hot spots, and unique journalistic opportunities to pick the spirits and hearts of the “best and brightest” among spiritual and social activists (In the Footsteps of Gandhi: Conversations with Spiritual/Social Activists [Parallax Press, 1990]).

Ingram’s Passionate Presence is divided into seven sections, one for each essence she sees arising from an awakened awareness: silence, tenderness, embodiment, genuineness, discernment, delight and wonder. Dasarath’s Freedom Dreams is essentially in two sections— an enunciation of wisdom as he has discovered it, and the story of his travels, inward and out, to do so. Relevant to reviewing these books together, both Ingram and Dasarath thank the same teacher for pointing their way: Shri H. W. L. Poonja (also known as Poonjaji or, affectionately, Papaji), one of the successors to India’s beloved sage Ramana Maharshi (often seen as one of the inspirations to Gandhi).

The “down to earth” approach of both books is summarized by Catherine Ingram in her introduction: “[Our] need for meaning and belonging remains the same, yet traditional options for fulfilling that need have less and less appeal. …The modern world, for many, has become a soulless place. …Out of this disappointment comes a large and growing interest in finding meaning that is not based in beliefs or traditions, but instead relies purely on direct experience.” Dasarath speaks likewise: “The most important condition…is to want freedom above all things. I want freedom and freedom alone.” Even desire itself points in this direction: "All desire is the self's own yearning for itself. Deep within us is an inherent, subliminal knowing… longing to return to source. Intuiting its own incompletion, the "I" yearns for itself-as-wholeness. … Time is a divine instrument that serves…[this] unfolding of creation The play of polarity is ruthlessly efficient”. Ingram reminds of the “nut and bolts” of it: “The wheel of existence is not for sissies.”

Ingram points out another important insight for modernity: “Religious beliefs in transcendence have been handed down over time… when most people led short, brutal lives and relied on hope for a better afterlife… But the disembodied worldview is not only anachronistic, it is potentially harmful. It can lead to apathy by dampening our passion for life and our care of others. …These world views—it’s all illusory, it’s all perfect, it’s all karma—can hide a cowardice of heart.”

In short, both books aim squarely and consistently at locating the reader’s attention in how the world of the “ordinary” is precisely that world in which we will find what we are looking for. As Dasarath says “desire is a divine capacity. It is the supreme energy itself…and desire drives both separation and return to source…it expresses and serves a kind of restless momentum”. One cannot doubt the relevance of that insight to people in our modern busy world— embracing both what is being “done” at our often frantic pace, yet also realizing that our consciousness-- in love, in imagination, in wonder-- also transcends it. “It is not desire that is wrong”, notes Dasarath, “but its narrowness and smallness. Desire is devotion.” Catherine Ingram grounds this same insight in somewhat less abstract terms, first quoting Thomas Fuller: “There is no coming to heaven with dry eyes”, and then, in her own words, “Seeing nothing as alien to ourselves, we embrace the world as our own. Some aspects of it are wonderful and some are awful, but it is all familiar because its fundamental essence is the same…discerning awareness knows that we win some and lose some and that our inherent peace need not be disturbed in any case.”

If one was to voice any distinction between the language of these two books it might be only that while Dasarath seems to often work from a gift emanating from his grounding in Zen— probing many details in life and revealing therein hidden meanings and “tricks” of insight—Catherine Ingram more often relies on references to moments in which all human beings would simply be at a loss—the death of loved ones, the being satisfied with little. Both writers give life the same epitaph: for Dasarath “The clock keeps moving, yet is it still always now,” for Catherine Ingram “Nothing that arises in the sky defines or reduces the sky itself. In the same way, we are not ultimately defined or reduced by any experience.” These are comforting, insightful, words for the modern world.

Summarizing the enduring value of these books, an anecdote seems appropriate. Awhile ago this reviewer attended a session by a friend and colleague of the above authors, another teacher in Ramana’s tradition, Pamela Wilson. A women in the audience, listening to Wilson’s insights, exclaimed outloud “my God this is amazing; have you been living my life? Have you been living in my head?” The speaker simply smiled and said, referring to the heart and mind, “No, the truth is we all share the same standard unit.” This quality of the shared and the commonplace is what makes both of these books resonate. Readers will find things with which they will ultimately identify and know that they too “have been there.” This is the measure of both books’ success.

Dr. Kurt Johnson serves on the boards of the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture and the AEU’s National Service Conference. A prolific scientist by trade, Kurt has also written in the literary arena (Nabokov’s Blues, K. Johnson and S. Coates, Zoland 1999, McGraw-Hill 2000) and serves various communities supporting inter-religious dialogue, particularly InterSpiritual Dialogue www.isdac.com and Fellowship of the Heart, an international organization in the tradition of Ramana Maharshi.

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