Respecting Both the Time and the Person Constitutes the Cultural Basis

Teacher: "By focussing on the soul you originated from, your memory, that was lost by material bewilderment, will restore itself because of the satisfaction thus found. With your vision cleared the intelligence then operates as it should so that you can get your life in order. But, when you spiritually are focussed on the impersonal aspect of the truth, the intelligence will easily wander off in all kinds of thoughts with no definite coherence. Because of the frustration of all kinds of desires and dreams that you thus have, you will not be happy with that kind of thinking and will easily lose your way. When you intelligently are motivated to concentrate attentively on the perfection of the Person, you must therefore, on the basis of the insight that you otherwise are engaged in meaningless troublesome labor, be led as little as possible by imaginary, seemingly essential, material matters. Why would you need to possess a car when you can manage with public transport; why should you have a mortgage when you can rent a house; why do you need a long holiday when you also retrieve your harmony with a day off and why would you need to put extra efforts in making money while voluntary labor is just as useful? Is there something wrong with secondhand clothing; are you the one to be in control always; is nature not beneficial for everyone; is it so difficult to be content with what you have; is there no water from the tap; can you find no refuge with our Sweet Lord? Why would anyone wise with matter have to live according to the materialism of others? When you, thus detached from the world, have Him, the most dear Soul, in your heart, be then of service to that eternal, omnipresent Supreme Person, who constitutes the eternal purpose that puts an end to the cause of your materially determined way of life. Who else but the materialistic human being turns away from the transcendental notion and surrenders himself to the non-permanent? As a consequence of that submission the common people are controlled by their karma and end up in a river of suffering."

Seeker: "That being of service to Him, what form should that assume? When one goes for the outer person one ends up with the problem of temporality, when one goes for the inner person one cannot find a hold and when one heads for the impersonal it is indeed the coherence that is the problem." 

Teacher: "The outer person is subject to change while the soul is the constant factor. Also the manifestation of the Original Person in the outer world every time assumes another form, while the Soul of the soul, de Supersoul, our true self, constitutes the essence of the lasting aspect of the person. For that reason we meditate on the inner person in the form of the Supersoul while considering the external manifestation of the Great Person and His local forms of manifestation, His avatars, sages and prophets, as gateways or gatekeepers to that realm. With sufficient knowledge one may enter that area of knowledge and forget the outer form the way one forgets a door one just passed through. His form, the remembrance of His actions and His names, constitutes so to say the cover and the lay-out of the book while the soul constitutes the content. The problem of finding a hold when one directs one's attention inward is paradoxically solved by also directing oneself at  the impersonal aspect that assumes the form of the time schedule of your meditations and sacrifices. Since the personal and impersonal aspect are inseparably connected to one another and constitute the primal duality of the Absolute Truth that we also call God, an improvement in the coherence of your conditionings with the culture of time also results in a better relationship with the Person and the other way around. Also a better relationship with the person in the form of the Person results in a better sense of the impersonal order of nature."

Seeker: "What does that better coherence with time and a better association with the Person consist of?" 

Teacher: "That is a matter of dharma. Dharma means that you respect the true nature of something or someone.  The true nature of the person is the soul elevated above time. In order to respect the soul, your original I-awareness, we operate with regulative principles, standards, values and virtues, I extensively gave instruction about in book 1. The ego, the I-awareness of your bodily consciousness that is bound to time and constitutes a source of fear, thus obtains an eternal value and finds liberation... We then speak of a conscience. To hav a conscience that way is the form of service to the essence of the person, the Person of Happiness, we need to become happy both individually and socially.
As for the impersonal aspect, the true nature of time we derive from the natural phenomena of the Time of the Great Person, the time of the Time so to say - the time phenomena as a consequence of the Time as a cause - what generally boils down to respecting the light of the sun and the moon. Therefore in devotion an important service consists of following the regularity of the light of the sun and the moon. That we usually do with clocks and calendars.
In this modern political age one do has to ask oneself whether or not the commonplace fixations on the length of day, the seven day's week and the solar year represent the  true nature, the natural state of affairs, correctly. By the complexity of the dynamic movements of the luminaries we lean by simplification toward pragmatism because of which false concepts of unity arise like the mean length of day, the length of the week, a time zone or a fixed amount of days for the solar year including a fixed date for leaping the year. By those false concepts a split is created in the relation of culture and nature - and even between one's right and left hemisphere in breaking the link between time and place - because of which one arrives at two consciousnesses. Two consciousnesses cannot be managed by a person, he ends up with neurotic symptoms because of them and therefore we propagate in our ātmatattva filognosy the dharma of respecting the true nature of Time, that is to say, the natural time and not so much the cultural pragmatical and tampered unity of time that operates inductively (generalizing). To be in line with nature again, that practically amounts to leaping the week once in a fortnight, to once a week correcting the clock for following the position of the sun, that is to say, the leaping of all clocks - or just a meditation clock - that are not provided with an astronomical equation wheel as it is called, a fixed day of study - and/or a religious day - to the phase of the moon and in principle a gradually shifting date for leaping the solar year when it is necessary and a gradually shifting date for a so-called galactic year, the moment we with the earth are closest to the centre of the galaxy. When we live up to that rule we respect both the personal and impersonal with at the one hand a regular meditation on the timeless Person of the Supersoul of the soul, and a clearly on nature founded, astronomical system of time at the other hand so that we follow an approach that may be called both scientific and devoted to the person. The filognostic dharma thus characterizes itself by this duality. This combination of the two basic factors of the Absolute Truth, constitutes, according to this purpose philosophy, in fact the essence of all religion."

Seeker: "Is it not so that this policy cannot directly be found in the scriptures where one hardly speaks about time systems, but rather of methods to consider those systems as prisons of conditioning to escape from by meditation?"

Teacher: "That is not entirely true. In monasteries, temples and other places of worship in reality great importance is attached to the regularity of praying and offering. Monasteries are for that reason also called orders. The impersonal interest of time is thus by all religions propagated as an essential part of the dharma. It constitutes the backbone of the societal order one is aiming at. It is, next to the time system of the culture that is not natural, also the constant urging for the transcendental position that creates the impression that we want to get rid of time systems. Practically you must, with the meditative detachment from your conditionings, always keep a certain degree of order in the sense of a well-defined amount of time for your actions or non-actions, for even a monk is obliged to time bound physical duties of maintenance. Keeping order with time, to have structure, is a cultural and also religious fundament, a prerequisite to progress in this respect, the first mechanical clocks that did not run on water, for that reason at the end of the Middle Ages came about in monasteries in Europe. There is thus always a personal fragrance about the impersonal clock that must remind you of the necessity of a more natural command of time. Personally keeping order in one's meditations is done, except for with a (meditation) clock, somewhat more liberal with prayer beads or with a fixed sequence of then again in time schedules lodged meditative actions.
What indeed is not so much found in classical scripture is the theme of a cultural and a natural form of time consciousness. One in Sanskrit does not speak of sat-kāla and asat-kāla, true and untrue time, because time, kāla, after all is His impersonal aspect. The simple reason of it is that one in the old days did not know such a complication of a tampered order of time. It did not exist. One does speak of a false ego though  (ahamkāra) of identification with one's material interest. One had water clocks and - different types of - sundials and arguments about their viability an validity. With the calendars though there was -  and has always been - a problem to leap them systematically as required scientifically.
The personalism, the one-sided stress on a Supreme Person, a Lordship or else a dictator, has historically also sometimes been interpreted as a reaction to a lack of a clear-cut culture of time, a proper societal framework of action. The answer to that problem would then, from the impersonal approach of science, be found in throwing light on the order of time. Our cultures would progress because of an increased technological capacity to make clocks and distribute calendars. But that conclusion is incorrect. Religion, to be sure, can be considered a reaction to a failing time policy. One may think that if one, as for order in a concrete sense, cannot succeed very well with the state, one instead more abstract then with a religion for finding order will need to believe in - and be attached to - a leader. Maybe we, thus considered, even, with a good, more natural time policy, would be delivered from the ritual duties of the religion itself… a better order of time would render the notion of God and the reverence for persons completely obsolete. But God and the Person of God, as also the devotee thereof, can that way not be explained to be dead or primitive concepts of thinking and living. A historical fact is that a pope of Rome replaced an emperor of Rome, and that the focus on the person of the Person remained necessary, despite a better horology and mathematical ability to leap and to publish. Reformations of the time system and of  religious practices, as also of new scientific approaches and discoveries from the side of intellectual 'enlightenment', did not put an end to the necessity of respect for the person as a focus of attention and as an icon of moral order and the order of the state. Also the philosophers of the adult enlightened mind wanted - and still want - also to figure as new popes of a better way of life and thinking. Politics and also philosophy constitutes, considering the endless quarrels and political/paradigmatic strife, a source of ego-illusions and the religion and religiosity opposes that with the non-illusion of the individual soul and the Supersoul. In the name of God and the religion the misconception rose therewith that one can create order in the world by imposing a religious Superego. That, being at odds with the adult option, on the contrary led to war with other Superego approaches. But because of that one can, in favor of the impersonalism of state politics with its legal settlement of time as a solution, not just like that discard the personalism of religions or even the reverence for philosophers and teachers.
The personal and impersonal in the reality of our human history, and thus also in our time conscious filognosy, constitutes a fundamental primal difference, an essential basic duality that rules the entire natural ànd cultural creation. The person as a cultural focus constitutes an historical continuity like one sees with the necessity of an emperor or pope of Rome, as the center and cradle of civilization. And also physics, and the rest of science, cannot reason without the testimony, the explanations and the influence of the observer. With the philosophers of the so-called Brahman and Bhagavān level of realization in India, as was discussed in Inspiration 1.2,  the necessity of the respect for the person as a teacher and leading example is also maintained. It is not so that the one generated from the other as a reaction or something, it is not so that we revere persons because of a deficient order of time or the other way around.  Neither does the local position in between of having a Supersoul  (a so-called Paramātmā), or a conscientious personal presence in a social context, constitute the purpose or would that be God. The filognostic axiom is that, from the earliest moment of the creation of the material world, the unity of the Absolute Truth has consisted of those two halves of material and spirit in combination with a local spiritual principle. In our cultural pattern of fragmentation, of political and scientific division, we for that reason collectively learned to know ourselves in our 'modern time and age' with all the -isms belonging to the ignorance of being bewildered about an independent existence of any of the three:  the personalism, the scientific impersonalism and the local call for conscience of all political and other minded spiritual and intellectual -isms. The purpose of filognosy consists of the ending of the war between those two challenging personalist and impersonalist factions as also the discouragement of the illusion of a position in between that would be independent of the two and could replace them. By the law of the transcending true Self, those two and their middle position constitute each others eternal and inseparable counterpart. It is the inscrutable oneness in diversity, the integrity of the Original Person, we constantly meditate upon."

Seeker: "The problem of being of a better coherence is thus solved when we faithfully follow the time of nature?"

Teacher: "Partly, as said before, there is more to it than being truthful with the time. Time concerns the impersonal aspect of truth in respect of the material universe that is His living form. So, at its best, half of the problem is covered thereby so to say. But indeed strictly following the order of nature is neither the purpose. The machines and time systems we developed can be obliged to be exact to the frame of reference that is nature, for they constitute the formal connection to that original truth that is of an absolute origin and natural lawful integrity. In science we call this the demand of validation or gauging of an instrument of measurement. But human beings will always want - and need - to improvise to that original order. A man is not just a machine and cannot and should not try to behave like such a purely mechanical unit. Otherwise you would become a compulsory neurotic mental patient. It is like with a musician playing a musical piece. He will not be appreciated when he plays it like a metronome, strictly in the tempo prescribed. He will humanize it by subtly accelerating and slowing down his tempo in expressing the nature of the piece. So too people with clocks and calendars cannot follow strictly the structure thereof, however natural and thus dynamic in its measures it would be. But still they need the precision of the reference itself, they need to know the extent of their deviation from the schedule that is the natural norm of the Great Person of the material universe, if correct."

Seeker: "Is this dual path of a personal/impersonal approach confirmed by scripture and if so, how should our focus then be?"

Teacher: "These paths are called the direct and indirect path of approaching the Original Person of our focus. They are discussed in the Vedas, the original books of prayers, mantras and hymns of India. This is also in accordance with the nature of the eternal truth as spoken by the Lord of Yoga giving instruction to the lower divinity. For those living a material life there is no method more favorable than the direct personal path of a devoted respect for Him, His integrity, wisdom and nature, that is called bhakti-yoga.
Following the indirect path automatically, as stated, in the end leads to the same result because the two ways are part of an inseparable fundamental duality. Careful study of the scripture leads to the conclusion that one is optimally focussed when one feels attracted to meditate, by the gateway of His outer Person, on the Supersoul inside He is also. The Supreme Person can be found in every living being as the core of the self, the timeless witness who is the Original Soul of all souls. Approaching Him one gains in intelligence, clarity of consciousness and happiness. The symptoms of goodness, harmony and truthfulness thus found in direct meditation lead to that conclusion. For that reason we present this book. It is meant to be able to listen to the stories, remember, speak and sing about the Person of Consciousness Elevated Above All as the proper method for finding the blissful core and stability of one's humanity, spirituality and personality. It quickly purifies the mind, promotes one's health in every respect and paves the way for finding one's original self in self-realization."

Source for this Inspiration:
S.B. Canto 2, Chapter 2