Poise - What is it and why do we need it?

 

“With regard to those souls who attain God-realization subsequently, the two requirements stand, viz. inner poise and adequate adjustment with everything in the universe.” – Beams From Meher Baba, page 29

 

I can’t remember when I first read these words from Meher Baba, but they have stuck with me ever since. The requirements for God-realization—that alone is an extraordinary statement—that there are actually requirements. Equally as extraordinary to me is the term adequate adjustment—specifically the word adequate. One doesn’t have to become perfectly adjusted to everything in the universe—just adequately adjusted. That takes a lot of pressure off oneself.

 

So, what exactly is poise, and how exactly does one acquire it? Simply put, poise means balance and equilibrium; it implies a graceful, elegant baring—qualities that seem to be all too often lacking in me. I’ll give you an example, a small example, because I have observed that poise, or lack thereof, is revealed most clearly in small things.

 

I received an email a few days ago from my cell phone provider informing me that my account ID was temporarily locked and I had to reset my password. Annoying, but very minor right? I immediately thought, “Poise, this is all about poise; it is an opportunity” So I called the provider and got asked a bunch of questioned by a machine with a voice. I was then put on hold—my waiting time would be about five minutes. While waiting, I went online, figured out how to reset my password, and reset my password. So, by the time I was finally was able to speak to a customer service representative all I really wanted to know why my ID had been suspended in the first place. It took awhile for her to understand my question and in the end, I never did get an answer.

 

While all this was going on, I was very aware that the fragile hem of my poise was beginning to slip from my grasp. I could hear it in my voice, my body felt kind of twitchy—I was definitely annoyed. Afterwards, it took some time and the repetition of Baba’s Name to calm down.

 

So, poise, what is it? I know less what it is and more what it isn’t because I experience the latter much more than the former, for example, there cannot be poise if I am taking things too seriously, if I am identified. To be identified is to be in a state in which I feel myself as something other than myself—but what is myself? Meher Baba makes clear the distinction between the Self, which is real, and the endless parade of illusory false-selves.

 

Some years ago, I had the opportunity to witness an important Tibetan Buddhist ceremony called the Black Crown Ceremony. It was be led by a man with the title of Karmapa. Simply put, through the ceremony, the Karmapa transmits the attribute of Divine Compassion to the world. The Karmapa is a very high, consciously incarnate, lama. Traditionally, the Karmapa is the only person on the planet with the authority to conduct the Black Crown Ceremony.

 

Throughout the ceremony I was mainly focused on the Karmapa. He was sitting on a raised platform in the middle of the hall and singularly directed the many monks doing various tasks connected to candles, scrolls, prayers, and incense. The Karmapa appeared to be attentive to what was going on around him—totally focused, but also, totally natural. He did not appear to be in any way identified or attached to his status or his role in the ceremony. This struck me as being exceptional.

 

Speaking from personal experience, attachment and focused were always linked. When I was attached or identified with something, I would also be focused on it; when I wasn’t attached or identified, I would be inattentive and sloppy. I realized that the Karmapa was, by example, showing me how I needed to live my life, i.e. attentive, but not attached. The question was how?

 

Poise exists, or doesn’t exist, as a state of mind. Mind is necessary for the acquisition of consciousness. Mind acting through mental, subtle, and gross bodies is the process by which consciousness is acquired. The by-product of this process is what Meher Baba calls sanskaras. Sanskaras are impressions created in the mind—impressions in the sense that a hand pushed into soft clay creates an impression in that clay. Mental, subtle, and gross actions create mental, subtle, and gross impressions (sanskaras) on the soft clay of the mind. These impressions are retained by the mind and motivate further mental, subtle, and gross actions.

 

Ego, or the sense of I, which is the principle attribute of the human condition, attempts to organize and reconcile the various, and often contradictory, sanskaras of the human mind. This I, or this ego, is the fundamental difference between the human form and all the previous sub-human forms from stone, to mineral, to vegetable, and animal forms. This distinction is profound, but not easily understood. Meher Baba, in his discourse called, The Nature of the Ego and its Termination – Part 1, explains,

 

“In the pre-human stage, consciousness has experiences, but these experiences are not explicitly brought into relationship with a central ‘I.’ The dog is angry, but he does not continue to feel, ‘I am angry.’”

 

In other words, in the case of the pre-human condition, there is not a fully developed sense of ‘I’ which attempt to make sense, and there-by reconcile, the diverse and contradictory impressions of the mind. As Meher Baba says;

 

“If mind is to be freed from the conflict it must always make the right choice and must unfailingly prefer the truly important to the unimportant. The choice has to be both intelligent and firm in all cases of conflict—important as well as unimportant. It has to be intelligent, because only through the pursuit of true and permanent values is it possible to attain a poise which is not detrimental to the dynamic and creative flow of mental life.” – Discourses of Meher Baba, The Nature of the Ego and its Termination, p. 60 – 61.

 

So if mind is to be freed of conflict and achieve equilibrium, i.e. poise, it must begin to function at another level which is intelligent and based upon true and permanent values, in other words, it must undergo a transformation—a metamorphous—to another level of functioning. The Gospels call this transformation metanoia. Metanoia, the word translated into English as repentance, has two parts, meta and noia. Meta means change, but not just change, not just turning around in a circle, but change to another level of functioning, i.e., a spiral rather than a circle, and noia mean mind.

 

I find comfort in this, because it doesn’t mean that I have to work at stopping my mind, or even controlling it in the usual sense; with the change, with the transformation, with the metanoia, comes the intelligence and the true and permanent values—because intelligence and Truth are the natural state of the mind itself; they are inherent in the mind itself and don’t need to be acquired, only freed of impressions—sanskaras. But still, the question remains; what, if anything, can one do to achieve it?

 

“The integration of the opposites of experience is a condition of emancipating consciousness from the thralldom of diverse compulsions and repulsions which tend to dominate consciousness irrespective of valuation. The early attempts to secure such integration are made through the formation of the ego as its base and centre.” – Discourses of Meher Baba, The Nature of the Ego and its Termination, p. 57.

 

But Meher Baba then goes on to say that it is in the very nature of the ego to promotes the illusion of separation, and hence duality, which is opposed to the indivisible oneness of Reality.

 

“It creates and recognizes the ‘thine’ in order to feel what is distinctly ‘mine’.”– Discourses of Meher Baba, The Nature of the Ego and its Termination, p. 75.

 

It makes sense that any poise which is secured by balancing on a point which is itself an illusion can amount to nothing more than an illusory poise. So, what is the way out?

 

There seems to be two options depending on whether one is directly connected to a God-realized Master or whether one is attempting to follow the inner path on one’s own or with the help of a teacher who is not God-realized.

 

With regards to the latter, G.I. Gurdjieff often said that man is a plurality—a house inhabited by many I’s. Though he may look in the mirror and always see the same image, behind that singular image lurks various and often opposing I’s, all of which vie for supremacy of the whole. This is why it is difficult to always follow up on one’s plans and promises—one I makes the promise, another I has to keep it, and, in most cases, the different I’s don’t know, or respect, each other.

 

So, for one to make progress in the odyssey of consciousness, among the various I’s, an I, or a group of I’s, must be appointed and given authority over all the other I’s. Gurdjieff calls this I, or this group of I’s, the deputy steward. It is the job of the deputy steward to prepare the house, as it were, for the arrival of the Master—the Real owner of the house.

 

But with regards to the former, an individual who has had the good fortune to enter in the orbit of a God-realized Perfect Master, it is the Master himself who gradually, and often in hidden and mysterious ways, replaces the disciple’s limited and false ego as the guiding principle of its odyssey to Truth-consciousness with Himself by becoming the singular focal point of the disciple’s own limited consciousness. In other words, one become less and less concerned with his own perceived desires and demands, and more and more concerned with how to please the Master and act according to His wish and will. The journey continues by stages until one has totally arrived at the state of self-forgetfulness which unfailingly leads to Self-remembering, real poise, and real adjustment to everything and nothing—Reality and illusion.