Global Priors Council

Chicago

July 21, 1979

This is the third talk on the life of the Way. Its announced topic is the "The Finality of the Way", which does not mean the "last or the end"; it means, I think, the "Ultimacy of the Way". I believe that this work on the Life of the Way is the most important thing we have undertaken since we worked on the phenomenology of the Other World. If we bring it off, this will be our second contribution to history. Our first was the phenomenology of the interior life, the Other World. We devised the poetic imagery so that anyone can talk about the significant deeps of life, whether that person be of one religion, one culture, one educational level, or another, or none. It is a new form of poetry to talk about the Other World; it is a new form of poetry to talk about a level of experience we all have. We are on to something equally common, equally significant as the Other World with our work on the life of the Way. That is really all I want to say. But I want to say it lots of ways. With this life of the Way, we are not playing with cute gimmicks to titillate our gizzards into spiritual uplift for the summer or to give us things to spin about our experiences of the year.

I want to talk on first, the reason of this topic; second, the life of the Way; third, the elements of seriously considering the life of the Way and finally, things that need work. The topic is "Finality of the Way."

The Panchayat experienced many different kinds of transportation during last year's travels. Twice I had the dubious honor of driving in a horrendous blizzard from central Iowa to Chicago in a car with no snow equipment, once on a return trip from discontinuity and once on a return from a Lorimor visit. I am from the southern part of the States. This blizzard business is quite foreign to me. The first time was in a car with very slick tires. We were driving along. We suddenly became very attentive. We noticed every snowflake, every gust of wind, every whir of the motor, every bump in the road. Every time a truck threw up its spray, we were outraged. The exits on the super highway were blocked. The only way off was the ditch. There were 23 trucks in the ditch in one five mile stretch. There was an incredible seriousness to that drive. We were very attentive. We discovered you do not accelerate or decelerate. You don't use your brakes. You don't use the gas pedal very much. I knew that, but took an icy bridge a bit too fast, shifted into low gear and went across the bridge sideways. We did not do that anymore. But we made it, kicking and screaming into the parking lot where the car got stuck and stayed for two months and someone else ran into it and rolled up the bumper. Curiously, on our return we took our suitcases upstairs, then went back into the same driving blizzard and walked five blocks to an Uptown restaurant for dinner. There was that kind of vitality in the midst of it.

The life of the Way is something like that. We have on our hands a movement, a community or an Order that feels like it's relatively ill-equipped, going down an obscure and slippery path to the known end of primal community. You see all around you the absolute wreckages of other movements, institutions, good ideas, models and communities that­have tried and not made it. The exits are blocked. There is no way for human community in this world, save for the Way. That is the situation. There was a funny thing about that drive. I found my meditative council shifted from people like H. Richard Niebuhr to people like A. J. Foyt. I found myself incredibly disinterested in the thermol­dynamics of snow fall, or the intricacies of the internal combustion engine or the global trends affecting the gasoline shortage. I didn't even care much for the symphony on the radio. Being on the Way gives a remarkable focus to our attention. We have 292 human development projects now and a quarter of a million awakened people from the past year moving down the path toward primal community. That certainly gives a peculiar focus to the questions that are before us. The question is not, "Should we have this on our hands? How did we get here?" The question now is, "How do we take the next step?" There is a particularity to that which is startling.

I was telling my in­laws about this blizzard experience and they topped my story. They are from the midwest and accustomed to that kind of weather. Once driving in a blinding snowstorm they discovered that the trick was to get behind a large truck and drive behind it so it could clear the path, drove about 100 miles behind this truck and could not see anything. Finally the truck slowed down to where they couldn't take it anymore. They were in too big a hurry. As they pulled out to pass, they discovered the sun was shining and they had been driving in the truck's spray for at least 50 miles. It may be that yesterday's voyage got us out from behind whatever truck we were following so we can again see our direction and path. There are two reasons for this topic of Finality of the Way. First, we know something about it and second, it speaks to our situation. But there is more to it than that. The Other World is perhaps what we will be remembered for if history remembers us at all, because that is where we broke through with poetry for the depths of experience which any man can use. That is amazing. This work on the Life of the Way is out to create the poetry for the authenticity of life in community. That is not a static life. It is a developing situation. We broke through to the Other World in the period of time when we turned to the new Social Vehicle in 1971. Then in '72, we put poetry on it. But it was in the midst of intense engagement with the social that we fell through into the Other World. I like that model in the Voyage guide that is diamond shaped. It is the human journey that goes to the depths of Being and back into history, then out to build the model that is injected back into history. We have ourselves entered in this past year into history. The buffeting of the forces that we have all experienced comes from simply getting into history where the action is. That has thrown us into intense reflection on the questions, "Is this right? Is this a mistake? Is this the way?"

The Way is about authentic life in community. When we worked on the kingdom and the new reality last summer, we had a glimpse of the emerging future. We spelled it out with terrific excitement. Then went back out into history. The seriousness of working for that reality to come into being took almost until the middle of August to hit us. We have been up against that lack of romanticism this last year. The spirit crisis of­entering history threw us into the question of hope and reflections on the Way. It is interesting to notice that this year, we have not had to report or hide or flaunt our spirit struggles and crises of the peat year. We have been able to examine those, hold them up and throw them into the future around the question, "Is this the Way? Is this the Way for everyone? Is this the Way for community?" Somebody the other day talked about three levels of participation in this life of the Way. There is the novice, out to discover what it is. There is the pointer, the one who gets a fix on what it is and decides to point others to the Way. Then there is the follower of the Way, the one who is on the Way; and is the embodiment of the Way, perhaps the exemplar or the incarnation of the Way. I think we have been through those phases as a body. We are now probably at the point of daring to be the exemplars or perhaps the corporate incarnation of the Way in our times. I was shocked during the GRA because a couple of things emerged that I, at least, had not anticipated. One was the two million villages image. The importance of that is, we discovered, this group of people, of which we are a part, is willing to give its life for nothing less than the two million villages and the four billion people of the world. That emerged indicatively as our target. The question is how do we get from here to there. Obviously saturation and replication are not the answers­-something else is. That target is what we are about. The second thing that emerged this summer was the myth factor. I am intensely excited about that, because I believe this myth factor is perhaps the way to get to the masses. We have done the signs and wonders but what about the stories? If you have shown the Global Film and watched what happened to people, you see the story of real human development is capable of changing lives­­of making an impact, of doing awakenment. As we work on the myths this year, we are not talking about fairy stories and animal tales, like Watership Down . We have the grist of the 20th Century myths. The myth makers of early times understood themselves to be telling history, but it was history in which the meaning showed through. The power of documentation, reporting and stories is coming alive. It came out of the summer and that was a surprise. The third surprise out of the summer was how we could not separate the missional from the spirit talks. We tried, but they came out the same. We had one series about the Life of the Way and another series about awakenment, engagement and fulfillment. If you hadn't read the title, you could not tell which was which. It is clear that our mission, now and in the future, is not about doing community development. It is about propagating the Life of the Way. That is what we are about. That is where the convergence comes together. We are not operating on two planes.

The second reason for this topic is that it speaks to our trans­cultural situation. There were people from 28 countries sitting around these tables during the GRA. We had that great dance celebration with every culture ­ -except the United States­- dancing for the group. It was tremendous. I thought of those Ur celebrations we had ten years ago when we would decor the place and dress as though it were another culture. This year it was the real thing. It was amazing. We are a trans­cultural people and this image of the Life of the Way is a part of the many cultures around the world. It is a transcultural image. Now that is exciting. I thought at one time it was exciting because it meant now we could devise a common liturgy. I think now that would be a mistake. It is an image in which all of us, whatever our background, can participate in the filling full and in the spelling out of what authentic life in human community is all about. That is the importance of it. I am frankly in no hurry to do anything with rituals. Our unity is simply not in jeopardy right now and it won't be. We can continue to experiment with these images. Let's not get locked in to something too soon or we will lose the archaic and become something like a reduced Ba'hai operation. Let's keep the depth. But with the Life of the Way image, we can experiment. We can all participate in it. That is exciting. You begin to get a feel of the Way as one of the more important things that we have happened on and something we are not going to wrap up in a few talks this summer. It is going to take all of our best wisdom, collegiums and work to break it loose so that it will be a gift for history.

I think that there are at least four things to consider if we are going to work out the life of the Way. First, what it is; second, what it is like; third, what are the dangers on the Way and fourth, and the most important, being guardians of the Way. We are, like it or not, guardians of the Way for the communities and the people with which we work. That is our role, one that we need to explore and spell out.

First, the life of the Way is why our methods work. It is the human factor. We have all seen lousy pedagogy and lousy methods work miracles just because the life of the Way showed­through. It made the impact. We have also been leery about just handing our methods over to a "non­Wayish" group. Now the methods are transparent. It is more than that, however. It is the life of the Way; that is why they work. The life of the Way is authentic fulfillment.

There was an article in yesterday's paper that had a caption, "A Happy Marriage is a Possibility, a Delicious One is Not." The life of the Way is about real happiness. It is a particular kind of thinking, acting and presence. I believe the life of the Way is the life of service­­nothing else. It depends on engagement that is absolutely worth your life. There is no other place to look for life of the Way than in a life of service. Somebody was telling me about a man who had a job in a zoo cleaning the elephant cages. Everyday, twice a day, he cleaned the elephant cages. Elephants are pretty big animals, and their residue, after a good feast, is rather substantial. This man had been shoveling for 20 years, twice a day. He would come out smelling terrible, looking terrible ­- and the clean­up just an awful job. One of his friends who hadn't seen him for a long time said, ''Are you still doing this? Why don't you get out of that? If they don't give you a raise, give you another position, get out of there! You can find something else." The man said, "What? Give up show business?" There is something about the life of the Way that depends on serving a cause absolutely worth your life. What is not a possibility for the life of the Way is divided loyalty. Your life is absolutely one of service to the cause, that is absolutely worth your life. That is where you look to find it.

Without the life of service you have vegetation, you have coma, you have mechanistic routine. I suggest that human misery in the developed world is something like that. It has to do with a loss of servanthood. "We have it all" so what you do is grasp for some kind of fulfillment through bodies, through feelings, through ideas, through anesthesia. It is the misery of uselessness. The life of the Way is the life of service. There is no place else. We know that. The service we are engaged in is where we perceive the moral contradiction of our time to be­­the 15%­85% gap which is not a gap of economics but of human creativity and potential in community. That is where our life is laid down. If that is not, for you, the moral issue of the times then to be on the life of the Way, you had better get out and stay away. We know that. It is part of our living, it is part of what the last few years have meant. We want to tell the world that the life of the Way is the life of service, expenditure and cruciformity. That is the heart of this talk and the heart of the message of the global film on Human Development, the heart of any of the stories we tell. The life of the Way is the life of service.

faced it and turned back, you turn into a pillar of salt. That is pertinent to us in our time­­in care for those colleagues who have tasted the Life of the Way and decided that this is not the way for them. The spirit care of our colleagues means there is no turning back. The life of the Way cannot be a part­time endeavor. It simply can not. There is a one­wayness about it. However much we think we need help in doing the mission, someone who has tasted the life of the Way and pulled back is no help. Just some hard clarity-­that is care. That is care for ourselves. That is care for the mission. It is care for the people, because it gets said the life of the Way is not only one way. It is attractive. The movement events we had on the Panchayat visits were incredible. Over 2000 people participated in them around the world as our colleagues. Most people stayed more than an hour after the close of the event. That was a shock. Why was that? It certainly wasn't because of our good looks or the stimulating program. There was a presence of the life of the Way that was just attractive. There was fellowhood, unbelievable fellowhood and humor. At the House celebration in Bombay, there were skits holding up the adventures on the road in the Nava Gram Prayas. It was a riot. When people can laugh at the situation, there is fellowhood on this great voyage of the Life of the Way. Among the quotes on the mezzanine wall there is a picture of a bear coming out of the middle of the ocean­­the caption is "Area Suva assumes responsibility for............ " That humor is a terrific treat. In India, when we gathered with the English and Indian colleagues, we called it trans­cultural fun. One of our Indian colleagues said, "Do you know why the sun never set on the British Empire?" "No, why?" "It is because God couldn't trust the English in the dark." There is fun on the life of the Way. There is also courage. Two colleagues did some work on the sources of industries last quarter. I have forgotten how many million dollars worth of industry they have enabled to be started in a quarter in five projects. They have done some work on the sources of courage. It is incredible work. The life of the Way is the life of courage. A quote that my two colleagues live out of is "nothing but the best for my friend." We need to find some quotes of the Way. The Way is courageous and perpetual. It does not get easier. It gets more difficult. Journey to the East forgot to tell us that. What I remember is the feast in Bremgarten ­ all the magic and wonder. They forgot to say it is uphill. At least, I didn't read that part. It is more difficult. It ends in a used up death. One indicator of dozing along the Way is routine or comfort.

We need to be clear on the dangers of the Way. We need to work on this because there are people on the Way in the communities we serve. I'm reminded of a line in a song, "But still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe." I put dangers of the Way in two categories. First, satanic subtleties and second, demonic demolition. Area Singapore has put together a card that says "United Brotherhood of Clerks: your problem is not our concern." Clerkism is a satanic subtlety. It has to do with focusing on who said it more than what was said­­or the procedures more than the results. Armchair generals is another image. They give free advice; build models for somebody else to implement. As I heard it once, those who can, do; those who can't, teach; those who can't teach, teach teachers. I have come up with another. Those who can't teach teachers are consultants. The armchair general builds great models or castles in the air and has no interest whatsoever in implementing them. In fact, if somebody else doesn't pick up that model and implement it, he or she is offended. They there is the sociological mystic who focuses on the internal life more than the external task. In a life of service the care for the internal life is engagement in the task. We forget that and we become sociologically mystic­­ divorcing the world from ourselves and authenticity. We know better than that. Then there is the passive observer­­ the universal critic, analyst or affirmer­­an essentially passive role. It is being without maneuvers in any situation. These are satanic subtleties we all fall into from time to time. They are dangers on the Way.

There is demonic demolition that calls to mind the next line in the same song, "Did we in our own strength confide our striving would be losing." We have all experienced in ourselves and others times when something like a switch is flipped and we are excited. It is futile to sit around and wonder how it happened, who did it or when they are off the Way. The amnesia sets in simultaneously with the flip of the switch. It is not even apparent that anything different has happened . It reminds me of that first line in a Kafka novel, "I woke up one morning and discovered I was a cockroach." We have all experienced that kind of dramatic shift. What do you do about that? I do not know, but that is a question before us. I think we depend on the team, the corporate body. Far more than once this past year, I have been taken to task­­ sometimes gently, sometimes not so gently­­by my colleagues. It was always clear that it was for the task. It was for staying on the way of service. It did not have anything to do with caring about my spirit life. We must listen to the corporate and speak the corporate for one another and the communities in order to guard against that demonic demolition. Our role is to be guardians of the Way. Watching the task is one dimension­­ to overcome the illusion that life is about feeling good, having authentic or even friendly relations or being satisfied. The eye is on the task. Guarding the Way means keeping the focus outward on the mission. It means that life is on the line. I am glad I am not on assignments this summer. They are putting our lives on the line­­ nothing else. But that is guarding the Way. Makers of myth, the stories, the films, the HDP slides, are stories of the Life of the Way. There is also constant war against Satan.

We experienced unobtrusive care this summer. The second floor was unobtrusive but it was care in an incredible fashion. One day there was guitar playing at one end, a group cooking Chinese food at another and a group doing Japanese flower arranging down at the other end. It was just there. You were cared for. We are doing that in our communities. There is also an element of playing tricks on ourselves or on the communities. That December Fifth City event was really held to get the program center fixed up for the Human Development Training School. We didn't know that so we all participated in fixing up the program center. Tricks on ourselves. Guarding the Way is putting ourselves on death ground.

The accompanying chart is about what is the Life of the Way. The components came out of some work done several years ago. It is unfinished yet serious. The blank chart is for your use. It is an Aquinas form. The first category in each series is overarching and followed by knowing, doing and being categories. The finality of the Way in the first row across is an overarching category. Then there is the thinking, action and presence­-that is knowing, doing, being. Down the side, the first category on mystery is overarching followed by fate, death and wholeness­­ or knowing, doing and being. The intersection of these two is a clue as to how it might work. The advantage of that kind of chart is comprehensiveness. It covers all the knowing, doing and being. There is not much omitted. A disadvantage is it looks static. If there is one thing we know about the Life of the Way, it is not static. It also looks like some of the categories came from the Profound Humanness chart. In fact those categories were invented before completion of the Profound Humanness chart so there might be an element of inadequacy in relation to what we have pushed through now. But it is a starting point. You artists, thinkers and musicians need to come up with something visual which holds these components. What would symbolize the Life of the Way? Is it a road like in that Bontoa photograph? What is it? We need some songs of the Life of the Way. The Mame song is not bad except it is individual. We are talking about a corporate reality.

On the chart the category of Finality of the Way points to service to the world and cuts over against the seduction of security. Life is not secure. That is a final reality. The finality of the Way is living in service in the midst of the insecurity that it brings. The thinking of the Way points to reasons of the heart. It is not cold abstractionism divorced from life experience. It is tied to reality. Cold abstraction can be used to justify anything. We can tell the difference these days when anything is disrelated or abstract. In the action of the Way, we have used the category maneuvers of the Void. Where did Mactan get the idea of doing 222 community forums in two weeks? It was not one of last year's memorials. The Panchayat did not even know about it until we got there. During a report about something else, it was mentioned that two weeks ago they pulled off 222 forums. Those surprising actions are keystones that release an avalanche. The Being of the Way, or witness of the spirit, is what site visitors see. I believe the environmental beautification campaigns show the Way. The trap in that category, which is really the trap of all of this, is trying to be somebody. Unless communities get beyond themselves and into active service, they will be off in the ditch as history's wrecks. This is the difference between human development projects and community development. I suggest you use the chart­­revise it, find quotes, examples, songs, categories. We need to work corporately on this while we are here so we can go back with a sense of direction. I would make one suggestion. Keep it social. That is where our experience has been this past year.

If I were to talk on the Finality of the Way, it would be something like this: Whenever one embarks seriously on service to the world, one finds an otherness absolutely in control­­mystery. That would be the gist of it. When you are engaged in history, you do not meet the domesticated, amorphous benevolence of bourgeois, pietistic fantasy that has nothing to do with life. You meet the undeniable, inextricable, inexplicable otherness that directs the course of history with an awful impartiality. That is final. Many of our models this last year turned up a mangled mess through no fault of anybody. But history's inextricable forces threw them back in our face and that was not failure. That is how history moves. It requires us to build more models. We have not only been beat up this year, but pulled forward in an incredible squeeze play. It is objective. It is just there. That is a reality about life. Fate is an element of this.

One morning I got up early and before breakfast saw three Telexes, had two phone calls, a couple of conversations and a horrible thought­­eight major crises by eight o'clock. Some days are like that. I begin to believe in astrology or, at least, to see the phenomenological basis of the category of astrology. There are forces at work that are not me and do not depend on me . We see that, and it is invisible at the same time. We have used the word the Divine Economy. It is no accident. That takes quite a leap but that is the finality of the Way. The category of death is inexorable and makes a comedy out of our care. Think how much you are going to be missed--how much the mission is really going to miss you. It is like pulling a bucket out of Lake Michigan. It lends a profound depth to the vocational choice you make. What am I going to do with this bucket of water? A young lady from Asherton died at the GRA on July 13. She was 34 years old. It did not retard the work of the GRA at all. The death appropriately honored and significated. We understand that in that culture there is possibility of using the mythology of sainthood which will push that community ten miles down the road. Death is a final reality to be contended with. There is a wholeness that has emerged, a bond among people of the earth beyond the 15-85%, beyond races, cultures, educational and linguistic differences. We are the sign of that. Most important in the midst of all this, we are in touch with Being itself. The Life of the Way is finally what we are all about. That is why it is important.

We are about three things: the awakenment of masses of people to the profound depths and significance of human life in the local situation; the engagement of those who care in effective action on behalf of the moral issue of our time and the fulfillment of profound humanness in primal community by creating structures and relationships based on the deeps of life, not the shallow reductionisms of bourgeois traditionalism or tribal fantasies. We are about the Life of the Way­­not living it for ourselves­­but seeing that every man has the opportunity to live the life of the Way. Our aim is to enable the people we serve to say: "We have fought a good fight; we have finished the course and we have kept the faith."