Another great interview in the run up to the Lincoln show on 2nd and 3rd November. John Woodward is a tutor at the School of Philosophy in Lincoln and will be giving a talk on saturday. The talk is "The Benefits of Practical Philosophy on Spirit Mind and Body." It promises to be a great talk, and we'd like to thank John for taking the time to answer our questions.
To start could you tell a little bit more about yourself.
I am well into my 70's and have practices "practical philosophy" for much of my life. Some of that has been devoted to my family, some to my work as an architect, some as a tutor of the School of Philosophy in Lincoln, some to the people of the village where I have lived for the last many years in Lincolnshire, some to the wonderful building which is Lincoln Cathedral. One learns that to live is to serve.
Why do you think there is such a demand for philosophical and spiritual counselling, is humanity a bit lost at the moment or are we evolving?
It would be presumptuous to suggest that humanity is lost, for we cannot comprehend humanity in its fulness, or indeed its purpose. But it is clear that a large number of human beings today are looking for something which ordinary life does not fulfil. For an individual such a search could lead to an evolution in every part oft their life. in former times the term transformation was used to describe the process we have called evolution and history has a number of instances when transformation/evolution has happened with the effect of lifting whole communities and nations out of a relatively miserable existence. By comparison with those times, for many in the world today today ordinary life may well seem a struggle. When something is missing we want to find it; by searching in the right way this leads to evolution.
Can you tell us more about the Philosophy of Advaita.
Advaita philosophy is interesting because it poses a very unusual view. The word Advaita translates simply as "not two". To try and explain the significance of this: In the way in which our scientific culture has developed, the universe and all that is contained within it is understood to be made up of separate components. The effect of this view is, for example, the notion that each individual human being is separate from every other human being. On the other hand, Advaita says that there is a single substance or energy from which everything in the universe arises and therefore no thing is separate from the rest. The apparent changes perceived by say our senses, are modifications of that single substance which take place in accord with its nature. An analogy to explain what this means would be the substance we call water. This may appear as the liquid substance we normally refer to as water, but it can also change into ice or into steam, when its appearance and behaviour is quite different; but the substance water remains constant throughout. Just to expand this idea a little further, the world today is mostly governed by the idea of separate existencies, separate truths even, and certainly thinks in terms of fundamental opposites such as winners and losers, right against wrong, mine and yours. This gives rise to conflicts between these opposites. But governed by the Advaita view, there can be no opposites and therefore no conflicts. At this point I will stop and simply ask you to reflect on situations from your own experience where there has not been conflict or disagreement of any sort and then ask yourself what made this possible.
Which writer/thinker has influenced you the most.
To ascribe influence to a single individual writer/thinker would miss seeing that such people derive their knowledge from ideas and teachings conveyed through traditions often long-held in human history. So for example I have the highest respect for the writings of Shakespeare, but understand that he was informed by ideas coming from many sources and his genius was to get to the heart of those ideas and see them for the truth they reveal and then to put this down in a way that can convey that to generations that follow. Seen in this way one has to acknowledge that one has been influenced by countless people, and among them one's parents, one's teachers, one's role models as well as the star individuals with names like Shakespeare, Plato, Mozart, the builders of the medieval cathedrals and so on. And one may then ask, would one of these on its own have exerted an influence if all the others had not done so as well.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given.
Be still and remember your true Self.
Would you name 6 “Desert Island” books or films (ones you would like if you were stranded on a desert island - for young ones who don’t know about Desert Island discs!)
I'll suggest 6 films:
As You Like It
Charlie's Aunt
The Importance of Being Earnest
Henry V
Buster Keaton (The General)
Jean le Fleuret and its sequel
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