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Unfortunately, the orthodox Western conception of God is not simply as a psychological Other (separated from us by unconsciousness) or a temporal Other (separated from us by time), or an epistemological Other (separated from us by ignorance). Rather, Jehovah—God of Abraham and Father of Jesus—is an ontological Other, separated from us by nature, forever. In this view, there is not just a temporary line between man and God, but an unmovable boundary and barrier. God and man are forever divorced—they are not, as in Hinduism and Buddhism, ultimately one and identical. Thus, the only contact between God and man is by airmail: by covenant, by pact, by promise. God promises to watch out for his chosen people, and they in turn promise to worship no other gods but him. God promises his only begotten Son to his peoples, and they promise to embrace his Word. God's contact is by contract. Across this gaping abyss God and man touch by rumor, not by absolute union (samadhi), and thus history was viewed as the unfolding of this contract, this covenant, through time.
But there is a much more sophisticated view of the relation of humanity and Divinity, a view held by great majority of the truly gifted theologians, philosophers, sages, and even scientists of various times. Known in general as the "perennial philosophy" (a name coined by Leibniz), it forms the esoteric core of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Sufism, and Christian mysticism, as well as being embraced, in whole or part, by individual intellects ranging from Spinoza to Albert Einstein, Schopenhauer to Jung, William James to Plato. Further, in its purest form it is not at all ante-science but, in a special sense, trans-science or even ante-science, so that it can happily coexist with, and certainly complement, the hard data of the pure sciences. This is why, I believe, that so many of the truly brilliant scientists have always flirted with, or totally embraced, the perennial philosophy, as witness Einstein, Schrödinger, Eddington, David Bohm, Sir James Jeans, even Isaac Newton. Albert Einstein put it thus: “The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mystical. It is the sower of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger... is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center to true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only I belong to the ranks of devoutly religious men.” The essence of the perennial philosophy can be put simply: it is true that there is some sort of infinite, some type of Absolute Godhead, but it cannot properly be conceived as a colossal Being, a great Daddy, or a big Creator set apart from its creations, from things and events and human beings themselves. Rather, it is best conceived (metaphorically) as the ground of suchness or condition of all things and events. It is not a Big Thing set apart from finite things, but rather the reality or suchness or ground of all things. A scientist who guffaws at the existence of any sort of “Infinite” but unashamedly marvels aloud at the “laws of Nature (with a capital N)” is unwittingly expressing religious or numinous sentiments. According to the perennial philosophy, it would be acceptable to speak symbolically of the absolute as the Nature of all natures, the Condition of all conditions (did not St. Thomas say that God is natura naturans?). But notice, in this regard, that Nature is not other than all life forms: Nature is not something set apart from mountains, eagles, rivers, and people, but something that, as it were, runs through the fibers of each and all. In the same way, the Absolute—as the Nature of all natures—is not something set apart from all things and events. The Absolute is not Other, but, so to speak, is sewn through the fabric of all that is. In that sense, the perennial philosophy declares that the absolute is One, Whole, and Undivided—very like what Whitehead called “the seamless coat of the universe.” But note that "seamless" does not mean “featureless.” That is, to say that Reality is One is not to say that separate things and events don't exist. When a scientist says, “All things obey the laws of Nature,” he doesn't mean, "Therefore, no things exist." He means that all things subsist in a type of balanced Wholeness, a wholeness he calls Nature and whose laws he attempts to describe. As a first approximation, the perennial philosophy describes the Ultimate as a seamless whole, an integral Oneness, that underlies but includes all multiplicity. The Ultimate is prior to this world, but not other to this world, as the ocean is prior to its waves, but not set apart from them. This concept is not, as a logical positivist would have it, a meaningless or nonsensical concept—or rather, it is no more meaningless than a scientific reference to Nature, to the Cosmos, to Energy, or to Matter. Just because the ultimate, the integral Wholeness, does not exist as a separate and perceptible entity, does not mean it doesn't exist. Nobody has ever seen Nature—we see trees and birds and clouds and grass, but not some specific thing we can isolate and call “Nature.” Likewise, no scientist has ever seen Matter—he sees what he calls “forms of matter”; but nobody, no scientist, layman, or mathematician, has ever seen a pure bit of just matter. Yet I doubt any scientist would say, “Therefore, matter doesn't exist.” All sorts of intuitive and nonscientific certainties lead to the scientist to state that matter is real—and, in fact, for the great majority of scientists, matter is the _only_ real, even though they have never seen it, touched it, or tasted it. The same thing, of course, holds for Energy, since mass and energy are interconvertible. No scientist has ever seen energy, even though he talks of "forms of energy," such as thermodynamic energy, nuclear binding energy, and so on. Although he has never seen just pure and plain energy, he certainly doesn't say, “Thus energy isn't real.” But long ago, a geologist and philosopher Ananda Coomaraswamy saw precisely the crux of this "scientific assumption": “This is the predicament of the positivist or the 'nothing-morist,' that in acknowledging the reality only of that which can be grasped, he is attributing 'reality' to things that cannot be grasped because they never stop to be, and is driven, in spite of himself, to postulate the reality of some such abstract entity as “Energy”—a word that is nothing but one of the names of God.” Keeping in mind that the perennial philosophy defines God not as a Big Person but as the Nature of all that is, then Coomaraswamy is obviously quite right, and it matters not one whit whether we say all things are forms of Nature, forms of Energy, or forms of God. I am not, of course, trying to prove the existence of the Absolute—I am simply suggesting it is no more improbable than the existence of matter, energy, nature, or the cosmos. Now, when a person believes that the ultimate is some sort of Big Parent who watches after all his offspring as a shepherd over sheep, then that person's notion of religion is petitionary. That is, the aim of his religion is simply to receive protection and benediction from that god, and in turn to worship and give thanks. He lives in accord with what he believes to be that god's laws, and generally hopes, as a reward, to be able to liver forever in some sort of heaven. The aim of this type of religion, quite simply, is to be saved. Saved from pain, saved from suffering, saved from evil, saved ultimately from death. I have no quarrel with all that—it simply forms no part of the perennial philosophy whatsoever, and thus is not a view I am here advancing. For the “religion” of the perennial philosophy is quite different from salvation. Since the Ultimate is here pictured as an integral Wholeness, the aim of this type of religion is not to be saved but to discover that wholeness. And thus, to find oneself whole as well. Albert Einstein called it the removal of the optical delusion that we are separate individuals set off from the Whole: “A human being is part of a whole, called by us "Universe"; a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest—a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison” -Albert Einstein According to the perennial philosophy, this “discovery of Wholeness,” the removal of the optical delusion of separateness, is not merely a belief—it is not a dogma one accepts on mere faith. For if the Ultimate is indeed a real integral Wholeness, if it is equally part and parcel of all that is, then it is also completely present in men and women. And, unlike rocks, plants, or animals; human beings—because they are conscious can potentially discover this Wholeness. They can, as it were, awaken to the Ultimate. Not believe in it, but discover it. It would be as if a wave became conscious of itself and thus discovered that it is one with the entire ocean—and thus one with all waves as well, since all are made of water. This is the phenomenon of transcendence—or enlightenment, or liberation, or moksha, or wu wei, or satori or what neuroscientists today are calling a "mystical experience." This is what Plato meant by stepping out of the cave of shadows and finding the Light of Being; or Einstein's “escaping the delusion of separateness.” This is the aim of Buddhist meditation, of Hindu yoga, and of Christian mystical contemplation. That is very straightforward; there is nothing spooky, occult, or strange in any of this—and this is the Perennial philosophy. At the very base of men and women's consciousness, then, lies the ultimate Wholeness. But—and here is the rub—it is not, in the vast majority, consciously realized. Thus, the ultimate whole is, for most souls, an Other. It is not, like the Jehovah, an ontological Other—it is not set apart, divorced, or separated from men and women. Rather, it is a psychological Other—it is ever-present, but unrealized; it is given, but rarely discovered; it is the Nature of human beings, but lies, as it were, asleep in the depths of the soul. The basic Nature of human beings, then, is an ultimate Wholeness. This is eternally and timelessly so—that is, true from beginning, true to the end, and most importantly, true right now, moment to moment to moment. This ever-present and ultimate Wholeness, as it appears in men and women we call Atman (after the Hindus), or Buddha-Nature (after Buddhists), or Tao, or Spirit, or Consciousness (super-consciousness), or less frequently (because of its loaded connotations) God. Because Atman is an integral Whole, outside of which nothing exists, it embraces all space and time, and is itself therefore spaceless and timeless, infinite and eternal. Infinity does not, for the perennial philosophy, mean Extremely Big—it means that spaceless ground which underlies and includes all space, much as a mirror underlies but embraces all its reflected objects. Likewise, eternity does not mean a Very Long Time—it means that timeless ground which underlies and includes all time. According to the perennial philosophy, then, one's real self or Buddha Nature is not everlasting and death-defying; it is rather timeless and transcendent. Liberation does not mean going on forever and forever and forever in some sort of gold-embossed heaven. It means a direct and immediate apprehension of the spaceless and timeless Ground of Being. This apprehension does not show a person that he is immortal — which he plainly is not. Rather, it shows him that where his psyche touches and intersects the timeless Source, he ultimately is all of a piece with the universe — so intimately, in fact, that at that level he is the universe. When a person rediscovers that his deepest Nature is one with All, he is relieved of the burdens of time, of anxiety, of worry; he is released from the chains of alienation and separate-self existence. Seeing that self and other are one, he is released from the fear of life; seeing that being and non-being are one, he is delivered from fear of death. Thus, when one rediscovers the ultimate Wholeness, one transcends — but does not obliterate — every imaginable sort of boundary, and therefore transcends all types of battles. It is a conflict-free awareness, whole, blissful. But this does not mean that one loses all egoic consciousness, all temporal awareness, that one goes into blank trance, suspends all critical faculties and wallows in oceanic mush. It simply means that one rediscovers the background of egoic consciousness. One is aware of the integral Wholeness and of the explicit ego. Wholeness is not the opposite of egoic individuality, it is simply its Ground, and the discovery of the ground does not annihilate the figure of the ego. On the contrary, it simply reconnects it with the rest of nature, cosmos, and divinity. This is not an everlasting state, but a timeless state. With this realization, one does not gain everlasting life in time, but discovers that which is prior to time. Now according to the perennial philosophy, the rediscovery of this infinite and eternal Wholeness is man's single greatest need and want. For not only is Atman the basic nature of all souls, each person knows or intuits that this is so. For every individual constantly intuits that his prior Nature is infinite and eternal, All and Whole — he is possessed, that is, with a true Atman intuition. But, at the same time, he is terrified of real transcendence, because transcendence entails the "death" of his isolated and separate-self sense. Because he won't let go and die to his separate self, he cannot find true and real transcendence, he cannot find that larger fulfillment in integral Wholeness. Holding on to himself, he shuts out Atman; grasping only his ego, he denies the rest of the All. Yet notice immediately that men and women are faced with a truly fundamental dilemma: above all else, each person wants true transcendence, Atman consciousness, and the ultimate Whole; but, above all else, each person fears the loss of the separate self, the "death" of the isolated ego. All a person wants is Wholeness, but all he does is fear and resist it (since that would entail the "death" of his separate self). And there is the dilemma, the double bind in the face of eternity. Because man wants real transcendence above all else, but because he will not accept the necessary death of his separate-self sense, he goes about seeking transcendence in ways that actually prevent it and force symbolic substitutes. And these substitutes come in all varieties: sex, food, money, fame, knowledge, power — are all ultimately substitute gratifications, simple substitutes for true release in Wholeness. This is why human desire is insatiable, why all joys yearn for infinity — all a person wants is Atman; all he finds are symbolic substitutes for it. Even an individual's feeling of being a separate, isolated, and individual self is a mere substitute for one's true Nature, a substitute for the transcendent Self of the ultimate Whole. Every individual correctly intuits that he is one nature with Atman, but he distorts that intuition by applying it to his separate self. He feels his separate self is immortal, central to the cosmos, all-significant. That is, he substitutes his ego for the Atman. Then, instead of finding timeless wholeness, he merely substitutes the wish to live forever; instead of being one with the cosmos, he substitutes the desire to possess the cosmos; instead of being one with God, he tried himself to play God. |