(Transcript of a Sunday talk I delivered at the UU Church, Tallahassee, in 2005.)
One way by which to determine if
you’ve found a church that is appropriate for you, is the extent to which you
are free from the need to translate what the speaker is saying. You know what I
mean by translating: Every time the speaker says, “God, Our Father, He…” you
switch genders in your head—“Goddess, Our Mother, She…” or you render the
phrase into non-theistic terms—“Our Cosmic Condition, It…” or humanistic terms—“Our
human intellect, our communal efforts, we…” Without such translations, the
words don’t ring true to your personal sensibility and philosophy.
I wonder what it would take for me
to speak in your language—with perfect compatibility—so that you aren’t
obliged to constantly translate my message?
Is there an Esperanto of spiritual experience
to which we can all relate?
It seems highly unlikely—no, it
seems impossible. Perhaps we can all relate to our animal experience—talking
and joking about bodily functions—but we seem to have nothing in common above
the navel. According to the triune model of the human brain, one could say that
we share the reptilian and mammalian functions of the brain stem and limbic
system—the crocodile that lives down in the basement and the ape that inhabits
the ground floor—but once we rise to the human domain (the attic of the neo-cortex),
we are no longer experiencing the same worldview. And to whatever degree our worldview
diverges, to that degree we are not living in the same world.
Human beings are not clones; not
even identical twins are identical subjectively.
Many different human temperaments and constitutions exist; and within each
psycho-physical category one can find people at very different stages of
development: physical, psychological and spiritual. Therefore, spiritual practices
that may be helpful for one person may be useless or even harmful for another
person of a wholly different temperament or at a lower or higher stage of
development.
Do “All roads lead to Rome ”? Maybe so—but only
if it is Rome , and not Amsterdam
or Tokyo , the wayfarer
wants to reach.
And yet we do call ourselves universalists; you, in your official church
documents, and I, too, in my self-description. What does universalist mean?
If you know your church’s history,
you’ll recall the word “universalist” originally referred to a theological
doctrine in which everyone—even the worst sinner—is saved; there is no eternal
damnation, all souls are embraced by the divine. That original definition of Universalism
identified this church for a couple hundred years. Today, Universalist has come
to mean a wide-open, liberal, rational, skeptical religion in which all are
welcome—even those few who may actually believe in souls and heaven.
Now what do I mean when I say that I am a universalist? Allow me to
explain in a roundabout way.
All of the following words have two
related meanings in their respective languages; they each mean both “spirit”
and “breath”.
- Spirutus (Latin)
- Pneuma (Greek)
- Ruach (Hebrew)
- Ruh (Arabic)
- Prana (Sanskrit)
- Chi (Chinese)
- Ki (Japanese)
- Ka (Egyptian)
Spirit and breath: It is no
accident that these words are synonyms. Not only among the eight languages and
their corresponding cultures just mentioned; one encounters this twin meaning
again and again—from the Inuit of the Arctic Circle to the natives of Tierra del
Fuego; from the Lakota Sioux of the American Plains, to the Dogon tribespeople
of Africa . Spirit and breath. Spirit as breath.
To breathe in is to inspire; just as
we feel inspired by beauty and the movement of the spirit. To breathe out is to
expire; just as when the animating spirit is withdrawn, the body dies.
Living Spirit, greater than the
material bodily processes (and even the total cosmic process), is living us,
breathing us—breathing all the worlds. In the Hindu scriptures, an epithet for
this Living Energy is “Breath of the Eternal.”
This intimate kinship of
transcendent spirit and bodily breath is a universal mystical experience—found throughout spiritual
traditions diverging in place and time, culture and language.
Such congruent experiences have led
some religious philosophers to propose that there exists a set of universal
truths at the core of the world’s wisdom traditions. In the 1700s, Leibniz
coined a title for this set of ever-recurring themes: Philosophia Perrenis
or “Perennial Philosophy.”
That is the sense in which I am a
universalist; I subscribe to the Perennial Philosophy, which has also been called
Hagia Sophia (meaning “Sacred Wisdom”), Lex Aeternus (“Eternal
Law”), Din al-Haqq (“Religion of Reality”), Sanatana Dharma (“The
Eternal Way’), among other names.
Important thinkers have promoted
the idea of such a universal religion: Emerson, Rene Guenon, Frithjof Schuon, Mircea
Eliade, Aldous Huxley, Joseph Campbell, Alan Watts, and Lex Hixon are among its
more recent champions.
The most famous living advocates of
this universal wisdom are Huston Smith and Ken Wilber. Smith, the author of The World's Religions—first published in 1958
and to this day the best textbook on comparative religion—is a practicing
Christian in his nineties. Smith is a lens through which delicious light shines;
I say “delicious,” because the spiritual brilliance he brings into focus has
nourished many.
Ken Wilber is a middle-aged guy
living in Boulder, Colorado, who happens to be one of the philosophical giants
of the ages. His opus magnum, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution, is a masterpiece of what he calls “integral philosophy.”
That said; the talk that follows
owes its biggest debt to Aldous Huxley, who compiled an excellent anthology
titled The Perennial Philosophy. Incidentally, it’s safe to listen to this presentation with
an open mind. Be assured that if you do not agree with the Perennial Philosophy,
you will not be dragged out to a ditch and shot in the back of the head. (If you
balk at the much abused word “God,” try replacing it in your mind with “Totality
of Life” or whatever can name for you that which transcends the limits of the encapsulated
ego.)
* * *
About 30 centuries have passed
since the spoken tradition of the Perennial Philosophy was first frozen in
writing. Over the millennia it has sung hymns to itself in nearly every
language of the world and has fitted to itself the garbs and modes of every world
religion. But beneath this Babel of tongues and tomes, of parochial histories
and narrow doctrines, there can be analyzed a Highest Common Factor, which is
the Perennial Philosophy in what Huxley calls its “chemically pure state.” This
purity can never, of course, be expressed in mere words—no matter how un-dogmatic
or deliberately syncretistic such a statement may strive to be. Only those who practice
a contemplative way of life that ultimately transcends words and even
personality can actually grok the Perennial Philosophy. Yet the words
left by those sages who have understood this profound way, whether Hindu,
Buddhist, Taoist, Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, point to the same essential
structure of consciousness or reality.
At the core of the Perennial
Philosophy we can discern at least six fundamentals:
·
First:
A self-existing, self-luminous Divine Identity, Intelligence and Power is the
Source or Ground within which all appearances have their moment, and apart from
which they could not arise, change and pass away. (In shorthand, this first
perennial truth could be summed: God IS.)
·
Second:
The phenomenal world of matter and of individualized consciousness—the cosmos
of galaxies, stars and planets; and the earth of mountains, rivers, trees, people,
buildings, cars and flat-screen TVs—is the ongoing revelation, manifestation
and evolution of the Divine Identity. (God
LIVES.)
·
Third:
There is directionality or purpose to the entire process of
Kosmos. The great and total event is evolutionary: matter becomes life,
life becomes mind, mind becomes self-aware mind, and self-aware mind awakens to
its condition and identity in and of and as the Divine. In some views, such as
that of Jewish mysticism, God is working out some evolutionary purpose through
the ordeal of God’s own Self-submission to the phenomena of
space-time-energy-matter. (God EVOLVES.)
·
Fourth:
Human beings are capable not merely of inferring about the Divine Ground; they can actually realize its existence by
direct intuition, superior to
discursive reasoning (or the thinking-talking faculty of awareness). This
immediate knowledge dissolves the knower into that which is known. Such annihilating
union is the root and path and goal of the perennial philosophy—and the
defining emblem of all mysticism. (In Sanskrit: Ayam Atman Brahman: “This
self IS God.”)
·
Fifth:
Human beings possess a double nature, a temporal and mortal ego—the born personality—and
a transcendental and timeless spirit. It is possible for each of us, through
devotion and trust and insight, to identify
with our eternal spirit which is of the same (or like) nature as the Divine
Identity. (Love God, become God.)
·
Sixth:
To identify with our eternal spirit and so to actualize unitive knowledge of
the Divine is the very point of our lives on earth. (This is IT; this is as God as it gets.)
In the Bhagavad Gita of
Hinduism, perhaps more clearly than in any other scripture, these doctrines are
stated explicitly. The Divine Identity is Brahman—the inconceivable mystery at
the Ground of cosmic power. This creative, sustaining and transforming power is
manifested as the so-called Hindu Trinity. A hierarchy of manifestations links
inanimate matter with plants, animals, humans, godlings, High Gods, and the
undifferentiated Godhead beyond.
Similarly, in Mahayana Buddhism,
the Divine Identity is called the Clear Light of Space, and the place of the
High Gods of Hinduism is taken by the Dhyani Buddhas. A remarkably similar
theology was set forth by Plotinus and later by Ralph Waldo Emerson and the
American Transcendentalists, in which the High God is replaced by the World
Soul (or Oversoul) and beyond that is the irreducible mystery of “The Alone.”
Plotinus described the spiritual path as the “journey of the alone to the
Alone.”
Similar conceptions are compatible
with Jewish, Christian and Islamic mysticism. Thus, in Kabbalah, Ein Sof
is the Divine Mystery/Ground underlying the personal aspects of Adonai. In Christian mysticism the absolute
singularity of Godhead underlies the Trinity. Within the Islamic Sufi tradition,
there is Al-Haqq, “the Real” (also
called the “Abode of Essence”), which transcends Al-Haay, “the Living” (or “Abode of Power”), which is the active, personal
aspect of Allah. In Black Elk’s Lakota Sioux religion, Wakan Tonka is the Great Mystery and below that is the Great Mother
and below her are the divine children of the Earth and the Moon and the Sun.
I could go on for the next hour drawing
connections between the worldviews of mystics from all the wisdom traditions. The
congruency of their reports is evidence that these seers have gained direct
insight into the same reality: God IS
and God LIVES.
The third doctrine of the Perennial
Philosophy is called, in Greek, telos—or
“directionality”—the idea that there is directional growth toward a wonderful
destiny, not just for individuals, but for cultures, for all of humankind, even
for all of the biosphere and all the planets and the Cosmos itself. Indeed,
according to the Kabbalistic view, God
is evolving!—co-evolving, in unqualified relationship with us!
The fourth doctrine—that it is only
possible to know the Divine Ground via a trans-rational intuition that is
deeper than logic—is proclaimed in every mystical tradition. One who is content
merely to know about the ultimate
Reality—theoretically and by hearsay—is compared by Muhammad to an ass bearing
a load of books. Christian, Hindu and Taoist teachers wrote no less
emphatically about the pretensions of mere book learning and analytic
reasoning.
True gnosis is not discursive, but of
the heart: an implicit, tacit and timeless apperception. It has been described
as “Knowledge through Identity.” Or, in
the words of the Tantraloka from Kashmir :
“Only Shiva can realize Shiva.” (It takes one to know one!) The Zen tradition
describes such mystical awakening as directly
transmitted, “outside the scriptures,” from Buddha-mind to Buddha-mind.
The fourth recurring doctrine of
the Perennial Philosophy affirms the multi-dimensional nature of human beings. The
unitive knowledge of the Divine Ground has, as its prerequisite, self-transcending
surrender and what is variously called compassion or loving-kindness or charity.
By means of profound surrender and kindness we can cut through the narcissistic
folly of mistaking the bodily personality to be our ultimate nature and self. We
can discover that our identity is actually an Irreducible Totality—which includes
the ever-evolving whole pattern of relationships best described as unqualified
mutuality: Everything is everything!
Nisargadatta Maharaj, a great
mystic of modern India ,
put it this way: “Love says, ‘I am everything.’ Wisdom says, ‘I am nothing.’
Between these two, my whole life flows.”
Incidentally, the Bhakti Yoga of
Hinduism—the path of union with the Divine through devotional love—offers a
full range of relational moods in which to love God, including the disposition of
loving God as Parent to Child and the mood of loving God as lover to lover.
Erotic union with the divine is not really so scandalous; it exists in Western
spirituality, as well—in the so-called bridal mysticism of Jews and Christians,
and in the emotion of aishq (longing
for union) celebrated by the Sufi poets. Their religious poems and songs gave
birth to the troubadour and courtly-love tradition of the Renaissance in Spain , Italy
and France .
The fifth doctrine of the perennial
philosophy states that the fulfillment of our lives is to bring awareness of the
Divine into everyday relationships; or as the Lakota Sioux would put it, to walk in a sacred manner. The mystics
of India, China, classical Greece, Moorish Spain, and Christian Europe, regarded
this as an obvious tenet of their respective faiths—not public, weekend worship
of a god beyond the sky, but living
the vision of divine communion here on Earth, in this moment, with this
breath—and now, with this breath.
This set of doctrines constitutes
the Perennial Philosophy in its minimal form. Some mystics ask for nothing
more; these working hypotheses are enough for their intensely personal
investigation and practice. They are the Soul-Magellans ready to set sail on
voyages of exploration upon the inner seas. But people who can begin their
spiritual practice at the very core of mysticism are exceedingly rare. It is
very difficult at the outset to probe these truths, and just about impossible
to live them daily. That is why religious
paths have been institutionalized around the teachings of one or more human realizers
(some would say “incarnations”) of the Divine Ground. By their mediation (some
would say “grace”) the lover of the divine is prepared and helped to achieve her
goal—unitive gnosis of the Godhead, which is eternal life and beatitude. Such “incarnations”
or enlightened sages are simply human beings who are awake to their own nature
and condition—they understand WHAT
they are—and can therefore effectively remind us of what we have allowed ourselves
to forget: namely, that we too are always, already united with the Divine
Ground.
Because the Perennial Philosophy
constitutes a Highest Common Factor, present in all the major religions of the
world, it is possible for people to remain good Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists,
or Moslems and yet to fully agree on the basic doctrines of the Perennial
Philosophy. Humanity would take a giant stride toward world peace if religious practitioners
could understand and confess that, at heart, the major religions are not at war. Mutual religious tolerance,
respect and cooperation would go a long way toward increasing the safety of the
world.
I know that some of you would argue
that the best project for bringing peace and improving human destiny would be to
do away with religions altogether—mystics and mysticism included. As John
Lennon sang, “Imagine no religions.” But aside from the fact that it is
impossible to abolish religions (Karen Armstrong names our species homo
religiosis), I would add that if we did away with mystical personalities,
we would have to erase Buddha and Lao Tzu, Bach and Brahms, Bohr and Einstein,
Thoreau and Emerson, Whitman and Rumi, and most of the shining stars of our
species!
Then where would we be? Stuck with
the idolatries of scientific materialism, which cannot see past the limits of stuff;
with logical positivism, which cannot get over the limits of language; with
humanism, which cannot feel beyond the limits of the grave; and with the
flattened landscape of post-modernism, which is so discomfited by hierarchies
and absolutes that it insists on placing the word “reality” within quotes!
Niels Bohr Ramana Maharshi
In short, we would be sealed in a coffin
with seven billion other Earthlings, without a view that opens onto what is prior to and greater than each human lifetime. At best, we might spend our days studying
psychology, biology, physics, and the glories and terrors of Nature, while
“progressing” toward a techno-utopia—but we would not be consciously participating
in communion with our Inexhaustibly Living Source, and thus, we would have
closed the only doorway to self-transcendence.
(Jean Paul Sartre said, “Hell is
other people.” But I must confess, “Hell is my lonely, limited self, when alienated
from the Wholeness that includes and transcends me.”)
In any case, given that we are NOT
going to do away with religions in this or any proximate century, a worldwide political
groundswell of folks having a working understanding of the Perennial Philosophy
might make a pleasant alternative to a bloody, planet-wide clash of religious
fanatics. I invite you to join me in considering the ancient perennial wisdom at
the tap root of the branching tree of the world’s religions.
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