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Moral Logic

Meeting notes for 13 February 2017.

In Letter XXI The Fool, the idea of moral logic comes up again. In particular, it is contrasted with formal logic and organic logic. Assuming that formal logic starts with the head, or intellectuality, moral logic makes sense primarily for those whose head and heart are united. In an intriguing re-reading of Immanuel Kant, Valentin Tomberg interprets the critiques as a spiritual path to move from formal to moral logic. He explains:

it was not a logical conclusion or an argument of discursive thought which gave Kant certainty of God, freedom and immortality, but rather the real and intimate experience that he had when he practised his transcendental method. This latter evidently proved itself to be an authentic spiritual exercise, which led Kant to arrive at experience of the kernel of his being—just as Descartes arrived there—and from which he drew the threefold certainty: the reality of God, the reality of moral freedom and, lastly, the reality of the soul’s immortality.

The following chart summarizes the three logics.

Logic Matter Critique
Formal Quantity Pure Reason
Organic Function Judgment
Moral Values Practical Reason

Pure Reason

In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant starts with the premise that knowledge begins with sense experience, which is enhanced with formal logic. The conclusion reached is that this methodology cannot lead to knowledge of the “real” world, but only to knowledge of the appearances of the sensual world. That is, the “noumenal” world that is the substrate to the phenomena is opaque.

In ordinary life, our thinking is directed toward objects, people, circumstances, events, etc., around us. What Kant did was to make thought itself the object, i.e., thinking about thinking. Kant’s method, according to Tomberg, is the philosophical equivalent of the Hermetic method described in the Letter on the Moon, but this is not the place to discuss that.

What Kant discovered is that thought imposes its own a priori categories onto its understanding of the world. Normally, we don’t realize that, since the image of the world arises spontaneously in consciousness. This is how we experience the phenomenal world of nature, beings, artifacts, and all material things.

The situation is exacerbated with regard to the non-material world. When it comes to our relationships to other people, to society, to a political system, or to God, our thought again creates a representation. In analogy to our experience of the phenomenal world, these representations likewise seem to appear spontaneously in consciousness. Hence, we tend to take them as real pictures of others, society, politics, religion, etc. They are actually just points of view, part of samsara. Now there are everywhere lively debates about which worldviews are better, or a higher stage of development, and the like, but these are all relative. The Hermetic task does not give us a “better” point of view. Rather, we try to transcend such points of view. Hence, we do various attention exercises to bring some detachment from our thinking.

In the most consistent and extreme forms of formal logic, there is even the denial of consciousness itself. Mental events are considered to be mere epiphenomena of biochemical processes in the brain. Of course, this would mean the destruction of all human life, so no one really lives as though that were true.

Judgment

There are two fundamental barriers to higher thought from formal logic:

  1. It is deductive, so that everything must follow from first principles. The conclusion is hidden in the premises, so there is no space for novelty or creativity, beyond discovering new principles to explain “what is”. Deduction does not go anywhere, so the idea of purpose has no meaning.
  2. It is quantitative, not qualitative. Hence, there is the tendency toward the rejection of hierarchy in favor of egalitarianism. Human differences are denied.

Of course, the laws of thought make it difficult to hold such views consistently, but serious thinkers manage to do so. Kant noted four aesthetic judgments: the agreeable, the beautiful, the sublime, the good. The “agreeable” is also known as the infamous facebook “like”, which made Zuckerberg wealthy. It is ubiquitous since most people will make judgments based on whether they “like” something or not, whether it brings pleasure or not. The ability the judge the beautiful, the sublime, and the good accurately is much rarer.

However, for organic logic, teleology is the more appropriate concept. For Kant, there are things (e.g., living beings) “whose parts exist for the sake of the whole and the whole for the sake of the parts.” Formal logic wants to treat the parts as identical and interchangeable.

In the Letter on the Moon, we read about David’s census of the Israelis and again of the census of Caesar Augustus. These enumerations treat human beings as inanimate things. It ignores that people have different functions and roles within a society. That is the predominant view today, since differences in people are held to be merely cosmetic.

It is said that the Kali Yuga will be an era of undifferentiation in which distinctions will be harder to maintain. Organic and objective distinctions are giving way to subjective preferences.

Practical Reason

Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. I do not seek or conjecture either of them as if they were veiled obscurities or extravagances beyond the horizon of my vision; I see them before me and connect them immediately with the consciousness of my existence. ~ Immanuel Kant

If pure reason, as reflecting on thought is lunar, then moral logic is solar; formal logic is cold, moral logic introduces warmth. So when Kant turns his attention away from the external world, and focuses it on his own existence, he is beginning the process of uniting the head and the heart. There he becomes aware of the “categorical imperative”, i.e., the moral law written in his heart.

The categorical imperative is an unconditional moral obligation. Kant’s formulated it in the maxim, “act as though your action should be an universal law.” It also implies that others should never be treated merely as means, but as ends in themselves. Moreover, the categorical imperative is self-imposed, and not imposed by force from the outside.

Tomberg does not regard this as mere theory, since he claims that “moral logic is the human analogy of the Logos that enlightens every man.” Moreover, that means the categorical imperative is the “divine image” in man. This is the same as Dharma in Hinduism.

The spiritual experience of moral logic postulates the existence of God, free will, and the immortality of the soul. This is not a logical or scientific proof. Tomberg explains:

What are initially postulates of moral logic are confirmed, amplified and deepened through spiritual experience, which will not hesitate to come to the aid of thought, when head and heart are equally engaged. Because moral logic is the language of the spiritual world, and to make use of moral logic is to begin a dialogue with the spiritual world. For the latter does not remain mute and indifferent when addressed in its own language.

Ultimately, moral logic is the “logic of faith, i.e., thought which participates in revelation.”

Christianisation of Mankind

We read that the fusion of intellectuality and spirituality is the germination of the Christic seed in human nature and consciousness. This Christianisation of mankind is not merely quantitative, but means the qualitative transformation of human nature and consciousness. This will work itself out in conformity with this law:

Aspiration and general languor—the culmination of success in an individuality—a general diffusion over a number of generations. That is, the climate of general expectation leading to the particular realization, which then becomes general.

This aspiration is not necessarily explicitly Christian, since the Hindus expect the Kalki Avatar and the Buddhists expect Maitreya. In an individual, the realization will require the fusion of prayer and meditation. This Buddha-Avatar will not operate solely on the material plane. Rather, as it was pointed out last night, it must also take place on the etheric and astral planes. Ultimately, the teaching will be for the “I”, the consciousness of one’s own existence as it was for Kant. Yet, it will not be a new or novel teaching or religion. Tomberg explains it this way:

The mission of the Buddha-Avatar to come will therefore not be the foundation of a new religion, but rather that of bringing human beings to firsthand experience of the source itself of all revelation ever received from above by mankind, as also of all essential truth ever conceived of by mankind. It will not be novelty to which he will aspire, but rather the conscious certainty of eternal truth.

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The Man of Heart

Being the meeting notes from 6 February 2017.

We discussed our experiences with the prayer of the heart. If it is difficult to bring attention to the heart, then the hands or another external body part can be used. The question arose about the meaning of attention “on” the heart. Patricia suggested that it actually means to bring attention “in” the heart. In other words, the heart becomes the center of awareness, not the object of awareness.

The Law of the Heart

In the Meditation on the Hermit, we come to see that the heart is where “contemplation and will are united, where knowledge becomes will and where will becomes knowledge.” It is important to keep in mind that the “heart”, in this context, does not at all signify the centre of emotions and passions as it does in the popular imagination. Rather, it is the middle centre, or chakra, of man’s psychic and vital constitution. It does signify “love” however, making it the most human of the centers. “Knowledge” is what man knows, “will” is what a man can do, but “heart” is what he is.

The great work of the man of heart is the transmutation of the substance of other chakras into the substance of the heart. It was mentioned in the meeting that Seyyed Nasr wrote that the heart is the only organ that connects the human state to a transcendent state. This notion is confirmed by Valentin Tomberg when he explains that the heart, alone of all the centres, is not attached to the organism. Hence, it can go out of the organism and live.

The Planets and the Chakras

The heart, as the central chakra, is therefore the “sun” of the microcosm. Oscar Hinze, in his book Tantra Vidya, shows that in the ancient esoteric astronomy, the traditional planets correspond to the chakras of Tantra Yoga, in short, the macrocosm corresponds to the microcosm. Moreover, he shows how similar ideas were part of the progress of initiation in Mithraism. But, even more interestingly, Hinze notes that the mystic Johann Gichtel, a student of Jacob Boehme, was aware of the same correspondence as revealed in his book Theosophia Practica. The following table shows the correspondences. The table also includes the “I am” saying associated with the chakra, and the transformation that occurs with its awakening, as described in the Letter on the Hermit.

Chakra and Planetary Correspondences
Chakra Planet Transformation I am
Sahasrara
8/1000 petals		 Saturn Abstract and transcendent wisdom → Full of warmth like the fire of Pentecost The resurrection and the life
Ajna
2 petals		 Jupiter Intellectual initiative → compassion-filled insight into the world The light of the world
Visuddha
16 petals		 Mars Creative word → magical: illumining, consoling, healing The good shepherd
Anahata
12 Petals		 Sun Love → Exteriorisation of love. The bread of life
Manipura
10 petals		 Venus Science → conscience The door
Svadhisthana
6 petals		 Mercury Center of health → holiness, i.e., harmony of spirit, soul, body The way, the truth, and the life
Muladhara
4 petals		 Moon Creative force → source of energy and élan The true vine

7 centers of energy
Remarkably, Gichtel claimed to have discovered the subtle centers in the body and their correspondence to the planets through his own contemplations and experience. In the Tantric system, each chakra is represented by a lotus with a unique set of petals. Hinze demonstrates that the number of petals corresponds to the “gestalt number” of each planet. These numbers are derived from the way the ancient astrologers experienced the sky. For example, the gestalt number of the Moon is 4, which represents its phases. Hence, the Muladhara chakra has four petals.

In the chart, the column labeled “Transformation” shows the changes that occur when the chakra is transformed by the heart. The column labeled “I am” shows Jesus’ “I am” saying that is associated with each chakra.

Waking Up

When the chakras are asleep a man becomes dominated by instinctual life, motivated by fear (muladhara), sex (svadhisthana), and hunger (manipura), interspersed with random eruptions from higher chakras. Another way of saying this, following Gichtel’s diagram, is that the human being is under the influence of the planets, hence subjected to sponaneous forces beyond his knowledge and control.

So the obvious question is how to “awaken” the higher chakras. That puts us in a bind, since Hermetism rejects any mechanical process or technique to do so. By analogy, we can look at how you wake up from a night’s sleep. Who is doing the awakening? Commonly, it may be the result of an outside stimulation, or enough it comes about after a “crisis point” in a dream.

So, analogously, we could say that “waking up” into a higher state of consciousness are reaching certain “crises”, as described in the Letter on the Tower of Destruction. Such a crisis may result from either an internal or external event. Example, perhaps, are the boundary situations described by Karl Jaspers, which often arise from chance, traumatic events. Of course, the Hermetist may choose boundary situations deliberately, by meditating on a particular topic. Perhaps, in this case, a meditation on one of the “I am” sayings would be helpful. I think it is a bit of a mystery for the “sleeping” person to try to wake up. All the forces that lead to that, need to be encouraged. Ultimately, it is a matter of grace from above.

The Christianisation of the Chakras

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation (II Corinthians v, 17)

Valentin Tomberg mentions the traditional Tantric method of awakening the chakras through their corresponding mantras: Om, Ham, Yam, and so on. That will awaken the chakras as they are. The Hermetist, however, has a different aim: the Christianisation of the centres, i.e., their transformation in conformity with their divine-human prototype. In other words, the aim is to make of oneself a new creation. The corresponding “I am” saying can be used as a mantra in the process of the Christianisation of the chakras.

The Christianisation of the inner organization is the transformation of the human being into a man of heart. The heart is the third, or neutralizing, force mediating “knowledge” and “will”. This leads to three transformational moments.

Intellectual intuition Feeling for truth Subordinate spontaneous movements of thought as well as the directing intellectual initiative to the heart of thought
Moral intuition Feeling for beauty Subordinate both spontaneous imagination and actively directed imagination to the direction of the heart
Practical intutition Feeling for good Subordinate spontaneous impulses and designs directed from the will to the feeling of practical intution

Note that there are two stages of subordination to the heart:

  • Spontaneous arisings
  • Directed mental activities

We have dealt with spontaneous arisings extensively in the past. We have noticed that, in our normal waking state—which is usually far from fully conscious—thoughts, images, and impulses spontaneous arise, most often in a very negative way. We have used them as “crises” to lead to a moment of awareness, since they need to be brought under conscious control. In the past, we have used the exterior parts of the body, e.g., hands, feet, etc., as our objects of concentration and attention. Perhaps, now, we can begin to bring attention to the heart rather than a body part.

Next, there can be deliberate and consciously directed thoughts, images, and plans. Those are recognizably human activities since they are self-directed and self-willed. However, for them to be Christianised, then they, too, must be subordinated to the heart.

The goal of the Christianisation of the centres is to transform the human being into a man or woman of heart.

Scientific Postscript

Although secular science is not the last word for us, it should not be surprising to learn that the heart has neurons. The HeartMath Solution, by Doc Childre and Howard Martin develops the idea of the heart as the central intelligence of the body. We do not consider this a “proof” for the man of heart, but an effect. Nevertheless, some of you, perhaps in the healing professions, may be interested in such topics. The downside is that, like all new age teachings, it sees the “knowledge of the heart” strictly in instrumental terms, as the means to an end, be it inner calm, physical health, treatment for psychological problems. We, on the other hand, consider becoming a man or woman of the heart is an end in itself.

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Prayer of the Heart

Meeting notes for 30 January 2017.

Br. Erik initiated a discussion on the Prayer of the Heart based on the essay Essence of the Prayer of the Heart. It is recommended that this be part of your daily prayers and meditations. Christians can recite the Jesus prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.” The author, Olga Louchakova, points out that the prayer of the heart is also part of other traditions; so non-Christians can find their own mantra.

To do the exercise, place your attention on the prayer while reciting it interiorly. Simultaneously, keep attention on the body. Ultimately, attention will be placed on the heart, specifically the upper right ventricle. In the interim, keep attention on another body part, e.g., the hands. It may be of interest to refer to the insights of Oscar Hinze regarding the Heart Chakra.

There are several points in Letter XXI that can be discussed for next time, beginning on page 613. The most important, of course, is the role of Christ. He is neither an Avatar bringing a Divine message down to mankind, nor a Buddha, who rises up from the human condition. According to Tomberg, Christ brought not just a divine birth but also a divine death, an expiatory sacrifice. This leads to the idea of an alchemical transformation of the world, not merely liberation from it.

Jesus Christ is the complete unity of intellectuality and spirituality, which is the “germination of the Christic seed in human nature and consciousness.” Tomberg calls this the Christianisation of mankind, by which is meant “a qualitative transformation of human nature and consciousness”. It is possible that Tomberg here is a bit too sanguine, even if a Bodhisattva comes to save us.

The reference to St. Ignatius of Loyola is intriguing, since he maintained “a perfect equilibrium between the world of mystical revelations and the world of human tasks and actions”. That is a useful model to follow.

Tomberg makes a fruitful distinction of three levels of logic.

  • Formal logic deals with logical and mathematical relationships based on quantity while ignoring the qualitative aspects. This is what is meant by logic today in academic circles.
  • Organic logic takes functional differences into account. For example, people cannot be treated as though they were identical hydrogen atoms or mathematical points. Rather each one has a functional relationship to a larger whole.
  • Moral logic goes beyond the preceding two to the realm of values and qualitative differences. A postulate of formal logic is that “you cannot derive an ‘is’ from an ‘ought’”. Moral logic approaches it a different way: Given the existence of moral values and duties (‘ought’), what must the world be like (‘is’)? Kant, for example, inferred the existence of God, free will, and the immortality of the soul from his experience of the Categorical Imperative. Tomberg asserts that is simply the divine image in man.

    For those of a philosophical bent, the idea of a moral logic can be found in some recent works, even if not so explicitly stated. John Leslie, in Infinite Minds, basing himself on the Platonic notion of God as the Good, postulates that the cosmos exists because there is an ethical need for it. Thomas Nagel, in Mind and Cosmos, speculates about the nature of a cosmos in which “moral realism” exists, i.e., an objective moral code.

Finally, Tomberg ends the letter with an extended discussion of prayer and meditation, whose union is the “alchemical marriage”. We began with the prayer of the heart; I hope soon we can consider the Three Conversions in the spiritual life as described primarily by St. John of the Cross. He has a prominent role in the Letters. That will lead to the topic of meditation, particularly what Tomberg writes about the contemplation of the seven stages of the passion.

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The Avatar and the Bodhisattva

Whensoever there is the fading of the Dharma and the uprising of unrighteousness, then I loose myself forth into birth. For the deliverance of the good, for the destruction of the evil-doers, for the enthroning of the Right I am born from age to age. He who knoweth thus in its right principles my divine birth and my divine work, when he abandons his body, comes not to rebirth, he comes to Me, Arjuna. Delivered from liking and fear and wrath, full of me, taking refuge in me, many purified by austerity of knowledge have arrived at my nature of being. As men approach me, so I accept them to my love; men follow in every way my path …  ~ Bhagavad Gita

The Incarnations of Vishnu
Historically—according to Valentin Tomberg—the long expected Bodhisattva and Avatar will manifest as one Being. Analogously, that applies to the individual’s inner life. We previously discussed Tomberg’s idea of the Bodhisattva, starting from below; that is, from the full awareness of the human condition. The second part is the idea of the Avatar, that is, a revelation from above. So this week we focused on the Avatar, as described by Aurobindo Ghose. Matthew Smallwood led our discussion.

We started with Chapter XV: The Possibility and Purpose of Avatarhood, from Essays on the Gita. The supreme Divinity becomes manifest within us as Lord of our being and action. This is the “highest secret” so that the Yoga of the Gita is the “highest synthetic and integral Yoga directing Godward all the powers of our being. However, it is not a one way street. Aurobindo explains the two aspects:

For there are two aspects of the divine birth; one is a descent, the birth of God in humanity, the Godhead manifesting itself in the human form and nature, the eternal Avatar; the other is an ascent, the birth of man into the Godhead, man rising into the divine nature and consciousness; it is the being born anew in a second birth of the soul. It is that new birth which Avatarhood and the upholding of the Dharma are intended to serve.

Without this ascent, or second birth, Aurobindo says the true meaning of the Gita is lost:

Otherwise the Avatar idea would be only a dogma, a popular superstition, or an imaginative or mystic deification of historical or legendary supermen, not what the Gita makes all its teaching, a deep philosophical and religious truth and an essential part of or step to the supreme mystery of all, the highest secret.

Moreover, without this ascent, the world process would not be dependent on Transcendence, but would be a mere natural process:

If there were not this rising of man into the Godhead to be helped by the descent of God into humanity, Avatarhood for the sake of the Dharma would be an otiose phenomenon, since mere Right, mere justice or standards of virtue can always be upheld by the divine omnipotence through its ordinary means, by great men or great movements, by the life and work of sages and kings and religious teachers, without any actual incarnation.

While Aurobindo considers Krishna, Buddha, and Christ to be three avatars, Tomberg rejects that idea. Rather, of those three, only Krishna is to be understood as the Avatar par excellence, representing the descent of the Divine. Buddha, then, shows the path of ascent from the human condition until he reached the final stage of liberation, having nothing to do with the “revelation from above by prophets and Avatars”. Jesus Christ represents something higher, the transformation of the world and not just liberation from the world.

Maya

Aurobindo accepts a form of panpsychism, i.e., the position that consciousness exists throughout the manifested world:

nor is Matter anywhere really void of consciousness, for even in the atom, the cell there is, as is now made abundantly clear in spite of itself by modern Science, a power of will, an intelligence at work; but that power is the power of will and intelligence of the Self, Spirit or Godhead within it, it is not the separate, self-derived will or idea of the mechanical cell or atom.

Although the universal will and intelligence draws nearest to the Divine in man, he is only obscurely conscious of that Divinity. That is because:

there is that imperfection of the manifestation which prevents the lower forms from having the self-knowledge of their identity with the Divine. For in each limited being the limitation of the phenomenal action is accompanied by a limitation also of the phenomenal consciousness which defines the nature of the being and makes the inner difference between creature and creature.

The imperfect action of the creature is due to its subjection to the mechanism of Prakriti and its limitation by the self-representation of Maya. Maya is not exactly illusion, since it is “the divine consciousness in its power of various self-representation of its being.” Those unaware of the of the “Divine lodged in the human body” are so because they are subject to the mechanism of Prakriti (“nature”) that deludes the will with desire and bewilders the intellect with egoism.

Avatars and Evolution

Many commentators have pointed out that the ten Hindu Avatars can be read as a parable of the Evolution of the World Process. Rather, it illustrates the process of Involution, that is, the incarnations of the Divine into the world process that manifests as the phenomenal world (the “self-representation of the divine consciousness.” In Letters on Yoga Aurobindo describes this process;

Avatarhood would have little meaning if it were not connected with the evolution. The Hindu procession of the ten Avatars is itself, as it were, a parable of evolution. First the Fish Avatar, then the amphibious animal between land and water, then the land animal, then the Man-Lion Avatar, bridging man and animal, then man as dwarf, small and undeveloped and physical but containing in himself the godhead and taking possession of existence, then the rajasic, sattwic, nirguna Avatars, leading the human development from the vital rajasic to the sattwic mental man and again the overmental superman. Krishna, Buddha and Kalki depict the last three stages, the stages of the spiritual development–Krishna opens the possibility of overmind, Buddha tries to shoot beyond to the supreme liberation but that liberation is still negative, not returning upon earth to complete positively the evolution; Kalki is to correct this by bringing the Kingdom of the Divine upon earth, destroying the opposing Asura forces. The progression is striking and unmistakable.

As for the lives in between the Avatar lives, it must be remembered that Krishna speaks of many lives in the past, not only a few supreme ones, and secondly that while he speaks of himself as the Divine, in one passage he describes himself as a Vibhuti (a descendent of Vishnu). We may therefore fairly assume that in many lives he manifested as the Vibhuti veiling the fuller Divine Consciousness. If we admit that the object of Avatarhood is to lead the evolution, this is quite reasonable, the Divine appearing as Avatar in the great transitional stages and as Vibhutis to aid the lesser transitions.

Vibhuti and Greatness

Why should the Divine not care for the outer greatness? He cares for everything in the universe. All greatness is the Vibhuti of the Divine. ~ Bhagavad Gita

Besides the Avatars, the Divine may also be made manifest as Vibhutis which includes spiritual teachers, prophets, intellectuals, scientists, artists, poets, etc. They are not unlike the Representative Men of Ralph Waldo Emerson, or the Heroes of Thomas Carlyle. Moreover, Vibhutis may not necessarily be of strong moral character, yet are great nevertheless.

A fuller exposition of this idea will be forthcoming.

Spirituality and Intellectuality

The two Aurobindo books have intellectual depth and are worth close study. However, such book knowledge must go hand in hand with spiritual depth. Be sure to continue with daily prayer and meditation, develop consciousness without effort throughout the day, and engage in spiritual combat to guard and purify the intellect and will.

Most on the Hermetic path are following the path of knowledge. Beyond that, there is the possibility of greatness if you develop all your human possibilities.

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The Human Bodhisattva

The interior life is for all, the one thing necessary. It ought to be constantly developing in our souls; more so than what we call our intellectual life, more so than our scientific, artistic, or literary life. The interior life is lived in the depths of the soul; it is the life of the whole man, not merely of one or other of his faculties. And our intellectual life would gain immeasurably by appreciating this; it would receive an inestimable advantage if, instead of attempting to supplant the spiritual life, it recognized its necessity and importance, and welcomed its beneficial influence—the influence of the theological virtues and the gifts of the Holy Ghost. How deeply important our subject is may be seen in the very words we have used: Intellectuality and Spirituality. ~ Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Conversions in the Spiritual Life

The process of induction (which “ascends from earth to heaven”) and that of deduction (which “descends to earth”), the process of prayer (which “ascends from earth to heaven”) and that of revelation (which “descends to earth”) — i.e. human endeavour and the action of grace from above — unite and become a complete circle which contracts and concentrates to become a point where the ascent and descent are simultaneous and coincide. And this point is the “philosopher’s stone”— the principle of the identity of the human and divine, of humanism and prophetism, of intelligence and revelation, of intellectuality and spirituality. ~ from Letter XXI, The Fool

Meeting notes for 16 January 2017

Introduction

Ekzy’l led a discussion on Frithjof Schuon’s essay Mystery of the Bodhisattva. Since we focused on pages 76 through 79, I’ll start with some points from the first pages of the essay in order to provide some context. Schuon agrees with Valentin Tomberg that Buddhism starts from the human point of view and rises up. Moreover, Schuon points out that this starting point makes it akin to Christianity.

This starting point for Buddha is the insight that all life is suffering. This is not merely verbal, but existential, so much so that the Buddha would not be satisfied until he found a solution. Similarly, the Christian sees that life is toil, suffering, and death. Although Buddha does not provide an explanation for suffering, the Christian traces its origin back to the effects of original sin.

The solution must likewise be existential. Hence, neither Advaita Vedanta nor Neo-Platonism—the highest metaphysical teaching of the East and West respectively—are sufficient, no matter how useful they are to the jnana path. The corollary is that there is no definable process or technique that will lead to an awakening. Rather, “skillful means” are necessary, which may be adapted to different personalities and situations.

Discussion

These are the main points discussed; for clarity, the order of the topics is different.

  • Schuon distinguishes between the personal, or human, Bodhisattva and the celestial. The latter is more like an avatar, so we focused on the human Bodhisattva to be consistent with Tomberg’s description.
  • Apocatastasis means the restoration to the primordial state. In Buddhist terms, that involves the reintegration into Nirvana while, in Christian terms, it is the return to the state of Adam before the Fall.
  • Starting from “below”, i.e., the human state, means to begin in samsara. Normally, our attention is caught in the web of samsara, a state of ignorance. Unaware that samsara is a dimension of Nirvana. The beginning of awakening comes with the recognition of the impermanence of things, which is just their relativity in respect to Nirvana.
  • The obvious question then is what motivates this awakening. First of all, in experience, although not ontologically, a degree of perfection, i.e., a purification, is necessary.
  • The jnana must contemplate the Absolute both in the Heart and in the World. Tomberg calls this the “identity of the human and the divine.”
  • With that preparation, “the Logos descends upon him and dwells in him, just as light automatically dwells on a clear and smooth surface.”
  • Hence, the “original initiative comes from Heaven and that the support has been brought forth in the realm of the cosmic play solely in view of the manifestation of the Logos and by the Logos itself.”
  • A Buddha has three sheaths, or bodies, corresponding to Heaven, an Archangel, and humans. Christian Hermetism accepts that, but includes some finer states. The Angelic sheath has nine levels, corresponding to the celestial hierarchies. Ultimately, the highest states relate to the Trinity, not simply the Absolute. Buddhism admits this to a degree by recognizing Being and Beyond-Being as transcendent states.

We concluded with an interesting point about the meaning of the Buddhist teaching about the extinction of the self and the elimination of desire. It was suggested that this means the elimination of the “grasping self”. Of course, that brings to mind the “five wounds”:

the desire for personal greatness, to take, to keep, to advance and to hold on to at the expense of others

This thought opens up the idea of the three vows, purification of the will, and celestial hierarchy, all relevant to the Bodhisattva discussion. But that will be for another meeting.