Friends from the Immaculate Heart hermitage should come down to hear Fadi, they've been hosting him and also will be hosting us on Sunday when we go up there. So this is a real special occasion for us to have you all here with us. We look forward to joining you on Sunday. We'll begin with a chant. It's not easy to translate. It's often a chant at the beginning of any gathering. Let us eat together, to share together, let us shine together, let there be no quarrelling among us. It's the basic meaning of it. Om Om

[01:38]

Om [...] Transpersonal self. What is this world of the spirit? And to me it's a very vital issue because in India today the Advaita doctrine of Shankara prevails among most educated people. And the way it's normally understood I find very unsatisfactory. I think Shankara himself was a mystic and he was as always a mystic, cannot fully express what his experience is and he put it in a rather one-sided way. And that has been taken up and accepted and it's extremely negative. You see, it really comes to the point that when you reach the transcendent state all differences disappear. The external world has no more reality and the individual human person, human soul, Jivatman has no final reality and even the personal God disappears in the absolute.

[02:42]

It's simply Sat-Chit-Ananda, being, knowledge, bliss. A marvellous idea and of course there is a deep truth in this. We have to go beyond our sense experience, we have to go beyond ordinary mental consciousness and Advaita is teaching us to go beyond. But the question is what happens when we go beyond? What is the ultimate reality, you see, and how do we experience that? And I would like to treat it first of all from the point of view of the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita to see how really they present it and then to see how it can be understood in a Christian context. And I'd like to begin with a beautiful quotation from the Chandogya Upanishad which puts it very marvellously. It says, there is a little space within the heart which is as great as this vast universe. Sorry, I should have begun earlier. In the centre of the castle of Brahman, our own body, our body is this castle of Brahman, the dwelling place of God. In this castle there is a small shrine in the form of a lotus flower and within that can be found a small space.

[03:57]

We should find who dwells there and we should want to know him. Who is it who dwells at this heart of the lotus? And then it says, the little space within the heart is as great as this vast universe. The heavens are there and the earth and the sun and the moon and the stars. Fire and lightning and winds are there and all that now is and is not. For the whole universe is in him and he dwells within our heart. So that is what we are seeking, this mystery at the depth of our own being and the whole creation is in my own heart, is in me because he is in me. So that is the fundamental intuition of the Upanishads. And I would like to trace it back to its source where it was really this, in the early 6th century before Christ, as I say, this breakthrough, the discovery of Brahman. And it seems that Brahman originally signified the power in the sacrifice.

[05:02]

The Vedic religion centred on the sacrifice, the fire sacrifice. And this was very profound because the idea was that the fire comes down from heaven, the fire is in the sun, and it comes down from heaven and is buried in the earth. And then you take the wood or the flint and you rub them together and Agni, the god of fire, springs forth and then you offer everything you are in the fire and it returns, you see. Everything comes from above and everything has to return and that was the meaning of the Vedic sacrifice really. And Brahman was the word in the sacrifice. You made your offering but you made it by a word and in all sacrifices there is always a word which makes the sacrifice. And so Brahman was this word which expressed the meaning of the sacrifice.

[06:04]

And because the sacrifice represented the whole creation, creation comes from God and creation returns, this word of power was the word by which the whole creation comes into being. So the Brahman came to be that power of the word by which the whole creation comes into being. And so more and more they begin to explore what this Brahman is. And in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, which is the earliest and rather more difficult but also more profound, there are two sentences, or three actually, which I always find are key sentences. And the first is, in the beginning all this was Brahman. All this world, the whole world of our experience and ourselves, the whole cosmos was Brahman. He is the origin and the root of all, you see. And then the second one, in the beginning all this was the Atman, the Self, in the form of a Purusha, of a person. All this was this Atman, this Self, in the form of a Purusha.

[07:12]

So right at the beginning, you see, this intuition was awakened that behind the phenomenal world is the one reality of the Brahman, which is also the one reality of the Self, the Atman, which is also the Purusha, the person, the cosmic person. And so they will go on to say, they give various analogies, and what is attractive in the Upanishads, in an all-sacred teaching, is this use of images and symbols. And there's one very attractive dialogue where Gargi is the wife of Yajnavalkya. And this is interesting, that in the Upanishads the women took part in the discussions in equal terms with the men. Later times the women were barred from even reading the Vedas, it wasn't permitted, and they were suppressed. But in the beginning men and women met together, and Gargi was the wife of Yajnavalkya.

[08:13]

And she asks him, what is that on which all this world is woven? And I think this expresses the whole approach, you see, of the Upanishads to the ultimate reality. And he says all this world is woven on water, because many people thought water was the source of everything. And then she says, well, what is the water woven on? And he says the water is woven on the air, because air is said to be more fundamental than water. What is the air woven on? And he says the sky. And what's the sky woven on? He says the heavenly spirits. And what are the heavenly spirits woven on? They're woven on the Prajapati, the creator. And what is Prajapati woven on? She says Prajapati is woven on the Brahman. And then she says, what is Brahman woven on? And he says, do not ask any more, Gargi, lest your head should fall off. You see, there's a limit. And Brahman is the absolute, it's the final word. You cannot get beyond that Brahman. The whole creation is woven on this Brahman. That was the first.

[09:15]

And then a second one was that Brahman is the honey of this universe, the inner essence. Within all things there is this honey, this essence. And Brahman is that essential reality within all the phenomena of the universe is that Brahman. And the third one is that this Brahman is also the object of all desire. And here again there's another dialogue when Yajnavalkya is going to forest. He had two wives. The other was Maitreyi. And he says to her, I'm going now into the forest to meditate. I will make a settlement with you, you see. And she says to him, if I have the settlement of worldly goods, shall I obtain immortality? And he says, no, you cannot get immortality by worldly goods. She said, then do not give me the settlement. Let me come with you. She wants immortality. And all through the Upanishads there's this search for immortality. And so he tells her to come with him. And then he begins to explain to her. And he says, not for the sake of the husband is the husband dear, but for the sake of the Atman, the self, is the husband dear. Not for the sake of the wife is the wife dear, but for the sake of the Atman, the self.

[10:34]

Everything and every body is to be loved in that Atman, that self, which is your real being. Your real being is not your body, is not your soul, your personality, but the deep center of your being, your Atman, your self. And that is what is to be loved in every body and everything. So it's the ground, you see, on which the whole creation is woven. It's the inner essence of all things. And it is that which is desire in all, the object of all our desire. It's this Brahman, it's this Atman, this one reality. So that is the first basis. Now the next stage, I would like to go to the Katha Upanishad, which I find the most revealing, perhaps the best one to read. And for those who are interested, you probably know it, but this is the most readable version of the Upanishad, Naskara, in the Penguin Classics. It's a little free in some ways, but he's a good scholar and it really makes sense. It's extremely valuable in that way.

[11:35]

And now in the Katha Upanishad, the story is that a Brahmin priest, or just Ravasa, was offering a sacrifice. And the sacrifice was intended to represent the offering of everything, the total offering to God. And instead of offering anything of value, he offered a lot of old cows, which were useless and weren't bearing any milk or anything. And that represents, you see, conventional religion, where you make great sayings of what you're going to give and so on to God, and actually you give nothing, you withhold everything. And he has a son, Nachiketas, and Nachiketas sees that his father is giving these old cows, but he also sees that if his father's giving everything, he ought to give up his son also. So he says, to whom will you give me? And he asks it three times, then his father says to him, I will give you to death. And he hands him over to death. And the whole Upanishad is Nachiketas, and he represents the young man who is seeking truth, reality. He's not accepting conventional religion, he's looking for God, for the truth.

[12:49]

And he has to go down into death. And you see, this is the condition. If you want to get beyond, you have to die. As St. Ken Wilber shows, at every stage you have to die to the previous stage. And if we want to get beyond our present mental consciousness, we have to die to that consciousness and allow the higher consciousness to awaken in us. So Nachiketas goes down to death, and he reaches the underworld, and he speaks to Yama, the god of death, and he offers him three boons. And the first one, which is interesting, and I think important, is he asks, when I return, may my father be reconciled with me. And I think it's important, you see, you have to go out, you have to leave your family, you have to die, but then you have to be reconciled, you have to come back, you have to rediscover your roots, and so on. So he asks for that reconciliation. The second one, he asks to understand the meaning of the sacrifice, which as I explained is fairly far from heaven.

[13:51]

Now his third boon, which is the source of the Upanishad, is what is that which lies beyond death. Some people say when you die, he is, some say he is not. This is what I want to know. And death, Yama, doesn't want to reveal this. And this is the great secret, you see, what lies beyond death. And everybody is seeking it, has been from the beginning. And it's a great mystery, and Yama doesn't want to reveal it. He says, take anything else you like, I'll give you chariots and horses and dance and song, you can have everything you like, don't ask me about that. But Nājiketas persists. And this again, you see, if you're trying to find the truth, you'll be kept back by everybody and everything. They will offer you anything in exchange, don't go and seek the truth itself. And so Nājiketas insists, all these things mean nothing to me, I want to know what is the truth beyond. And so Yama gives way to him. And then he begins to explain. And the first thing he says is that this doctrine has to be learnt from another. And that is very interesting. And that is the Hindu tradition, you see, that if you want to know what lies beyond, you have to meet someone who has experience of the beyond.

[15:15]

And the guru is one who has had that experience. And in the tradition, it comes down from the beginning. From the Vedic times, the rishis had this experience of God, of Brahman. And they communicated to their disciples, and the Upanishads are these discourses of the guru to the disciple. And it's come down by tradition from guru to guru, right to the present day, you see. And if you want to awake, you have to find a guru. And you learn from him. And so it says, this sacred knowledge is not attained by reasoning, but it can be given by a true teacher, by a guru. As your purpose is steady, you have found him, may I find another pupil like you. See, this sacred knowledge is not attained by reasoning. And that is our great illusion, to think that we can go on thinking and talking and reasoning and we will find, but that's a dead end. And only when we go beyond thought and are awakened by the guru, the teacher has to come and awaken us.

[16:31]

And then, that is the first stage, that awakening takes place. And then a very difficult stage, you see. When you awaken like that and you go beyond, you go into the darkness. And that is where most people find it difficult and many people turn back. You see, you don't come into a world of light immediately, you come into the darkness. And there's a wonderful sloka which he translates much too generally. More literally it goes, when the wise man in meditation discovers the ancient who is difficult to be seen, who has entered into the dark, who dwells in the abyss as God, he leaves joy and sorrow behind. He goes beyond the pleasures and sorrows of this world. You see, this hidden mystery is hidden in the dark in this Guha, in the cave of the heart, you see. And you have to enter into the darkness to go beyond yourself, beyond the world, is to enter into the darkness and discover the hidden mystery within. As God, you discover the God dwelling within, you see.

[17:43]

So that is the next stage. You awaken to the mystery and then you're led into the darkness, into the cloud of unknowing, as it was called in the English medieval treatise. And then, when you come to that, it reveals itself. And this is another very important thing, you see. You can open yourself to this, but you cannot get it for yourself. And again, you see, the ego always comes in. It wants to get this knowledge for itself. It wants to get an experience of God. The ego is always seeking its own satisfaction. Of course, it's the ego that has to die. And therefore, this knowledge is always to be received. First of all, you find a guru to awaken you. And then it has to come as a gift. And there's a beautiful sloka here which says, not through much learning is the art man reached, not through the intellect and sacred teaching. You see, no learning or intellect or even sacred teaching can give you this. It is reached by the chosen of him because they choose him.

[18:47]

We choose this way, but we also have to be chosen. To his chosen, the art man reveals his glory. Then it adds, not even through deep knowledge can the art man be reached unless evil ways are abandoned. There is rest in the senses, concentration in the mind, and peace in one's heart. So that is the way we discover the indwelling self, the art man. Now, it's very interesting, you see, that is the Hindu way to God, you could say. You see, the passage through death, the awakening through the guru, the entry into the darkness, and then the gift coming as a grace offered. And that is exactly the Christian experience of the mystery. This is what I find so interesting, you see, that the one mystery has been revealed in the different traditions under different symbols. You see, in the Christian tradition, you begin your life with baptism, and baptism is death. St. Paul says, you who are baptized were baptized into the death of Christ. You died with him in baptism that you might be raised with him to a new life. So it's always passage through death into life.

[19:57]

And then the next thing, this is done by faith. You have to have a teacher, and faith comes by hearing. You have to hear, you see, and you have to listen to put your ego down and to listen to another. So faith comes by hearing. And then when you have the awakening of faith, you have to go into the darkness. And contemplation is this passage into the cloud of unknowing, you see. And it's a double cloud. It hides the world from you, and it hides God from you. So you're in the total darkness. You've lost the world, and you've still not found God. But in that cloud is the light. The light is shining through the cloud, and it draws you more and more to itself. So you awake to the mystery of contemplation. And then the Christian teaching is that this contemplation is always a gift of God. You can prepare yourself for it. You can open yourself to it. By any means, you can practice yoga and Zen and any method you like, but all methods bring you to a point where the gift is received, you see. You open yourself to the transcendent, and he whom the Atman chooses, he knows the Atman. You have to be chosen to experience this gift from the Self.

[21:16]

So, you see, the same mystery is present in each doctrine, but in slightly different symbols. So now, that is our passage to the beyond. And now the Kathopanishad goes on to show the whole path of ascent, to me one of the most revealing of all. And it takes first of all the symbol of the chariot, which is very traditional. It comes from the Bhagavad Gita, you know, that Arjuna is seated in the chariot before the battle lines, and Krishna is the charioteer. And the symbolism is Arjuna is the human soul seated in the chariot of the body, Krishna is the Lord who comes to counsel him, you see. And so we all have the chariot of the body, we have the human soul within the body, and we have to listen to the Lord, to the spirit within, to counsel us. And here it has the same symbolism, slightly different language, the soul is in the chariot of the body, but the charioteer here is the buddhi. And the buddhi is, well, you'll see, he gives you a whole scale of ascent.

[22:30]

You begin first of all the outer world, which you perceive through your senses. And then it says beyond the senses is the mind, the manas. And the manas is the measure, the ma, the root ma means to measure. You get it in the moon, which measures the seasons, and even the root mens is probably from it. It's the measuring mind. And that is the discursive mind, the scientific mind, you see, the manas. And that is the lower mind. And many people think that's the ultimate, you see, this reasoning mind. But beyond the manas is the buddhi. And the buddhi is that point, the centre where we, as I mentioned yesterday, the point of integration. The buddhi opens us to the One. The manas is discursive, going from one thing to another. The buddhi is the intellect. In St. Thomas Aquinas, he distinguishes the intellectus and the ratio. The ratio is the reasoning mind going from one thing to another. The intellectus is the intelligence, which enlightens the manas.

[23:32]

But now the buddhi itself, and of course the same root as the buddha is the point of light, you see, of enlightenment. The buddhi itself is the point of our individuality. We become personal at that point of the buddhi. But beyond the buddhi it says is the mahat. And this is very important. The mahat is the great, it's the cosmic order. And as we go beyond our manas, you see, in meditation, we go beyond the body, we go beyond the mind, and at that point of the buddhi we open ourselves to the transcendent. And that is the cosmic order. And here you reach all the world of the gods and the angels, which I mentioned. And the whole, really, this transpersonal psychology is really this mahat, you see, and the vast experiences that take place. And that is the subtle world, and it has a vast realm, you see, of experience there. But again it says beyond the mahat is the avyakta, the unmanifest. Before anything comes into manifestation, before any phenomenon, even of the subtle order, there is the unmanifest, beyond, you see.

[24:42]

And we always have to go beyond. The subtle world is a very dangerous world, because you get caught up in it, you see, in visions and revelations and all these things. And especially these cities, which I mentioned yesterday, you see, as you open up to the cosmic order, you experience these paths. And they're very fascinating. You get a tremendous following. You heal people and you do miracles and so on. And your ego gets inflated beyond all measure, you see. So it's the most dangerous world, the world of the mahat and the cities. And therefore in every teaching they say you must never cling to that world, you must always be detached from it, and then be open to the unmanifest, to go beyond. And that is the darkness, you see, the abyss which we mentioned before. You have to go into the unmanifest. And then it says beyond the unmanifest is Purusha, the person. And beyond Purusha there is nothing. That is the end, that is the goal. So we ascend through the senses and the mind, to the intelligence, the buddhi, to the mahat, the cosmic, and finally through the unmanifest we come to Purusha, the source of all.

[25:56]

Now, I want now to develop this concept of the Purusha, because it's a key thing. We have the Brahman, this ground of all being, as we saw. We have the Atman, the ground of consciousness, where we realize that I in my depth am one with that Brahman. But now we enter to this concept of the Purusha, who is the cosmic person, and he appears in the Rig Veda, the Purusha Shukta it's called, in the Rig Veda, where it is said that… it means man, Purusha, properly, you see, and it says that man has a thousand arms, a thousand eyes, a thousand heads, and so on. And in the Hindu tradition a thousand, of course, represents infinity, really, it's a supreme number. And the Purusha is present in every… each one of us is a Purusha, but we're all members of the one Purusha, you see, so he sees through our eyes, he hears through our ears, he touches through our hands and so on.

[27:01]

And the one is manifesting himself in the many. So that Purusha has a thousand heads, a thousand hands, and so on. And then it says one third of him is here on earth, three parts are above in heaven. So the cosmic person manifests on earth, bodies and souls of people, but three quarters is above in heaven. He is the… Purusha is the spirit, you see, he is the spirit who is manifesting in this world of time and space. And it's a little crude, of course, the one quarter and three, but you can see the meaning. He's imminent in this world, in all creation, in all humanity, but he transcends creation, transcends humanity, and in himself he is this supreme person who is being knowledge and bliss, that is this supreme Purusha. But now, you see, this is where we begin to emerge into the idea of the personal God. And for many people this is a great problem, you see. How do you relate the personal God of Christianity, or maybe of Hinduism, Krishna or Rama, to the absolute?

[28:11]

And one view which Shankara puts forward is that the personal God is ultimately a projection. You project the world around you, you project all these individual souls, and then you project the cosmic person, and then you have to go beyond all this to the supreme, to the nirguna Brahman, beyond everything. But that, as I say, I think is an oversimplification. And this Purusha is really profoundly interesting, because in the later Upanishads and in the Bhagavad Gita, about second, third century before Christ, this Purusha comes more and more to be seen as the supreme. And the most interesting Upanishad, I don't know whether you know it, is Tathwatara, as I say, somewhat later. But it's a theistic Upanishad where it brings out marvellously how this Brahman, this Atman, is Purusha, is the cosmic person. And one verse says, he who knows beyond this world the Brahman, the vast, encompassing all things, and dwelling in the heart of all, as the Lord, as Isha, the Lord, he passes beyond. You know this Brahman, this Atman, as the Lord.

[29:28]

And the Lord is an object of worship, you see, and that set free this whole movement of bhakti. It began third or fourth century before Christ and spread all over India, and still today, for the average intuit, it's bhakti, it's devotion to the personal God, which is the norm. And so this great movement began, and the Bhagavad Gita is the great expression of that. And in the Gita, Krishna appears as this cosmic Lord, the cosmic person. And it's beautifully expressed here in book nine, for instance, where Krishna says, All this visible universe comes from my invisible being. All beings have their rest in me, but I have not my rest in them. And in truth, they rest not in me. Consider my sacred mystery. I am the source of all beings, I support them all, but I rest not in them. Now this is important because it shows the cosmic Lord transcends the whole creation. There's always a danger in Hinduism of a pantheism which simply sees the Lord as the universe. The universe is the Lord. But in the Gita, it's very clear, you see, the universe comes forth from the Lord, from my invisible being, and he says,

[30:45]

All beings have their rest in me, but I have not my rest in them. They depend on me, but I do not depend on them. And then again, you should think, still there are some dependents. In truth, they rest not in me, they don't affect him. I am the source of all, I support them all, but I rest not in them. So he is the transcendent Lord who creates, we would say, the whole universe, and the whole universe depends on him, supported by him, but he is not dependent on it in any way. So we rise in the Gita, you see, to the profound understanding of this cosmic Lord, the cosmic person who is the source of the whole creation. And then he is called the Supreme Brahman. Arjuna says, Supreme Brahman, light supreme, supreme purification, divine eternal Purusha it is, divine eternal person, you see, unborn God from the beginning, omnipresent Lord of all. So you see, the Gita brings us to show how this Brahman, this Atman, is the cosmic Lord, is the Supreme, transcending the whole creation, and the unborn God from the beginning. So here you have a marvellous theism, you see, in the Gita.

[32:00]

And unfortunately, you know, Shankara's commentary really, I think many would agree, he really misrepresents this, because he believes, you see, that the Atman, the Nirguna Brahman, is beyond all this, beyond the cosmic Lord. But the Svatasvata Upanishad and the Gita are very clear that the cosmic Lord is that Brahman, you see, is the Supreme. So that is one of the key problems, you see, how to relate this personal God to the Infinite, the Eternal One, you see. And I think this concept of the cosmic person is one of the keys to it, because it has its parallels in the Semitic tradition. In Sufism, for instance, several people asked me yesterday, and I didn't mention Sufism at all, but of course Sufism belongs to the same tradition, it's part of this whole perennial philosophy. And the greatest Sufi master, I think, is Ibn al-Arabi.

[33:03]

And his works have just been recently translated in that Classics of Western Spirituality. And I found it incredibly revealing to me. It's really more profound than Shankara. He's one of the great masters. And for him, this archetypal man, the universal man, is a key concept. The Absolute is the Transcendent One, but he knows himself, reflects himself in this universal man. And he says the universal man is the eye through whom the Infinite sees the world, and through which the world and man sees the Infinite, you see. He is the mediator between them, this archetypal man. And I often think, you know, in a Christian-Muslim dialogue, that could be a key thing. You see, if we say Jesus is God, the Muslim is terribly upset. You've got two gods now, and you're confounding somebody with Allah the Supreme. But if you say that Jesus is this archetypal man who is both man manifesting on earth and transcendent in heaven, I think you've got a sort of point of insertion there, you see.

[34:14]

And now, in the biblical tradition, you see Jesus habitually calls himself the Son of Man. It seems the one thing he rarely, the one title, which I know some biblical critics question even that, but to me it seems fairly obvious, certainly in my mind of the early church, that that was the way he understood himself, as the Son of Man. And this has several meanings. First of all, it simply means man. In the book of Ezekiel, some of the people are saying, it says, Son of Man, stand on your feet, God addresses him, simply man. But then, in the book of Daniel, you have that figure, one like a Son of Man who comes in the clouds of heaven, comes at the end, and the kingdom and the power and everything are given to him. And Jesus certainly related himself, if not identified himself, with that Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, the final end. But also, that Son of Man goes back to the Adam, the Adam Kadbold, the first Adam, the first man, who is Son of God. And in the Jewish tradition, you have this concept of an Adam, a man, who was Son of God and is very close to this Purusha, you see. So, this Son of Man is the man who manifests God, you see, and through whom God manifests himself. And he is this eternal Son of Man.

[35:38]

So, I think we have here, you see, a concept which is common to all these traditions, and this can link up with the Buddhist tradition too, you see. You have the three bodies of the Buddha, you know, the Nirmanakaya, the Sambhogakaya, and the Dharmakaya. And the Nirmanakaya is the gross body, the body of manifestation, and the Sambhogakaya is the glorified body, you call it the body of the resurrection, and the Dharmakaya is the body of reality, the supreme, you see, who is manifesting through the Sambhoga and through the Nirmana. So, there again, and the Buddha is, Buddha nature is said to be in every man, you see. So, here we have this figure of the cosmic person, the cosmic man, who embraces the whole creation, embraces all humanity, and brings all to a head in himself, you see. And this is exactly St. Paul's concept of Christ, where he says, in him and through him and for him all things were created, and in him all things hold together. The Greek is sunestike, and stand together, hold together, consist, you see, the whole creation stands together in him.

[36:54]

And so he is the cosmic person who gathers the whole creation to himself. Now, when we were thinking yesterday, you see, of the universe as a cosmic whole, a field of energies, it's not difficult now for us to see, you see, how this whole cosmos, all these energies of the cosmos, are unified, as we said, the whole present in every part. And this whole field of cosmic energies is pervaded by consciousness, you see, and that is Purusha and Prakriti, you see, you have the matter and consciousness, and they are interwoven, interdependent, and gradually Purusha is taking possession of Prakriti, consciousness is taking possession of matter. And at the final stage, Purusha and Prakriti, the matter and consciousness, are taken up into the Supreme Person and realized in their unity, you see. So the whole creation, humanity, enters through this cosmic person into the Godhead, you see, in the final state.

[37:58]

So now we can think, you see, of this Brahman, this Atman. The Brahman, if you like, is that which pervades the whole material universe, the Atman is that which pervades all consciousness, you see, and Purusha is the person in whom matter and consciousness come together in a total unity. And in that Purusha is now – this is the point, you see – what is the relation between that person, that Purusha, and the Supreme Godhead? And now the Christian tradition, we start from a personal God, and most Christians never get beyond a personal God. And that is the great problem, you see, and it is why many people think that it's a lower religion. Most Hindus do, you see, it belongs to the world of the personal God who is still limited in some way and is not the absolute, you see. But, you know, we have in our Christian tradition an extremely interesting concept of the Godhead. St. Paul himself has a saying where he says that in Christ dwelt the fullness of the Godhead, a theote, the Godhead itself dwelt bodily, the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily in him.

[39:15]

And in the tradition of the fathers, this concept of the Godhead as the ultimate is developed in the most interesting way, and especially in St. Gregory of Nyssa. He's the real founder of Christian mysticism in a way. Well, the foundations are in St. Paul and St. John, but he, through the influence of Neoplatonism, and this is very important, you see, in the first three or four centuries, Neoplatonism was the prevailing philosophy, Plotinus is the great exponent of it, and that was integrated in the whole Christian understanding through the Alexandria teachers, and especially St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Augustine. And, you see, in Gregory of Nyssa you have three stages. Your first stage, which he relates to baptism, is dying to the world, dying to yourself. The next stage, the illuminative stage, which he relates to confirmation, experience of the Spirit, is the understanding of the universe and of man in the light of God, of the Supreme, you see, and especially the whole world of the angels of the Mahat. So that is your illuminative way.

[40:32]

But now the third stage, the unitive way, which he relates to the Eucharist, is when you meet God in the darkness. That is fundamental. You go beyond the physical world, you go beyond the psychological world, you see, and all concepts, all angels and creatures of every kind, and you meet God in the darkness. And it's the communion of love in the darkness, you see, that is the idea. And this now was developed by Dionysius the Areopagite, who is a key figure in all this. I expect many of you will know. But he's a profoundly interesting person. He's generally supposed today to have been a Syrian monk of the 6th century. It's not certain, but he wrote under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, a disciple of St. Paul. And by what I consider a great work of divine providence, the later fathers all thought he was a disciple of St. Paul. So all this very deep teaching on the ultimate reality came into the Orthodox Christian tradition, and Dionysius is one of the authorities for St. Thomas Aquinas.

[41:38]

So the whole of this mystical theology came into the Orthodox tradition. That's very important, because even Ken Wilber, you know, up from Eden, he takes as so many do, he thinks the Gnostics had this superior wisdom and that the Church lost it. But it's not really true. I think the Gnostics had some superior wisdom, but the tradition of the fathers was that this Gnosis was present in the Church. Clement of Alexandria develops it, Origen develops it. Then, as I say, you get Gregory of Nyssa and St. Augustine, and they absorb all this Plotinian doctrine into their thought. And Plotinus is the point where the Western philosophy touches the Eastern, you see. That is our point of entry, really. It's spreadedly certain that Buddhist and Hindu monks came to Alexandria, you see, in the first century before Christ, first century after that period. So they must have brought with them something of the Vedantic tradition, you see. And the teacher of Plotinus and of Origen, the Christian father, was Ammonius Saccas, and he is supposed to have had this Oriental knowledge, you see.

[42:51]

So the knowledge of the transcendent enters into the Christian world and the whole Roman world at this period and is absorbed into the tradition. And in Dionysius you have a wonderful scheme. You have, first of all, your ecclesiastical hierarchy. You have the whole hierarchy of the Church, which is the sphere of manifestation, God manifesting himself in creation, in humanity. Then you have the celestial hierarchy, the whole hierarchy of the angels, of the transcendent. And we must, you know, replace the angels into the world, so many of us have lost it. You see, in all the creation around, you see, people speak here, this is a very sacred place here to the Indians and so on, and there are powers here. Well, these are angels, you see. There are cosmic powers present in the water, in the earth, in the rocks, in the canyon, you see. These are the presence of the angels. And so this whole world of the angels is there. But beyond the ecclesiastical hierarchy, beyond the celestial hierarchy, is the divine darkness. And the final treatise he wrote, he wrote on the celestial hierarchy and the ecclesiastical, is the mystical theology.

[44:08]

And there, he says, you must go beyond all senses, all images, all thoughts, beyond being itself, he says, and enter into the divine darkness. And only there do you reach ultimate reality. So you see, in the Christian tradition, there is a marvellous entry into this transcendent. I mean, that is the sunyata, the goodness, you see, that is the void, the emptiness. And it's also the nirguna Brahman, Brahman without attributes, the ultimate, you see. And that is the divine darkness, and that is the centre of Christian mysticism. And incidentally, you may be interested, there was a famous Benedictine monk in the 16th century or 17th century, Augustine Baker. He wrote a book called Holy Wisdom, which was one of the books we all read in the novitiate that we were studying. And in that he says a marvellous thing, that the ultimate union of man with God is the union of the nothing with the nothing. That is pure Buddhism, you see. Nothing, you are no thing when you've reached that state, you've gone beyond and you encounter God, he's no thing, you see, you've gone beyond all things, beyond everything into the nothing.

[45:21]

So now we have this transcendent reality, this divine darkness, but now we don't say that in that darkness, and this is the key thing, in that darkness you don't lose all the reality of this world, you see, that is the important thing. And again, Ken Wilber has a very interesting point there, he says as you go beyond every stage, you have to integrate the lower. As you go beyond the body to the mental consciousness, you've got to integrate your bodily consciousness into your mental consciousness, which of course many people fail to do, we suppress the body, you see. ...actually come to the knowledge of ourselves. But it's very important that actually at every stage of knowing the other, there is a growth of knowing of the self. Self-knowledge is latent in the baby from the beginning, and even before birth, as Stan Goff would say. You see, the baby in the womb from the earlier stages is experiencing itself, either the negative forces or positive ones, and later in life you can be led back into these perinatal experiences and discover what was happening to you before you were born, you see.

[46:39]

So there is a consciousness present in the baby from the beginning, and a self-consciousness, but of course it's undifferentiated and it's not reflected, but gradually it comes into reflective being, we become aware of ourself. So at every stage, knowledge of the other brings knowledge of the self, and we only grow as a self as we open ourselves to the other, and knowledge is always a kind of existing in another. By knowledge we go out and we identify ourselves with another. When I know a tree or an animal or whatever, the form of that tree, that animal, enters into me, you see, and I am enlarged by receiving that form into myself. And so we grow by opening ourselves to all the world around us, and every time we encounter the other and it enters into us, we ourselves grow, you see, and that is the whole process of growth. But always there is a relationship. You don't simply identify with the tree, with the animal, with somebody else, you see, you relate to them. You are in them and they are in you, but you are not them and they are not you, you see.

[47:51]

And so also with love. By love, by knowledge, we take everything into ourselves. And Aristotle said, you know, that the human soul is, in Latin, was codamido omnia, is in a certain sense everything. We have the capacity to receive the whole universe into ourselves. And that is why in that quotation from the Upanishad it said, you see, the whole universe is in that lotus of the heart, the whole creation is in you. So we have this capacity to know everything in that way, that we receive it into ourselves, and equally we have the capacity to go out of ourselves to give ourselves to the other. But love always affirms the other, you see. A false love wants to absorb everybody, the mother wants to absorb the child into herself and won't let it go and so on. But genuine love is affirming the other to enable it to be, you see. So always love is relationship, you see, you're always relating.

[48:51]

And the more you love another, the more you realize yourself. It's reciprocal, you see. So knowledge and love are continuous growths, going out to another and receiving the other into oneself and consequent growth. Now, you see, it seems to me that this relationship of knowledge and love goes through the whole sphere of the spiritual world and culminates in the Godhead, you see. And in the idea of the Trinity it is that the Father knows himself and loves himself, and he knows himself in the other. And the first now, you see, you can look at it in this way, God goes out of himself, in a sense, in the creation, and the creation manifests God as other. All the creation is in God from the beginning, but he chooses to manifest it. He manifests his whole, not his whole being, aspects of his being in the whole creation, and he knows himself in that creation which is made.

[49:57]

And so every human being comes forth from God, and it's a way in which God knows himself, you see. And of course we ourselves, by knowing ourselves, can come to know God as giving us being, you see. I exist because I am known and loved by God. That's the thing. As I enter into that, in the depth of my being, I become aware of myself, myself as coming from that source in God and returning to that source. I have to know myself as loved and to return. And sin, as I said, is the refusal to return, you see, to centre on the self. I accept my being, I accept what I am, but I don't return, I don't acknowledge its source, I don't go back to the source. And so I centre on myself, and that is the great error. So God knows himself in this whole creation, but obviously in a very fragmentary way. The creation is only a vestige, as Saint Bonaventure says, of God.

[51:10]

And man is an image of God. God is knowing himself in that image, and so that that image may know itself in God. And so he's reflecting himself in you and me and everybody. But now all this is still dispersed, you see. And as we were saying, this whole creation, this whole humanity, is being gathered into a unity in the cosmic person, you see, in the Word. And so God knows the creation, knows humanity, essentially in his Word. He's gathered into unity and is known by God, you see. God knows himself in that Word, that Son, which comes forth from him, as the Other. So there's differentiation in the Godhead, you see. And as I said, it was very interesting that Suzuki made the point that in sunyata, in the void, there is a principle of differentiation by which it manifests itself in the creation.

[52:18]

And then the second thing is, as he goes out of himself to know, he returns to himself in the Spirit. The Word is the self-expression, the self-knowing of God, and the Spirit is the self-communication. And just as God knows himself in the whole creation he's made, so he loves himself. The Spirit of God is present in the whole creation. The book of Genesis says the Spirit of God brooded over the waters at the beginning. The Spirit is manifesting, is communicating the power of God, the love of God in every creature and in all humanity. We all receive from that Spirit of God and we are, in a real sense, we are loved into existence by God, you see. The Spirit is the love of God, acting on us as an energy, bringing us into being and calling us back to himself, you see. Love is working in us to return. We receive our being and we have to return that being in love. And in the Godhead itself there is this self-manifestation in creation and in his Word, and there is that self-communication, giving himself to the world, giving himself to humanity, but in eternity giving himself to the sound, you see.

[53:33]

The Father gives himself to the Son, the Son gives himself to the Father, and the Holy Spirit is that gift of love by which the mystery of the Supreme Person is revealed. So you see, the ultimate reality is a personal reality of personal relationship. Now it's perfectly true that we're using human terms to speak of the transcendent, and obviously God is not a person in the sense we can comprehend and we build this up on human relationships and God's relationship with God are infinitely beyond that. These are terms of analogy. They point to the reality. As the Buddhists say, the finger points to the moon, and it's no good looking simply at the finger, but these pointers are necessary. If we eliminate them, then, as I say, we get this idea of a pure identity where all the differences have disappeared. And it seems to me, for practical life, this is so important, you see, that it does mean that this creation has reality. It comes from God because it's known by God and it's loved by God, and everything in creation is known and loved, you see.

[54:39]

Every atom, if you like, every chemical product and every plant and flower and animal and man, everything is known and loved and has this infinite reality, you see. And we never lose that. And this is an important point. We lose our separateness. You see, in our present consciousness, this is a fallen state, everything is separated. I am separated from you, we're separated from the earth and the world around us, and man and nature are separated from God, and that is the result of sin, that is the disintegration. But when we recover, when we're redeemed, we return to the One, we are no longer separate, we're still distinct. Distinct but not separate, you see. And that is so that all these distinctions, the beauty of the whole creation and the beauty of each human person is eternal, you see, and is found in the Godhead.

[55:41]

The Godhead, in his Word, in his Spirit, knows all creation, knows you and me. St. Paul says he knew us before the foundation of the world, he destined us in love, you see, before the foundation of the world. Each one of us has this eternal being, God, each with his own unique, distinct person, you see, in the one person. You see, the one Purusha is manifesting in all these Purushas, in you and me, but we're all, as St. Paul calls it, members of the one body, or as Jesus says, I am the vine, you are the branches, you see, we're parts, if you like, of this one reality. So we're all gathered, each person into the one person. And I've often quoted a saying of St. Augustine which is so marvellous, he says, in the end there will be one Christ loving himself, one person loving himself in all the persons of the creation, you see, but we're all gathered into that single unity. So, you see, I feel the value of this is that it, having ascended beyond everything, we rediscover the world. And as you know, you get the same in the Buddhist tradition, the famous ox pictures, you see, where you come to the void at the end, the emptiness, and then they added the others where he returns to the marketplace, you rediscover the world.

[57:03]

Or as they say, first of all you see a tree, and it's just a tree, and then you reflect and you realise that tree is not outside yourself like that, these are mere phenomena, and the tree disappears, but then again you rediscover the tree, but no longer separate, but living in this total unity, you see, and that is the rediscovery of the whole creation, the whole of humanity reunited in the world, and that is our real goal. And the difficulty is, of course, to express this, it transcends our present mode of consciousness, but there are ways in which to some extent it can be expressed, and it is this idea of I in you and you in me, and perhaps the most profound expression that you can find is in St. John's Gospel where Jesus says that they may be one, as I in thee and thou in me, that they may be one in us. You see, the Son is one with the Father, he's in the Father, in the Trinity they call it this circumcision, perichoresis, and perichoresis is a Greek word which can mean moving round, it can mean dancing round, that the persons are dancing, and each is in the other, totally, you see, so there's a total unity which is non-dual, and yet there is distinction, distinction in unity, you see.

[58:25]

And that is the model of the whole universe, you see, that everything is distinct and yet everything is called to be one. Each of us should be, I am in God and God is, they may be one as thou in me and I in thee, that all humanity is united, each one is in the other, you see. As we go beyond the body, we're separated in the body. As we go in the psyche, we're separated in the psyche. When we come to the spirit, that separation disappears, the distinction remains, but we are united, we pass into that oneness, you see. And each is in the other, and the others are all in God, you see, as one. So it's a total intercommunion, interrelationship, and again, as I said, you see, we see the whole universe is so interesting, you see, the whole is present, they say, in every part, but in the universe we see this very indistinctly, but in the ultimate reality it's perfectly true, the whole, the Godhead is present in every person, in everything, and each thing is totally realized in the Godhead, you see.

[59:30]

So the whole creation is restored to its fullness, and that is the Piaroma, the fullness and the Purna of the Hindu tradition. I think perhaps that's all I really wanted to say. I'd like to just say, I think that you're overstating a little bit what Suzuki said. As I remember what Michael said, it was that the sunya is not static but dynamic. And you're saying that he says there's differentiation, which is the way that you're reading it, but he didn't quite say it. I think he did. I took it down, but I haven't got it here. I think he said it's a principle of differentiation, and he certainly said that the universe comes from the void because of this principle, and then returns. I think it is. Good, good. Yes, you say that eventually we're going to reach a state beyond the Pure Land. Do you have a timetable for that?

[60:50]

I know that Dishir Dhan talks about that quite a bit. He talks about reaching the Omega Point, and it sounds similar to what you're talking about. Do you have any idea of how long this is going to take? Yes. Well, I think in the first place we must realize, you know, that the One ultimately is present in creation and humanity from the beginning, you know. It isn't that, you see, the earliest man still had that presence and still could awaken to the presence, and all over the world from the earliest times people have awoken to this presence, you see. And perhaps what we're asking is how much this awakening will grow. And I do think, you see, that we are emerging into a new culture where this kind of awakening is becoming and will become much more common. But we're also in the midst of a culture which is the opposite, where it's crushing everything, you see. So how that's going to be resolved is very difficult to say. Somebody asked yesterday, what about nuclear war? That might end the whole thing for all we know.

[62:01]

But the other is a definite awakening. You see, it's very interesting in our ashram in India. We began in a very small way, just living a contemplative life. And people began to come from different parts, and we've had people from all five continents, at least 50 different countries, and they're all seeking the same thing. Some are Christians, and some are Jews, and some have no particular way, but they're all in search of this reality. They don't know what it is very often, but they're looking for it, and in India they begin to discover it. And so I'm convinced that a profound awakening is taking place all over the world, and it's meeting people in every condition of life, too, men, women, and even children. I have a question, but first I forgot to introduce Brother Raymond, Brother Thomas, and over there, Dityananda, who is an alumnus of one of these month-long groups, and is also housing Father B.

[63:09]

Brother Raymond comes from our ashram, he's one of our inner circles. I'm sorry. My question is, you talked about meeting God in the darkness, which would be equivalent to the void. Is this...? Not necessarily, no. So my question then is twofold. One is to somehow clarify what that really is. And the other is, if you could talk about the dark night of the soul, that in our work we've become more and more interested in what we are calling spiritual emergencies. People who become involved in spiritual life, thinking that it's all about bliss and white light and unity, and then find very rapidly that it involves many deaths and many difficulties, many stages of surrender, and don't really know how to deal with it.

[64:12]

And we're seeing that a lot of these people in the West end up in the psychiatrist's office, often with very intrusive psychiatric interventions and a lot of psychiatric labels. So we're very interested in your comments. It's very important. You see, the problem is that when you try to go beyond your mental consciousness, you enter into the unconscious, in the very global sense, you see. And in the unconscious there are both the dark forces and the forces of light, you see. And for most people who've lived a very undisciplined life, the dark forces are extremely powerful, you see. And so you're suddenly exposed to all these forces. And that's why they always say you should have a guru, you should have a guide, you see. It's dangerous to open yourself to the transcendent unless you've got some spiritual guide, some inner direction, you see, by which these can be controlled.

[65:14]

And this is what the demons were, you see. People laugh at them sometimes, but in the New Testament you have all these people possessed in demons. And the fathers of the desert, you know, they were always wrestling with demons all the time. It's all these forces of the unconscious, you see. They were exposed to them. And it was tremendous, you see. Most of their time, they said, you went into the desert to face the demons. And in a sense, I think, you go beyond to face yourself, you see, all the negative forces in yourself. But you normally need some guide, don't you, to help you through that. Sometimes you need a psychologist, but you need some guide of some sort to face all these, because they're so deep-rooted, you see. They come from before birth, in early infancy, and your whole life, all these negative forces have accumulated. And people today, I think, are more exposed than ever, you see. We're thrown into the world with so many conflicting forces. And almost everybody who comes to the ashram, but certainly most, have some problem.

[66:16]

And I'm sure you'll find that everybody has these problems, you see. So you're exposed to these forces, but of course you're also exposed to the powers of light, the devas, you see, the angels. And everybody has, and this is where Jung, I think, was very perceptive, you see. Freud saw the unconscious as purely negative, all the suppressed feelings, but Jung saw creative forces. And I think most people discover the dark forces, but they also discover a new creative power and energy within them. And that is what has to take charge. And so one has to try to discern this creative energy. And in kundalini yoga, of course, do you use kundalini yoga at all? Yes. Yes. In kundalini yoga, the idea is you see that this creative energy is centered at the base of the spine, which is your physical base, really, you see, where you're connected with the whole physical universe.

[67:19]

And that the energy is there, and then it ascends through all the chakras, through the sex chakra, the vital center, where you're related to all sex energy, to all life energy, and the creation, and then to the emotional center, and the heart center, and then to the voice center, where song, poetry, all these things come, then to the intelligence, and finally to the supreme. So you have to learn how this creative energy within you can be directed through all these channels, you see. And so for most people, before they can get to the beyond, they have to go through all these stages, and that is a very difficult path, really, and that's why this is a difficult path, you see. But I think everybody also has a glimpse beyond of this one, you see. And this is the idea of Ken Wilber and the Artman project, that right from the beginning, it's the Artman himself, the supreme, is drawing us.

[68:22]

And we mistake, we put up substitutes for the Artman, you see. We're always putting something else in its place, and I shall get happiness in power, in wealth, in love, whatever it may be. I put some substitute, and only gradually we get rid of the substitutes and discover what we're really seeking, you see. And so the training is to get beyond all these substitutes and to discover the reality. And I say, I think each person has a glimpse of it. We're being drawn by it. Whether we like it or not, everybody's being drawn by the Artman himself. He's drawing us to himself, and it's simply self-discovery, isn't it, you see? What makes it so difficult to describe sin as the unwillingness to move toward that, falling back on ourselves? What is it that makes it so difficult for those of us who really want to embrace that? Well, I think it is the fall, you see. Once you've fallen like that, then you're involved in matter, you're involved in the whole of the psychic world, you see.

[69:31]

And the spirit is drawing us, but the powers of the physical and the psychic are so tremendous. You see, Sri Aurobindo was so interesting on that, you know. He said that to get, for the higher levels of the soul, to get some experience was not so difficult, but he was always trying to get to the lower levels and find the physical being. He said the resistance is tremendous, you see. It has been built up over billions of years, you see. That is the problem. So we're fighting. But on the other hand, we must always say that the power beyond is greater than all those powers, you see. And that is only faith teaches us that way, that the power beyond, which draws us, is stronger than all, you see. And most religions are trying to help people to realize that that power is beyond everything, that if you trust in him, he will rescue you, but you have to fight with him. Anyway, about the void, I don't think you can quite equate the dark night with the void.

[70:38]

The dark night has two different aspects, you see. St. John of the Cross has this dark night of the soul, and his was a very negative way, which I find very difficult to know. It doesn't appeal to me at all. You see, it's a way of suppression. You suppress your senses, you suppress your feelings, you suppress your imagination, you suppress your mind, you suppress your will, and then by dying in that way to all these, you discover the absolute. But for most people, that suppression is disastrous, you see. It simply leads to a neurosis and then to a psychosis, right? And most of us are suffering, you see, from this suppression, which the Christian tradition unfortunately tends to emphasize, you see. So many people, it's their Christian background which has caused all this terrible suppression in them, fear of hell and of sin and so on. The negative aspect has been overemphasized at an age when they weren't ready for it, and so a total negativity comes, you see, and they have to be rescued from that.

[71:44]

But there is only one way, you see. The other is the cloud of unknowing, this English medieval treatise, where the cloud has nothing of this negative aspect in it. On the contrary, the cloud really is God beginning to manifest himself, you see. But it hides, if you like, the outer world from you and the lower nature, but it is opening you to, it's a positive force opening to the transcendent. Light is shining through the cloud all the time, you see. So I think we should always take a positive view like that, you see, that the creative power is within us and we are cooperating with that. And this cloud, this light of God is shining through the cloud and drawing us to itself all the time. But now, all the same, it always is an entry into darkness, you see. Your outer world and your inner world even gets submerged in this cloud, in this darkness.

[72:49]

So there always is an experience of darkness. But I think, those who know Buddhism better could say, the void is the ultimate reality, isn't it, where you've transcended everything and you've got beyond. But the void, on the other hand, you see, the Buddhists would say, I think, that the void is present in everything, isn't it? You see, the void is the reality which is behind the matter, behind life, behind the human person and everything. So in a sense you could say that the darkness is the void. Is that good for you? Yes, would you say? Yes. Would you permit me to offer a suggestion about the demons, the dark forces? It has often seemed to me that when one encounters the demons in oneself and in others, they're a little like Chinese dragons.

[73:53]

They're ambivalent. Those life forces, those demons, there's a way of battling with them that simply makes it worse. You exacerbate what is already bad by getting more aggressive with those forces which are in you or in others. It seems to me, out of my difficult experience with my own demons, that those life forces have to be befriended and thus disarmed. Because, as I say, it's a little like a Chinese dragon. According to how you receive that force, it is either awful and destructive or by a kind of interior spiritual alchemy, that very same force becomes benevolent or at least can be used. Anger and lust and envy and, you know, all the other ugly things we all have. All the demons. So, in a sense, if you find a way through clarity, through consciousness,

[75:03]

to befriend the demons in yourself and in others, then, strangely, they can become daimons in the Greek sense of creative forces. Those life forces are the same energy and either destructive or creative depending on how they're received. Yes, I think that is true. And, you see, evil has no being in itself. It is always a negation of a good. So, the good, the positive, is always there. And there's no negative force in our nature which cannot be converted into a positive force, you see. And, as you say, anger or lust or anything like that are positive forces. If we simply suppress them, then, of course, they become more and more negative and disruptive, you see. But when we accept them and re-channel the energy, as it were, then they become creative forces in us. But how to re-channel it?

[76:04]

The target has to sit. Mother Dita, I wanted to ask you. You spend a lot of time speaking about the personal God in a personal and more transcendent sense than just a human person. I'm wondering, do you think that's particularly because you wish to relate the Upanishads and the Hindu tradition to Christianity or would you think that that was universal and that even someone outside of the… Yes, I feel it is a particular insight into ultimate truth. You see, my understanding would be the ultimate truth is revealing itself in so many different ways through all different religious traditions and so on. And each has its own particular insight, you see. And to me, that is the particular insight of the Christian. And I would think it is valid, may not be precisely in those terms, in other traditions, you see. And as regards Buddhism, you see,

[77:07]

Lama Govinda brings out how in the void there is this fullness, isn't it? The whole of reality is in the void. But I don't think the Hindu or the Buddhist would bring out quite as much this aspect of personal relationship. And that seems to me something that the Christian insight gives. But I would think it is universal, really. But of course, when you say that the Buddha is wisdom and compassion, you have got very near to saying the same thing, haven't you, in a sense? You see, it is just the way it is seen and expressed. But I think the ultimate truth is in each one, you see. Yes, I would like to go further on that question that you have just asked. Because I wonder if you then think that the difference, the differences then, to make it simple and say the difference between, say, the type of Christianity that you experience and are talking about, and say Buddhism,

[78:10]

is the difference in the idea of a personal God, and also, in other words, the difference between a theistic or a non-theistic religion. It could be a difference of experience. Or it could be the same experience, but interpreted differently, so that the difference is at the, when we try to explain intellectually, a difference of interpretation. Or it could be purely a semantic difference, which is trivial. But if we ignore the semantic difference, is it a difference of experience, would you say? Or is it a difference of interpretation at the intellectual level of an experience? Because that, to me, is quite a fundamental difference, if it is a difference of experience. Yes, it is a very fundamental question and not easy to answer. We always have to distinguish between the experience itself

[79:12]

and the way that experience is expressed. And certainly, I think it's true that the different modes of expression are determined by the cultural context, you see, in which you're living, whether Hindu or Buddhist or Muslim or Christian, whatever it may be. And you will interpret your experience in the light of your tradition, you see. But whether the ultimate experience is the same, I don't think you can say, honestly. I certainly would not say that it must necessarily be the same. I think each one may experience that reality in a different way, and that they may be valid in their own way, you see. But what we look for, I think, is the convergence of all these different ways on that truth. In this world, we'll never reach the ultimate fully, you see, but we're converging on it by these different ways.

[80:13]

And I would think, you see, the future of humanity is precisely this convergence of different religions and traditions, which have all been separated, where we're discovering the unity behind them. But we can't fully discover it, you see. And I don't know, it may be for a Buddhist, the concept of a personal god, it's not in his way, maybe. But even so, I would be inclined to think, you see, as Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity begin to converge, maybe the Buddhist would discover... You see, it's rather the idea I have, that as we meet and share, we begin to discover other aspects of our tradition. As Simone Weil once said, you know, rather interestingly, that in each tradition, certain truths are explicit and others are implicit. And so, ultimately, the whole is in each,

[81:16]

but only aspects have been brought out, just as David Bohm says that the whole is implicated in the whole. So the whole mystery is present in each religious tradition, but only certain aspects are brought out in each. And it would be a convergence of all those different aspects would bring us to the ultimate, but each one must follow his path, you know, you can't jump. I sometimes compare the fingers and the palm of the hand, you see, and Buddhism here, and Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and Buddhism and Christianity are at opposite extremes, you see. And you can't just jump from one to the other or try to mix them, but as you go deeper into each tradition, you converge on the center, and that is where only the ultimate unity is to be found. So I think we just have to follow our own path, be open to the others, but not trying to jump from one to the other. We are trying to find the point of convergence. I would like to ask you, if I may, just quickly a personal question then.

[82:20]

Is it of pragmatic importance then that one can, in a sense, not necessarily reinterpret, but understand Christianity as a mystical tradition, because so many people in the world are Christians, that you think it's important? Because I have a feeling, well, if I were you, which I'm not, I would say, well, I might just as well be a Hindu. No, you see, my experience is precisely that, that as I study Hinduism and try to live it, I experience Christianity at a deeper level, you see. Many have this experience. It's most interesting. I didn't look out for it in a sense, but you get a new perspective, you see. And that is what I feel, that each religious tradition, as it begins to open itself at a deep level to the other, begins to perceive its own tradition in a new light, you see, and new aspects. And don't forget, every religion is growing all the time.

[83:22]

We always think of Hinduism, Buddhism, sort of fixed things, but each one has been evolving over hundreds and hundreds of years and is still in a state of evolution, you see. And I think with all these Buddhist, Hindu, and other people coming here to California, it's a new phase, you see, where a meeting can take place and something can evolve from it, that would be the case. I'd like to respond to his question also on a personal level. I find it impossible for myself to be a Hindu, even raised in a sort of a Gnostic, perennial philosophy background. I found that because of my education and the language that I speak, I'm indelibly Christian, even though I wasn't specifically raised as a Christian. And to try and become a Hindu is to think that our religion exists only on the mental and the conscious level, and that in my unconscious, I'm a Westerner and I'm Christian, and unless I integrate that with the insight and the practice of yoga,

[84:23]

that it's still a superficial religion and it's still, you know, like a body job, and it hasn't gotten into the heart and into the soul, it hasn't touched me yet. It's something which I've taken with my conscious mind so that what you say, I could just as well be a Hindu, I think for a Westerner, that you can be a Hindu in that, in the exploration of something completely different, it's not the going out into the dark, and then you have to come back and integrate it into your Christianity, otherwise the job's only half done. Any... This is fascinating. Could it be because, you know, your experience there at the ashram of receiving these men and women from five continents and everyone on a particular path and many of them rediscovering their own roots, isn't it also part of this, in our own time, I'm saying this from a similar experience,

[85:26]

kind of an agnostic, liberal, philosophical upbringing, and then discovering Christianity, but isn't it also necessary in a way, you know, part of the purification that's not only on the individual level, but I think also that some of the false interference between Western culture and Christianity, or some of the falsifications of morals and ethics that have been imposed through a misunderstood Christianity. Christianity isn't Puritanism, isn't Chancellorism, but it was misunderstood. And some of this really requires, you know, that for spiritual growth and for the, you might say, the salvation of Christianity itself, that we go out in some way, we pull away and then return, you know. So, I mean, both things have to be done. But maybe our phase today, more than ever, is this phase of purification, of withdrawing from the false overlay to this rediscovery then of the essence. I think so.

[86:27]

You see, I think what we call Christianity is Christ or the Christian mystery interpreted through the Western experience, through Greece and Rome and Europe and America. And we don't realize it. We think this is Christianity, but it really is filtered through the Western mind. And I think today we're discovering the East for the first time, and then we have to rediscover Christianity in a sense, not in the Western language, but in the concepts, in the experience of the East. And that is the real meeting, you see. And as I say, you don't have to become a Buddhist or a Hindu, but you, sort of, evolution takes place. You see Christ, the Christian mystery, in a new light, you see. And that, I feel, is the hope, you see. I'm wondering how much the choice is ours in this exchange, that my background was Catholic and my tradition is Zen, and yet every experience that I've had beyond myself has involved Tibetan symbolism. Laughter

[87:27]

So, I think there's something deeper than us that makes that choice. I wanted to ask something similar. To what extent do you believe that it's possible that the future religion, in some sense, will entirely transcend these kinds of distinctions? Or more or less in a Jungian sense, that the future religion might simply involve tools through which self-exploration, deep self-exploration, becomes possible. And then one would simply encounter the different aspects of the collective unconscious in the sense that different religions are ultimately expressions of different aspects of the collective psyche. Yes, but I'd rather believe, you know, that you have to enter into the depth of a tradition. You see, I think there is a danger of living certain aspects of traditions. And as I say, rather bringing together at this level,

[88:30]

it seems to me, until you get to the depth of a tradition, you can't really be open, in the full sense, to the other, you see. You see, I always feel that if you want to be Zen or anything, you ought to go to the depth of the Buddhist tradition, you see, and then relate that to Tibetan Buddhism or something like that, whatever. And so I don't think... I wouldn't like to say that all the religions are sort of relative and that we can simply go beyond them. I think there is something fundamental which has been revealing itself, you see, in these traditions. And we have to bring it into our lives. Rather like Nachiketa has been reconciled with his father, rather what Brother John was saying, you see, there are deep roots in each one of us, Hindu or Buddhist or Christian, whatever, and we have to relate our experience to these deep roots in the unconscious. And I think you've found, haven't you, that people have experience of all sorts of traditions I've found very similar things that Kathleen is discussing,

[89:35]

that as people confront their unconscious, they can experience different stages of the process, different aspects of the collective unconscious. I've moved myself, for example, in psychedelic experiences, from Hinduism to Buddhism to Tibetan Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Kabbalah, alchemy, and different aspects of the process are really happening entirely in the context of those systems. But then I think I would bring another aspect, you see. I think there is this interior experience, and it can have all this variety in it, but I think also we are inserted in a cosmic hole and in a cosmic history, and that I don't think we can isolate ourselves from this cosmic history that humanity has evolved in this particular way, and we bear the past in a particular way in ourselves.

[90:36]

I don't think everybody has all the past in an indifferent way. We're each molded into the past in a particular way, and that there is a historic dimension to the whole spiritual life, you see. It's not simply something which... I sometimes distinguish, you know, the cosmic religion, where we experience the cosmos, we experience ourselves, and the historical tradition, where we relate ourselves to the history of the cosmos, to the history of humanity, and to a definite experience which has come through the history of humanity to us, you see. We link up with the past like that. That to me is important. Are you saying that you have to go into the very depths of one particular religion, or that it has to be the religion that is your racial, cultural, educational value? Yes. It's difficult to say, you see,

[91:37]

because I think where you have deep historic roots in a religion, you almost certainly have to go back to that, but many people today have no very deep roots in religion, you see, so the problem for them is rather different.

[91:49]

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