TOWARDS AN ADVAITIC VISION
OF THE WORLD
Having rather elaborately analyzed Griffiths' advaita
,
we saw how it
is rooted deeply in the
whole of reality
. In the present chapter, we
proceed to deepen these advaitic insights and situate them in the context
of his vision of the world. This chapter will be a stepping stone to the next
one, where we see the final unifying vision of the whole reality, including
matter
, humanity and God.
In this brief chapter, we first view the whole world emerging from and
moving to an advaitic
union.
There will be unavoidable generalizations since we deal with a time span of
millions of years in a few pages. Then we shall try to visualize the
significance and role of religions in such a world. We proceed first by
examining the need to go beyond the materialistic or reductionistic
understanding
of the world. In trying to
value the new advaitic or non-reductionistic understanding
of the world, a brief
description of the historical progress of art, undertaken by Griffiths himself,
enables us to get a deeper perception of the deviations and developments of the
whole world. Art can be taken as the reflection primarily of the spiritual
dimension
of the world. Finally, we try
to envision a new world wherein the physical, psychological and spiritual
dimensions are respected, whereby the feminine
aspect is rediscovered and
cherished.
This leads inevitably to a more noble and deep role for the spiritual or
religious dimension in this world. It is Griffiths' contention that there is
something basically common and true in all religions. So he seeks the unifying
aspects of diverse religions. It might be remembered that he is not at all
advocating an assimilation of all religions. In his vision of the future, the
different religions, though forming a unifying wholeness, deserve their own sep
arate and at the same time
related existence. Through dialogue and interaction they can enrich each other
and deepen our understanding
of the whole reality
. This conviction forms the
core of his advaitic
vision, whereby the spiritual forms the base of the world and spreads to the
other dimensions of reality, without in any way searching for uniformity.
Authentic unity, in terms of a unitive vision, is the key concern here.
BEYOND MATERIALISTIC PHILOSOPHY
The modern age, which began three centuries ago with the discoveries of
Galileo and Newton and which resulted in the gradual development of the
materialist philosophy
and the mechanistic model of
the universe, is almost coming to an end. In the course of the three centuries,
the modern age has affected every conceivable part of our society and left deep
scars in all dimensions of our existence. Griffiths traces the roots of the
present industrial and technological culture
to the mechanistic concept of
modern society. The whole political, social and economic systems of the West are
governed by this model. He affirms that "even art, morality and religion
are affected by it."428 So we encounter
today the modern
technological world which came into existence three centuries ago and which has
come to such a pre-eminent position of power only in the last century.
Beyond Reductionism
The materialistic philosophy
, which is the basis of
so-called modern thinking and life style, needs further clarification. We give a
very generalized analysis here of the reductionist tendencies in every sphere of
human experience
even risking
over-simplification. Materialism
, which was present in Marxism
as a crude philosophy, grew
and refined itself to become implicit and "practically everywhere,"
governing "people's attitudes of mind and behavior."429 This
materialism cannot be studied without understanding
reductionism, which forms one
of its inherent constituents. As the name implies reductionism reduces
"everything to certain material principles and to its material base."430
Griffiths gives a simple case of reductionism in music. According to the
reductionist principle, all music could be reduced to vibrations on strings or
in a pipe. In other words, music is vibrations in the air or in any other proper
medium. So from a reductionist perspective, music could be considered as
vibrations, without any concern for aesthetic sense or ecstatic experience
.
Such a mechanistic system has come to dominate every aspect not only of
science, but also of our practical life, as is shown by Fritjof Capra
in his The Turning Point
(1982). Capra shows how modern physics was at first an attempt to explain
everything in terms of atoms, whereby everything could be reduced to material
particles that obeyed certain fixed mechanistic laws and could be verified and
calculated using mathematical formulae. In this way all reality
came to be reduced to a big
machine. This trend expanded beyond science and conquered history, psychology
and even spirituality
.
This method continues today in biology, which seeks to explain life in
terms of physics and chemistry, leading to the belief that human beings are
simply more complicated machines.431 In medicine, which has more
profound practical implications for us, the human body is seen from a biological
point of view as a mechanical system obeying certain physical and chemical laws.
So the body is to be treated as a physical entity and (even) manipulated
by genetic engineering, without relation to the psyche and spiritual dimension
s of the human person
.432 Here the
integral aspect of human life is not at all taken seriously.
In psychology
too there are many methods
which are conspicuously reductionist, even though psychology is less amenable to
it. Behaviorism, for example, is a serious attempt to reduce the entire human
psyche to the level of a machine by analyzing it only in terms of external,
observable behavior. Another typical example is psychoanalysis founded and
employed extensively by Sigmund Freud, where he tries to explain the whole human
personality in the light of the unconscious, seen in terms of the
mechanical models of repressed appetites, instincts and desires. According to
Freudian psychology, all the higher forms of consciousness
, the motives of the heart,
morality and even religion, are explained and explained away in terms of the
unconscious. Such a phenomenon is typical of the reductionist method. It is an
attempt to explain the higher in terms of the lower and to reduce the higher to
the lower in order to come even to the absurd conclusion, for instance, that
religion could be regarded as repressed sex
.
Coming to sociology, attempts are made to reduce society to individuals,
who can either organize themselves in a society or who are at liberty to seek
their own advantage. It is from these two such interpretations
that capitalism and communism
emerge. In both these systems, society is reduced to a multitude of individuals.
In economics, where the whole aim is to understand the society in terms of
production and distribution, the reductionism is obvious. In Marxism
the social structure is
deliberately reduced to its economic basis, conceived as determining the whole.
In capitalism, on the other hand, the society is understood in terms of monetary
values, so that the prosperity of a society is measured in terms of its gross
national product, by the money which is being circulated in it and the way
it is being used.
Such a mechanistic system, which drastically reduces everything to its
materialistic basis, Griffiths admits, has had extraordinary success.433 It
is functional and successful at this particular level. Scientifically, it has
led to great discoveries and produced the marvelous and impressive technology.
Socially, it has produced political states with tremendous power and with
influence over the whole world. The negative effects of such progress are also
obvious. Griffiths mentions some of them: "rapidly exhausting material
resources, polluting the environment and leading to the building up of armaments
which threaten a nuclear war capable of destroying our entire civilization
and the whole planet."434
According to our author, these evil effects are directly caused by the
last three centuries of materialistic and reductionist thinking.
Unfortunately, Griffiths did not live to experience
the worst case of
reductionism, that of life itself. The sociobiology
which reduces life itself to
genes and human motives to the "selfish genes."435 The same
theoretical principle is implied in the successful Human Genome Project
.436 The
preunderstanding
is that life can be digitally
reduced to genes and by genetic manipulation life can be fostered or hampered.
TOWARDS A NEW VISION OF THE WORLD
Rediscovery of the Perennial Advaitic Philosophy
Griffiths discerns a new trend away from modernity, beginning in the
second part of this century. In this movement, in which we are all involved, the
above mentioned materialistic trends are waning. In his words, "[W]e are
beginning now to be able to replace the mechanistic systems and mechanistic
model of the universe with an organic model. This is the beginning of a return
to the traditional wisdom, the wisdom by which human beings have lived over
thousands of years and with which the great societies of the past have been
built up."437 In this traditional wisdom, to which Griffiths
often refers, there is always a threefold universe, consisting not just of the
physical dimension of the materialistic culture
, but also the psychological
and the spiritual dimension
s. It is clear for him that
"the body experiences
the physical world, the soul
(psyche) the psychological; the spirit alone has the capacity to contemplate
God. It is here that God's spirit acts within the human being and where we
become aware of our identity as children of God."438 These three
dimensions are seen always as interrelated and interdependent. This advaitic
understanding
, we may claim, is for him the
essence of perennial philosophy
.
The rational and logical mind has analyzed matter
and has organized the
material to such a refinement that many of our wants are already met and it is
further hoped that all human needs will be satisfied. Hence, many people
consider our age to be a development over the previous ones. But Griffiths
reminds us that it is only in this particular respect (of scientific and
rational level) that our age is a development over the earlier ones. He adds,
further, that in other respects, this age is to be judged as being far below the
previous ones. He quotes Coomaraswami's understandably exaggerated statement,
"From the stone age to the twentieth century, what a descent!"439
Griffiths explains this situation in terms of the perennial philosophy
, which was present in the
Stone Age as well as in previous ages, and in those days human beings lived by
that philosophy
. According to this view,
there was an order in nature, between the physical world,
the psychological, social world and finally the highest divine or spiritual world.
All these were seen to be interdependent and integrated. In order to
substantiate his claim, Griffiths insightfully, though only briefly, compares
the stages of growth in the development of art.440
A Brief Case Study: The Development of Art
Griffiths treats art as a typical case of human inventiveness and studies
its historical development to point out some salient features of our present
civilization. He does not at all claim that he gives a comprehensive historical
development of art. All that he does is to trace the evolving growth of the
sacredness in art and see how it is lost in recent times. His main preoccupation
is to give a bird's eye view of the relation between the sacred and the artistic
and not at all to give a scientific account of the evolution of art in the
course of the aeons.
Starting from the Stone Age, even at the risk of over-simplification,
Griffiths senses the ancient wisdom of perennial philosophy
embodied in each form
of human art. In its early
stages art has always been an expression
of the religious
instinct of human beings. Art was in short, a manifestation of the sense of the
sacred. Everything in nature was sacred, because it was pervaded by the
universal Spirit
. Firstly, in the stone age,
art, be it in the form of stone implements, pottery, clothing, burial
places, roughly carved figures or painting on the Palaeolithic caves, all were
inevitably forms of expressing the mystery
of the sacredness which
pervaded the whole of human life. Ancient wisdom was embodied in every form of
art, which was the expression of the religious instinct of the people.
Further, with the emergence of great civilizations like in Egypt or in
Babylon, the temples became the center of civilized life, and art was used to
adorn the temple and to provide for human aesthetic needs. At that time, claims
Griffiths, even agriculture and pottery were no less sacred than the service in
the temples. All these activities were ways of expressing and manifesting the
all-pervading mystery
.
With the great awakening that took place in the first millennium,
(500AD-1500AD) there was a shift to the mystery
of transcendence.
It began with the Upani
ads,
the teachings of Buddha
and those of the Hebrew
prophets. At this phase the role of art was less conspicuous. The Israelites
were forbidden to make any image of their God and early Buddhists had no image
of the Buddha. The Hindu temple also had not come into existence. Later as the
religions became structured, and with the emphasis on incarnation
in Christianity
, there was a flowering of art
in every form
. This was a world-wide
phenomenon, to be found in China
, India
, Persia, Greece and Rome.
Athens led the way here, five centuries before Christ, and Greek culture
seemed to be responsible even
for the growth of Buddhist
sculpture. Gradually in all
these regions, there came about a wonderful synthesis of art, poetry
and philosophy
, giving rise to Hindu
sculpture and architecture, Buddhist painting and sculpture, Chinese art of
every kind and later to the Cathedrals of Europe with their sculpture and
stained glass windows and to the painting of icons in Eastern orthodoxy. Here
too, art expressed the mystery of religion, the sacred mystery, revealed in the
Scriptures and embodied in every form of music, dancing, painting and in the
simple articles of daily use. Even Islam
, which had initially totally
rejected all images, developed a style of architecture of the utmost refinement.
This period actually saw the great flowering of art and culture
, which took place all over
the civilized world. After this period the hold of the perennial philosophy
with its holistic
integral vision began to
slacken. True, individual geniuses arose, but the sense of a cosmic vision or a
universal whole was gradually lost and art became more and more fragmented and
independent. Today, Griffiths claims, we have inherited this fragmented universe
and spiritually we are less developed than the sacred universe of the Stone Age.
As already hinted, the industrial system that emerged in the nineteenth
century, marked the death knell of traditional art. Griffiths emphasizes at the
same time that a renewal in art is also taking place, which stresses the cosmic
vision of the new science and philosophy
. Griffiths hopes for a deeper
renewal of art, "not merely in the sense of the fine arts, but in all the
humble daily expressions
of a sense of beauty, which
is also a sense of the sacred in human life."441 Therefore, we
may look forward to a new birth, another renaissance of art and culture
in our age.
It may be noted that Griffiths has not done full justice to a
comprehensive historical evolution of art. It was neither his ambition, nor aim.
Within a very limited space, he wanted to show the spiritual basis of art, which
he has at least partially succeeded in spite of the oversimplification it
involves.
PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE
Griffiths anticipates a great advance in humanity. He cautions us at the
same time to look back and to learn from the past. "We have to recognize
that the summit [of culture
and civilization
] was achieved in those
centuries before Christ, and that with the coming of Christ the final
fulfillment
of this experience
of ultimate Reality was
reached."442 We had the fully integrating perennial philosophy
, transcending all and
integrating all, with its physical base, the psychological development and the
spiritual order of transcendence
. The spiritual "that
integrates the whole reality
"443 has to be
given its due importance.
On the basis of his own experience
and reflections, Griffiths
gives the general pattern of the dawning of an integrated future. Such emergence
could be perceived from our present understanding
of the universe and the
knowledge that we have from Eastern mysticism and spiritual experience
. These patterns may be divided
into the physical or material aspects, the psychological or social aspects and
finally the spiritual or integrating aspects.
Physical Aspect as the Beginning
Firstly, it is evident that the new human society that is emerging
will be based on a new relationship
with nature. This
relationship will arise from an organic understanding
of nature, instead of
the current mechanistic understanding
of reality
that we saw earlier.444 Here
we see ourselves as part of the whole physical organism of the universe. Thus a
sense of cosmic whole and a way of relating to our earth, as a living being
which sustains and nourishes us and for which we have a responsibility, will
emerge. This will not only give rise to a new understanding of the environment,
but also put an end to the exploitation of nature at every level. The present
trend according to which the material resources of the universe are used for the
prosperity of relatively few, will be reversed by the new understanding that all
are parts of the new universe, of this natural world. This would imply a new
attitude towards the earth, the sea and to all creatures in it, as well
as to outer space.
Secondly, the sense of communion with the all encompassing reality
will replace our present
attempt to dominate the material world. The new understanding
of ecology and our greater
sensitivity to its realities will revolutionize our understanding of the world.
This would lead us to discover a new kind of technology, based on our new
understanding of science and on appropriate technology,445 which
would answer to the needs of the vast majority of people in our world.
Such an appropriate technology would build upon the economy of the
village, instead of destroying it.446 The basic crafts like spinning,
weaving, pottery, carpentry and metal works would be respected, along with
gardening and agriculture. Griffiths recalls that all these crafts were evolved
in the millennia before Christ, (from roughly fourth millennium onwards) and
they represent for him the summit of human achievement and culture
. To discard such abilities in
favor of the progress of the mechanistic system is for Griffiths simply "to
degrade civilization
and life."447
Respect for these basic crafts enables us to live in harmony with
ourselves, with nature and with our surroundings. Art actually expresses this
harmony and so is beautiful. Beauty is always a relation of harmony with nature.
When we maintain the harmony with nature, our products are not beautiful. If we
do not perceive such a respectful harmony with nature, even if our
products may be helpful and useful they are not really beautiful.
Thirdly, these new values would give rise to the emergence of a new type
of human society, decentralized and drawing people from larger cities to smaller
towns and villages. In such a setting much more total and integrated human life
is possible. For him, "[c]ities of millions of people do not provide a
human code of existence and depend on a whole economic system which will
eventually collapse."448 So it is clear that we will have to
look beyond the industrialized cities to find the future of humanity, with some
new systems of norm and meaning. His ideal is village life, which has lasted for
thousands of years all over the world and still exists in most parts of the
world.
With great appreciation he quotes the setting of a Neolithic
village
. According to Lewis Mumford,
a Neolithic village is a place:
Where the seasons are marked by holiday festivals and ceremonies; where
the stages of life are punctuated by family and communal rituals; where eating
and drinking and sexual play constitute the central core of life, where work,
even hard work, is rarely divorced from rhythm, song and human companionship and
aesthetic delight; where vital activity is considered as great a reward of labor
as the product; where neither power nor profit has precedence over life; where
the family, the neighbor and the friend are all parts of a visible, tangible,
face-to-face community. There the Neolithic
culture
in its elements is still in
existence.449
It is clear for Griffiths that such a description of a village remains an
inspiring model for human community today. Science and human innovations, based
on appropriate technology, may introduce improvements especially to facilitate
transport and communication, making it possible to link up different human
centers. In such a village, it is conceivable that the sun is the prime source
of energy
, and also water and wind.450
So Griffiths cautiously approves technological innovations, but not at the
cost of human beings.
The Psychological Aspect as the Bridge
Coming to the psychological and social aspects of such a new humanity we
see basically two areas: education
and a holistic
health care, which include
also psychological and mental well-being.
Education in such a future would be the basic education
, as understood by Gandhi
, for instance. It would be an
integral education of body, soul and spirit, relating each one to the
other and to the wider world in an organic way and at the same time developing
each one's personal capacities. Following Rudolf Steiner's understanding
, such an education would
center first on the emotions, then on the imagination and finally on the
rational.451 An integrated education
of
the whole person
requires that the emotional,
imaginative
and rational be properly
developed, consolidated and stabilized. Griffiths also plead for a new education
system based on the values of Mahatma Gandhi.
In the same manner, in medicine too, rather than making use of mostly
allopathic methods, there will be a turn to alternative methods such as
homeopathy, acupuncture, _yurveda, Tibetan medicine and herbal medicine,
all of which are interrelated and beneficial for the total health of the whole
person
. Such an alternative method
of treatment deals with the whole person and relates the body to the soul and to
the spirit. It does not treat the body in isolation. Since health, wholeness and
holiness are interrelated, bodily health is not the one-sided health of a
one-dimensional man and woman.452 Bodily health leads to psy
chologically and emotionally
well balanced human beings. So the health of the body, the wholeness of the
person and holiness in the spirit are all aspects of the same reality,
and thus the psychological
dimension is linked to the physical and to the spiritual.
The Spiritual Aspect as the Basis
Turning to the spiritual aspect, the future would involve a return to
perennial philosophy
, which is actually the
ancient wisdom which underlies all the religions of the world from the earliest
times of humanity. It would imply that we would also respect the traditional
wisdom of the primitive people, the aborigines and the tribals of various lands
and continents. It is a positive sign that more and more people are discovering
today this wisdom of the ancient people, the harmony that they achieved in their
lives and the very deep understanding
that they had of how human
life is related to the natural world around them and the world of the spirits
beyond them. Such people generally evidence an integrally holistic
life.
In such a view of the future, we turn to the great religious traditions
of the world. Most of these
traditions
had their origin in the first
millennium before Christ. All these religions, based on perennial philosophy
, developed of course under
different circumstances, and they all carry with them the ancient wisdom
regarding the wholeness of life, in different ways and degrees. Each of them
gives a particular and unique insight into the ultimate truth
of reality
. At times when these
traditions encountered each other, there were rivalry, acrimony or conflict
resulting in disastrous consequences. Such consequences could have been avoided
for the advancement of the whole humanity.
Referring concretely to Christians, they should at the same time
recognize that the true Church has always been present in the history of
humanity:453 "Wherever man awakes to consciousness
and knows himself/herself in
his basic intuitive consciousness as open to the transcendent mystery
of existence, the power of
the Spirit
in him is drawing him/her to
eternal life." The Church is men/women become conscious of their destiny as
sons/daughters of God. In the biblical perspective Adam is humanity created in
the image and likeness of God and we are called to be sons and daughters of God.
When Adam sinned he failed to respond to the spirit and fell back on his
limited time-bound nature. The upward evolution from matter
through life and
consciousness
to eternal life in the spirit
is stopped. At the same time the mystery
of redemption began. A new
power of the spirit
entered creation and began to
draw humanity back into the life of the spirit.
In this sense the Church is present in humanity from the very beginning
of history. Viewed thus a Christian can easily feel at home in the other
religious traditions
. Such a new vision is to be
fostered for the future, where everyone will not be Christian, where
Christianity
will be open to all religions
and where all other religions will have their own legitimacy and unique roles.
With this new vision, we learn that all these different religious
traditions
are unique, interrelated and
interdependent, in order to arrive at the final truth
. The genuine encounter
of the different religions
would involve the recognition of the limited character of the individual
revelations with a view to enlarge their own limited horizons
.454
REDISCOVERY OF THE FEMININE
We can envisage the emergence of a new world culture
as the present materialist
and mechanistic system breaks down under the continued crisis of economic,
social and political conflict. A very significant feature of the coming new
world would be the re-emergence of the feminine
characteristics.
For about three thousand years the world has been dominated by
patriarchal cultures which suppressed the previous matriarchal cultures.455
This masculine
culture
, with its aggressive,
competitive, rational, analytic character has reached its peak. He adds further:456
"In the West today the masculine aspect, the rational, the aggressive
power of the mind is dominant, while in the East the feminine
aspect, the intuitive aspect
of the mind prevails." Now is the time for the re-emergence of the
feminine.
Further, it must be noted that such a re-emergence is based on the
assumption that man and woman are equal and complementary, not on the assumption
that one is higher or superior to the other. Griffiths develops this thought:457
A woman does not become more equal to man by seeking to become like a
man, but by revealing his opposite character. Yet it must be recognized that
every man and woman is both male and female; reason and intuition exist alike in
every human being, but in the man reason is dominant whilst intuition is
prominent in the woman. In a perfect man or woman the marriage of these
opposites takes place. Reason without intuition is intelligent but sterile;
intuition without reason is fertile but blind. The woman who seduces man is the
blind instinct which listens to the voice of the serpent, the animal
intelligence or sexuality. The feminine
mind, instead of being guided
by reason so as to open itself to the spirit, thus achieving the marriage of
reason and intuition, surrenders to animal instinct. The union of the male
(reason) and female (intuition) gives birth to communion in the spirit and
integration of the personality. Thus the serpent energy becomes the savior, as
stated in St. John's Gospel
: `As Moses
lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him
may have eternal life.' (John 3:14-15)
What Griffiths advocates, further, is a marriage between the feminine
and the masculine
not only symbolically, at the
level of reason and intuition, but also at the level of equality of rights and
responsibilities. The future of the world depends on the `marriage' of these two
minds, the conscious with the unconscious, the rational with the intuitive and
the active with the passive. This `marriage' must take place first within the
individual. Only then can external union take place. He is confident that
this irreversible trend is actually taking place. Now we are moving into
a new phase, where the feminine principle, that is the yin
in
contrast to the yang
,
will be valued. According to the Chinese understanding
, when the yang, the
masculine character, reaches its limit, it begins to move back to the yin,
the feminine character. Griffiths further affirms: "We have now reached the
limit of the yang, . . . and we are moving inevitably back to the
feminine."458 So Griffiths claims that sooner or later, the
feminine will begin to take over its own proper place, with its intuition,
empathy, co-operation and with its more holistic
approach. Such a move will
necessarily affect not just the economic, social and political orders, but also
religion and spirituality
.
Coming particularly to the Christian tradition , Griffiths laments that this tradition has developed an advanced masculine approach to God. We always speak of God as Father and of the incarnation of the Son. Even the Holy Spirit , which is neuter in Greek, is considered and talked of in masculine terms. But he reminds us that in the Old Testament, the Spirit, the Ruah ,459 is feminine, and in the Syrian Church this same word was used when they spoke of "Our Mother , the Holy Spirit."460 Such a formulation, which was common in the second and third centuries, unfortunately did not survive very long. Since then the masculine character of God has always prevailed. The feminine aspect could be found partly in the Old Testament and to a lesser extent the in New Testament . In the Christian tradition this trend was carried on only by exceptional people like Julian of Norwich and St. Anselm of Canterbury. By contrast, Griffiths affirms, in India God is conceived as both Father and Mother. Being neither masculine nor feminine, He/She can be represented as either Father or Mother or both. In the T_ntric tradition, which derives from the ancient matriarchal culture