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The
content of the discussion section is provided as commentary upon
fundamental questions of spiritual practice, to aid in bridging
the gap between the personal and the principial domains. If we are
to serve as witnesses to the Sophia Perennis, which holds that the
keys of sacred traditional wisdom, if adequately reinterpreted in
our day, are as relevant as ever, then we would indeed be
providing a great service if we could illustrate how
representative individuals have integrated this wisdom into their
lives. Please see our important
comments about the Discussion Section, and make
your own remarks. |
| 1. What
do people mean when they say things like "this is all an illusion"?
Does the world matter? |
Charles Upton -
The world is an illusion in the sense that it is not what it seems. It is a partial, symbolic manifestation of God -- or as the Hindu classic the TRIPURA RAHASYA says, an apparition in the mirror of the Absolute Self.
If, in the words of Blake, "the body is the portion of the soul perceived by the five senses," then the material world -- including the body -- is the portion of God perceived by the five senses, just as the psychological and psychic worlds are the portions of God perceived by the feelings and the thinking mind. In itself, apart from God, the world is nothing.
Does the world "matter"? If it is all we know of God, then it matters "quasi-absolutely" -- at least while it is here, or while we are here in it. Nonetheless the world, like all forms, is ultimately reabsorbed into God, which means that, on a certain level, it is annihilated in God right now. The unbroken, direct perception of the world as annihilated in God right now, even as forms arise, even as we interact with them on all levels, whether practical, aesthetic or imaginative, is the reality of Liberation. The world matters because we are forced, ad it were, to believe that the world is real, until we transcend this belief. And so the world is the "place" -- and I include within this definition the psychic as well as the material world -- without which we could not develop the virtues; and without development of the virtues, our egos become so opaque that the continuous direct perception of the world, and our incarnate selves, as relative and partial versions of the One Unique Reality becomes next to impossible. And perhaps the chief virtue conducive to Liberation is Mercy or Compassion. The world may be nothing in itself, but this nothing is filled with sentient beings suffering in ignorance and pain,
beings who, if they were liberated, would not be suffering. And so Compassion is the virtue which most closely expresses the liberated state.
A part of Compassion, of course, is compassion for future generations, care that we do not bequeath to them a materially and psychologically unliveable world. This does not mean, however, that the world can be fundamentally "improved" or "saved" it its own terms. Some things are improving, many things and degenerating, but the world itself, as a partial and imperfect manifestation of God, remains imperfect, and always will. The (so to speak)perfection of the world does not entail the end of all occasions for suffering, such as war, disease and old age, but rather the vision of all these things within the mirror of the Absolute Self. The enlightened sage dying of a painful disease is not numb to the pain; the pain continues till it has worked itself out. It is simply that the sage does not posit a sufferer to suffer the suffering; the suffering, while undoubtedly real, takes place within God, and thus is no suffering.
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| 2. Is it good to suffer?
How so? Why do people suffer even when they try to do
the right thing? |
| Farid Jaafar - I can
only speak for myself. I think there is a certain bearing of
personal attitude once when you accept the Truth or even in my
case when you are sincere deep in your hearts to really want to
find the Truth. The personal tendency then seems to attract
"sufferings" more readily then when we are ignoring
truth and focus only on what "I" want. I imagine and
suppose because the Absolute cannot consent, eventually that the
"I" (as individuals) oppose God, in whatever form. The
"forms" that we enjoy must in the end perish leaving
only the Essence. To those who accepts this concretely I suppose
will find sufferings to be an aspect of Mercy from God and maybe
to some even "joy" because they reminds him/her of God
all the more, however hard for any person to swallow. |
Charles Upton - Suffering in itself is an evil because it is a consequence of imperfection, inseparable from the existence of the material and psychic universes, which are perceptions of God imperfect enough to make suffering possible, and unavoidable. Morally, however, suffering can be either good or evil. The suffering of Hell does not purify the soul; the suffering of Purgation does purify it. The first leads to ever greater suffering and Self-alienation, the latter to increasing openness to the Love and Truth of God. If you close up like a fist and resist your suffering, you are moving in the direction of Hell; if you use your suffering as an occasion for submission to God's Will and longing for His Mercy, you are moving toward Paradise.
Good people suffer because everyone suffers who has not realized that, in Meister Eckhart's words, "my truest 'I' is God." If they are fundamentally good, then their suffering is purgatorial, not infernal.
To ask why good people have to suffer is like asking why honest people have to work. Work and suffering are necessary here because the belief that we exist in our own right, apart from God -- which is our ticket of admission into this world -- in moral terms constitutes a "debt" which must be paid, and in intellectual terms an error which must be dispelled, if suffering is to be overcome. The good are fundamentally dedicated to paying this debt; this is the meaning of their suffering. Yet this debt cannot simply be paid through the work and suffering of a sentient being who sees him- or herself as existing in his- or her own right, apart from God. In Christian terms, the debt is infinite, and so only God, through Christ's sacrifice, can pay it -- though we can only avail ourselves of this infinite payment by "taking up our cross and following Him." In Muslim terms, the "permanent archetypes" longed for incarnate existence in this world, and God mercifully granted their wish, just as He mercifully grants the wish to return to Him of sentient beings who are suffering in the bonds of this world by sending prophets and sacred laws to open the return Path. In Hindu terms, even the most self-sacrificial action to pay one's karmic debt generates more karma, which is, simply, action and its consequences; only divine knowledge, only jnana -- the recognition that all worlds are simply reflections in the mirror of the Absolute Self (real as phenomena alone)-- is sufficient for Liberation, though "meritorious" karmic action can produce circumstances conducive to, but not sufficient in themselves, to produce such
jnana, which is basically a manifestation of the Grace and Mercy of God.
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| 3. Are there statements
that are really, absolutely true?Or is everything just relative?
How can we know the truth? |
Charles Upton - The statements which are closest to being absolutely true are statements about the nature of the Absolute, and our relationship with It. No such statement is really true in the absolute sense; but statements about the Absolute from the primordial tradition, as refracted through the revealed religions, can be clearly be seen, at one level of understanding, as all pointing toward the same Absolute Truth from varying perspectives; this is why they are uniquely EFFECTIVE. Perspectives vary because there is more than one religion, histgorical period, or individual soul: but the Truth is One.
We can know the Truth by having an all-consuming desire to know It; by imploring God's help in the realization of this desire; and on the basis of this desire and this prayer, by seeking out the wisest and most saintly people, and the highest and most comprehensive teachings -- the metaphysical teachings of the major world religions, both on the level of scripture and on that of the writings of the great sages. |
| 4. Why are there different
religions? How can they all be true? |
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| 5.
Are there really "god-men"?How can I identify a
"cult"? How can I distinguish between the genuine and
the phoney? |
Charles Upton - There really are
"jivanmukhtas", "God-men," fully enlightened and liberated beings. They are extremely rare. No one who is not a jivanmukhta himself can recognize one, but someone who has an innate attraction to and love of the truth may be attracted to one, though the attracted person may never meet the Master in person, may never have even heard of him or her.
The whole question of how to recognize cults is extremely complex, but a good (though imperfect) set of criteria can be found on www.pokrov.org , a website dedicated to tracking
sexual abuse and cult activity within the Eastern Orthodox Church.
I myself am a member of a Sufi order which considers our Master to be a perfected being, his wishes to be virtually the will of God (for us dervishes alone, who have contracted with him), and his appointed representatives to be channels for these wishes. Yet for 15 years I have never felt my autonomy or integrity to have been violated; no strange actions were prescribed, no monetary contributions were demanded, I was not asked to give my Master the affection properly due my wife, etc. In the words of the Koran, "there is no compulsion in religion." My Master puts it like this: "Your Master must be perfect, because if he is not perfect you will begin to worship him, and worshipping your Master is essentially the same thing as worshipping yourself." And my Master's books do not only contain a list of duties the dervishes owe the Master, but also lists of the duties the Master and his representatives owe to the dervishes. So my experience is that the "perfect Master to whom one owes absolute obedience" and "the equality and democracy of all believers in the sight of God" can actually co-exist. This, however, is a mystery -- not a secret that I refuse to tell, but a subtle reality that can't be made explicit in words, try as I might. I can't even make it explicit to myself. It is elusive; it is like following a scent. The ability to follow the trail of it is sharpened by spiritual hunger. |
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(Comments,
Set 1,
Set 2) |
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