Realization and Belief
1.
The Emanationist tradition has developed many forms of
practice, according to the stage of life represented by the concerns of
each particular school. One major common element that can be found in all
of the Emanationist schools (or the Emanationist cultures of the first
six stages of life) is the idea that faith (or the affirmation of belief)
is the necessary basis for practice and the precondition for the attainment
of the ultimate Revelation or Realization.
This basic notion is to be found in all the religions
and all the magical and mystical systems of the first five stages of life.
It is even the basis for the materialistic and social idealism of the first
three stages of life (as can be seen in the fact that all atheistic political
movements focus their first and primary efforts on the propagandization
of a belief system and an idealistic orientation of self toward social
altruism). Even Buddhism has historically accepted cultural modes and practices
that reflect the “idealistic” motives of the first five stages of life
(rather than the “realistic” disposition that characterizes the original
Buddhism of the sixth stage of life), and in doing so, the affirmation
of belief (or faith) in the Eternal Buddha and/or the “ideal” of Enlightenment
was made an important part of Buddhist culture. And the tradition of Advaitism
(which is, in its basic form, a sixth stage epitome of the Emanationist
or “idealist” tradition) is also an epitome of the Way of faith (or affirmed
belief), and, in its case, faith involves the affirmation of belief in
the existence of the Transcendental Reality and Its unique identity with
the inner self-essence or consciousness.
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