Realization and Belief – Part I

XIV

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 Ad- vaitism (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 self­essence or consciousness.

A practice cannot be based on the affirmation of belief (as a precondition for attaining the Revelation or Realization of Truth) unless it is presumed that there has already been an historical or universally applicable Revelation that justifies and calls for belief. Indeed, previous general Revelation is the basic means generated in the Emanationist cults for justifying and propagandizing the method of belief, or belief as means, for attaining the personal Revelation.

People in the West are profoundly familiar with this tactic in the domain of religion, politics, and science. The lives, in­cidents, and words or Revelations of such individuals as Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Jef­ferson, Darwin, Marx, Lincoln, Freud, and Einstein are the standard basis for propagandizing and motivating the mass culture of the Western world, and more and more of the total world. Indeed, the popular or exoteric mass culture of mankind has always depended on belief systems (or the mo­tive and method represented by prior belief). And, therefore, there are so many historical Revelations of the “ultimate and final Truth” that the Truth Itself has become all but impossi­ble to discern.

What I call the “Great Tradition” is that entire mass of tra­ditions, reflecting all of the seven stages of human existence, that is the common inheritance of all of mankind in this time of universal communication, interrelatedness, and interde­pendence. It is no longer appropriate or even possible for in­dividual, cultures, or nations to justify absolute independence from other individuals, cultures, or nations—and it is no longer appropriate or possible to grant absolute or ultimately superior status to any historical Revelation, belief system, or conception of how things work. The entire Great Tradition must be accepted as our common inheritance. We need not (as a method for achieving Realization or Enlightenment) base our lives on the affirmation of belief in the Great Tradi­tion (in part or as a whole) as Revelation, but we must over­come the provincialism of our minds (and, ultimately, the provincialism that is mind itself).

In most of its features or movements, the Great Tradition (whether materialistic or religious, secular or spiritual) bases itself on (1) the propagandization of a particular historical Revelation as a unique and sufficient, if not final, presenta­tion of the Truth Itself (and not merely the Way to Truth), and (2) the propagandization of a Way of achieving personal Real­ization of that Truth via disciplines that express the affirma­tion of belief in the previous historical Revelation.

The sixth stage Way of Advaitism is simply an epitome of the Way of belief in the original Revelation that characterizes the Hindu approach to Truth in the first five stages of life. All the Hindu schools of the Emanationist tradition found their particular conceptions of the Way on the basis of what they conceive to be a faithful and orthodox appeal to the ancient “Holy Books” of the Vedic and Upanishadic eras. The Vedas and the Upanishads are granted the same status in Hinduism that is granted to the Bible in Christianity or the Koran in the religion of Islam. The traditional “Holy Books” are all consid­ered to be the “Word of God,” given through prophets and seers, and eternally applicable to all human beings (if not binding on them). The trouble is that those ancient books were produced in times in which cultures could develop in relative isolation and independence from one another, and as a more and more intimate world civilization has developed during the course of the last one or two thousand years, the self-contained cultures of the ancient times (and their books) have entered into more and more open contact (and conflict) with one another. The result has been a seemingly inter­minable sequence of absurd wars, all based on the efforts of one or another anciently (or modernly) independent system of mind and culture to achieve a state of power and domi­nance over all other systems. (Historically, Christianity and Islam are, among religions, the most conspicuous in their consistent pursuit of world-wide political power and univer­sal cultural dominance, whereas the capitalistic and commu­nistic political systems, each in league with the amoral and transcultural technical idealism of scientific materialism, are, in the modern era, the most conspicuous secular enterprises engaged in usual pursuit of power and dominance.

By allowing the process of world culture to develop through the conflict of self-contained systems we have, in ef­fect and in actuality, placed the world in the hands of self­centered lunatics (as if all of the madmen and madwomen who imagine themselves to be Cleopatra, Jesus, or Napoleon were given principal offices in each government and institu­tion in the world). Therefore, I call for the universal accep­tance of the total tradition (or Great Tradition) of mankind as the common inheritance of mankind. And, rather than merely put all these eggs in a basket to be sampled at random (or in one soup, to be tasted all in one bite), I have communicated a critical approach to understanding and transcending the limi­tations of the Great Tradition of human existence.

Therefore, all the “Holy Books” are our books, and all of us must go to school and be transformed in our minds by the Great Tradition. Only a critical approach to our inherited and traditional cultural and philosophical limitations of mind and action can purify us of the habit of brute conflict and self-delusion.

If we go to school with the Great Tradition, we must go through a trial of self-transformation. My Teaching provides the critical basis for that school of self-transformation. In the beginning, I call you to consider and overcome the provin­cialism of your mind, and, therefore, I Argue the Way in rela­tion to the traditions and stages of life. (And this is the justifi­cation for my consideration of my own Teaching in terms of the Great Tradition as a whole and the ultimate traditions of Buddhism and Advaitism.) But my Argument finally goes beyond this schooling of the provincial or conventional mind. The radical Argument of my Teaching is a consideration that transcends the mind itself, even the entire body-mind, the apparent world, and attention itself. Therefore, my Argument considers the Great Tradition positively and critically, but it ultimately transcends all the conventions of the Great Tradi­tion and all of the systems of approach to Truth based on ei­ther beliefs (as in the Emanationist or “idealist” schools) or problems (as in the non-Emanationist or “realist” schools).