That Brahman, The Buddha

A talk given by Phiroz Mehta at Caxton Hall on 18^th November 1953

In the Gospel of St. Luke (3. 23–38), a line of ascent is traced from Jesus right up to Adam, which was the Son of God. If we turn to Genesis, we find that God creates Adam in his own likeness. Adam at the age of 130, it is alleged, begets Seth in his own likeness; Seth at the age of 105, it is alleged, begets Enos in his own likeness. From the time of Enos, men begin to call upon the name of the Lord. Enos at 90, begets Cainan, and so the line goes on to Noah, who is apparently a mature 500 before the arrival of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. It comes to pass when men begin to multiply on earth, and daughters are born unto them, that the sons of God, seeing that the daughters of men were fair, take them as wives, as many as they choose. To them children are born. These become mighty men, of renown, heroes. But God sees that great is the wickedness of man, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart is only evil continually. Then comes the Flood. It is commonly regarded as a flood of destruction — or was it, in reality, a flood of purification? But since Noah walked with God, he found grace in the eyes of the Lord. So too earlier Enoch walked with God. And it is said of Enoch that Enoch was not, for God took him, whereas it is said of all the others that they lived so many years and died. More than two thousand years later, Elijah is transported by a whirlwind to heaven in a chariot of fire. Almost another millennium swings past, and there takes place the resurrection of Jesus.

Just as there is a line of ascent traced from Jesus to God, so too in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, which is at least seven or eight centuries earlier than the time of St. Luke, a line of ascent is traced from Pautimashya to Brahman Svayambhu, Self-existent God.

Adam and Eve are called the first parents. So too in the Iranian tradition, Yima and his sister-spouse Yimak are called the parents of the first mortals. Like Adam, Yima too falls from grace. Just as Enoch and Elijah are credited with not dying, so too in the Iranian tradition, Kai-Kushro, one of the great king-sages, retires from the world, and, immortal, awaits the day of return, to rule over a world wherein righteousness shall have triumphed. Immortal too is the great priest, the Dastur Paishotan. Even as Jesus spells redemption from Adam’s sin, Zarathushtra heals the deadly wound of Yima’s self-pride.

But now, in the Rig-Vedic tradition there is no fall from grace by Yama and his sister-spouse Yami. Yama, it is said, chooses death and abandons his body, passes to the other world, and is given lordship over the highest of the three heavens. Yama becomes the Lord of Death, that is the Master of Death, not to be confused with Mrityu or Mara, the death-dealer. Yama is the first to win immortality. Again, the great Rig-Vedic Rishis, those sacred singers of the song of Eternal Life, see the gods, communicate with them, and are at home with them, even as Adam and his generations and all the prophets of Israel are with the Lord.

What does it all mean? To this day there are prophets, there are munis, there are those who are at home with God. But you will not find them among the haunts of men, or at least you will not easily find them, unless you have the trained eye with which to see. Since the old days, centuries and millennia have streamed past. Theologians and philosophers of religion have piled system upon system, like bundle upon bundle of cut grass making a haystack. The heavy voice of orthodoxy is too much like the voice of him in a stupor, laden with the burden of mere learning. Those whose cold, black light of intellect is unredeemed by insight, flounder about with their ideas like fish caught in a net. Some delight in gazing upon an apparent emptiness in distant space, swinging their catastrophic instruments of observation onto it and crying out “Ha! A new island universe is discovered!” And then voracious intellect gorges itself to sickness on thousands and thousands of new, hard facts, and spews out rows and rows of mighty tomes, whilst the Book of Life gets buried deeper and deeper under the gathering dust of knowledge, and the eyes of God moisten slowly, as the cloud of unknowing is thickened by man into an almost impenetrable fog.

And yet, not just there but here, not just yesterday or tomorrow but now, is the Incarnate Truth. Not lost in the temporal movement of the space-time world, but poised here-now in fulfilment in eternal existence, is the meaning of it all, is the activity which brings all manifestation to fruition in terms of eternal beauty, is the supreme possibility of the realization of the consciousness of the Kingdom of Heaven, of Brahman-knowing, of Nirvana. And all this is for you, here-now. It is yours. Take it. You are free. And if you can’t take it, it means that you are not free, and all your vaunted individuality and self-determination and democracy is a make-believe, a fantastic, hurtful to your neighbour and hurtful to yourself, make-believe.

Come with me on a fascinating journey. Once upon a time, in the faraway yesterday, before Adam, there was a group of people whose sense of wonder deepened as they grew older. They were touched with the dissatisfaction engendered by the circle of mortality. They yearned for an indefinable fulfilment of their lives. And they considered the question of sorrow. Whence, why and whither were also questions which disturbed them. How endless and meaningless seemed the round of uprising-proceeding-dying, uprising-proceeding-dying! Was there an escape from it, an escape which would spell immortality here-now, and ineffable peace, and the certitude that this-all was worthwhile? Or was immortality reserved for the gods alone, or maybe for some over-god, miserable autocrat over all gods and men?

So these men brooded, seeking the significance of all experience, seeking the eternal creative fount of all existence. And when they died, as indeed each and every single body dies, never to resurrect again, their disciples continued to seek. And they discovered that the more they discarded all their preconceptions and vain beliefs, the more they cultivated continual mindfulness, the more they understood themselves and tamed and trained themselves, the nearer they approached their goal. This goal could not be easily defined — to this day it cannot be clearly defined — but it could be fully experienced. These men discovered that in the effort to hold the mind still, guarded, deliberately abstracted from the impacts of the world via the senses, a new awareness of existence began to emerge, and a profounder understanding of certain matters was obtained through concentrated attention.

Now, as one enters profounder states of consciousness, if the next succeeding stage cannot be successfully reached, the practitioner may return to ordinary consciousness, as most people do. If he is already in one of the deeper states of consciousness and cannot deliberately go deeper, he may fall asleep, as did the disciples of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane; or, if he loses control, not detrimentally, he may “see” visions and “hear” messages; or, if he loses control to a serious extent, he may become obsessed — possessed of a devil, as said in the New Testament — which is a sorry condition; or, he may go off into a deep trance, in which a partly-healing, a whole-making or integrative process goes on. He is unaware of the process, but enjoys the fruit of it — and not all of it is beneficial — on returning to ordinary consciousness.

Adam was the first (or one among the very earliest) of the human race to go off into such a deep trance. That is the so-called sleep the Lord God causes to fall upon him. On waking up, he finds Eve, fully formed, which means that he becomes clearly conscious of his own psyche as being complementary to his normal masculinity. But what is far more important is that Adam is convinced of unitary selfhood and of the unity of the universe. From this is born the conviction, and the consequent teaching, that there is only the One God, a conviction which scatters into emptiness the host of many gods. Their ephemeral day is over, and they proceed to disappear like moths devoured by a flame.

But Adam’s conviction is not a full and true realization. He has not sufficient self-knowledge and self-discipline to prevent his own fall. Unable to maintain the consequences in daily life of the consciousness of unitary God, his awareness sinks back to the level of the circle of mortality — this is the eating of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. So, in the cool of the evening (the time for prayer or meditation, for restoring the deeper states of consciousness), the Lord God, as it is said in Genesis, asks, “Where art thou, Adam?”, meaning, to what level has your consciousness sunk?

Physically Adam lives a normal human length of life, and not 930 years as said in the Bible. About 130 years after Adam arises Seth, who is developed enough to succeed to the mastership vacated by Adam. That is the meaning of Adam begetting Seth in his own likeness at the age of 130. Adam’s teaching flourishes for about a millennium. That is the meaning of all the days of Adam being 930 years. But when the seventh successor to Adam appears on the scene, the deepest depth of consciousness is touched, for Enoch realizes immortality here-now in full superconsciousness. That is the meaning of the statement that “Enoch was not, for God took him.” The body of Enoch unquestionably died, like any other body dies.

Continued in part 2 and part 3

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