The Scientist and the Seer — Harmony

A talk given by Phiroz Mehta at Attingham Park on 2^nd December 1956. This talk was not recorded

Continued from part 1

Whoso realizes superconsciousness is the embodied Revelation, the fount and source of religion. The attainment of superconsciousness, which is the experience of the Silence, the Void, the Plenum, the Infinite, the Absolute — call it what you will — is the source-experience from which have emerged the teachings embodied in words like Brahman and Ātman, Godhead and God, Eternity and Immortality, the Kingdom of Heaven and Nirvāṇa, soul and spirit, and all other similar words or phrases which are current specie on the counters of theology and philosophy.

In that superconsciousness, all that our sublimest thought and our profoundest intuitions have grasped are as nought. There is no God there, the God of our conceptions, no time, no space. You, by virtue of having become the absolute good, are at one with the ceaseless creativeness of all existence, with the as-it-is-in-itself-ness of all existence. These are realizations by you of real meanings of omnipotence and omniscience. You, the within-the-self Infinite, are one with the Infinite which is the Universal Transcendent. Now you see why the great Creation Hymn of the Ṛg-veda starts with the words, “Then was not non-existent nor existent”, and goes on to say “no sign of the day’s and night’s divider. That one Thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature: apart from it was nothing whatsoever… concealed in darkness, this-All was indiscriminated chaos… void and formless.” Next, listen to the Bṛhadāra ṇyaka Upanishad: “Looking around, and seeing no other than himself, Ātman said ‘I am’.” The Ātman, which is the eternal spirit within man, never speaks human words. But in that superb statement, how divinely asserted is the unitary Self-existence of Eternal Being — for remember that you cannot say “I am” unless there is another, a “you are”, when you look around. Here is the origin of the Single God, non-trinitarian, the origin of Ahura-Mazda, of Yahweh, of Allah.

The next step as you deliberately involve from superconsciousness is represented in the opening words of Genesis: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light: and there was light.” “In the beginning” — this means that the yogi’s Immortal superconsciousness of eternal existence is changing into the mortal awareness of a space-time world. The time consciousness operates again, and you, becoming conscious of entity, are said to create that entity. In terms of consciousness, there is only creation — at once — just like that in a flash (diectically). Since you in the state of Pure Consciousness (that is, superconsciousness) are God, the instantaneous awareness of entity is described as “God created…” “Earth” means the entity which is to be. As in the Ṛg-veda, so in Genesis, entity was void and formless, till the spirit of God — the female spirit (remember Rucha, feminine; remember the female Shakti of Parabrahman in Hindu teaching, the principle of manifestation and differentiation) — till this spirit of God moves over the face of the deep, that is, over the as yet unbridged gap between the superconscious and the ordinarily conscious states, between the potential and the actual.

The Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa states that “In the beginning this universe was Brahman.” Then Brahman creates Agni, Vāyu and Sūrya, makes them lords of earth, air and sky, and Itself (Brahman) goes beyond. Then Brahman returns again by means of Name and Form, and as far as Name and Form extend, so far does the universe extend. Brahman means the superconsciousness. Rightly have linguists translated Agni, Vāyu and Sūrya as fire, wind and sun, but pitiably have they understood Agni, Vāyu and Sūrya merely as fire, wind and sun, merely as nature gods in the pantheon of a polytheistic people primitively groping after spiritual reality. The great gods of the Vedic hymns in their true meaning stand for the different states of consciousness into which the discipline of yogi and mystic take him. So too, earth, air and sky, as symbols, must be correctly understood. “Brahman goes beyond” — referring to the Transcendence. “Brahman returns as Name and Form, and as far as Name and Form extend, so for does this universe extend.” Name and Form stand for your own psycho-physical constitution — your personal manifested universe — and also for all the manifested universe. That which you yourself are aware of in terms of Name and Form, by means of Name and Form, constitutes your universe. Hence, “as far as Name and Form extend, so far does this universe extend.” “Returning as Name and Form” refers to the process of becoming conscious of all entities, physical and mental. I mentioned earlier that all discrete entity awareness is in terms of Name and Form. In Genesis we have: “And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them… and Adam gave names unto them.”

The profound utterances of the Scriptures refer to you and me, to what happens to you and me in the deep states of consciousness. All that we may falteringly talk about, simply, and with deep humility, is about the Immanent in ourselves. That Immanent comes to full glory in superconsciousness — “And now O Father glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was”, as Jesus said. In that superconsciousness, the Immanent and Transcendent have become one consciousness, the manhood has been lifted into unity with the Godhead. Thereafter, the Immanent in us, involving again into the human state, albeit the perfected human, is harassed, crucified, at every turn, for it sheds its vestures of the Divine Splendour in the process. It is sadly reduced to the limitations of body-mind, and to act and speech, to tell of that ineffable light. But this experience of Glorified Being. and this telling of it, for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, is indeed Revelation. And thus Revelation reveals consciousness to us, its unfolding and flowering into superconsciousness and its involving back again into our mortal awareness, and does not concern itself with matter-of-fact world process. But since our vocabularies emerge out of our sense-experience of matter, we inevitably utilize — we are in fact compelled to utilize — an inadequate, almost an improper, tool for communicating the Immortal. How wise the Buddha was to teach us: leave alone the undiscussable, and concern yourself only with the discipline which will lead you to the heart of the Transcendent, Nirvāṇa.

Now it is stated in the Mahā-vagga that after the Enlightenment, the Buddha spent seven days looking at the tree-root where he had sat in meditation. Of course he did not stare with his physical eyes at the root of a physical tree! This tree is the Aśvattha tree of Indian teachings, with roots above and branches below — your own brain and spine and nerves. The utter purification of the heart and mind is a necessary disciplinary measure before realizing superconsciousness, which is the Enlightenment. This purification is the process of re-becoming the child. The human infant unavoidably and helplessly undergoes conditioning in terms of mortality from the beginning, and so the adult’s mind is not wholesome. All this is cleansed. The mind is healed. And he who has by himself cleansed and healed the mind, who has deliberately re-become the child, the Holy Child now, is fit to enter the kingdom of heaven. So the Buddha, after the bliss of superconsciousness, looks at this wonderful new instrument, the utterly pure mind, something not possessed by him who has not realized superconsciousness. In the first stage of the rediscovered kingdom of childhood, one sees all mental relationships truly, one sees the entity world of mental process as it is and how it goes on. The faculty of reason of the discursive mind comes to full flower. After superconsciousness, you see the relationships of your particular mind’s (or any other mind’s) processes to that void plenitude which is the transcendent unitary origin of all differentiated particulars. Henceforth, what in India is called Buddhi comes into operation. Buddhi does not reason analytically. It is a sort of transcendent reason. It is something much profounder and more certain than what we commonly mean by intuition. We intuit in the deeper levels of consciousness. But when the Seer realizes full superconsciousness, intuiting is left behind.

Buddhi, in its deepest sense, is the correspondent on the plane of Divine intelligence (or Mahat) of reason at our levels.

No wonder then that Gotama the Buddha “looks at this tree root for seven days.” A little later, he spends seven days in meditation under the Rājāyatana tree — the royal abode or kingly plane. This is the superconsciousness again. Coming back from this he meditates again under the Ajapāla or Goatherd’s banyan tree, representing the ordinary human world. Thus the Buddhi of the superconsciousness inspires the forms of reasoned speech-thought in which the Buddha’s teaching will be couched.

How does realization in superconsciousness link through into the verbal forms which are acknowledged as Revelation? Obviously, only hints can be given. The Sāṇḍilya Upanishad says: “Samādhi is the union of the soul with the Supreme Spirit, without the threefold state of the knower, the known and the knowing.” And the Paingala Upanishad says: “Samādhi is that state in which the mind becomes of the ‘form’ of the meditated… Then arise the modifications pertaining to Ātman. Such modifications cannot be ‘known’; they can only be ‘inferred’ through ‘memory’ of the samādhi state.” Actually, the words “known” “inferred” and “memory” are hopelessly inadequate in this context. The samādhi or superconscious state is the original home of those flushes of illumination which mark the inspired Seer. Superconsciousness completely transcends the unidirectionality of time of which mortals are conscious. This transcendent dimension of superconsciousness drastically limits its immortal nature as its influence works down through our normal mentation. Thus the speech-thought forms in which the inspiration from superconsciousness will become manifest are the forms which are characteristic of the particular Teacher Himself. And these forms are of course related to the forms which characterize the mental activities of the Teacher’s own race and the traditions of that race. And these forms in their turn are the product of the human experience and science and philosophizing of the times.

Now we can understand how such widely divergent systems as the Vedānta and the Sāṁkhya arise, how the profundities are diversely portrayed in the Great Religions. We can understand how the Vedas and Upanishads, the first and second chapters of Genesis, etc. etc., present statements which are not wholly consistent with each other. The pattern of mind of him who realizes superconsciousness determines the forms in which such realization will be re-presented.

Now you will see why I stated that the experience of superconsciousness is the source-experience by you, here-now, out of which emerge all the teachings embodied in words like God, Eternity, Ātman, Nirvāṇa, etc. The “Truth” which the heart of religion tries to convey is the fact of your realization of superconsciousness. It is not concerned with universal process. The heart of religion is internal to you the person. Please do not fall into the trap of saying “But this is all subjective, etc.” In superconsciousness there is no subjective-objective, greater-lesser, or any of the deluding pairs of opposites.

Men seek answers to their deep questions in a form which will simultaneously satisfy their commonsense, their scientific knowledge of the world and also their sense of the Transcendent. The theologian tries to satisfy this demand. The philosopher, and sometimes the scientist also, tries to do so. The pity of it! You cannot use this worldly tool of speech-thought, which expresses your awareness in the mode of mortality, to represent this transcendent superconsciousness which functions in the mode of immortality, and by which you are truly aware of eternal existence. You might as well try to construct a solid cube by drawing an infinite number of squares on a plane surface.

Thus no speech-thought structure satisfying human reason can adequately represent the structureless Revelation realized in superconsciousness. But the innermost depth of our own mind, which is profounder than discursive mind, and in which discursive mind is wholly subsumed, can grasp by Buddhi this transcendent reality, if we “cross to the other shore” as they said. So it is, that if and when we use words, not to express literally but to stimulate and to inspire, in short, if we use language symbolically and poetically, then we may profitably use thought-speech, simply to affirm the superconscious realization of the Infinite.

I said earlier that Revelation reveals superconsciousness to you in samādhi. The various Words of God, as we call the inspired Scriptures, are poetic affirmations of that revelation. They are symbolic utterances. They constitute the “Truth” which is the heart of religion. What we commonly call the world process is that of which we are conscious in terms of mortality awareness, by the use of our senses and discursive mind. The investigation of the phenomenal nature of such a world process and of what we call the principles underlying the phenomena, or the laws of nature, is the province of science and philosophy and the task of scientist and philosopher.

Put in another form, you, aware of existence in the mode of mortality, and functioning as a finite being using your senses and discursive mind, search, discover and state the truth whose name is science or philosophy, in speech-thought forms. And you, aware of existence in the mode of Immortality, try to affirm the truth whose name is revelation, also in speech-thought forms.

Now because our common medium of communication, speech, belongs to the sphere of mortal awareness, it is adequate for science and philosophy; but it is inadequate for Revelation which is of the sphere of immortal superconsciousness. Understand this, and you wholly resolve the so-called conflict between Revelation and Science, between Faith and Reason.

Therefore scientist and philosopher and theologian, and any human being whatsoever, can legitimately and confidently hold to his Faith in so far as that Faith is what he himself has realized, in so far as he fully bears in mind that the Silent Word of God is a transcendent other than the mortal words of man.

Come, then, into the state of carefree security by treading the path of Holiness. When the Beauty that lies at the heart of all things is revealed before your eyes because the man-made-in-the-image-of-God within you is sculptured to perfection, your heart will be at rest. You will know the peace of God which passes all understanding. Those mighty givers of Revelation of old swung open the portals of Immortality. They went back into the shining sea, not to be lost but to live as the inexhaustible source of divine sustenance to all of us mortals. Once again those portals stand open. Enter freely, for that is our divine heritage from everlasting to everlasting, and the journey through time into eternity is indeed our divine destiny.

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