ETHICAL LIFE

ETHICAL LIFE - by Huberto Rohden

 

 

 

It is wrong to think that lack of freedom in the traditional sense, destroy the ethical life responsibility. It is possible to establish the following principle to illustrate this truth: The more free is a human being, the more he is responsible for his acts. And as no human being is pleni-conscious, cannot be totally free.

 

 

Baruch Spinoza (1632 - 1677) denies that man is entirely free in any of his actions, because freedom is identical to consciousness, and as no man is pleni-conscious, no man can be truly free. Only the Infinite is pleni-conscious, and therefore fully free. In God, the "infinite substance", there is no trace of causality, in the passive sense, of a being caused; any other being is subject to passive causality, and therefore is not free. Since the essence of man is divine, in his essence man is free; but, as the existence of man, his individuality as a phenomenon, is not identical to God, but much inferior, it is logical that as existential individual, man is not free, although he is as identical as the essential substance. The nature of God that in man exist is free - while the nature of the world that in man exist, is not free. The divine element in man is determinant, but not determined - while the mundane element in man is determined not determinant. The cause determines - the effect is determined.

 

 

So the man, free by his divine essence, is not free by his human existence - that exist in him a mix of active and passive, of positive and negative, of free and non-free - i.e., a limited freedom and therefore a limited responsibility, partial, imperfect.

 

 

From this limited responsibility follows that man cannot identify himself totally with God, nor even to be separated entirely from God.

 

 

If, on the other hand, is limited the degree of freedom of any creature, it follows that it can never exceed its divine cause; that will always remain within the reach and sphere of God’s jurisdiction. The conscious creature is free, even if rebels subjectively against God, and the more is responsible for all its actions, never and in any case gets to be totally free, in the objective order of the universe. If there was complete freedom on the part of some creature, of course the Creator would have lost its jurisdiction over that portion of its universe, and divine sovereignty would not be absolute and complete.

 

 

So it is strictly logical to assert the moral responsibility of men, though not is possible to admit that man is absolutely free. The ethical responsibility does not require such absolute responsibility, on the contrary, absolute freedom is incompatible with the ethical order. Only where there is partial freedom can there be ethical order. God is not an ethical being, because He is absolutely free.

 

 

Ethics does not exist in the world of complete absence or in the complete presence of freedom - not in the dark world of total unconsciousness or in the enlightened world of total omniscience.

 

 

Ethics can only exist in a world where it is incomplete both the absence and the presence of freedom, that is... in the shadowy world of semi-consciousness.

 

 

 

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THE FASCINATION OF MYSTERY

THE FASCINATION OF MYSTERY - by Huberto Rohden

 

 

 

What happens in religion and politics level also happens in the sphere of individual life. Since man can penetrate the inner recesses of something or someone, that something or the person stop exercising attraction and the fascination exercised before. Before, there was the fascination of curiosity... after the discovery and knowledge, the magic of fascination ceases to exist.

 

 

More is the interests in what we obscurely glimpse than of what we see clearly. The "mystery" factor generates admiration and without wonder there is nothing beautiful and attractive. The man unable to admire something is a perverted man, trivialized, tasteless, and a humanity made by these sort of men would be the most tedious and unbearable thing.

 

 

The maximum fascination is in the mystery, the abyss, the darkness, the unknown. Even in purely physical world, there is no real enchantment without mystery; a landscape that lack unknown corners, shadows, darkness, abyss, forests, mountains, seas or any other factors that make more dimly guess from what we could see clearly - this landscape is not interesting for those who still conserve the natural sense of fascination.

 

 

That is why in this respect, man must become like children, for whom everything is mysterious, fascinating, miraculous... because is unknown. The child does not want to know why fairies, dwarves, elves, elementals and others imagination products of mind make this or that; who they are, where they come from, where they go - the child delight in the miraculous and mysterious world of unknown worlds.

 

 

In the context of adult people, the fully probed human soul is not interesting anymore; alias, is a kind of sacrilege to demand that a person, by closest it is, to open widely the secret doors of its inner sanctuary and with no discretion to place on the table, the intimate letters of its human personality - this would be a sort of rape and a compulsory prostitution.

 

 

There are married couples who consider themselves owners of the other marital part, rather than to consider as a friend and ally; they ignore that any human being before being female or  male, it is a personality and that absolutely no intimacy should eclipse the human personality. Where there is not at least one drop of personal incognito, conjugal love is at the eve of unloving, or even true contempt and hatred. The mystery is the necessary basis for the esteem and reverence, without which all love is trivial and void. The mystery is a kind of "chastity," a "pudency" indispensable to love, beauty, happiness.

 

 

 

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DO NOT WANT BE REWARDED, COMPENSATED, THOUGHT!

DO NOT WANT BE REWARDED, COMPENSATED, THOUGHT! – by Huberto Rohden

 

 

 

The imperfect man practice evil.

 

 

The semi-perfect man does good to receive reward.

 

 

The pleni-perfect man does good for the sake of doing good, without any ulterior motive.

 

 

Who needs to be thought admits he is sick or injured.

 

 

Who expect to be compensated recognizes that suffered damage or loss - by the fact of doing good.

 

 

Who expect to be rewarded for the good he does confesses that he is not good, that he is selfish, that deposited a capital into a bank to get higher interest rates.

 

 

Only one who does good for the sake of doing good is really good - not selfish, is not deemed impaired, feeling sick or injured because of doing good and being good.

 

 

But how can I practice good without expecting a reward?

 

 

You cannot, my friend, take this attitude of disinterest and absolute truth, while you live in the illusion of yourself, while you identify your peripheral physical-mental personality with your central Self, with your spiritual soul, divine.

 

 

The physical-mental personality, essentially selfish, need to be compensated by the benefits it provides to humanity - because seem to be a kind of damage to the benefactor - that seeks to ruled out harmless.

 

 

The spirit soul, however, know that doing good for good is to be intimately good - and who is good does not require compensation, because owns infinite wealth.

 

 

Your true Self is divine, which not need to be rewarded, compensated, thought - is love, wealth, health.

 

 

God does not expect reward from anyone - because He is eternal Love.

 

 

God does not want compensation from anyone - because He is infinite Plenitude.

 

 

God cannot be thought by anyone - because He is perfect Sanity.

 

 

And your soul, being God in you, is Love, Plenitude, Sanity - do not degrade your soul to a lower level, lower that itself!

 

 

Find your true divine Self, discover your soul in you, find yourself as your soul - and you will be rich, happy and sane for being good.

 

 

Acquires the firm divine consciousness of your cosmic citizenship – and do not deceive yourself considering as inhabitant of planet Earth.

 

 

Here you are only a temporary immigrant, a strange, pilgrim – your true homeland are the heavens, the infinite, the universe of God.

 

 

Fulfil here, in the best way, your earthly pilgrimage – but do not reduce yourself to slave of your slaves!

 

 

The supreme joy and happiness is in being what, in God's eternal plan, you must be, now, here, and everywhere.

 

 

The tangible results of what you are and you do not run on your own - so do not mind what is beyond your reach.

 

 

Do not make your happiness depend on something that does not depend on you.

 

 

From you depends on being good and to practice good - of you does not depend on what others do with your benefits.

 

 

Do not talk about "ingratitude" - who speaks about it reveals the impurity of his intentions.

 

 

The one who receives the benefit, of course, has a moral obligation to be grateful - but the benefactor has no right to expect gratitude.

 

 

The gratitude or ingratitude of others is not part of your being-good.

 

 

Be good, invariably good, joyously good - and closes your eyes to everything that might happen later, beyond the borders of your will.

 

 

If you do so, if you are, you will have your heaven here on Earth - and you do not need to concern yourself with what happens next.

 

 

God is the Highest Good, He will know what to do with you - if you are good.

 

 

How could a man intimately good, suffer harm from God, Who is infinitely good?

 

 

Be good - and leave the rest to God!

 

 

 

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PAUL BRUNTON

PAUL BRUNTON – about Religion:

 

 

I am not a member of any religious faith, in the conventional sense, not a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu. And I will frankly confess here that I was born with no particular leaning towards religion - while the splitting of theological hairs aroused my amusement. But I am a believer in most of the great faiths according to the interpretation which, I hold, their own founders gave to them.

 

I am a Christian to the extent that I concur with Saint Paul in saying: "And if I have the gift of prophecy, and known all mysteries and all knowledge, and have not love, I am nothing."

 

I am a Buddhist to the extent that I realize, with Gautama, that only when a man forsakes all his desires is he really free.

 

I am a Jew to the extent that I believe profoundly in the saying: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one."

 

I am a Hindu to the extent of believing and practicing the kingly science of yoga, the science of union with the spiritual Self.

 

I am a Muhammedan to the extent that I rely on Allah above all else.

 

And finally, I am a follower of Lao-Tse to the extent that I accept his perception of the strange paradox of life.

 

But I will go no further into these faiths than the points indicated; they are the boundary-posts at which I turn back.

 

I will not walk with Christians into an exaltation of Jesus - whom I love more deeply than many of them - over the other messengers of God.

 

I will not walk with Buddhist into a denial of the beauty and pleasure which existence holds for me.

 

I will not walk with Jews into a narrow shackling of the mind to superficial observances.

 

I will not walk with the Hindu into a supine fatalism which denies the innate divine strength in man.

 

I will not walk with the Muhammedans into the prison house of a single book, no matter how sacred it be.

 

And finally, I will not walk with the Chinese Tao-ists into a system of superstitious mummery which mocks the great man it is suppose to honour.

 

I do not believe that God has given a monopoly of Truth to any of us; the sun is for all alike. No land or race can claim a monopoly of Truth, and the divine inspiration may descend on man everywhere.

 

No creed has the power to copyright Truth. Therefore I can take a detached and impartial view of them all. I can perceive why they rose to greatness, and why they are, in some case, in their decline or fall.

 

 

Paul Brunton, in A Message From Arunachala, written while he spent some time with one of the greatest seers of modern times... Ramana Maharishee. The book was first published in 1936.

 

 

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BRAHMAN, part II

 BRAHMAN, part II - by Guenther Zuehlsdorf, translation from the original German edition into Portuguese by Huberto Rohden and translated into English by Flavio de Mello.

 

 

 

The knowledge of Brahman transforms man into God. By the fact of revealing his true divine nature, he is lost in the Infinite vision; and the illusion of separateness, from which are born all the weaknesses and imperfections disappear. Since Brahman is the last and only Reality, nothing can remove or add to his Being. Brahman reveals itself when ignorance disappears - just as a rope is revealed as rope, when the illusion that it is a snake disappeared.

 

 

The doctrine of the Upanishads not only consist in Brahmavidya, knowledge of Brahman, but also Atmavidya, knowledge of the Self. Brahman and Atman are in reality, one. Brahman is the transcendent aspect of the single and unchanging Reality; Atman is the immanent aspect of that same reality. Paul Deussen wrote in one of his books that is the eternal glory of the Upanishads to have discovered that Atman, the intimate spiritual reality of man, is identical to the Supreme Reality and cause of the Universe.

 

 

Now, if in our intimate Being we are identical to the very foundation of the Universe, then surely our efforts to become one with Him cannot help to create and maintain in us the gloomy illusion of separation and distance. Sri Ramana Maharishi the great sage always stressed that it would be easy to get the revelation of the Self, if our own belief in the Reality of the world was not an obstacle to our pilgrimage. The most amazing thing, he said, consist in the fact that we, who are forever that Self, seek constantly the identification with it. There will come a day when we shall laugh at all our efforts: for we have not become that Self, we are that Self.

 

 

This knowledge is expressed in the words: "I am Brahman" (properly I, Brahman, Am), that is, the individual soul and Brahman are identical and this identity is not simple fantasy or imagination; in other words: the soul knows itself as been God in God. For this reason we must never relate Brahman or the knowledge of Brahman with some kind of activity, because Brahman can never be object, nor of our activities, or as our knowledge. It is true that in the Vedas we read often that the sun is Brahman, or that we must meditate on the Spirit. Phrases such as these do not contain true knowledge, are only recommendations and worship (upasa-na). Brahman itself can never be the object of devotion, worship or meditation, because Brahman is not an entity that man should worship, says the Kena Upanishad.

 

 

Therefore one can never say that Brahman is this or that; Brahman is known by the denying of any differentiation and multiplicity. Who instead sees multiplicity, goes from "death to death" (Katha Upanishad) - Brahman is the inner core of our Self, the element of Being within us, by virtue of which we are; no activity, no purification ceremony can approach Him, because what we are we cannot revert to be, we can only BE.

 

 

"It is not about achieving perfection. We are already free and perfect" said Vivekananda. After much searching and researching we finally got back to the starting point, we turn to our own soul, and here we find the one that we were looking worldwide, in churches and temples, by which we cry and pray everywhere: "He is not hidden in the clouds, He is the closest of the close, He is our own Self, the Reality of our life, of our body, of our soul".

 

 

The knowledge of Brahman does not depend in any way of man, that is, of his concepts and his ideologies, which ultimately are nothing else but images of something existent; knowledge awakens the moment that man diverts his mind from the things of the phenomenal world and directs it to his inner self, when he ceases to perceive the "voices" and immerse himself in silence, in whose depth is revealed the identity of Being.

 

 

 

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THE SELF, part III

THE SELF, part III - by Guenther Zuehlsdorf, translation from the original German edition into Portuguese by Huberto Rohden and translated into English by Flavio de Mello.

 

 

 

 

According to Fichte, we reached the pure Self, when we deprive of all its accidental and restrictive attributes: The identity refers exclusively to the Universal, and is based on the prior denial of all individualizing differences. But language, the word, does not give total justice to this truth, because the Self is a liberating factor, and not something that is being released. Nevertheless, it is accurate the verification that the real Self is beyond all thought and restrictive categories, although it is only an emergency process. Schopenhauer is right to criticize Fichte because he substantiate the Self fronting of the article "the", when our language does not usually express the word self as a noun. When Schopenhauer criticizes this transformation of the Self in an object, he reveals the spirit of the Upanishads, that were to him quite familiar, "because designates the Self, the subjective as such, which can never become object, that is, the knowing, in opposition and as a condition of all the known". (Parerga II)

 

 

What really is the Self remains unspeakable, so that the wisest of sapient prefer to speak in a state with no "Self" or an ego absence, for example, like the brilliant Lao-Tse:

 

"The reason why I have problems

It is because I have an ego;

If reached the absence of ego,

How could I have problems?"

 

 

But this state of absence of ego is not identical to an emptiness or self annulment; it is instead the awakening to the true Being, the experience of the source of our self-awareness, which is the foundation of the unity of our Being. According to the advice of Rudolf Otto, the word "individual", in its original meaning, refers to the indivisible, the unity of consciousness, which manifests itself in all the thinking and acting, and is the assumption of any higher intuition. Only later was introduced in this word the sense of a particular ego, which says the Upanishad Brihadaranyaka: "The individuality (in the sense of separation) arises as the result of an illusion, that is, the identification of the Self with the objects; but in divine enlightenment, disappears the awareness of plurality, and with this also, the (false) individuality. With the knowledge of the Self perishes the pseudo-individuality".

 

 

The problem of the Self converges to the knowledge that the world depends on an individual who perceives this world, a conscious individual in which the world is born and in which the world perishes. This individual is the unchanging factor, the spiritual witness of the existence and the non existence, and therefore, the scope of all perceptions, conceptions and thoughts. A perception may not perceive another perception; a conception cannot recall another conception; two conceptions arises because they are contained in the same consciousness. But nothing allows us to suppose that this consciousness resides in individual beings as private conscience; what happens is that in this consciousness are contained particular conceptions which creates an idea of a separate consciousness.

 

 

"I am what I am" is this the voice of all wisdom, Maharishi said. When man identifies himself with what is changeable, with his perishable personality that is born and dies, then he is ego-conscious. When man identifies himself with what is immutable, unlimited, so he is Cosmo-conscious. In the first case, it is his Self the expression of nothing; in the second case reflects the Whole, the essence of all beings: "Self", the highest mantra, the name of God. (+)

 

 

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Translator's Note:

 

(+) The Self is contained in God, but God is greater than the Self. The Self is an immanent God; God is a transcendent Self.

 

 

 

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THE SELF, part II

THE SELF, part II - by Guenther Zuehlsdorf, translation from the original German edition into Portuguese by Huberto Rohden and translated into English by Flavio de Mello.

 

 

 

 

A visitor asked Maharishi if God and soul are one, or not. The sage replied, "Occupy your mind to the point where they agree, that is, that we have to free the ego".  This is a clear renunciation of any useless discussion, and at the same time a requirement rarely comprehended and which evokes a question of great importance, namely: What remains when the ego disappears?

 

 

It is easy to give to this question a formal answer, but no explanation can replace the experience of Reality, the immediate experience. Words like Atman, God, Brahman, Super-Self, Cosmic Spirit, Universal Soul, the SELF, etc., are unable to give to man, as any other word, an idea of the immanent and transcendent Reality, while, in its relations with the supreme and ultimate Reality, still remains the dualistic concept of subject and object, while continue to persist the concept of separatism and distance. With words, whatever they may be, and what we only do is to camouflage ourselves the very lack of comprehension. The Self, the subject of all the experiences, the percipient principle (that perceives or have the facility to perceive) and to know in man is identical to the foundation of the WHOLE, of the Universal consciousness, which is the very Substance of the substance. Neither this nor that may be the object of experience or object of veneration. Despite this, men objective is one Self, creating one second-hand Self, in which they project within themselves and say: I am this, I am that.

 

 

It is part of the abysmal faculties of the Self to create in the imagination a relationship with an object, and yet differentiate from it at the same time. Always the Self appears in dual aspect: As creator of the world of imagination, as the pure "I-Am" - and also as the content of this imagined world, as name and form. On this last aspect, however, it is nothing else but a shadow of the true Self, like a ghost without its own form. In the case that we put another object in the place of the imaginary self, - as, for example, God or Self - we do not approach to the solution nor a step, and we move in a circle; before and after we try to realize something objectively, something that can never be object. While we identify the knowing with the knowable, while we confuse the Self with the non-self, while we degrade God or the Self for a object of relationship - we are far from the solution.

 

 

The distinction between the absolute Self and the empirical self, between the Self and the ego, gives rise to an inextricable confusion, since there is no two selves, nor can there be a ego separated from the Self. The phrase "I am Brahman" (properly: the Self, Brahman, I am), which is the expression of the unity experienced by the wise, it is pure absurdity in the mouth of an incipient profane, which understands by (Self) something that has no reality at all.

 

 

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THE SELF, part I

THE SELF, part I - by Guenther Zuehlsdorf, translation from the original German edition into Portuguese by Huberto Rohden and translated into English by Flavio de Mello.

 

 

 

 

"Do you speak of your individual Self. With the same reason you could fill a jug with water of the Ganges and call this amount of water your individual Ganges". Ramakrishna

 

 

When, one day, the Scottish writer Carlyle looked to his weak body after bathing, would have said sadly: "But, who am I anyway?" Although unaware of the true sense, came to his mind the question that has everything that man can ask: Who am I? This question formed the centre of the doctrines of the rishis of the Upanishads: "Know the Uno, the Soul, which is the bridge that leads to immortality."

 

 

It is also the teachings roots of the sages of China's: "He who knows his nature knows heaven".  (Meng-Tse)

 

 

It is still the quintessential doctrine of the great sage of our time, Ramana Maharishi: "All your questions are superfluous! You should only focus on the fact that no question can be resolved without self-knowledge. Only through the realization of the Self is that everything becomes clear and all problems find their solution. "

 

 

The Self is the great mystery of our lives. From birth to death we are dominated by the thought Self - though we know nothing of it. And yet, it is the only reality that exists for us, because all the facts and thoughts only come into existence when our Self become aware of them. The Self see the earth - and it exists. The Self is aware of its idea - it is present. The Self is the only direct relationship we have with the Divine - No wonder isn't it!  Fichte explains this with deep conviction in his scientific doctrine: "We cannot think anything without our Self, without having the awareness of ourselves as self-conscious. Everything that exists only exists while the Self exist, and external to the Self there is nothing".

 

 

While discussing the issue of the Self, we make it in a conceptual and intellectual way. What we do is changing terms only, we invent other concepts, but we link to them the usual ideas. We pour new wine into old barrels. The true meaning of the question of the Self can only be picked up spontaneously during times in cosmic plunge, during moments when we dream with open eyes, when our soul is bombarded with deep feelings of human nature. Only one who constantly rejects all intellectual interpretations of his mind is able to have an answer to his question.

 

 

 

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ABOUT OUR UNITY WITH THE INFINITE, part III

ABOUT OUR UNITY WITH THE INFINITE, part III - by Guenther Zuehlsdorf, translation from the original German edition into Portuguese by Huberto Rohden and translated into English by Flavio de Mello.

 

 

 

The philosophy of cosmic monism should not be understood in the sense that the person of man, his personal ego, is God; in this sense, it would be even blasphemous. Our true Self, our individuality, is neither body nor ego, which is the person, the mask. Ramana Maharishi says that the ego is a ghost, with no intrinsic reality, there seems to exist because it has taken shape; the collective and illusory experience of sensory objects eventually crystallizes in the form of ego. The philosophy of cosmic monism does not increase the ego to the dignity of God, does not identify the ego-persona with God; but says that God is the consciousness of our essential core, of our essential individuality, of our universal Self. Therefore Ramana Maharishi says the significance of the great formula as follows: - "You are neither your body nor your senses, not your intellect, not your ego. You are what radiates like pure I-am, after that, in demanding of the true Self, disappeared all transient things".

 

 

However strange and difficult that this doctrine seems to be, it is in fact in almost all religions. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus says: "It is wise to admit that all things are one".  Plotinus writes: "God is not something external to us; He is present in all things, although we ignore Him". A Sufi poet sings: "I said goodbye to dualism. I did recognize as one in two worlds. I'm looking for the Uno, I see the Uno, I invoke the Uno. He is the first. He is the last. He is out. He is from within". Jesus, the Christ, also taught about the unity of life with the Father: - "Anyone who knows me also knows the Father... Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. And to Felipe he asks. "Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?

 

 

The doctrine of unity with God seemed to the philosopher Fichte the spiritual content of Christianity. In his book "Anweisung zum Leben Seligen" (The Way Towards the Blessed Life) he writes: "God alone is, and external to Him nothing is (truth of easy comprehension, and only condition for any religious experience). The intuition that human life is one with the divine life is the deepest knowledge that man is capable to achieve".

 

 

Inspired by the philosophy of Fichte, Ralph Waldo Trine writes: "To live consciously in the belief that God is in us, that is, in fact, the life of our life... Only through this living realization of the unity of our life with the Father is that man can find true happiness".

 

 

 

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Translator's Note:

 

This thought, the presence of the unique Reality in all multiple facticity (Uni-verse) shines above all in the pages of the Gospel. "I and the Father are one; the Father is in me, and I am in the Father, but the Father is greater than me... The Father is also in you, and you are in the Father" - these words of Christ reveal that he saw the Infinite (the Father) in all men (me, you), but without identifying the finite, or the total sum of the finite with the infinite.

 

The monist philosophy of the neo-Platonic of Alexandria was, for three centuries, the characteristic philosophy of early Christianity. Only in the beginning of the fourth century, under the auspices of emperors and profane theologians began to prevail the Aristotelian dualism, that Thomas Aquinas codified in the 13th century in the Summa Theologicae, and the Council of Trent in the 16th century, officialised for the Roman church and today there is a growing trend towards a return to the sources of Truth.

 

 

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ABOUT OUR UNITY WITH THE INFINITE, part II

ABOUT OUR UNITY WITH THE INFINITE, part II - by Guenther Zuehlsdorf, translation from the original German edition into Portuguese by Huberto Rohden and translated into English by Flavio de Mello.

 

 

 

 

In the same sense the Greek philosopher Heraclitus wrote: "You will never find the limit of the soul, although walking through all paths - so profound is its being."

 

 

Here too we find the idea of unexplained and mysterious nature of the soul, as well as its unlimited scope and its rootedness in the great Whole.

 

 

This unlimited character, this Absolute, which is Brahman, is called by the Hindus "anantam", which means "without end", i.e., "jnanamanamantam", that is "infinite consciousness". And this infinite consciousness, say the Upanishads, is tat twam asi - "this is you".

 

 

These great truths affirm that God is immanent in all things of the world, as well as our intelligence is present in each of our thoughts. The Universe is God in its manifestation, God that dwells as spirit or intimate essence in all existences, which receives from this essence its existence.

 

 

Hence we conclude that we are so intimately united with God, the cosmic essence, the absolute spirit, that any life separate from God would be an impossible nonsense. As the supreme and ultimate Reality of Being, which realizes the Universe within its own substance, God is the inseparable Reality of all accomplished things. All finite existences emanate from the Infinite Essence.

 

 

In this sense, Paul Brunton writes in his book "The Wisdom of the Overself": "When we really comprehend the intimate nature of the smallest ant, we also comprehend the nature of the whole Universe; because the spiritual essence that exist under the existential form of the ant is the same in all other existential forms of the Universe. Who comprehends such thing made a major advance in its journey".(1)

 

 

An poet of the past expresses this same truth as follows; "Little flower, who blossoms in the old wall, I pluck thee from among the clefts of the rocks and hold you in my hand, with your roots and with all that completes your being. Little flower, if I really knew who you are and what you are, I would also know what is God and what is man".

 

 

The philosophy of this cosmic monism, of this essential unity of all things, does not know creation in the usual sense. If there had been creation, follows that the Reality is separated into fragments. But fragmentation and limitation exist only in our imagination. If we abandon this false imagination, there is only unity. Instead of a God absent and distant, we see a God present, omnipresent, immanent in all things, a God who is the very essence and unique substance of the entire cosmos, or Pure Consciousness, that men give the name "God".

 

 

The known formula tat twam asi - "this is you", expresses that this Pure Consciousness is the intimate reality of the Creator as well as any creature, both God and man.

 

 

When immature men hear this philosophy, conclude that man, with all his imperfections, is identical to God, that I am, (in my little human ego) infinite, omnipotent and therefore free from all law. But before we comprehend this, we should know that there is no personality in the traditional sense.(2)

 

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Translator's Note:

 

1) This and other statements proves that part of humanity is making an effort to approach to the ancient philosophy of the great sages and mystics of all peoples and countries. This monism is equidistant from the separatist dualism of theologies and philosophies of many in the West as well as of pantheism from certain ideologies of Eastern thought. This is cosmic monism, in fact, the alpha and omega of the "Cosmic Philosophy", based on the own nature of the Universe, one in his infinite Essence and diverse in its finite existences. This great unity in the wider diversity is that link, as a thread of perennial light, the thought of Socrates and Plato.

 

2) Personality, person comes from the Latin word persona, which means mask. Persona was the mask that the ancient actors used to cover their faces. One cannot confuse personality with individuality, when the philology of these words clearly indicates its meaning. Individual = undivided, indivisible.

 

 

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ABOUT OUR UNITY WITH THE INFINITE, part I

ABOUT OUR UNITY WITH THE INFINITE, part I - by Guenther Zuehlsdorf, translation from the original German edition into Portuguese by Huberto Rohden and translated into English by Flavio de Mello.

 

 

 

"How can we forever keep a drop of water without drying? Throwing it in the sea" of Buddhist philosophy.

 

 

The completion of the thought of unity between the individual soul and the universal soul, is the central theme of the Upanishads - and is also the central theme of mysticism. Meister Eckhart, for example, said that we only exist due to the fact that the Divinity is present in us. Divinity is to Eckhart, designated as the "Ente", pure Being, the supra-existential Uno, the immutable and self-existent Eternity. It is quite significant the discrimination he makes between the "foundation of the soul" and the "spark of the soul". He understands by foundation of the soul the uncreated emanation of the Infinite Spirit, or God; and as spark of the soul, he designates the individual soul, concrete, which receives his human existence from the divine essence.

 

 

According to Eckhart, it should be understood by foundation of the soul the exact point where the Divine is consciously present in human, the point where is realized the contact of the human soul with God. To illustrate this process, Eckhart uses the comparison with the mirror: the sunlight which is reflected in the water and returns to the sun, is identical to its origin; but the water is still water, and does not become sun, although an erroneous observation lead us to believe that the light comes from the water, not the sun. Shankara compares unification or unity between the individual soul and the universal soul with what happens with the caterpillar and the butterfly; as well as the caterpillar assumes the aspect of a beautiful lepidopteron, thus becomes the soul that is always conscious of God as God, resembling its model.

 

 

However, the soul could not take the form of its model if this model, from the beginning, did not exist in it as a prototype, or as intimate essence of human nature. The "foundation of soul" of Meister Eckhart corresponds, roughly, to the Brahman or param-atman (Universal Soul) of the Hindus - while the "spark of the soul" would look like the jiva-atman (individual soul) of the Eastern mystics. This individual soul, when separated from the universal pillar of the param-atman or cosmic consciousness, has no real existence; it has only derived existence, like all other things that have come to the existential zone of finite things.

 

 

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METAPHYSICAL KNOWLEDGE, part VII

METAPHYSICAL KNOWLEDGE, part VII - by Guenther Zuehlsdorf, translation from the original German edition into Portuguese by Huberto Rohden and translated into English by Flavio de Mello.

 

 

 

The only way to recover this inner experience is meditation, when rightly comprehended, and it is nothing else but the "art of resting in oneself", during which analytical thinking gives way to intuitive understanding. The whole world when contemplated under the  perspective of the Absolute, is nothing else but consciousness itself which is revealed in all its purity, when emptied of all images and all thoughts.

 

 

It is irrelevant to keep our mind with philosophies, metaphysics, yoga or ritualism, if the law of the spirit is not lived in its immediate presence; only when consciously experienced is that it can become a living force in our daily lives. Statements and intellectual arguments based on the world of illusion cannot solve our problems. We have to probe our own soul, the core of our Self, and to know from where derives its ailment. If there is God, then He is in our hearts. Religious is only man who actually live God and the soul within himself. To have merely intellectual knowledge of religiosity does not make the religious man. To comprehend the Truth, it is necessary first to feel it directly and immediately, without any intermediation of images, words or thoughts.

 

 

 

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