The Kingdom of God – Part One
Mankind’s search for God is perhaps as old as humanity itself. It was undoubtedly prompted initially by the wonder of the unknown, and the desire to find meaning in life’s mysteries. The origins of metaphysics lie much farther back in time than those of physical science, which began with the stirrings of the Hellenistic mind over twenty-five centuries ago.
Yet at a time when the Greek civilisation had not yet dawned, there already existed an ancient tradition of wisdom which had been discovered and guarded by an Indian lineage of Rishis, or enlightened Seers.
These Rishis had acquired a personal insight into the true nature of God, by means of direct experience and revelation. These revelatory insights were initially passed directly from master to pupil by word of mouth. These hidden truths were later systematised into a form of philosophy that was transmitted orally from generation to generation.
After many centuries, these oral teachings were reduced to writing, and became the core of the literary spiritual tradition of India. While the identities of the earliest Rishis have long since been forgotten, their codified teachings have been incorporated into these written works, which now comprise some one hundred thousand couplets.
These couplets of philosophical truth have come to be known collectively as the Vedas, which is a term based upon the Sanskrit root “Vid” meaning “to know.” This Vedic knowledge was divided into four major books, which were titled the Rig-Veda, Sama-Veda, Yajur-Veda and the Atharva-Veda.
These classical works represented the timeless wisdom of the earliest Rishis. A couplet in chapter ten of the Rig-Veda ascribed their origin simply to a divine source. Each book was divided into two sections. One section dealt with various practical rules of living, and included prayers, hymns, rituals and rules of conduct.
The latter part of each book was concerned with the sacred knowledge of the origin of humanity and the true nature of reality. These latter portions of each of the four books became known as the Upanishads. They were secret teachings which were only to be revealed to those who were deemed fit to receive them.
Because the central wisdom of these four books had been incorporated into their latter portions, this was referred to as Vedanta, based on the Sanskrit word “anta”, meaning “end” or “purpose”. Thus Vedanta represented the essence of the teachings of these four books.
It also represented the purpose for which these sacred teachings had been recorded, which was to pass on the secret insights of the Rishis. While Vedanta was the term used initially to refer to those teachings within the four classic books, it later came to embrace other related works and commentaries.
The central teaching of the Vedas was that there existed one single, eternal, immanent Reality, which we refer to as God, that was the source of all creation. They called this Reality Brahman. This Brahman could not be described in words because it was beyond all mental attributes.
Brahman was considered to be unchanging, in spite of the continual changes of the phenomenal universe. It was held to be the source of the manifested world, being its substratum or foundation, but was completely unaffected by the constant ebb and flow of creation.
The Vedas went on to teach that this absolute principle of Brahman was not something that was remote from mankind and unobtainable. Instead, this Reality manifested itself within the heart of every person in the guise of the “I am” sensation.
This “I am” sensation was called Atman. Atman and Brahman were therefore twin aspects of the same Reality. Atman was thus the Supreme Self residing in the heart of all creatures, that manifested itself as the “I am” presence within.
Because Atman was the secret source of every living being, and at the same time formed an indivisible part of Brahman, this absolute Reality (or God) could be directly experienced by any man or woman, simply by following the thread of the “I am” sensation within.
This awakening irrevocably changed the character of the individual concerned. The individual no longer continued to exist in personal form, and was freed from all of the outward manifestations of the universe, such as matter, energy, space and time. Instead, it experienced the dissolution of the personality in a mystical union with Atman-Brahman.
The individual person became transformed into an expression of life that was eternally free from all limitations. His or her former individuality blended into the Absolute, just as a stream would flow into the sea, evermore losing its former existence and character.
The Upanishads, or secret portions of the Vedas, were devoted to describing the various ways in which this mystical union could be attained. They urged men and women everywhere, regardless of caste or creed, to discover their real natures, and to strive for the final goal of union with the Godhead within themselves.
Throughout the last three thousand years, the Vedas have continued to focus Indian thought upon the Absolute, and to guide those who wished to devote their lives to this purpose, towards the experience of union with Atman-Brahman.
Although the Absolute could not be defined as having any attributes, the actual experience of this union was characterised by the very nature of the Absolute itself. Its nature was described as Sat-Chit-Ananda. Sat represented absolute existence. Chit was absolute consciousness, and Ananda absolute bliss.
The good news was that Brahman-Atman could be experienced by any person who truly wanted it. According to the Vedas, there was only one condition that was necessary to put on this cloak of immortality. One had to break the chains of personal desire.
“When all desires dwelling in the heart cease, then the mortal becomes immortal and attains Brahman here.” Katha-Upanishad 1
“The wise freed (from the sense! and from mortal desires) after leaving this world, become immortal.” Kena-Upanishad 2
“Let a Brahmana (God-seeker), after having examined all these words attained through Karma-Marga (sacrifices and good deeds), become free from all desires; realizing that the Eternal cannot be gained by the non-eternal.” Mundaka-Upanishad 3
The extraordinary impact which the Vedas have had upon the collective mind of India, is evidenced by the fact that these teachings have continued to draw people in search of the Absolute along these time-worn paths, from hoariest antiquity right up to the present day.
At a time when India was dominated by the philosophy of the Vedas and rejuvenated by the living examples of its Rishis, China came under the influence of an extraordinary man.
He was born in the seventh century before Christ, and from this vast perspective in time, can only be discerned as a shadowy historical figure. But while the exact details of his life are veiled in obscurity, the impact of his teachings upon the people of China has been profound.
The name given to this man was Lao Tzu, which is the Chinese equivalent of “old master”. This name may therefore have been a title of honour which was later bestowed upon him.
The details of Lao Tzu’s life lie shrouded in legend. He was thought to have been a member of the Imperial Court who lived most of his life as a hermit in the State of Chou. At an advanced age he was said to have undertaken a journey to the west and, having crossed the frontier, was never seen again.
Lao Tzu has come to be regarded as the founder of Taoism, and is reputed to have been the author of a series of enigmatic sayings that have been incorporated into a book known as the Tao Te Ching, or the “Book of the Way”.
In these paradoxical aphorisms, Lao Tzu expressed a lofty philosophy based on the concept of Tao, the all-embracing principle of Reality. For Lao Tzu, Tao was the root and source of all creation. Heaven and earth were its garments, yet it remained immutable amid the changing fortunes of life.
No words could describe its true nature, which was beyond the capacity of the human mind to understand. Referring to Tao, Lao Tzu confessed:
“The Tao which can be expressed in words is not the eternal Tao; the name which can be uttered is not its eternal name.” 4
For Lao Tzu, Tao was the mysterious source of all creation.
“How unfathomable is Tao! It seems to be the ancestral progenitor of all things.
Oh, how still it is, and formless, standing alone without changing, reaching everywhere without suffering harm. It must be regarded as the Mother of the Universe. Its name I know not. To designate it, I call it Tao.”
“Ceaseless in action, it cannot be named, but returns again to nothingness. We may call it the form of the formless, the image of the imageless, the fleeting and the indeterminable.” 4
We can see how closely Lao Tzu’s idea of Tao paralleled the Vedic concept of Atman-Brahman. The spiritual essence of humanity, which the ancient Rishis had called Atman, was also recognised by Lao Tzu to be an indivisible part of Tao. It could not be separated from the outward world of matter and form.
“These two things, the spiritual and the material, though we call them by different names, in their origin are one and the same. This sameness is a mystery – the mystery of mysteries. It is the gate of all wonders.” 4
For Lao Tzu, matter and spirit were indivisible and complementary aspects of the single principle of Tao. While Tao was something which defied description, it was recognised to be the foundation as well as the very nature of matter, energy and form.
“Tao in itself is vague, impalpable – how impalpable, how vague! Yet within it there is Form. How vague, how impalpable! Yet within it there is substance. How profound, how obscure! Yet within it there is a Vital Principle. This principle is the Quintessence of Reality, and out of it comes Truth.” 4
Tao was therefore an Absolute principle that was able to create life and form without effort or purpose. Tao remained ever in perfect peace, yet was the active source of all creation. Lao Tzu saw, as the highest goal of mankind, the attainment of union with this Tao.
Lao Tzu’s contribution towards Chinese thought was not only that he taught the existence of an Absolute principle, but also that it lay within reach of the experience of every individual. But while union with Tao was the ultimate goal of all humanity, this divine union could only be achieved on one condition. One had to forego one’s personal desires.
“Only one who is ever free from desire can apprehend its spiritual essence; he who is ever a slave to desire can see no more than its outer fringe.” 4
Some years after Lao Tzu vanished into the mountains of western China, a prince was born in the Sakya clan of northern India, in what is now Nepal. His name was Gautama Siddhartha.
Young Gautama was brought up in palatial splendour in accordance with regal tradition. His father showered him with every luxury, and shielded the young prince from all forms of adversity. He was prevented from seeing any type of sickness, sorrow or death. In due course the prince grew into adulthood, married, and had a son.
It was about the age of twenty-nine, according to tradition, that Gautama undertook his first journey beyond the palace walls. In mixing with his subjects, he was confronted for the first time by the spectre of age, and the suffering wrought by disease. His journey was climaxed by the sight of a dead man.
Stricken by the sight of so much suffering, Gautama felt a sense of revulsion at the life of luxury that he had lived up to that time. He felt impelled to save himself from the tragedy of suffering, and to discover the mystery of its meaning.
Despite the strong emotional ties that still bound him to his family, legend has it that he looked down at the sleeping form of his baby son, Rahula, and exclaimed: “This is yet another tie which I must break”.
Leaving the palace secretly, he set forth as a penniless hermit, rejecting all worldly wealth and status. Gautama was joined in his search for enlightenment by five monks. Together they adopted a path of extreme austerity, believing that the mortification of the flesh was indispensable to the holy life.
But bodily torture brought no peace or insight to Gautama, and after six years of intense physical denial, it seemed to him that the fruits of understanding could never be purchased by the coin of physical suffering. He resolved to give up his austere path. His fellow monks mocked him for his weakness in renouncing his former path, and abandoned him to his solitude.
Gautama had reached a critical point in his spiritual quest. Consumed by his fervent desire for enlightenment, he committed himself to unbroken meditation, determined not to cease his efforts until he had gained inner illumination.
It was at Uruvela, now known as Buddh Gaya, a city in northern India, that Gautama finally achieved his goal. The peepul tree under which he sat for so long was renamed the Bodhi tree, the tree of wisdom, in honour of that event. For in the course of his intense, inner meditations, Gautama had become the “Buddha”, the “Enlightened”, or “Awakened One”.
Gautama had not merely won an empty intellectual battle. He had achieved a total inner transformation. He was seized with the rapture of liberation. He reflected this joy in one of his famous stanzas of the Dhammapada:
“I have gone round in vain the cycle of many lives ever striving to find the builder of the house of life and death. How great is the sorrow of life that must die! But now I have seen thee, housebuilder: never more shalt thou build this house. The rafters of sins are broken, the ridge-pole of ignorance is destroyed. The fever of craving is past: for my mortal mind is gone to the joy of the immortal Nirvana.” (Verses 153-4) 5
The word Nirvana, drawn from its Sanskrit roots of Va “to blow”, and Nis, meaning “out”, represented the final dissolution or extinction of the flame of individual life. It was the emancipation of life, and union with the Supreme Spirit.
In its reference to extinction, however, Nirvana has often been gravely misinterpreted by western minds, who have regarded it as a sort of melancholy nihilism. A sense of the severe self-denial and misery suffered by the mendicant Gautama still clings to the modern interpretation of the word.
Referring to this misconception, Lama Anagarika Govinda wrote:
“Partly under the influence of Schopenhauer’s philosophy, partly due to the materialistic outlook of science at the beginning of this (20th) century, there arose the impression that Buddhism was either a pessimistic kind of philosophy or a life-negating form of rationalism. Both these views forget that Buddhism was not founded on an intellectual theory, but on an experience of overwhelming power. Nirvana, thus, is not the annihilation of individual life, as generally assumed, but something that can be experienced in this very life, as demonstrated by the Buddha himself.” 6
The individual soul of Gautama Siddhartha had been absorbed into the Glory of the Absolute. As Sir Edwin Arnold described it, “the dewdrop had slipped into the shining sea.”
For the Buddha, this Absolute Reality was beyond description, No thought, word or quality could serve to clothe its mysterious being. It could only be described as Sunyata, the void or emptiness, or Tathata, simply translated as “suchness”. The Chinese master Seng-tsan referred to Tathata in the following words:
“In the higher realm of true Suchness
There is neither “self” nor “other”:
When direct identification is sought,
We can only say, “Not two“. 7
As the modern interpreter of Buddhism D.T. Suzuki has pointed out:
“Empty”(sunya) or “emptiness” (sunyata) is one of the most important notions in Mahayana philosophy and at the same time the most puzzling for non-Buddhist readers to comprehend. Emptiness does not mean “relativity”, or “phenomenality”, or “nothingness”, but rather means the Absolute. When Buddhists declare all things to be empty, they are not advocating a nihilistic view; on the contrary an ultimate reality is hinted at, which cannot be subsumed under the categories of logic. Sunyata may thus often be most appropriately rendered by the Absolute.” 8
The Buddha was himself a witness to that state which transcended all physical limitations. He had attained that Absolute State which was the foundation of all life. Because he had achieved it, it was possible for all men and women to attain this too, and so escape the wheel of suffering.
There was, however, one condition that was crucial for this attainment of Reality. It was necessary to sacrifice one’s personal desires.
“If a man watches not for Nirvana, his cravings grow like a creeper and he jumps from death to death like a monkey in the forest from one tree without fruit to another. And when his cravings overcome him, his sorrows increase more and more, like the entangling creeper called birana. But whoever in this world overcomes his selfish cravings, his sorrows fall away from him, like drops of water from a lotus flower. Therefore in love I tell you, to you all who have come here: cut off the bonds of desires. (Verses 334-337) 9
References:
1 “The Upanishads“, translated by Swami Paramananda, Vedanta Centre, Cohasset, 1981, p. 91.
2 Ibid, p. 98.
3 Ibid, pp. 128-129.
4 “The Sayings of Lao Tzu“, translated by Lionel Giles, John Murray, London, 1905, pp. 20-22.
5 “The Dhammapada“, translated by John Mascaro, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1973, pp. 56-57.
6 Lama Anagarika Govinda, “Enlightenment of Buddha Sakyamuni“, “The Mountain Path”, Vol.15, No.1, January, 1978, pp. 18-19.
7 D.T. Suzuki, “Manual of Zen Buddhism“, Rider, London, 1983, p. 81.
8 Ibid, p. 29.
9 “The Dhammapada”, op.cit., p. 83.
