"Thus Have I Heard"
[Ancient Philosophy] 

by
B.P. Wadia  


© 2003 Online Teosofiska Kompaniet Malmö 


The Initial Existence in the first twilight of the Maha-Manvantara is a CONSCIOUS SPIRITUAL QUALITY

It is Substance to
OUR spiritual sight. Men in their WAKING STATE cannot call it so; therefore, they have named it in their  ignorance 'God-Spirit.' 

"In our solar world, the One Existence is Heaven and the Earth, the Root and the flower, the Action and the Thought. It is in the Sun, and is as present in the glowworm. Not an atom can escape it. Therefore, the ancient Sages have wisely called it the manifested God in Nature."


"Who, Where, What is God?" "What is a secular State?" "What is Religion in the life of a citizen?"
hese are questions which many an Indian must have asked himself or his neighbor. For there has been discussion in the Constituent Assembly at New Delhi about permitting the highest officer of the State, if he desires to do so, to invoke the blessing of God in assuming office in our secular State. 

Freedom of religious worship is already recognized by the Constitution and so the protection of places of worship is guaranteed. This is as it should be. What God is to be invoked? Certainly, it is not the God of the Christian or of the Jew, of the Hindu, the Muslim, or the Parsi. 

A secular State cannot recognize tribal gods or racial deities, but, as Egypt inspired by Akhnaton recognized the One and Indivisible Spirit which, like the sun, sheds its countless rays dwelling in countless minds of men and women, our secular State should recognize as God
THAT  which is common to all men who intuitively hold the belief that Deity is potent in every form of matter which is Life. 

What is the nature of such Deity? 

All speak of the Omnipresence of God but many picture God as a gigantic person ruling earth and its humanity from a distant heaven. This false doctrine is the womb of atheism. Between idiotic anthropomorphism and speculative atheism, there must be a philosophical mean and reconciliation. The secular State of India can never be atheistic any more than it can be creedal and sectarian. The genius of the ancient land is persistently active; the ancient culture is still vital and viable; therefore, here this philosophical mean is not difficult to get at. The Boundless and the Infinite can never be limited and conditioned to one manifestation individualized in one man
Krishna, Buddha, Christ, or any other or even in one nation or one raceAryan, Semitic, or Teutonic. 

A dozen texts can be cited from the Hindu Shastras, the Zoroastrian Fragments, the Semitic, and the Christian Scriptures, to show that Deity is the Great Living Presence, which is potent at every point of space and moves from within outwards by infallible Law, which is Wisdom Itself. Educate the citizen to seek the Light of the Soul, to look to the heights of the heart. This is of primary importance if our secular State is to succeed in establishing a real Democracy. The voice of the people will become the Voice of God only when people feel that the Light of Spirit is active in the Kingdom of India, because It is activating them. The true citizen must feel himself to be the vehicle of the Light of Spirit which finds expression in growth
not only in the Virtue of Justice but also in the Wisdom of Mercy. 

The materialistic influence dominating the present cycle is not conducive to this inward recognition. Everywhere the striking regret expressed in the Mahayana text is echoed:
 

"Alas, alas, that all men should possess Alaya, be one with the Great Soul, and that possessing it, Alaya should so little avail them!"

 If, therefore, the highest officer of the secular State is to take the Name of Deity, the common citizen must be educated and become intelligent so that he may comprehend the true nature and power of the Divine Presence.

It is written:

"Man ought to be ever striving to help the divine evolution of  Ideas, by becoming to the best of his ability a co-worker with nature in the cyclic task. The ever unknowable and incognizable Karana alone, the Causeless Cause of all causes, should have its shrine and altar on the holy and ever untrodden ground of our heart   invisible, intangible, unmentioned, save through "the still small voice" of our spiritual consciousness. Those who worship before it, ought to do so in the silence and the sanctified solitude of their Souls; making their spirit the sole mediator between them and the Universal Spirit, their good actions the only priests, and their sinful intentions the only visible and objective sacrificial victims to the Presence"

"Behold how like the moon, reflected in the tranquil waves, Alaya is reflected by the small and by the great, is mirrored in the tiniest atoms, yet fails to reach the heart of all. Alas, that so few men should profit by the gift, the priceless boon of earning truth, the right perception of existing things, the knowledge of the non-existent."

 

B.P. WADIA

From "Thus have I heard", pages 113-15. Utgiven av Indian Institute of World Culture, 1959.

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