III.1

HAVISMAT

Tradition and Realization

Development and integration, restoration of the fragment into the unique body of Reality. Resurrection—and also return. Return, as overcoming the spatial and temporal limitation which is the condition of human existence, reducing this limitation to the symbol of the horizontal and the vertical, whose point of intersection and confluence, concretely, is man. Prolonging the two directions, the vertex becomes the center; the meeting point of the horizontal and vertical as end, fall, limitation, becomes a living point, a radiant center—man, Universal Man. This is the symbolism of the Cross—the Cross of the elements: Fire above, Earth below, Air to the right, Water to the left. At the center, the ineffable Name. He who embraces all embraces himself: by dismembering himself, he integrates himself; by integration he conquers himself; by conquering he realizes himself; by realization he is.

The sign is a fixation of all this, a skeleton in whose marrow there dwells unthinkably that which cannot and should not be said. The one mystery is that of which the various traditions give a foretaste, presenting the degrees of realization by agitating the Forms, so that in their folds the Rhythms are perceived, with pauses inserted so that between their weft the Silence can be. Then the spoken word unveils the Forms, reveals the Rhythms, and preserves the Silence. From the point of view of integral Ascesis, this is the symbolism of the Word.

The traditions are and can only be the symbol of the one Tradition which is beyond them, without which they would not exist, and thanks to which they veil and unveil that which cannot be spoken of, that which in man is beyond man, that which in form is beyond form, that which in existence is beyond existence. Thus via the degrees of Realization, eliminating the shadows, the symbols, and the signamina (signs), attaining Reality, dwelling in it, and being it, traditions lead to the Tradition. Here at the zenith even the condition of “being” is surpassed, and there follows integration in toto: this, of course, from the point of view of the integral Ascesis, which is both summit and center, arrival point and central axis of vision: all the other points on the various planes or stages having a purely relative value, that of transition, transitio (crossing), passage, and in a certain sense vehicle.

That which at a certain level in the various traditions may appear as a restriction is really a support or a complex of supports, so that in the chaos one finds a channel to contain the tumult of waters, through whose flux it may be possible, if only intermittently, to glimpse the depths. Tradition here is scientia, ars, θεορία (science, art, theory), and their complement, usus, ἄσκησις (exercise, training, practice). But here we are only dealing with two aspects, θεορία καί ἄσκησις (theory and practice), ars and usus (art and application), which in the integral Ascesis converge in a single point. Their division is only possible from a purely human and relative point of view, in which vision allows distance and realization signifies conquest. But in the order of Reality there is no point of arrrival or of departure, no terminus ad quem (end point) or terminus a quo (starting point), because that which is, is absolutely beyond time, beyond space, and above all beyond man. Neither can one speak of completion, but rather of an abolition of limitation, of a destruction of sleep. However, in practice there is θεορία and there is ἄσκησις, scientia and usus, to the degree that the integration, the return to the normal state, implies an effort; and thus it appears as a conquest.

For several centuries the modern world has not only been ignorant of the contingency of this aspect, but with misplaced thirst and misplaced seeking has projected its phantom into the myth of the temporal condition: into the future. Having falsified the axis of Knowledge, the inability to go beyond the limits that condition human existence drives man to project Realization, which is the sole and effective conquest, into the indefinity of a darkness unknown to him. Thus genuine development, which is nothing other than integration, appears to him as a succession—History—or a coagulation—Philosophy—or an aspiration—Religion. The first arrests the mobility that cannot be reduced to succession. The second crystallizes the immutablity that cannot be reduced to immobility. The third parodies the certitude that cannot be reduced to a promise. Thus by turning to that which will never be, man cuts himself off and is lost. To an illusory knowledge he adds an illusory action; to an uncentered vertigo he adds a purposeless agitation. What is lost in the domain of life is crystallized and given artificial reality in the domain of knowledge. Man is a baby born at midnight—so says a Taoist text—and he believes that yesterday never existed; empty within, his breath has been taken away from him. Driven from the outside, he has turned to the outside. Thus modern man surrenders to the beacon of the future, unsuspecting in his poverty of what he does not see, of what surpasses him, of what is before him or behind him, as a deep and invisible vein. Once the rhythm of Contemplation is exhausted, the rhythm of Action remains, artificially densified. History, Art, Philosophy, Belief—among these four corpses the man-corpse lives the myth of the future, namely, of the unrealizable, and makes it the crown and mask for his own death. Dead before he is born, he affirms a life to come; rotten before he is alive, he plays in his death-throes with the future resurrection; in an empty present, he turns to an illusory future.

But if a reintegration is still possible, this reintegration implies a correlative collapse. Man must realize all the sterility of false knowledge and false action, and from a radical catastrophe must arise the impetus that will radically restore equilibrium. Deny first and always; affirm only when everything has been denied; when man, facing what he does not know and does not possess, is truly like a corpse in the hands of the corpse-washer—as Islamic tradition says. Only an absolute passivity can generate an absolute activity: only when one gives up everything can one recover everything and reabsorb everything, through the radiation of caritas (love).

The attitude of purity toward traditions, despite their differentiation into various types according to the special tendencies of those to whom they are addressed, implies the total absence of prejudice of any sort, for him whose forma mentis (state of mind) is truly what it should be, a mens informalis (formless mind). Then it is none other than the pure metaphysical attitude and that of the integral Ascesis. All points of view are relative in the face of this ultimate one, which is final and resolves all others, and thanks to which vision is cleansed of all impurities.

The ways of Realization are infinite, but the Center is unique and the integral Ascesis is what makes Realization possible. The Body of Tradition, with the separate and visible traditions as its members, is a hierarchical ordering in view of the final goal. It is not a matter here of recta ratio (right understanding), but of the recta via (right way) whereby the whole man vibrates in tune with Truth: the whole man, and not just a part of him which when isolated, crystallizes, and when crystallized, collapses.

With Realization, all that was becomes what is and what will be. The nature of the Self is eternal presence, says Shankaracharya; and in its deepest meaning Usu vetera novant (by use, old things are renewed). That is to say, with Realization that which was, through becoming that which is, passes from the apparent domain of temporality into the real domain of eternity.