The Being of Knowledge
Universal Law (Sanâtanä Dharmä) and the Heritage of Knowledge
CERTAIN FORMS OF KNOWLEDGE, ALONG WITH THE SEcret of the rites and practices that connect man to the different levels of the natural and supranatural world, make up part of his role in creation. This role varies for the different ages of each of the species, thus presenting different mirrors in which universal consciousness contemplates its work. In order for humanity as a whole to play its role, an intellectual heritage must be transmitted in parallel with the genetic heritage, even if its transmission can only be made through a few individuals under a veiled and secret form in what is called the occult tradition. However threatened this knowledge, together with the principle of language which is its vehicle, may be, it can never completely disappear.
The name Sanâtanä Dharmä, the "Eternal Lawn or "Perpetual Tradition," is given to the group of fundamental notions that permit the Being of Knowledge to play, from its inception to its end, its role. Shaivism attributes the teaching of these basic elements of knowledge to the Rishi(s), the Seers of the first ages.
According to the teachings of Shaivism, one can decline to postulate the hypothesis of a god, either personal or impersonal, unique or multiple, but one can never believe that the universe is the result of chance, that it is not subject in all its aspects to certain laws. It is in reference to this notion of a law which goes back to the origin of things, and in fact precedes it, that one speaks of the "primordial tradition." The expression "primordial tradition," however, has the disadvantage of placing the accent on the transmission of a certain knowledge rather than on its contents.1
The Hebraic notion of Torah (Law) seems originally to come from the notion of Dharmä (the universal law that governs matter and life) but has degenerated so that it no longer applies to anything but a more or less arbitrary human "rule of conduct." The potentiality and the limits of all knowledge, of all science, of all knowledge accessible to man at the various stages of his development is included in the plan of the species. The mechanisms of thought, its relations with perception, are, like the development of the physical body, determined by the Chakrä(s), the geometric patterns or models which are found in the vital centers and which nothing can modify. These patterns serve to differentiate the physical and mental capacities of individuals and determine their role in the various stages of their evolution as well as their access to knowlege.
Each species, each lineage, is realized, and progresses, through the chain of physical paternity, according to the information of the Lingä-Sharirä, the genetic code. The development of the Knowledge Body is made in a parallel way, that of the spiritual paternity, through the accumulation and transmission of knowledge. This is the initiatic way, which leads to the discovery of the subtle nature of the world and which enables man to realize his spiritual destiny. All evolution, whether it concerns the intellectual or the genetic heritage, is subject to cycles that give the rhythm of their progress and decline. At certain epochs we can observe a remarkable development of knowledge followed by periods of obscurity during which true knowledge is only transmitted in a secret form by initiates who once again unveil it in favorable periods, giving birth to periods of creativity, to the liberation of mankind, to the great periods of art, love, beauty, the harmony of beings and things again taking a predominant place.
The Seers (Rishi)
CERTAIN aspects of the nature of the physical or metaphysical world are revealed to men at determined moments in the maturation of the human species. These "revelations" are the work of the Seers, the Rishii(s), who are the intermediaries, the mediums gifted with the perception of the higher levels of creation. Some of them are subtle beings; others are incarnate beings. Vision and speech are of a transcendent order while the body remains destructible. Shaivism does not, like Vaishnavism, envision physical incarnations of the divinity, but only mental incarnations of a prophetic nature in the persons of the Seers. At the beginning of each cycle of humanity, the god Skanda inspires in the Seers the knowledge necessary for the reestablishment of a tradition of knowledge that enables the new mankind to play its role.
Seers can reappear during the course of the cycles to ensure the maintenance of the tradition and the discovery by man, at the opportune moment, of the secrets of the nature of the world.
Great discoveries are always inspired, programmed. This is why they generally take place simultaneously in several regions of the world. For, in the Seers, it is perception that is inspired. Its formulation can be inadequate. In any case, the relationship of the vision to the words that express it is only valid for a particular moment.
AS we have seen, writing is an urban phenomenon, characteristic of the Kali Yugä. To freeze the teachings of ((prophets" in books regarded as sacred is to paralyze the spirit of research; it fixes so-called established truths and tends to create blind faith instead of the search for knowledge. The nature of knowledge is to evolve. Like other aspects of the human being, it knows periods of progress and decline. The teaching of the Rishi(s) is a living thing that enables the species to realize its role at various stages of its evolution. It can only be transmitted by initiation through qualified individuals. The fixation in Writings of the visions and perceptions of Seers, which represent the forms of knowledge necessary at a certain moment of the evolution of the species, whether it be a matter of cosmological, scientific, religious, or moral ideas, presents grave risks. The sacred book valid for all time and all people is a fiction.
The new Sâmkhyä sometimes replaces the word Âgamä (tradition) by the word Vedä (from the root vid, knowledge) to represent permanent information (akshara), the plan that is at the basis of all aspects of creation, the object of all research, all science, all metaphysics, all true knowledge. Taken in this sense, the word Veda has nothing to do with the religious texts known by this name. The notion of Vedä represents the belief in a universal law, the object of knowledge. This implies the acceptance of the idea that there exists a divine order of the world of which it is possible to have a fragmentary glimpse, an "approach" (upanishad), even though this order remains on the whole unknowable. No one can pretend to possess the "truth" in any domain. A dogmatic teaching can be neither scientifically nor philosophically nor morally justifiable.
The advent of writing has allowed for the substitution of conceptions of religious or social reformers, in the guise of inspired prophets, for the teachings of the Seers. This has given birth to the religions of the book that characterize the Kali Yugä.
The superstition of the written word is an obstacle to the development of knowledge in the domain of scientific or religious information. The religions of the book have been one of the most effective instruments of man's decadence during the course of the Kali Yugä and have been used by urban oligarchies, both religious and secular, as instruments of domination.
To take texts, whether called Vedä, Bible, or Koran, as an expression of reality or of divine will is puerile and dangerous. This is part of the antireligion which lowers the concept of the divine to the human scale.