Rene Guenon
COLLECTED WORKS
OF RENE GUENON
THE MULTIPLE
STATES
OF THE BEING
RENE GUENON
THE MULTIPLE
STATES OF THE BEING
Translator
Henry D. Fohr
Editor
Samuel D. Fohr
SOPHIA PERENNIS
HILLSDALE NY
Originally published in French as
Les Etats multiples de Vetre
Les Editions de la Maisnie 1932
English translation Sophia Perennis 2001
First English Edition 2001
Second Impression 2004
Editorial Note xm
Preface 1
i Infinity and Possibility 7
2
Possibles and Compossibles
13
3
Being and Non-Being 20
4
Foundation of the Theory
of the Multiple States 26
5
Relationships of Unity and
Multiplicity 31
6
Analogous Considerations
drawn from the Study
of the Dream State 35
7
The Possibilities of
Individual Consciousness 41
8
Mentality as the
Characteristic Element
of Human Individuality 47
9
The Hierarchy of
Individual Faculties 53
10 The Limits of the Indefinite 57
11 Principles of Distinction between the States of Being 61
12 The Two Chaoses 66
13 The Spiritual Hierarchies 69
14 Reply to Objections drawn from
the Plurality of Beings 74
15 The Realization of the Being through Knowledge 77
16 Knowledge and Consciousness 81
17 Necessity and Contingency 86
18 The Metaphysical Notion of Freedom 90
Index 97
The past
century has witnessed an erosion of earlier cultural
values as well as a blurring of the distinctive characteristics of the world’s
traditional civilizations, giving rise to philosophic and moral relativism,
multiculturalism, and dangerous fundamentalist reactions. As early as the
1920s, the French metaphysician Rene Guenon (1886-1951) had diagnosed these
tendencies and presented what he believed to be the only possible
reconciliation of the legitimate, although apparently conflicting, demands of
outward religious forms, ‘exoterisms’, with their essential core, ‘esoterism’.
His works are characterized by a foundational critique of the modern world
coupled with a call for intellectual reform; a renewed examination of metaphysics,
the traditional sciences, and symbolism, with special reference to the
ultimate unanimity of all spiritual traditions; and finally, a call to the work
of spiritual realization. Despite their wide influence, translation of
Guenon’s works into English has so far been piecemeal. The Sophia Perennis
edition is intended to fill the urgent need to present them in a more
authoritative and systematic form. A complete list of Guenon’s works, given in
the order of their original publication in French, follows this note.
The Multiple States of the
Being is the companion to, and the completion
of, The Symbolism of the Cross, which, together with Man and His
Becoming according to the Vedanta, constitute Rene Guenon’s great trilogy
of pure metaphysics. In this work, Guenon offers a masterful explication of the
metaphysical order and its multiple manifestations—of the divine hierarchies
and what has been called the Great Chain of Being—and in so doing demonstrates
how jhana, intellective or intrinsic knowledge of what is, and of That
which is Beyond what is, is a Way of Liberation. Guenon the metaphysical social
critic, master of arcane symbolism, comparative religionist, researcher of
ancient mysteries and secret histories, summoner to
spiritual renewal, herald of the end
days, disappears here. Reality remains.
Guenon often uses words or
expressions set off in ‘scare quotes’. To avoid clutter, single quotation marks
have been used throughout. As for transliterations, Guenon was more concerned
with phonetic fidelity than academic usage. The system adopted here reflects
the views of scholars familiar both with the languages and Guenon’s writings.
Brackets indicate editorial insertions, or, within citations, Guenon’s
additions. Wherever possible, references have been updated, and English
editions substituted.
The present translation is
based on the work of Henry Fohr, edited by his son Samuel Fohr. The text was
checked for accuracy and further revised by Marie Hansen. For help with
selected chapters and proofreading thanks go to John Champoux, and, for final
reviews, to John Herlihy and Allan Dewar. A special debt of thanks is owed to
Cecil Bethell, who revised and proofread the text at several stages and
provided the index, and to Prof. Jocelyn Godwin, who generously put his earlier
(1984) translation at our disposal for purposes of comparison. Cover design by
Michael Buchino and Gray Henry, based on a drawing of a knot-motif by Guenon’s
friend and collaborator Ananda K. Coomaraswamv
OF RENE GUENON
Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines
(1921)
Theosophy: History of a Pseudo-Religion
(1921)
The Spiritist Fallacy
(1923)
East and West (1924)
Man and His Becoming according to the Vedanta
(1925)
The Esoterism of Dante
(1925)
The Crisis of the Modern World (1927)
The King of the World
(1927)
Spiritual Authority and
Temporal Power (1929)
The Symbolism of the Cross (1931)
The Multiple States of the Being (1932)
The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times
(1945)
Perspectives on Initiation
(1946)
The Great Triad
(1946)
The Metaphysical Principles of the
Infinitesimal Calculus (1946)
Initiation and Spiritual
Realization (1952)
Insights into Christian
Esoterism (1954)
Symbols of Sacred Science
(1962)
Studies in Freemasonry and the Compagnonnage
(1964)
Studies in Hinduism
(1966)
Traditional Forms and Cosmic
Cycles (1970)
Insights into Islamic Esoterism and Taoism
(1973)
Reviews (1973)
Miscellanea (1976)
In our
preceding study, The Symbolism of the Cross, we set forth a geometrical
representation of the being based entirely on the metaphysical theory of the
multiple states according to the data furnished by the different traditional
doctrines. The present volume will form a sort of complement to the earlier
study, for the information given there was perhaps not sufficient to bring out
the full range of this altogether fundamental theory; indeed, at that time we
had to limit ourselves to what related most directly to the clearly- defined
goal we had set ourselves. That is why, setting aside the symbolic
representation already described, or at most only referring to it incidentally
as need arises, we devote this new work entirely to an ampler development of
the theory in question, both—and above all-in its very principles and in
certain of its applications as they concern the being more particularly in its
human aspect.
Regarding this last point,
it is perhaps not useless to recall from the outset that the fact of our
pausing to consider matters of this order in no way implies that the human
state occupies a privileged rank in the totality of universal Existence, or
that it is metaphysically distinguished with respect to other states by the
possession of any prerogative whatsoever. In reality, this human state is no
more than one state of manifestation among an indefinitude of others; in the
hierarchy of the degrees of Existence it is situated in the place assigned to
it by its own nature, that is, by the limiting character of the conditions
which define it, and this place confers upon it neither absolute superiority
nor absolute inferiority. If we must sometimes consider this human state in
particular, it is solely because this is the state in which we find ourselves,
and it thereby acquires for us, but for us alone, an especial importance; but
this is only an altogether relative and contingent point of view belonging to
the individuals that we are in our present mode of manifestation. This is why,
especially in speaking of superior and inferior states, we always make
this hierarchical division from the
human point of view, for it is the only term of comparison directly graspable
by us as individuals; and we must not forget that every expression is enclosed
in a form and necessarily framed in individual mode, so much so that when we
wish to speak of anything, even purely metaphysical truths, we can do so only
by descending to an altogether different order—an essentially limited and
relative one—in order to translate them into the language of human
individualities. The reader will doubtless understand without difficulty all
the precautions and reservations imposed by the inevitable imperfections of
this language, which is so manifestly inadequate to what it must express in
such a case; there is an obvious disproportion here, but one found equally in
all formal representations whatsoever, including strictly symbolic representations,
although these latter are incomparably less narrowly restricted than ordinary
language and consequently more apt for the communication of transcendent
truths, and so they are invariably used in all truly ‘initiatic’ and
traditional teaching.[1]
Indeed, as we have noted time and time again, in order not to alter the truth
by a partial, restrictive, or systematized explanation, it is always fitting to
reserve a place for the inexpressible, that is to say for what cannot be
enclosed in any form and in reality is, metaphysically speaking, the most
important thing.
While still considering
the human state, if we wish to relate the individual point of view to the
metaphysical point of view, as must always be done when it is a question of
‘sacred science’, and not merely profane knowledge, it can be said that the
realization of the total being can be accomplished taking any state at all as a
base or point of departure, by reason of the equivalence of all contingent modes
of existence when regarded from the standpoint of the Absolute; thus it can be
accomplished from the human state as well as from any other, and, as we have
said elsewhere, even from any modality of that state, which amounts to saying
more particularly
that it is also possible for
corporeal and terrestrial man, whatever Westerners may think, led into error as
they are about the importance to be attributed to 'corporeity’ because of the
extraordinary insufficiency of their conceptions concerning the constitution of
the human being.[2]
Since it is in this state that we presently find ourselves, it is here that we
must begin if our goal is to attain metaphysical realization in any degree;
and this is the essential reason for considering this case more particularly;
but having developed these observations elsewhere, we shall not dwell on them
further here, especially since our present exposition will enable us to
understand them still better.[3]
On the other hand, to
avoid all possible confusion, the reader must be reminded at once that when we
speak of the multiple states of the being it is not a question of a
multiplicity that is simply numerical, nor even more generally quantitative’,
but rather multiplicity of a 'transcendent’ or truly universal order, applicable
to all the domains that constitute the different ‘worlds’ or degrees of
Existence considered separately or in their totality, and therefore outside and
beyond the special domain of number and even of quantity in all its modes. In
fact, quantity—and all the more so number, which is only one of its modes,
namely that of discontinuous quantity—is but one of the conditions that
determine certain states, ours among them; it could not therefore be
transferred to other states, and still less could it be applied to the totality
of states, which obviously escapes any such determination. That is why when we
speak in this respect of an indefinite multitude, we should always be careful
to observe that the indefinitude in question exceeds all number, and also everything
to which quantity is more or less directly applicable, such as spatial and
temporal indefinitude, which similarly arise only from conditions proper to our
world.[4]
Yet another remark is
imperative concerning our use of the word ‘being’ itself, which, strictly
speaking, can no longer be applied in its
proper sense to certain states of
non-manifestation that lie beyond the degree of pure Being, and which we shall
discuss below. However, the very constitution of human language obliges us to
retain this same term in such a case for want of a more adequate one, but we
attribute to it only the purely analogical and symbolic meaning without which
it would be quite impossible to speak in any way of these matters, this
providing a very clear example of the insufficiencies of expression to which
we have just alluded. In this way, we shall be able, as we have already done
elsewhere, to continue speaking of the total being as simultaneously
manifested in certain of its states and non-manifested in others, without this
in anyway implying that for the latter states we must restrict ourselves to
the consideration of what corresponds properly to the degree of Being.[5]
In this connection we
should recall that to stop at Being and to consider nothing beyond it, as if in
some way it were the supreme Principle, the most Universal of all, is one of
the characteristic traits of certain ideas found in Western antiquity and the
Middle Ages; and while they incontestably contain a metaphysical element not
found in modern conceptions, they remain largely incomplete in this respect,
and also insofar as they are presented as theories established for their own
sakes and not in view of a corresponding effective realization. This, of
course, is not to say that there were no other ideas current at that time in
the West; we are only referring to those conceptions that are generally known,
and whose value and importance have been exaggerated by those who, despite
their praiseworthy efforts to react against modern negations, have failed to
realize that these are still only fairly exterior points of view, and that in
civilizations such as this, where a kind of rift has formed between two orders
of instruction superimposed upon each other without ever being opposed,
‘exoterism’ requires esoterism’ as its necessary complement. When this
esoterism is misunderstood, and the civilization is no longer directly attached
to its superior principles by any effective link, it is not long before it
loses all its traditional character, for the elements of this order still
subsisting in it are like a body abandoned by the spirit, and consequently are
henceforth powerless to
constitute anything more than a sort
of empty formalism, which is exactly what has occurred in the modern Western
world.6
Having provided these few
explanations, we can now enter into our subject itself without the delay of
further preliminaries, for all that we have already explained elsewhere allows
us to dispense with them in great part. We cannot in fact return indefinitely
to what we have said in our previous works, for this would be a waste of time;
if some repetitions should prove inevitable, we shall try to reduce them to
what is strictly indispensable in order to understand what we now propose to
set forth, referring the reader when necessary to the appropriate parts of our
other works, where he will find complementary discussions or more ample
developments of the questions that we must now consider anew. The principal
cause of difficulty in this exposition is that all these questions are more or
less closely connected to one another, and although it is important to show
these connections as often as possible, it is no less important to avoid any
appearance of‘systematization’, that is, of a limitation incompatible with the
very nature of metaphysical doctrine, which, on the contrary, should open up to
those who can comprehend and ‘assent’ to it, possibilities of conception that
are not only indefinite in number, but—and we say this with no abuse of
language—really infinite, representing the totality of Truth itself.
1
To understand
the doctrine of the multiplicity of the states of the being, it is necessary
before considering anything else to return to the most primordial notion of
all, that of metaphysical Infinity, envisaged in its relationship with
universal Possibility. The Infinite, according to the etymology of the term
which designates it, is that which has no limits; and if we are to preserve
this word in its strict sense we must rigorously limit its use to the
designation of that which has absolutely no limits whatsoever, excluding here
everything that only escapes from certain particular limiting conditions while
remaining subject to other limitations by virtue of its very nature, in which
these limitations are essentially inherent—as, from the logical point of view
which simply translates in its fashion the point of view that can be called
'ontological’, are those elements implicated in the very definition of the
things in question. As we have already mentioned on many occasions, these
latter include number, space, and time, even in the most general and extended
conceptions we can possibly form of them, which far exceed our ordinary
notions;[6] all
of this can really only be in the domain of the
indefinite. It is to this
indefinitude, when it is of a quantitative order as in the examples just
mentioned, that some people improperly apply the term mathematical infinity’,
as if adding a fixed epithet or qualification to the word ‘infinity’ did not
itself imply a contradiction pure and simple.[7]
In fact, this indefinitude, proceeding from the finite of which it is merely an
extension or a development (and therefore always reducible to the finite), has
no common measure with the true Infinite, any more than an individuality, human
or otherwise, even considered with the integrality of the indefinite prolongations
of which it is capable, can ever be commensurate with the total being.[8]
This formation of the indefinite from the finite, of which we have a very clear
example in the production of the series of numbers, is only possible on
condition that the finite already contain the indefinite potentially, and even
were the limits extended so far as to be lost to sight, so to speak—that is, to
the point at which they escape our ordinary means of measurement—they certainly
are not abolished thereby; by reason of the very nature of the causal relation
it is quite obvious that the ‘greater’ cannot come from the ‘lesser’, nor the
Infinite from the finite.
It cannot be otherwise
when, as in the present case, we consider various orders of particular
possibilities that are manifestly limited by the coexistence of other orders of
possibilities, and thus limited by virtue of their own nature to such and such
determined possibilities and no others, and not to all possibilities without
restriction. If it were not so, the coexistence of an indefinitude of other
possibilities not included in these, each of which is equally susceptible of an
indefinite development, moreover, would be an impossibility and
thus an absurdity in the logical
sense of the word.[9] The
Infinite on the contrary, to be truly such, cannot admit of any restriction,
which presupposes that it be absolutely unconditioned and undetermined, for
every determination, of whatever sort, is necessarily a limitation by the very
fact that it must leave something outside of itself, namely all other equally
possible determinations. Besides, limitation presents the character of a veritable
negation; to set a limit is to deny to that which is limited everything that
this limit excludes, and consequently the negation of a limit is properly the
negation of a negation, that is to say, logically, and even mathematically, an
affirmation, so that in reality the negation of all limit is equivalent to
total and absolute affirmation. That which has no limits is that of which
nothing can be denied, and is therefore what contains everything, that outside
of which there is nothing; and this idea of the Infinite, which is thus the
most affirmative of all because it comprehends or embraces all particular
affirmations whatsoever, can only be expressed in negative terms by reason of
its absolute indetermination. In language, any direct affirmation is in fact
necessarily a particular and determined affirmation—the affirmation of
something particular—whereas total and absolute affirmation is no particular
affirmation to the exclusion of others since it implies them all equally; and
from this it should be easy to grasp the very close relation this presents with
universal Possibility, which in the same way comprehends all particular
possibilities?
The idea of the Infinite
we have just presented[10]
from the purely metaphysical point of view can be neither discussed nor
contested,
for by the very fact that it contains
nothing negative it cannot contain any contradiction—and this is all the more
necessarily so, logically speaking,[11]
since it is negation that would occasion contradiction.[12]
If in fact one envisages the ‘Whole’ in the universal and absolute sense, it is
evident that it cannot be limited in any way, for it could only be so in virtue
of something exterior to it, and if anything were exterior to it, it would not
be the ‘Whole’. It is important to observe moreover that the ‘Whole’ in this
sense must not in any way be likened to a particular or determined whole, that
is, to a totality composed of parts that would stand in a definite relationship
to it; properly speaking, it is ‘without parts’, for these parts would of
necessity be relative and finite and so could have no common measure with it,
and consequently no relationship with it, which amounts to saying that they
would not exist for it,[13]
and this suffices to show that one should not try to form any particular conception
of it.[14]
What we have just said of
the universal Whole in its most absolute indetermination also applies to it
when it is envisaged from the point of view of Possibility; and in truth there
is no determination
here either, or at least only the
minimum required to render it actually conceivable to us, and above all
expressible to some degree. As we have already had occasion to observe,11
a limitation of total Possibility is properly speaking an impossibility, since
to limit it one would have to conceive it, and what is outside of the possible
can be nothing but the impossible; but since an impossibility is a negation
pure and simple, a true nothingness, it can obviously not limit anything
whatsoever, from which it immediately follows that universal Possibility is
necessarily unlimited. We must take great care, however, to understand that
this applies only to universal and total Possibility, which is thus only what
we could call an aspect of the Infinite, from which it is in no way and in no
measure distinct; nothing can be outside the Infinite, for if something were,
the infinite would be limited and so no longer the Infinite. The conception of
a ‘plurality of infinites’ is absurd because these ‘infinities’ would mutually
limit each other, and so in reality none of them would be infinite;12
when we say therefore that universal Possibility is infinite or unlimited, it
must be understood that it is nothing other than the Infinite itself envisaged
under a certain aspect—insofar as it is permissible to say that there are
aspects to the Infinite. Since the Infinite is truly ‘without parts’, strictly
speaking there could be no question of a multiplicity of aspects really and
‘distinctively’ inhering in it; in fact it is we who conceive the Infinite
under this or that aspect because we cannot do otherwise, and even if our
conception were not essentially limited—as it is so long as we are in an
individual state—it would necessarily have to limit itself, for to become
expressible, it must assume a determinate form. What matters is
by one. Besides, even where a
particular whole is concerned, there are two cases to be distinguished from one
another: a true whole is logically anterior to its parts and independent of
them, whereas a whole conceived as logically posterior to its parts, of which
it is merely the sum, in fact only constitutes what the Scholastic philosophers
called the ens rationis, whose existence as a ‘whole’ depends on the
condition of actually being thought of as such. The first case contains in
itself a real principle of unity, superior to the multiplicity of its parts,
whereas the second has no other unity than that which our thought attributes to
it.
11. The Symbolism of the Cross,
chap. 14.
12. Ibid., chap. 24.
that we should clearly understand
whence the limitation comes and on what it depends, so that we attribute it
only to our own imperfection, or rather to that of the exterior and interior
faculties currently at our disposal as individual beings, which as such
effectively possess only a definite and conditioned existence, and do not transfer
this imperfection, which is as purely contingent and transitory as are the
conditions to which it refers and from which it results, to the unlimited
domain of universal Possibility itself.
And, finally, let us add
that if one speaks correlatively of the Infinite and Possibility, it is not
with the intention of establishing between these terms a distinction which
could not in fact exist, but rather because here the Infinite is being envisaged
particularly in its active aspect while Possibility is its passive aspect.[15]
Now whether we regard it as active or passive, it is always the Infinite which
cannot be affected by these contingent points of view, and the determinations,
whatever may be the principle by which they are effected, only exist in
relation to our own conception. In short, this is what we have elsewhere called
‘active perfection’ (Khien) and ‘passive perfection’ (Khouen),
following the terminology of the Far-Eastern doctrine, perfection in its
absolute sense being identical with the Infinite understood in all its
indetermination; and as we said at the time, this is analogous—though to
another degree and from a more universal point of view—to what in Being are
called ‘essence’ and ‘substance’.[16]
For what follows it must be well understood that Being does not contain the
whole of Possibility, and that consequently it can in no wise be identified
with the Infinite; this is why we say that our point of view here is far more
universal than that from which we envisage Being alone. We mention this only to
avoid all confusion, for in what follows we shall have occasion to explain this
point more fully.
2
AND
COMPOSSIBLES
We
have said that universal Possibility is unlimited, and cannot be anything but
unlimited; to wish to conceive of it otherwise is in fact to condemn oneself to
being unable to conceive of it at all. This is what makes all modern Western
philosophical systems impotent from the metaphysical, that is, the universal,
point of view, and this is so precisely to the extent that they are systems, as
we have already pointed out on a number of occasions. As such, they are in fact
only restricted and closed conceptions, which can have a certain validity in a
relative domain by dint of some of their elements but which become dangerous
and false as soon as, taken as a whole, they pretend to be something more, and
try to pass themselves off as an expression of total reality. It is doubtless
always legitimate, should one judge it necessary, to envisage certain orders of
possibilities in particular to the exclusion of others, and this is what any
science must do; but it is not legitimate to affirm that this is the whole of Possibility,
and to deny everything that goes beyond the measure of one’s own individual
comprehension which is always more or less limited.[17]
Yet, to one degree or another, this is the essential characteristic of that
systematic form which seems inherent to all modern Western philosophy, and this
is one of the reasons why philosophical thought in the ordinary sense of the
word does not and cannot
have anything in common with
doctrines of a purely metaphysical order.[18]
Among the philosophers
who, by reason of this systematic and truly £anti-metaphysical’
tendency, have tried in one way or another to limit universal Possibility,
some, like Leibnitz (whose views, however, are in many respects the least
limited), have chosen to make use of the distinction between ‘possibles’ and
‘compossibles’; but it is only too evident that this distinction, to the extent
that it is validly applicable, can in no way serve this illusory purpose.
Compossibles are in fact nothing but possibilities that are mutually
compatible, that is to say whose union in a complex whole introduces no contradictions
into the latter; consequently, the ‘compossibility’ is always essentially
relative to the whole in question. Moreover, it is clear that such a whole may
be that of the characteristics constituting all the attributes of a particular
object, or that of an individual being, or again may be something far more
general and extended, such as the totality of all the possibilities subject to
certain common conditions forming thereby a certain definite order, say one of
the domains included in universal Existence; but in all cases the whole is
always determined, for otherwise the distinction would no longer apply. So,
taking first an example of a particular and extremely simple order, a ‘round square’
is an impossibility because the union of the two possibles ‘round’ and ‘square’
in the same figure implies contradiction; but these two possibles are
nonetheless also realizable, for the existence of a square figure obviously
does not preclude the simultaneous existence of a round one in the same space,
any more than it does any other conceivable geometrical figure.[19]
This may seem too obvious to be worth insisting on, but because of its very
simplicity such an example offers the
advantage of helping to explain by analogy apparently more complex cases such
as the one we are about to discuss.
Now, if instead of a
particular object or being we consider what we might call a world in the sense
we have already given this word, that is, the entire domain formed by a certain
ensemble of compos- sibles realized in manifestation, then these compossibles
must be the totality of possibles that satisfy certain conditions
characterizing and precisely defining that world, which constitutes one of the
degrees of universal Existence. The other possibles, which are not determined
by the same conditions and consequently cannot be part of the same world, are
obviously no less realizable for all that, but of course each according to the
mode befitting its nature. In other words, every possible has its proper
existence as such,[20]
and those whose nature implies a realization as ordinarily understood— that is,
an existence in any mode of manifestation[21]—cannot
lose this characteristic, which is essentially inherent to them, and become
unrealizable simply because other possibilities are currently being realized.
One can say further that every possibility that is a possibility of
manifestation must necessarily be manifested by that very fact, and that,
inversely, any possibility that is not to be manifested is a possibility of
non-manifestation; expressed thus, it may seem that we are merely defining
terms, and yet the preceding affirmation comprises nothing other than a
statement of axiomatic truth admitting of no discussion. But if one should ask
why all possibilities need not be manifested, that is, why there are at the
same time both possibilities of manifestation and possibilities of
non-manifestation, it would suffice to answer that the domain of manifestation,
being
limited by the very fact that it is a
totality of worlds or conditioned states—an indefinite multitude moreover—could
not exhaust universal Possibility in its totality, for it excludes everything
unconditioned, that is, precisely what matters most from the metaphysical
point of view. As for the question why one possibility rather than another
should be manifested, this amounts to asking why it is what it is and not
something else, exactly as if one asked why some being is itself and not
another, which would certainly be a senseless question. What must be
understood in this regard is that a possibility of manifestation does not as
such have any superiority over a possibility of non-manifestation; it is not
the object of a sort of‘choice’ or ‘preference’,[22]
but is only of another nature.
If, concerning
compossibles, one should now object that ‘there is only one world,’ according
to the expression of Leibnitz, one of two things follow: either this
affirmation is a pure tautology, or it is devoid of sense. Indeed, if by
‘world’ one understands the whole Universe, or, restricting oneself to the
possibilities of manifestation, even the entire domain of all these
possibilities, that is, universal Existence, the statement is self-evident,
even if its manner of expression is perhaps inappropriate; but if by this term
one understands only a certain whole of compossibles, as one usually does, and
as we have just done ourselves, it is as absurd to say that its existence prevents
the coexistence of other worlds as it would be to maintain that the existence
of a circle is incompatible with the coexistence of a square, a triangle, or
any other figure (to return to our previous example). All one can say is that
just as the characteristics of a determinate object exclude from that object
the presence of all other characteristics with which they would be in
contradiction, the conditions by which a determinate world is defined likewise
exclude from that world those possibles the nature of which does not imply
a realization subject to those same
conditions; these possibles are thus outside the limits of the world under
consideration, but that in no way excludes them from universal Possibility
(since it is a question of hypothetical possibles), nor even, in more
restricted cases, from Existence in the proper sense of the term, that is, as
comprising the entire domain of universal manifestation. There are multiple
modes of existence in the Universe, to one or another of which each possible
conforms according to its own nature. To speak of a sort of‘struggle for
existence’ among the possibles as is sometimes done, and with reference
precisely to Leibnitz’s conception (while doubtless straying very far from his
own thought) certainly has nothing of metaphysics about it, and this attempt to
transpose what is merely a biological hypothesis (connected with modern ‘evolutionist’
theories) is even altogether unintelligible.
The distinction between
the possible and the real, upon which many philosophers have placed so much
emphasis, thus has no metaphysical validity, for every possible is real in its
way, according to the mode befitting its own nature;[23]
if it were otherwise there would be possibles that were nothing, and to say
that a possible is nothing is a contradiction pure and simple; as we have
already said, it is the impossible, and the impossible alone, that is a pure
nothing. To deny that there are possibilities of non-manifestation is to wish
to limit universal Possibility, whereas to deny that there are different orders
among the possibilities of manifestation is to wish to limit it even more
narrowly.
Before moving on we should
observe that, instead of considering the totality of the conditions that
determine a world, as was done in the foregoing, one could also take the same
point of view but consider one of these conditions in isolation; for instance,
from among
the
conditions of the corporeal world we might take space, envisaged as what
contains spatial possibilities.[24] It is quite evident
that by definition only spatial possibilities can be realized in space; but it
is no less evident that this does not prevent non-spatial possibilities from
being equally realized (and here, restricting ourselves to consideration of
the possibilities of manifestation, ‘being realized’ must be taken as
synonymous with ‘being manifested’) outside of that particular condition of
existence which is space. If, however, space were infinite, as some claim,
there would be no place in the Universe for any non-spatial possibility, and,
logically, thought itself—to take the most common and well-known example—would
have to be excluded from existence except on condition of being conceived of as
extended, a conception that ‘profane’ psychology itself recognizes without
hesitation as false; but, far from being infinite, space is only one of the
possible modes of manifestation, and this latter itself is not at all infinite
even taken in the integrality of its extension along with the indefinitude of
its modes, each of which is again indefinite.[25]
Similar remarks would apply to any other special condition of existence, and
what is true of each of these conditions taken separately holds true also for
any group of them, of which the union or combination determines a world.
Besides, it goes without saying that the several conditions thus united must be
mutually compatible, and that their compatibility obviously entails that of
the possibles they include respectively, with the restriction that the
possibles subject to the given group of conditions can only constitute a part
of those which are comprised in each of the conditions envisaged apart from the
others, from which it follows that these conditions in their integrality,
beyond what they hold in common, will include various prolongations that
nevertheless still belong to the same
degree
of universal Existence. These prolongations of indefinite extension correspond
in the cosmic and general order to what, for a particular being, are those of
one of its states—for example of one individual state considered integrally,
that is, beyond any certain definite modality of that same state, such as the
corporeal modality of our human individuality.[26]
3
In the preceding chapter we noted the distinction between the
possibilities of manifestation and the possibilities of non-mani- festation,
both being included equally and by the same right in total Possibility. This
distinction precedes more particular distinctions, such as those between the
different modes of universal manifestation, that is, the different orders of
possibilities comprised therein, which are distributed according to the special
conditions to which they are respectively subject, and constitute an indefinite
multiplicity of worlds, or of degrees of Existence.
If we concede this and define Being in the universal sense as
the principle of manifestation, and at the same time as comprising in itself
the totality of all the possibilities of manifestation, we must say that Being
is not infinite because it does not coincide with total Possibility; and all
the more so because Being, as the principle of manifestation, although it does
indeed comprise all the possibilities of manifestation, does so only insofar as
they are actually manifested. Outside of Being, therefore, are all the rest,
that is, all the possibilities of non-manifestation, as well as the
possibilities of manifestation themselves insofar as they are in the
unmanifested state; and included among these is Being itself, which cannot
belong to manifestation since it is the principle thereof, and in consequence
is itself unmanifested. For want of any otherterm, we are obliged to designate
all that is thus outside and beyond Being as ‘Non-Being’, but for us this
negative term is in no way a synonym for ‘nothingness’, as seems to be the case
in the language of certain philosophers; besides being directly inspired by the
terminology of the metaphysical
doctrine
of the Far East, it is sufficiently justified by the need to use some kind of
terminology in order for one to speak of these things at all; moreover, as we
indicated above, the most universal ideas, being the most indeterminate, can
only be expressed—to the degree that they are expressible at all—by terms that
are in effect negative in form, as we have seen in connection with the
Infinite. One can also say that Non-Being, in the sense we have just indicated,
is more than Being—or, if one likes, is superior to Being, if one understands
thereby that what it comprehends exceeds the extension of Being— and that in
principle it contains Being itself. However, when we oppose Non-Being to Being,
or even simply differentiate them, it is because neither the one nor the other
is infinite, for from this point of view they limit each other in a way:
infinity appertains only to the totality of Being and Non-Being, because this
totality is identical with universal Possibility.
We can express these things again in the following way:
universal Possibility necessarily contains the totality of possibilities, and
one can say that Being and Non-Being are its two aspects, Being insofar as it
manifests the possibilities (or, more precisely, certain of them), and
Non-Being insofar as it does not manifest them. Being, therefore, contains
everything manifested; Non-Being contains everything unmanifested, including
Being itself; but universal Possibility contains both Being and Non-Being. We
would add that non-mani- festation contains both what we may call the
unmanifestable, that is, the possibilities of non-manifestation, and the
manifestable, that is, the possibilities of manifestation insofar as they are
not manifested—manifestation obviously containing only the totality of those
same possibilities insofar as they are manifested.[27]
Concerning the relations between Being and Non-Being, it is
essential to note that the state of manifestation is always transitory and
conditioned, and that, even for the possibilities that manifestation includes,
the state of non-manifestation alone is absolutely permanent and
unconditioned.[28] And let us add in
this connection that
nothing
of what is manifested can ever ‘be lost; to use a frequently heard expression,
other than by its passage into the non-manifested; and of course this very
passage (which in the case of individual manifestation is properly a
‘transformation’ in the etymological sense, that is, passage beyond form)
constitutes a ‘loss’ only from the special point of view of manifestation, for
in the state of nonmanifestation, on the contrary, all things subsist
eternally in principle, independent of all the particular and limiting
conditions that characterize this or that mode of manifested existence. All the
same, to say truthfully that ‘nothing is lost’, even with this reservation concerning
non-manifestation, one must envisage the totality of universal manifestation,
and not simply this or that one of its states to the exclusion of the others,
for the continuity of all these states relative to each other always allows
passage from one to another without this continual movement, which is only a
change of mode (implying a corresponding change in the conditions of
existence), being in any way a departure from the domain of manifestation.[29]
As for the possibilities of non-manifestation, they belong essentially
to Non-Being and by their very nature cannot enter into the domain of Being,
contrary to the situation with the possibilities of manifestation; but as we
said above, this implies no superiority of
the
one over the other, for both are only different modes of reality and conform to
their respective natures. Ultimately, the distinction between Being and
Non-Being is purely contingent, for it can only be drawn from the point of view
of manifestation, which is itself essentially contingent. This in no way
diminishes the importance that this distinction has for us, however, given that
in our present state it is not possible for us to place ourselves effectively
at a point of view other than this, which remains ours so long as we ourselves
are conditioned and individual beings belonging to the domain of manifestation,
and which we surpass only through liberating ourselves entirely from the
limiting conditions of individual existence by metaphysical realization.
As an example of a possibility of non-manifestation we can cite
the void, for such a possibility is conceivable, at least negatively, by
excluding certain determinations; the void implies not only the exclusion of
every corporeal or material attribute, or even, more generally, of every formal
quality, but also of all that pertains to any mode of manifestation whatsoever.
It is then nonsense to claim that there could be a void in any state of
universal manifestation whatsoever,[30]
for the void belongs essentially to the domain of non-manifestation, the term
admitting of no other intelligible meaning. We must confine ourselves to these
simple remarks concerning the void and not treat the subject exhaustively with
all the elaboration this would entail, for that would take us too far afield;
and, since serious confusions on the question arise above all concerning space,[31] these related
considerations will be more aptly treated in a study we intend to devote
particularly to the conditions of corporeal existence.[32]
From our present point of view, we must simply add that, however it may be
envisaged, the void is not Non-Being but only
24 the multiple states of
the being
what
might be called one of its aspects, that is to say one of the possibilities
that it contains, which possibilities are other than those included within
Being and are therefore outside the latter, even when it is envisaged in its
totality; and this shows yet again that Being is not infinite. Besides, when we
say that such a possibility constitutes one aspect of Non-Being, this
possibility must never be conceived of in distinctive mode, for this mode
applies exclusively to manifestation; this explains why, even if we could
actually conceive of that possibility which is the void, or any other
possibility of the same order, we could only express it in completely negative
terms; and this remark, which applies generally to all that relates to
Non-Being, further justifies our use of that term/
Such considerations then could be applied to every other possibility
of non-manifestation. We could take another example, like silence, but its
application would be too simple to be useful; and so we confine ourselves here
to adding that just as Non-Being, or the non-manifested, comprehends or
envelops Being, or the principle of manifestation, so does silence carry in
itself the principle of speech; in other words, just as Unity (Being) is
nothing but metaphysical Zero (Non-Being) affirmed, so speech is nothing but
silence expressed; but, inversely, metaphysical Zero (Non-Being), while being
Unity unaffirmed, is also something more (and even infinitely more), just as
silence, which is an aspect thereof in the sense we have just explained, is not
merely the spoken word unexpressed, for there must also subsist within it what
is inexpressible, that is, what is not susceptible of manifestation (for
expression means manifestation, and even formal manifestation) and so of
determination in distinctive mode.[33]
The relationship that is thus
established
between silence (non-manifested) and speech (manifested) shows how it is
possible to conceive of possibilities of nonmanifestation that correspond by
analogical transposition to certain possibilities of manifestation,[34] without our claiming
in any way, even here, to introduce into Non-Being an actual distinction, which
could find no place therein, since existence in a distinctive mode (which is
existence in the proper sense of the word) is essentially inherent in the
conditions of manifestation (distinctive mode here is not necessarily
synonymous in every case with individual mode, the latter implying especially
formal distinction).[35]
FOUNDATION
OF THE THEORY OF
THE MULTIPLE STATES
The preceding exposition contains the basis for the theory of
the multiple states in all its universality: if one envisages any being
whatsoever in its totality, it must include, at least virtually, states of
manifestation and states of non-manifestation, for it is only in this sense
that one can truly speak of ‘totality’, as otherwise one is only dealing with
something incomplete and fragmentary that cannot truly constitute the total
being;[36] and since, as we
have said above, non-manifestation alone possesses the character of absolute
permanence, manifestation in its transitory condition draws all its reality
from it; and by this it is evident that Non-Being, far from being
‘nothingness’, is exactly the opposite, if indeed ‘nothingness’ could have an
opposite, for this would imply granting it a certain degree of ‘positivity’
incompatible with its absolute ‘negativity’, which is pure impossibility.[37]
This being so, it follows that it is essentially the states of
nonmanifestation that assure the being permanence and identity, for
aside
from these states, that is, taking the being only in its manifested aspect,
without reference to its non-manifested principle, this permanence and this
identity can only be illusory, since the domain of manifestation is properly
the domain of the transitory and multiple, involving continual and indefinite
modifications. This being so, one will readily understand what, from the
metaphysical point of view, one should think of the supposed unity of the ‘self1,
that is, the individual being so indispensable to Western and profane psychology:
on the one hand it is a fragmentary unity, since it refers to a part of the
being only, to one of its states taken in isolation and arbitrarily from among
an indefinite number of others (and this state, too, is far from being
envisaged in its integrality), while on the other hand this unity, even if only
considered in reference to this special state, is as relative as possible,
since this state is itself composed of an indefinite number of diverse
modifications and so has even less reality when abstracted from its
transcendent principle (the ‘Self’ or personality), which alone could truly
give it reality by maintaining the identity of a being in permanent mode
throughout all these modifications.
The states of non-manifestation are of the domain of Non-Being,
and the states of manifestation are of the domain of Being envisaged in its
integrality; it could also be said that these latter correspond to the
different degrees of Existence, which are nothing other than the different
modes of universal manifestation, indefinite in their multiplicity. In order
to establish a clear distinction between Being and Existence, we must, as we
have already said, consider Being strictly as the very principle of
manifestation; universal Existence will then be the integral manifestation of
the ensemble of possibilities that Being comprises, and which moreover are all
the possibilities of manifestation, implying the effective development of those
possibilities in a conditioned mode. Being thus envelops Existence, and is
metaphysically more than the latter since it is its principle; Existence is
thus not identical with Being, for the latter corresponds to a lesser degree of
determination, and consequently to a higher degree of universality.[38]
Although Existence is essentially unique because Being in itself
is one, it nonetheless comprises the indefinite multiplicity of the modes of
manifestation, for it contains them all equally by the very fact that they are
all equally possible, this possibility implying that each one of them must be
realized according to the conditions proper to it. As we have said elsewhere,
in connection with this ‘unicity of Existence’ (in Arabic, Wahdat al-wujud)
as found in the teachings of Islamic esoterism,[39]
it follows that Existence comprises in its very ‘unicity’ an indefinitude of
degrees corresponding to all the modes of universal manifestation (which is
basically the same thing as Existence itself); and for any being whatsoever
envisaged in the entire domain of that Existence, this indefinite multiplicity
of degrees of existence implies correlatively a like indefinite multiplicity
of possible states of manifestation, each of which must be realized in a
determined degree of universal Existence. A state of a being is then the
development of a particular possibility contained in such a degree, that degree
being defined by the conditions to which the possibility is subject insofar as
it is envisaged as realizing itself in the domain of manifestation.[40]
Thus, each state of manifestation of a being corresponds to a
degree of Existence, and in addition includes diverse modalities in accordance
with the different combinations of conditions to which one and the same general
mode of manifestation is susceptible; and finally, each modality comprises in
itself an indefinite series of secondary and elementary modifications. If, for
example, we consider the being in the particular state of human individuality,
the corporeal part of this individuality is only one of its modalities, and
this modality is not precisely determined by a single condition but by an
ensemble of conditions that delimit its possibilities, these conditions taken
in combination defining the perceptible or corporeal
world?
As we have already noted/ each of these conditions considered in isolation
from the others can extend beyond the domain of that modality, and, whether
through its own extension or through its combination with different conditions,
can then constitute the domain of other modalities that are part of the same
integral individuality. Moreover, each modality must be regarded as
susceptible of development in the course of a certain cycle of manifestation,
and, for the corporeal modality in particular, the secondary modifications
that this development includes will be all the moments of its existence
(envisaged under the aspect of temporal succession), or, what comes to the same
thing, all the actions and gestures, whatever they may be, that it will carry
out in the course of its existence?
It is almost superfluous to stress how little place the
individual ‘self’ occupies in the totality of the being? since even given its
entire extension when envisaged in its integrality, and not merely in one
particular modality such as the corporeal, it constitutes only one state like
the others, among an indefinitude of others. This is so even when one limits
one’s consideration to the states of manifestation; and beyond this, the
latter are themselves the least important elements in the total being from the
metaphysical point of view, for the reasons given above.[41]
Among the states of manifestation are
those,
apart from human individuality, that can likewise be individual (that is,
formal) states, whereas others are non-individual (that is, non-formal), the
nature of each being determined, together with its place in the hierarchically
organized totality of the being, by the conditions proper to it, for it is
always a matter of conditioned states, by the very fact that they are manifested.
As for the states of non-manifestation, it is evident that, not being more
subject to form than to any other condition of any mode whatsoever of manifested
existence, they are essentially extra-individual; we can say that they
constitute whatever is truly universal in each being, and therefore that by
which each being, in all that it is, is linked to its metaphysical and
transcendent principle, a link without which it would have only an altogether
contingent and in fact purely illusory existence.
5
OF UNITY
AND
MULTIPLICITY
In Non-Being there can be no question of a multiplicity of states,
since this domain is essentially that, of the undifferentiated and even of the
unconditioned; the unconditioned cannot be subject to the determinations of the
one and of the multiple, and the undifferentiated cannot exist in a
distinctive mode. If we nonetheless still speak of states of non-manifestation,
it is not to establish thereby a sort of symmetry with the states of
manifestation—which would be unjustified and altogether artificial—but because
we are forced to introduce a distinction of some kind, lacking which we could
not speak of it at all; however, we must be aware that this distinction does
not exist in itself, and that it is we who give it its altogether relative
existence, since only thus can we envisage what we have called aspects of
Non-Being, even as we admit the inadequacy and impropriety of such an
expression. In Non-Being there is no multiplicity, and strictly speaking there
is no unity either, for Non-Being is metaphysical Zero, to which we are obliged
to attach a name if we are to speak of it, and is logically anterior to unity;
that is why Hindu doctrine speaks in this regard only of ‘non-duality’ (advaita),
which agrees moreover with what we said above on the use of negative forms of
expression.
It is essential to note in this connection that metaphysical
Zero has no more relation to mathematical zero, which is only the sign for what
can be called a negation of quantity, than the true Infinite has to do with the
merely indefinite, that is, with quantity that
increases
or decreases indefinitely;[42] and this absence of
relation, if one can so express it. is of exactly the same order in both cases,
with the reservation however that metaphysical Zero is only one aspect of the
Infinite—at least, we permit ourselves to consider it as such insofar as, in
principle, it contains unity and consequently everything else. In fact,
primordial unity is nothing other than Zero affirmed; or, in other words,
universal Being, which is that unity, is only Non-Being affirmed insofar as
such an affirmation is possible. This affirmation is already a first
determination, and is the most universal of all definite and therefore
conditioned determinations; and this first determination, prior to all
manifestation and to all particularization (including the polarization into
‘essence’ and ‘substance’, which is the first duality and thus the
starting-point of all multiplicity), contains in principle all the other
distinctive determinations or affirmations (corresponding to all the
possibilities of manifestation), which amounts to saying that unity, as soon as
it is affirmed, contains multiplicity in principle, or that it is itself the
immediate principle of that multiplicity.[43]
It has frequently been asked to no purpose how multiplicity can
proceed from unity, without it having been noticed that the question so put
admits of no answer for the simple reason that it is wrongly posed, and in this
form does not correspond to any reality;
multiplicity
does not in fact proceed from unity, any more than unity does from metaphysical
Zero, or than anything at all does from the universal Whole, or than any
possibility can be situated outside the Infinite or outside total Possibility.[44] Multiplicity is
included in primordial Unity, and it does not cease to be so by the fact of its
development in manifested mode; this multiplicity belongs to the possibilities
of manifestation, and cannot be conceived otherwise, for it is manifestation
that implies distinctive existence; moreover, since it is a matter of
possibilities, it is necessary that they should exist in the manner implied by
their own nature. Thus the principle of universal manifestation necessarily
contains multiplicity, all the while being one and even being unity in itself;
and multiplicity, in all its indefinite developments, realized indefinitely in
an indefinitude of directions,[45] proceeds in its
entirety from primordial unity in which it remains ever contained, and which
cannot in any way be affected or modified by the existence of this multiplicity
in itself, for it could obviously not cease to be itself by an effect of its
own nature, and it is precisely insofar as it is unity that it essentially
implies the multiple possibilities in question. Therefore multiplicity exists
in unity itself, and if it does not affect unity, this is because it has only
an altogether contingent existence in relation to it; we can even say that as
long as we do not relate it to unity in the way we have just done, this
existence is purely illusory, for it is unity alone that, being its principle,
gives to it all the reality of which it is capable; and, in its turn, unity is
not an absolute principle, nor is it self-sufficient unto itself, but draws
its own reality from metaphysical Zero.
Being, since it is only the first affirmation, the most
primordial determination, is not the supreme principle of all things; it is
only,
34 THE multiple stales of
the being
we
repeat, the principle of manifestation, and we see by this how very much the
metaphysical point of view is restricted by those who claim to reduce it to
'ontology’ alone, for to abstract it from NonBeing in this way is even to
exclude everything that is in fact most truly and most purely metaphysical.
Having said this in passing, we will conclude our exposition of the present
point with the following: Being is one in itself, and universal Existence,
which is the integral manifestation of its possibilities, is consequently one
in its essence and in its inmost nature; but neither the unity of Being nor the
'unicity’ of Existence excludes the multiplicity of the modes of manifestation,
whence the indefinitude of degrees of Existence in the general and cosmic
order, and of the states of the being in the order of particular existences.[46] Therefore, the
consideration of the multiple states in no way contradicts the unity of Being,
any more than it does the ‘unicity’ of Existence that is based on that unity, since
neither the one nor the other is in any way affected by multiplicity; and from
this it follows that in the whole domain of Being, the fact of multiplicity,
far from contradicting the affirmation of unity or opposing it in any fashion,
finds therein its only valid foundation, logically as well as metaphysically.
6
CONSIDERATIONS
DRAWN
FROM
STUDY OF
THE
DREAM STATE
We now leave the purely metaphysical point of view of the preceding
chapter in order to consider the relationships of unity and multiplicity, for
we can perhaps better understand the nature of these relationships with the
help of some analogical considerations offered by way of example, or rather of
‘illustration’ so to speak,[47] which
will show in what sense and in what measure one can say that the existence of
multiplicity is illusory with respect to unity, while of course still
possessing such reality as its nature allows. We will draw these more
particular considerations from the study of the dream state, which is one of
the modalities of the manifestation of the human being corresponding to the
subtle (that is, non-corporeal) part of its individuality. In this state the
being produces a world that proceeds entirely from itself, and the objects
therein consist exclusively of mental images (as opposed to the sensory
perceptions of
the
waking state), that is to say of combinations of ideas clothed in subtle forms
that depend substantially on the subtle form of the individual himself,
moreover, of which the imaginal objects of a dream are nothing but accidental
and secondary modifications.[48]
In the dream state, man is therefore situated in a world
imagined entirely by himself,[49] every element of
which is consequently drawn from himself, from his own more or less extended
individuality (in its extra-corporeal modalities), like so many‘illusory forms’
(may- avi-rupa),[50]
this being so even if he possesses no clear and distinct consciousness of it.
Whatever may be the interior or exterior starting-point (which may vary widely
according to the case) that gives a dream a certain direction, the events that
unfold therein can only result from a combination of elements contained at
least potentially and as if capable of a certain kind of realization, within
the integral comprehension of the individual; and if these elements, which are
modifications of the individual, are indefinite in number, the variety of such
possible combinations is equally so. A dream should in fact be regarded as a
mode of realization for possibilities that, while belonging to the domain of
human individuality, are for one reason or another not susceptible of
realization in a corporeal mode; such are, for example, the forms of beings
belonging to the same world but other than man, forms that the latter possesses
virtually in himself by reason of the central position he occupies in that
world.[51] These
forms obviously cannot be realized by the human being except in the subtle
state, and the dream is the most ordinary—one could also say the most normal—of
all the means by which he is able to identify himself with other such beings,
without in any way ceasing to be himself, as indicated in this Taoist text:
‘One night,’ said Chuang Tzu,
I
was a butterfly, flitting about and contented with my lot; then I awoke, to
find myself Chuang Chou. Which am I really? A butterfly that dreams it is
Chuang Chou, or Chuang Chou who imagines that he is a butterfly? Are there two
real individuals in my case? Was there a real transformation from one
individual to another? Neither the one nor the other: there were two unreal
modifications of the unique Being, of the universal norm, in which all beings
in all their states are one.[52]
If
in the course of his dream the individual takes an active part in the unfolding
events that his imaginative faculty creates, that is, if in the dream he plays
in it a determined role in the extra-corporeal modality of his being that at
the time corresponds to the state of his clearly manifested consciousness, or
to what one could call the central zone of that consciousness, one must
nonetheless admit that simultaneously he likewise plays’ all the other roles as
well, whether in other modalities, or at the very least in different secondary
modifications of the same modality that also belong to his individual
consciousness—and if not in the current limited state of manifestation of this
consciousness, then at least in some one of its possibilities of
manifestation, which, in their totality, include a field of indefinitely
greater extent. Naturally all these other roles appear secondary to the one
that is principal to the individual, that is, the one in which his current
consciousness is directly involved, and since all the elements of the dream
exist only through this individual, one can say that they are real only insofar
as they participate in his own existence; it is the dreamer himself who
realizes them as so many modifications of himself, without ceasing thereby to
be himself independently of these modifications, which in no way affect what
constitutes the very essence of his individuality. Moreover, if the individual
is conscious that he is dreaming, conscious, that is, of the fact that all the
events unfolding in this state have only the reality that he himself gives
them, he will be entirely unaffected even if in the dream he is simultaneously
actor and spectator, and this is so
precisely
because he will not cease to be a spectator in order to become an actor, the
conception and the realization no longer being separated for his individual
consciousness when it has reached a stage of development sufficient to embrace
synthetically all the present modifications of the individuality. If the
situation is otherwise, the same modifications can still be realized, but if
the consciousness does not link this realization directly to the conception of
which it is an effect, the individual is led to attribute to the dream events a
reality exterior to himself, and, in the measure in which he does so, he is
subject to an illusion of which the cause lies within himself, an illusion
consisting in separating the multiplicity of those events from their immediate
principle, that is to say from his own individual unity.[53]
This is a very clear example of a multiplicity existing within a
unity, without the latter being affected by it; and even though the unity in
question here may only be relative—that of an individualin relation to that
multiplicity, it nonetheless plays a part analogous to that of veritable and
primordial unity in relation to universal manifestation. Moreover, we could
have taken another example and considered the perceptions of the waking state
in this way,[54] but the case we
chose has the advantage over it because the conditions peculiar to the dream
world in which one is isolated from all the exterior, or supposedly exterior,[55] things that
constitute the sensible
world,
permit no argument. What produces the reality of this dream world is the
individual consciousness alone, envisaged in its complete unfolding, in all the
possibilities of manifestation that it comprises; moreover, envisaged thus in
its entirety, this consciousness contains the dream world in the same way that
it contains all the other elements of individual manifestation belonging to any
of the modalities contained in the integral extension of individual
possibility.
Now it is important to note that when universal manifestation is
considered analogically, all that can be said is that, just as the individual
consciousness produces the reality of that special world which is composed of
all its possible modalities, there is also something that produces the reality
of the manifested Universe, but without its being in any way legitimate to
equate that ‘something’ with an individual faculty or a specialized condition
of existence, which would be an eminently anthropomorphic and anti-metaphysical
conception. Consequently it is neither consciousness nor thought, but rather
that something of which consciousness and thought are only particular modes of
manifestation; and if there is an indefini- tude of such possible modes which
can be regarded as so many attributes of universal Being, direct or indirect,
analogous in a certain measure to what, for the individual, are the roles
played in the dream state by his multiple modalities and modifications, and by
which his inmost nature is no longer affected, there is no reason to try to
reduce all these attributes to one or to several of them; or at least there can
only be one reason, which is none other than that systematic tendency we have
already denounced as incompatible with the universality of metaphysics.
Whatever the attributes, they are only different aspects of that unique
principle which gives reality to all manifestation because it is Being itself;
and their diversity exists only from the point of view of differentiated
manifestation, not from that of its principle, or of Being in itself, which is
the veritable and primordial unity. This is true even of the most universal
distinction one can make in Being, that of essence’ and ‘substance’, which are
like the two poles of all manifestation; and consequently it is so a
fortiori for all the more particular aspects, which therefore
are
more contingent and of secondary importance:[56]
whatever value they may take on in the eyes of the individual when he envisages
them from his particular point of view, properly speaking they are only simple
‘accidents’ in the Universe.
7
THE POSSIBILITIES
OF INDIVIDUAL
CONSCIOUSNESS
The preceding discussion of the dream state leads us to make
some general remarks concerning the possibilities contained within the limits
of human individuality, and more particularly the possibilities of this
individual state envisaged under the aspect of consciousness, which
constitutes one of its principal characteristics. Here, of course, we do not
mean to place ourselves at the psychological point of view, although this
latter can be defined precisely by consciousness considered as a characteristic
inherent in certain categories of phenomena produced in the human being, or,
if one prefers a more pictorial mode of expression, as the ‘container’ of
these same phenomena.[57] The psychologist,
moreover, is no more concerned with investigating the profound nature of this
consciousness than is the geometrician with the question of the nature of
space, which he takes as an incontestable fact, and which he considers simply
as the container of all the forms that he studies. Psychology, in other words,
need only concern itself with what we may call ‘phenomenal consciousness’, that
is, consciousness considered exclusively in its relations with phenomena, and
without asking whether or not this is the expression of something of another
order
which,
by very definition, no longer belongs to the psychological domain.[58]
For us, consciousness is something entirely different from what
it is for the psychologist; it does not constitute a particular state of being,
and, in any case, is not the only distinctive characteristic of the individual
human state; and even in the study of this state, or more precisely of its
extra-corporeal modalities, it is not possible for us to admit that everything
refers to a point of view more or less similar to that of psychology.
Consciousness is more a condition of existence in certain states, but not
strictly in the sense in which we speak of the conditions of corporeal
existence, for example. It would be more accurate to say that consciousness is
a ‘raison d’etre’ for the states in question, however strange this may at first
seem, for it is manifestly that by which the individual being participates in
universal Intelligence (Buddhi, in Hindu doctrine);[59]
but naturally in its determined form (as ahankdra)[60] it belongs
to the individual mental faculty (manas), so that in other states the
same participation of the being in universal Intelligence may express itself in
an entirely different mode. Consciousness, of which we do not claim to give a
complete definition here—which would doubtless be of little use[61]— is therefore
something particular, whether in the human state or in other individual states
more or less analogous to it, and consequently is in no way a universal
principle; if it nevertheless constitutes an integral part and a necessary element
of universal Existence, it does so only by exactly the same right as do all
conditions proper to any states of being whatsoever, and it possesses no more
privilege
in
this respect than do the states to which it refers with respect to other
states.[62]
Despite these essential restrictions, consciousness in the
individual human state, like this state itself, is nonetheless capable of
indefinite extension; and even in the ordinary man, that is, one who has not
especially developed his extra-corporeal modalities, it in fact extends much
further than is commonly supposed. It is true that it is generally admitted
that our present clear and distinct consciousness is not the whole
consciousness, that it constitutes only a certain portion thereof, and that what
is excluded may well exceed the former in extent and complexity; but if the
psychologists readily recognize the existence of a ‘subconscious’-—which they
sometimes abuse in making of it an all too convenient explanation, indiscriminately
attributing to it everything that they are unable to classify among the
phenomena they study—they always forget to envisage correlatively a
‘superconscious’/ as if consciousness could not as easily be prolonged above as
below, if indeed such relative notions of ‘above’ and ‘below’ can have any
meaning here, as it seems likely they do, at least from the psychologists’
particular point of view. It should be noted, moreover, that in reality both
the ‘subconscious’ and the ‘superconscious’ are simple prolongations of consciousness
itself and can never take us out of its integral domain, and consequently
cannot in any way be compared to the ‘unconscious’, that is, to what is outside
of consciousness, but on the contrary must be included in the complete notion
of the individual consciousness.
Considered in this way, the individual consciousness suffices to
account for everything that takes place mentally in the domain of
individuality, without need for recourse to the bizarre hypothesis of
a
‘plurality of consciousnesses’, which some people have even understood in the
sense of a literal ‘polypsychism’. It is true that the ‘unity of the self’, as
ordinarily envisaged, is equally illusory, but if this is so, it is precisely
because plurality and complexity exist in the very heart of the consciousness,
which prolongs itself in modalities some of which may be very distant and
obscure, such as those that constitute what might be called ‘organic
consciousness’,[63] as well as most of
those manifested in the dream state.
From another point of view, the indefinite extension of consciousness
renders completely useless certain strange theories that have surfaced in our
time, of which the metaphysical impossibility suffices to refute completely.
Here we do not intend to speak only of the more or less ‘reincarnationist’
hypotheses, and others comparable to them, as implying a similar limitation of
universal Possibility, which we have already discussed sufficiently,[64] for what we have in
view more particularly is the ‘transformist’ hypothesis, which in any case has
now lost much of the undeserved respect it enjoyed for a time.[65] To explain this
point without undue digression, let us observe that the so-called law of the
‘parallelism of ontogeny and phylogeny’, which is one of the principal
postulates of‘transform- ism’, assumes before all else that there really is
such a thing as a phylogeny’, or ‘filiation of the species’, something that is
not a fact but a completely gratuitous hypothesis; the only fact that can be
established is that the individual realizes certain organic forms in the
course of its embryonic development, and that to realize these forms in this
way it has no need to have realized them already in so- called ‘successive
existences’, any more than that it is necessary that the species to which it
belongs should have realized them on its behalf in a development in which the
individual as such could have
had
no part. Besides, embryological considerations apart, the concept of the
multiple states permits us to envisage all these states as existing
simultaneously in one and the same being, and not as traversable only
successively in the course of a ‘descent’ that could pass not only from one
being to another but even from one species to another.[66]
In one sense, the unity of the species is more real and more essential than
that of the individual,[67] which argues against
the reality of such a ‘descent’; on the contrary, the being that belongs, as an
individual, to a determinate species, is nonetheless at the same time
independent of that species in its extra-individual states, and, without going
too far, can even have links with other species by simple prolongations of its
own individuality. For example, as we have already said above, a man who in
dream assumes a certain form thereby makes of this form a secondary modality of
his own individuality, and consequently realizes it effectively according to
the only mode in which this realization is possible for him. From the same
point of view, there are also individual prolongations of a somewhat different
order, presenting a more organic character; but this would take us outside the
bounds of our present subject, and we must limit ourselves to this passing
observation.[68] Besides, a more
complete and detailed refutation of the ‘transformist’ theories must above all
connect them to the study of the nature of species and their conditions of
existence, a study we could not hope to pursue at present; but it is essential
to note that the simultaneity of the multiple states suffices to prove the
futility of such hypotheses, which are completely untenable when envisaged from
the metaphysical point
of
view, and of which the lack of a principle necessarily entails factual errors.
We especially stress the simultaneity of the states of the being
because even the individual modifications realized in successive mode in the
order of manifestation must be conceived as simultaneous in principle, for
otherwise their existence can be only purely illusory. Not only is the ‘current
of forms’ in manifestation—always remembering its altogether relative and
contingent character—fully compatible with the ‘permanent actuality’ of all
things in non-man- ifestation, but, if there were no principle of change, the
very fact of change would be deprived of all reality.
8
CHARACTERISTIC
ELEMENT
OF HUMAN
INDIVIDUALITY
We have said that consciousness understood in its most general sense
cannot be regarded as strictly proper to the human state as such, capable of
characterizing it to the exclusion of all other states; and even in the domain
of corporeal manifestation (which represents only a restricted portion of the
degree of Existence in which the human being is situated), and of that portion
of it that surrounds us most immediately and constitutes terrestrial existence,
there are a multitude of beings not belonging to the human species but which
nevertheless bear enough similarity to it in many respects to prevent us from
supposing them devoid of consciousness, even consciousness understood merely
in its ordinary psychological sense. To one degree or another such is the case
of all animal species, which moreover obviously bear witness to the possession
of consciousness; it took all the blindness of the systematizing spirit to
give birth to a theory as contrary to the evidence as that of the Cartesian
‘animal-machines’. Perhaps one should go still further and envisage the
possibility for the other organic kingdoms, if not for all beings of the
corporeal world, of other forms of consciousness that would appear bound more
particularly to the condition of life, but this is not important for what we
are now proposing to establish.
However, there is assuredly a form of consciousness, among all
possible forms, that is properly human, and this determinate form
(ahankara, or ‘self-consciousness’) is inherent in what we term the
‘mental’ faculty, that is, precisely that ‘internal sense’ which is designated
in Sanskrit by the name manas, and which is truly the characteristic of
human individuality.[69] This faculty is
something altogether special, which, as has been amply explained on other
occasions, must be carefully distinguished from pure intellect, which latter,
on the contrary, by reason of its universality, must be regarded as existing
in all beings and in all states, whatever the modalities through which its
existence is manifested; and one should not see in the ‘mental’ anything beyond
what it really is, that is, to use the terminology of logic, a ‘specific
difference’ pure and simple, the possession of which does not itself confer on
man any effective superiority over other beings. There can in fact be no
question of superiority or inferiority for one being envisaged in relation to
others, except in what they possess in common, which implies a difference, not
of nature, but only of degree, whereas the ‘mental’ is precisely what is
special in man, what is not held in common with non-human beings, and therefore
cannot be the basis of a comparison between the beings concerned. To a certain
degree, the human being could doubtless be regarded as superior or inferior to
other beings, depending upon the chosen point of view (this superiority or
inferiority only being relative moreover), but consideration of the ‘mental’,
as soon as it is introduced as ‘difference’ into the definition of the human
being, can never provide any point of comparison.
To express the same thing again in other terms, we can simply
recall the Aristotelian and Scholastic definition of man as a ‘rational
animal’; if man is defined in this way, and if at the same time reason, or
better still, ‘rationality’, is regarded strictly as that which the medieval
logicians called a differentia animalis, it is evident that the
presence
of the latter cannot constitute anything but a simple distinctive
characteristic. In fact, this difference only applies in the animal genus,
where it characterizes the human species by distinguishing it essentially from
all other species of that same genus; but it does not apply to beings not
belonging to this genus, so that such beings—the angels, for example—can in no
case be called ‘rational’; and this distinction implies only that their nature
is different from that of man, without of course implying for them any
inferiority in respect of the latter.[70]
It should also be understood that the definition just recalled applies to man
only as an individual being, for only as such can he be regarded as belonging
to the animal genus;[71] and it is indeed as
an individual being that man is in fact characterized by reason, or rather by
the ‘mental’, including in this more extensive term reason properly speaking,
which is one of its aspects, and doubtless the principal one.
When we say, in speaking of the ‘mental’ or of reason, or, which
amounts to the same thing, of thought considered in its human mode, that they
are individual faculties, these should naturally not be understood as faculties
that would be proper to one individual to the exclusion of others, or that
would be essentially and radically different in each individual (which,
moreover, would come to the same thing, for one could not then truly say that
they were the same faculties, without the equivalence being merely verbal), but
rather faculties that belong to individuals as such, which would have no raison
d’etre if they were considered aside from a certain individual state and the
particular considerations defining existence in that state. It is in this sense
that reason, for example, is properly an individual human faculty, for if in
the final analysis it is true that in its essence it is common to all men (for
otherwise it would obviously not serve to define human nature), and that it
differs from
one individual to another only in its
application and its secondary modalities, it nonetheless belongs to men as
individuals, and only as individuals, precisely because it is a characteristic
of human individuality; and one must beware of envisaging its correspondence
with the universal in any way but by purely analogical transposition. Thus—and
we emphasize this to avoid all possibility of confusion, a confusion the
‘rationalist’ conceptions of the modern West render all too easy—if one takes
the word ‘reason’ both in a universal and an individual sense, one must always
be mindful that this double usage of one and the same term, which, strictly
speaking, it would be preferable to avoid, is only the indication of a simple
analogy, expressing the refraction of a universal principle (Buddhi} in
the human mental order.[72] It
is only by virtue of this analogy, which is to no degree an identification,
that in a certain sense, and with the preceding reservations, one can give the
name ‘reason’ to what in the universal corresponds, by an appropriate
transposition, to human reason, or, in other words, to that of which the latter
is the expression, as translation and manifestation, in individualized mode.[73]
Besides, the fundamental principles of knowledge, even if one regards them as a
sort of ‘universal reason’, understood in the sense of the Platonic and
Alexandrian Logos, nonetheless surpass all assignable measure, the
particular domain of individual reason, which is exclusively a faculty of
distinctive and discursive knowledge,[74]
on which they impose themselves as givens of a transcendent
order necessarily conditioning all
mental activity. This is evident moreover from the moment one observes that
these principles do not presuppose any particular existence but, on the
contrary, are logically presupposed as the premises, at least implicit, of all
true affirmations of a contingent order. One may even say that by reason of
their universality these principles, which dominate all possible logic, have at
the same time—or rather, before all else—a significance that extends far
beyond the domain of logic, for this latter, at least in its usual and
philosophical sense,7 is and can only be a more or less conscious
application of universal principles to the particular conditions of individual
human understanding.8
Although these few points
depart slightly from the principal subject of our study, they seemed necessary
in order to explain in what sense we say that the ‘mental’ is a faculty or a
property of the individual as such, and that this property represents the
element that essentially characterizes the human state. Moreover, when we speak
of‘faculties’, we intentionally leave this term with a rather vague and
indeterminate meaning, for thus it is susceptible of a more general application
in cases where there would be no advantage in replacing it by some other term
that is more special because more clearly defined.
As for the essential
distinction of the ‘mental’ from pure intellect, we will only recall the
following: in the passage from universal to individual, intellect produces
consciousness, but consciousness, being of the individual order, is in no way
identical with the intellectual principle itself, although it does proceed
immediately from it as the result of the intersection of this principle with
the particular domain of certain conditions of existence by which the
individuality
character of exteriority, which
allows the duality of subject and object to subsist, it cannot find within
itself the guarantee of its truth, but must receive it from principles that
surpass it, and which are of the order of intuitive knowledge, that is to say
purely intellectual knowledge.
7. We make this reservation because, in Eastern civilizations
such as those of India and China, logic presents a different character, which
makes of it a ‘point of view’ (darshana) of the total doctrine, and a
veritable ‘traditional science’ (see Introduction to the Study of the Hindu
Doctrines, pt. 3, chap. 9).
8.
See The Symbolism of
the Cross, chap. 17.
under consideration is defined.[75] On
the other hand, individual thought, which, according to what has just been
said, includes reason along with memory and imagination, is formal and belongs
exclusively to the mental faculty united directly to consciousness; in no way
is it inherent in the transcendent intellect (Buddhi), whose attributes
are essentially non-formal.[76]
This clearly shows to what degree this mental faculty is really something
limited and specialized, while nonetheless remaining capable of unfolding
indefinite possibilities; it is thus both much less and much more than it
appears in the simplified, and even ‘simplistic’, conceptions current among
Western psychologists.[77]
9
THE HIERARCHY
OF INDIVIDUAL
FACULTIES
As we
have just said, the profound distinction between the intellect and
mentality consists essentially in the fact that the first is of the universal
order, whereas the second is of the purely individual order; consequently, they
cannot apply to the same domain or to the same objects, and in this respect
there is good reason to distinguish the non-formal idea from the formal thought
that is only its mental expression, that is, its translation into individual
mode. The being’s activity in these two different orders, intellectual and
mental, can become so dissociated as to make them completely independent of
each other as far as their respective manifestations are concerned even while
being exercised simultaneously; but we mention this only in passing, since
further development of this subject would inevitably require that we forsake
the strictly theoretical point of view to which we intend to limit ourselves at
present.
Moreover, the psychic
principle that characterizes human individuality is also dual in nature: apart
from the mental element properly speaking, it also includes the sentimental or
emotive element, which obviously belongs to the domain of individual
consciousness as well, but is even further removed from the intellect while at
the same time being more closely dependent on organic conditions, thus closer
to the corporeal or sensible world. This new distinction, although established
within the strictly individual domain and
hence less fundamental than the
preceding, is nevertheless far more profound than might be supposed at first
sight; and many errors or misapprehensions of Western philosophy, particularly
under its psychological form,[78]
arise from the fact that, despite appearances, it is fundamentally no more
aware of this distinction than it is of the distinction between intellect and
mentality, or at least it fails to recognize its real significance. What is
more, the distinction, and we could even say the separation, of these faculties
shows that there is a veritable multiplicity of states, or more precisely of
modalities, in the individual himself, although in his totality the individual
constitutes only a single state of the total being; the analogy of the part to
the whole is found here, as everywhere.[79]
One can therefore speak of a hierarchy of individual faculties as well as of a
hierarchy of the states of the total being, but the faculties of the
individual, although they may be indefinite in their possible extension, are
definite in number, and the simple fact of subdividing them to a greater or
lesser extent by a dissociation pushed to one or another degree, obviously adds
to them no new potentiality, whereas, as we have already said, the states of
the being are truly indefinite in their multiplicity, since by their very
nature they correspond to all the degrees of universal Existence, at least for
the manifested states. One could say that in the individual order the
distinction operates only by division, whereas in the extra-individual order,
on the contrary, it operates by multiplication, the analogy operating here, as
in all cases, in an inverse sense.[80]
We have no intention of
entering here upon a specialized and detailed study of the different individual
faculties and their respective functions or attributes. Such a study would
necessarily have a psychological character, at least as long as we confined
ourselves to the theory of these faculties, which in any case need only be
named
for their proper objects to be
clearly enough defined—provided of course that we keep to generalities, our
sole concern just now. Since the more or less subtle analyses of this kind are
not the province of metaphysics, and since usually they are the more futile,
the more subtle they are, we gladly abandon them to those philosophers who
profess to enjoy such things; our present intention on the contrary is not to
treat the constitution of the human being completely, which we have already
done in another work;[81]
and this relieves us of the need to develop more fully such points which are of
secondary importance in relation to the subject that now occupies us.
In short, if we have seen
fit to say a few words on the hierarchy of the individual faculties, it is only
because in so doing we can better understand what the multiple states are by
giving a sort of reduced image of them insofar as they are comprised within the
limits of individual human possibility. This image can only be exact in its own
frame of reference if one takes into account the reservations we made
concerning the application of analogy; furthermore, since the less restricted
it is the more useful it will be, it seems fitting to include, along with the
general notion of the hierarchy of the faculties, a consideration of the
various prolongations of the individuality already discussed above. These
prolongations, moreover, which are of different orders, can be included among
the subdivisions of the general hierarchy; there are even some which, as we
have said, are in a way organic in nature and simply relate to the corporeal
order, but on condition that we see even in the latter something psychic to a
certain degree, this corporeal manifestation being as it were enveloped and
permeated at the same time by the subtle manifestation, in which it has its
immediate principle. In truth, there is no reason to separate the corporeal
much more profoundly from other individual orders, that is, from other
modalities belonging to the same individual state envisaged in the integrality
of its extension, than the latter must be separated among themselves, since it
is situated on the same level as they in the totality of universal Existence,
and consequently in the totality of the states of the being; but,
whereas the others were neglected or
forgotten, this distinction has taken on an exaggerated importance by reason of
the ‘mind-matter’ dualism that has for various reasons prevailed in the
philosophical tendencies of the entire modern West.[82]
10
THE
INDEFINITE
Although we
have spoken of a hierarchy of the individual faculties,
it is important never to lose sight of the fact that they are all contained in
the extension of one and the same state of the total being, that is to say in a
horizontal plane of the geometrical representation of the being such as we
expounded in our earlier study [The Symbolism of the Cross], whereas the
hierarchy of the different states is represented by their superposition in the
direction of the vertical axis of the same representation. Properly speaking,
then, the first of these two hierarchies cannot be said to occupy any place in
the second, since its totality is there reduced to one single point (that of
the intersection of the vertical axis with the plane corresponding to the
state under consideration); in other words, the differences among individual
modalities, having to do only with ‘amplitude’, are strictly nil in the
direction of‘exaltation’.[83]
It should not be forgotten
however that in the integral unfolding of the being, ‘amplitude’ is no less
indefinite than ‘exaltation’; and it is this that allows one to speak of the
indefinitude of possibilities in each state, without of course suggesting that
this indefinitude should be interpreted in any way as supposing an absence of
limits. We have already sufficiently explained this in establishing the distinction
between the Infinite and the indefinite, but here we can
introduce a geometrical figure we
have not yet mentioned: in any horizontal plane, the limits of the indefinite
are marked by the delimiting circle to which certain mathematicians have given
the absurd name of the 'infinite straight line’,[84]
and this circle is not closed at any point, being a great circle (the section
of a diametrical plane) of the indefinite spheroid of which the deployment
comprehends the whole of extension representing the totality of the being.[85]
If we now consider the individual modifications in their own plane as
parts of any cycle exterior to the center (that is, without identification
with the latter by way of the centripetal radius), which cycle propagates
itself indefinitely in a vibratory mode, the arrival of these modifications at
the limit of the circle following the centrifugal radius corresponds to their
maximum dispersion, while at the same time necessarily being the stopping-point
of their centrifugal movement. This movement, indefinite in every direction,
represents the multiplicity of partial points of view outside the unity of the
central point of view, from which latter, however, they all proceed like radii
emanating from a common center, and which thus constitutes their essential and
fundamental unity, although one that is not yet actually realized from the
standpoint of their gradual, contingent, and multiform exteriorization in the
indefinitude of manifestation.
Here we speak of
exteriorization, placing ourselves at the point of view of manifestation
itself, but it should not be forgotten that all exteriorization as such is
essentially illusory since, as we said above, multiplicity, which is contained
within unity without the latter’s being affected thereby, can never really
emerge from it, for that would imply an ‘alteration’ (in the etymological
sense) in contradiction to principial immutability.[86]
The indefinite multitude of partial
points of view, which are all the
modalities of a being in each one of its states, are in their entirety only
fragmentary aspects of the central point of view (the fragmentation also being
altogether illusory, since this point of view is in reality indivisible by the
very fact that unity is without parts), and their ‘reintegration into the unity
of this central and principial point of view is properly only an ‘integration’
in the mathematical sense of the term: it does not mean that at some moment the
elements could ever have been truly detached from their sum-total, or ever be
so considered other than by simple abstraction. It is true that this
abstraction is not always effected consciously, since it is a necessary
consequence of the restriction of the individual faculties under one or another
of their special modalities, modalities that can only be actually realized by
the being that is placed at one or another of the partial points of view in
question here.
These few remarks may help
us understand how one must envisage the limits of the indefinite, and how
their realization is an important factor in the effective unification of the
being.[87]
Moreover, it is fitting to recognize that to conceive of them, even in a simply
theoretical manner, cannot be achieved without some difficulty; and this is
perfectly normal, since the indefinite is precisely that of which the limits
keep receding until lost to sight, that is to say until they exceed the reach
of our faculties, at least in their normal usage; but since these faculties are
themselves susceptible of an indefinite extension, it is not in virtue of their
nature itself that the indefinite surpasses them, but only in virtue of a
limitation of fact due to the present degree of development of most human
beings, so that there is no impossibility in this conception, which, moreover,
could not take us outside the order of individual possibilities. However that
may be, greater precision on this question would require more particular
consideration of the special conditions of one definite state of existence, for
example, or, to speak more strictly, of one definite modality, such as that
which constitutes corporeal existence, but
this we cannot do within the scope of
the present study. On this matter we once again refer the reader to the study
we propose to devote entirely to this subject of the conditions of corporeal
existence.[88]
11
PRINCIPLES OF
DISTINCTION BETWEEN
THE STATES OF BEING
Up to this
point, in what has more particularly concerned the human
being, we have above all considered the extension of individual possibility,
which alone constitutes the properly human state; but the being that possesses
this state also possesses all the other states, at least virtually, for without
them there could be no question of the total being. If one considers all these
states in their relation to the individual human state, one can class them as
‘prehuman’ and post-human’, but without thereby suggesting any idea of
temporal succession, there being no question here of ‘before’ or ‘after’ except
in an altogether symbolic sense.[89] In
the various cycles of the being’s development, the order of consequence is
purely logical, or rather both logical and ontological, since metaphysically,
that is to say from the principial point of view, all these cycles are essentially
simultaneous and can only become successive accidentally, as it were, with
regard to certain special conditions of manifestation.
We must once again emphasize that the
temporal condition, conceived in however generalized a way, is applicable only
to certain cycles or to certain particular states such as the human, or even
only to certain modalities of these states, such as the corporeal modality
(certain of the prolongations of the human individuality being capable of
escaping time, without thereby leaving the order of individual possibilities),
and can in no way intervene in the totalization of the being.[90] It
is exactly the same in the case of the spatial condition, moreover, or of any
other condition to which we are currently subject as individual beings, as well
as of those conditions to which all the other states of manifestation included
in the whole of the domain of universal Existence are subject.
It is assuredly legitimate
to establish a distinction within the totality of the states of the being by
relating them to the human state (as we have just done), whether one calls them
logically anterior and posterior, or even superior or inferior to this state,
and from the outset we have given reasons that justify such a distinction; but
in truth this is only a very particular point of view, and the fact that it is currently
ours should not give us any illusions in this regard; in addition, in all cases
where it is not indispensable to place oneself at this point of view, it is
better to have recourse to a principle of distinction of a more general order
and which presents a more fundamental character, without, however, forgetting
that all distinction is necessarily contingent. The most principial distinction
of all, if one may put it so, and the one susceptible of the most universal
application, is that which divides the states of manifestation from the states
of non-manifestation, which, because it is of capital importance for the whole
theory of the multiple states, we actually posed before any other at the
beginning of the present study. Nevertheless, one sometimes has occasion to
envisage more restricted distinctions. One such example is the distinction one
could establish when one is no
longer referring to universal
manifestation in its integrality, but simply to one or another of the general
or special conditions of existence known to us; one could also divide the
states of being into two categories, according to whether or not they were
subject to the condition in question, and in all cases the states of
non-manifestation, being unconditioned, will necessarily belong to the second
category, of which the determination is purely negative. Thus, we will have on
the one hand the states included within a certain determined domain of greater
or lesser extension, and on the other hand all the rest, that is, all the
states that lie outside this same domain; there will consequently be a certain
asymmetry and a sort of disproportion between these two categories, of which
only the first is delimited in reality, whatever may be the characteristic
element serving to determine it.[91] To
represent this geometrically, one could consider any closed curve traced on a
plane as dividing the whole plane into two regions, one situated inside the
curve, which envelops and defines it, and the other extending to everything
lying outside that same curve; the first of these regions will be definite, the
second indefinite. The same considerations apply to a closed surface within the
threedimensional extension which we have taken to symbolize the totality of
the being; but it is important to note that in this case, too, one of the
regions is strictly defined as soon as the surface is closed, although it
nonetheless contains an indefinitude of points, whereas, in the division of the
states of the being, the category susceptible of a positive determination and
thus of an effective delimitation nevertheless comprises possibilities of
indefinite development, however restricted one may suppose this to be in
relation to the totality. To obviate this imperfection in the geometrical
representation, one need only remove the restriction we imposed by considering
a closed surface to the exclusion of an open one: any line or surface
whatsoever, in approaching the limits of the indefinite, is in effect always
reducible to a closed curve or surface,[92]
so that one can say
64 THE multiple states of the being
that it divides the plane or the
volume into two regions, both of which can be indefinite in extension, but only
one of which, as in the preceding, is conditioned by a positive determination
resulting from the properties of the curve or surface under consideration.
In the case where one
establishes a distinction by relating the totality of states to any single
state, whether human or any other, the determining principle is of an order
different from the one we have just indicated, for it is no longer reducible
purely and simply to the affirmation and negation of a certain condition?
Geometrically, one must then consider the volume as divided in two by the plane
representing the state taken as a basis or term of comparison, what is situated
on either side of the envisaged plane then presenting a sort of symmetry or
equivalence lacking in the previous case. This is the distinction that we have
set forth elsewhere, in its most general form, in connection with the Hindu
theory of the three gunas;[93]
the plane serving as a basis is in principle indeterminate, and can represent
any conditioned state whatsoever, so that it is only secondarily, when choosing
to place oneself at the point of view of that particular state, that one may
define it as representing the human state.
Furthermore, to facilitate
correct applications of this analogy, it may be advantageous to extend the last
representation to all cases, even to those to which it does not seem directly
suitable, given the preceding considerations. To this end we need only envisage
the base plane as that by which one determines the distinction in question,
whatever may be its principle; the extended part lying below this plane will
represent what is subject to the determination concerned, while the part above
will then represent what is not subject to that same determination. The only
drawback in such a representation is that the two regions of the overall
extension seem to be equally indefinite, and indefinite in the same way; but
one can efface this symmetry by regarding their plane of separation as the
limit of a sphere of which the center
is indefinitely distant in a downward direction, which in reality brings us
back to the first mode of representation, for this is only a particular
instance of that reduction to a closed surface to which we have just alluded.
In sum, it suffices to keep in mind that the appearance of symmetry in such a
case is only due to a certain imperfection in the symbol employed; moreover,
one can always pass from one representation to another when one finds another
more convenient or in some way more advantageous, since by very reason of that
imperfection, in the nature of things inevitable, as we have often had occasion
to point out, any single representation is generally insufficient to fully
render a conception of the order concerned here (and this is leaving aside what
is inexpressible).
Although the states of
being may be divided into two categories in various ways, it goes without
saying that in none of these divisions is there any trace whatsoever of
dualism, for the division is effected by means of a single principle, such as a
certain condition of existence, and thus, in reality, there is only a single
determination, but which is envisaged both positively and negatively at the
same time. Besides, to dismiss all suspicion of dualism, however unjustified it
may be, it suffices to observe that all these distinctions, far from being irreducible,
exist only from the very relative point of view through which they are
established, and even that they acquire this contingent existence, the only
existence of which they are capable, solely in the measure in which we
ourselves bestow it by our conception. The point of view of manifestation in
its entirety, although obviously more universal than others, like them remains
altogether relative, since manifestation itself is purely contingent; and this
observation applies even to the distinction we considered between the most
fundamental and the closest to the principial order, that between the states of
manifestation and non-manifesta- tion, as we already took care to point out
when speaking of Being and Non-Being.
12
Among the
distinctions founded on the consideration of a condition of existence, as set
forth in the last chapter, one of the most important—-indeed, we could even say
the most important—-is the distinction between the formal and non-formal
states, for metaphysically this is nothing other than an aspect of the
distinction between the individual and the universal, the latter being seen to
comprise both non-manifestation and non-formal manifestation, as we have
explained elsewhere.[94]
Indeed, form is a particular condition of certain modes of manifestation, and
it is as such that it is notably one of the conditions of existence in the
human state; but at the same time it is generally the mode of limitation that
properly characterizes individual existence, and can serve it as some sort of
definition. However, it must be understood that here form is not necessarily
determined as spatial and temporal, as it is in the particular case of
corporeal human modality; in no way can it be so for non-human states which are
not subject to space or time, but rather to other conditions altogether.[95]
Thus, form is a condition common,
not to all modes of manifestation,
but at least to all its individual modes which are differentiated among
themselves by the addition of various other more particular conditions; what
constitutes the proper nature of an individual as such is being clothed in a
form, and everything that belongs to its domain, such as individual thought in
man, is equally formal.[96]
The distinction we have just called to mind is thus fundamentally that between
individual states and both non-individual and supra-individual states, the
former comprising in their totality all formal possibilities, and the latter
all non-formal possibilities.
The totalities of formal
possibilities and of non-formal possibilities are what the various traditional
doctrines symbolize by the ‘Lower Waters’ and the ‘Upper Waters’ respectively;[97] in
a general way and in the most extended sense, the ‘Waters’ represent Possibility
understood as ‘passive perfection’,[98]
or the universal plastic principle, which, in Being, is determined as
‘substance’ (the potential aspect of Being), this last case referring only to
the totality of the possibilities of manifestation, since the possibilities of
non-manifes- tation are beyond Being.[99]
The ‘surface of the Waters’, or their plane of separation, which we have
described elsewhere as the plane of reflection of the ‘Celestial Ray’,[100]
therefore marks the state in which the passage from the individual to the
universal is operative, and the well-known symbol of ‘walking on the Waters’
represents emancipation from form, or liberation from the individual
condition.[101]
The
being that has attained the state
that for it corresponds to the ‘surface of the Waters’, but without yet having
risen above this surface, finds itself as if suspended between two chaoses, in
which at first there is only confusion and obscurity (tamas), until the
moment of illumination that determines its harmonic organization in the passage
from potency to act, and which results in the hierarchization that will bring
order out of the chaos, as does the cosmogonic Fiat Lux?
This consideration of the
two chaoses corresponding to the formal and the non-formal, is indispensable
for the comprehension of a great number of symbolic and traditional figures,[102]
and this is why we have mentioned it especially here. Moreover, although we
have already treated this question in our preceding study, it is too closely
connected with our present subject for us to fail to mention it again, at least
briefly.
Only the
hierarchization of the multiple states in the
effective realization of the total being enables us to understand how, from the
point of view of pure metaphysics, one must envisage the ‘spiritual
hierarchies’, as they are generally called. This term is usually understood to
mean hierarchies of beings differing from man and from each other, as if each
degree were occupied by special beings, respectively limited to corresponding
states; but the concept of the multiple states manifestly exempts us from
having to adopt this point of view which, though legitimate enough for theology
or for other sciences or particular speculations, has nothing metaphysical
about it. Fundamentally, the existence of extra-human, or supra-human, beings,
which may assuredly include an indefinitude of types, is of little importance
to us, whatever may be the names by which they are designated; even if we have
every reason to admit their existence, since we see non-human beings in the
world around us and consequently conclude that in other states there must be
beings that do not pass through human manifestation (even if it be only those
that are represented here by these non-human individualities), we nevertheless
have no motive for occupying ourselves especially with them, any more than with
the infra-human beings, which also exist and could be envisaged in the same
fashion. No one would dream of making the detailed classification of the
non-human beings of the terrestrial world the subject of a metaphysical study,
or one so called; why then should it be otherwise for beings that happen to
exist in other worlds, that is, that occupy other states, which, however
superior they may be in relation to our own, are nonetheless,
and by the same token, part of the
domain of universal manifestation? It is easy to see that those philosophers
who wished to limit the being to a single state, considering man in his more or
less extended individuality as constituting a complete whole unto himself,
although led nevertheless for some reason to postulate vaguely that there are
other degrees within universal Existence, have only construed these degrees as
the domains of beings that are completely alien to us, except in what they have
in common with all beings; and, at the same time, an anthropomorphic tendency
has often inclined them to exaggerate such a commonality of nature by attributing
to these beings faculties not simply analogous, but similar or even identical,
to those belonging properly to individual man.[103]
In reality, the states concerned are incomparably more different from the human
state than any modern Western philosopher has ever been able to conceive even
remotely; nonetheless, whatever the beings currently occupying them, these
states can equally well be realized by all other beings, including a being that
is simultaneously a human being in another state of manifestation, for otherwise,
as we have already said, there could not be any question of the totality of any
being, since to be effective, that totality must necessarily include all states
both of manifestation (formal and non-formal) as well as of non-manifestation,
each according to the mode in which the being under consideration is capable of
realizing it. We have noted elsewhere that nearly all that has been said
theologically of the angels can be said metaphysically of the superior states
of the being,[104]
just as in the astrological symbolism of the Middle Ages the ‘heavens’, that is
to say the various planetary and stellar spheres, represent these same states
and also the initiatic degrees to which their realization corresponds;[105]
and like the ‘heavens’ and ‘hells’, the Devas
and Asuras in the Hindu
tradition, represent respectively the superior and inferior states in relation
to the human state.[106]
All this does not of course exclude any modes of realization that may be proper
to other beings, just as there are modes peculiar to the human being to the
extent that his individual state is taken as a starting-point and as a basis
for realization; but these modes that are foreign to us are no more important
to us than are all the forms that we will never be called upon to realize, such
as the animal, vegetable, and mineral forms of the corporeal world, because
they are already realized by other beings in the order of universal
manifestation, of which the indefinitude excludes all repetition.[107]
It follows from what we
have just said that by ‘spiritual hierarchies’ we cannot properly mean
anything other than the totality of the states of being that are superior to
human individuality, and more especially of the non-formal or supra-individual
states, states that we must regard as realizable for the being starting from
the human state, even in the course of its corporeal and terrestrial existence.
This realization is essentially implied in the totalization of the being, and
thus in the ‘Deliverance’ (Moksha or Mukti) by which the being is
freed from the ties of every special condition of existence, and which, not
being susceptible of differing degrees, is as complete and perfect when it is
obtained as ‘liberation in life’ (jivan-mukti) as it is in the case of
‘liberation beyond form’ (videha-mukti), as we have already set forth
elsewhere.[108]
Moreover there can be no spiritual degree superior to that of the Yogi,
for the latter, having attained that ‘Deliverance’ which is at the same time
‘Union’ (Yoga) or ‘Supreme Identity’, has nothing further to attain; but
though the goal to be reached is the same for all beings, each, of course, must
reach it according to its ‘personal wav’, and hence by modalities susceptible
of indefinite variations. One will understand therefore that in the course of
this realization there may be multiple and various stages, which, moreover, may
be traversed successively or simultaneously as the case may be, and which,
since they still refer to determinate
states, must never be confused with
the total liberation that is their supreme outcome and conclusion;[109]
and here we have just as many degrees as can be envisaged in the ‘spiritual
hierarchies’, whatever more or less general classification one establishes
according to need, in the indefinitude of their possible modalities, the
classification naturally depending on the particular point of view one chooses
to adopt.[110]
At this point it is
essential to note that the degrees of which we speak, representing as they do
states that are still contingent and conditioned, are of no metaphysical
importance in themselves but are so only in view of the unique goal to which
they all tend, and precisely to the extent that they are regarded as degrees;
of this goal they merely constitute a sort of preparation. Moreover, there is
no common measure between any particular state, however elevated, and the total
and unconditioned state; and one must never lose sight of the fact that since
from the standpoint of the Infinite the entirety of manifestation is strictly
nil, the differences between its component states must obviously be so as well,
however considerable these differences may be in themselves when one envisages
only the various conditioned states separating them from each other. If the
passage to certain superior states in some way constitutes a progress toward
‘Deliverance’ relative to the state taken as a point of departure, it must
nevertheless be understood that when the latter is realized, it will always
imply a discontinuity with respect to the immediately preceding state of the
being that achieves it, and that the discontinuity will be neither more nor
less profound whatever this state may be, since in all cases there is between
the ‘undelivered’ and the ‘delivered’ being no relation such as exists between
the different conditioned states.[111]
By reason of the
equivalence of all the states vis-a-vis the Absolute, when the final
goal is attained from any degree the being need not previously have traversed
all other degrees since thenceforward it already possesses them all into the
bargain, so to speak, because they are integral elements of its totalization.
On the other hand, when there is reason to do so, the being that possesses all
the states can obviously always be considered in relation to one of these
states more particularly, and as if‘situated’ effectively therein, although in
reality it is beyond all states, and, so far from being contained in any of
them, contains them all within itself. One could say that in such a case the
states will simply be various aspects constituting as many ‘functions’ of the
being, without its being at all affected by their conditions, conditions that
exist for it only in illusory mode, since, insofar as it is truly the ‘Self’,
its state is essentially unconditioned. It is thus that its appearance in respect
of form, even its corporeal appearance, can subsist for a being that is
‘delivered in life’ (jivan- mukta), and that ‘during its residence in
the body it is not affected by its properties, just as the sky is not affected
by what floats upon its bosom’;[112]
and it remains equally ‘unaffected’ by all other contingencies, whatever the
state, individual or supra-individual, that is, formal or non-formal, to which
they refer in the order of manifestation, which in the final analysis is only
itself the sum of all contingencies.
14
REPLY TO OBJECTIONS
DRAWN FROM THE
PLURALITY
OF BEINGS
There is
one point in the preceding that might still lend itself to an objection,
although in truth we have already answered it in part, at least implicitly, in
what we just said regarding the ‘spiritual hierarchies’. The objection runs as
follows: given that there exists an indefinitude of modalities realized by
different beings, is it really legitimate to speak of totality in the case of
each being? One can reply first of all by pointing out that the objection thus
phrased obviously applies only to the manifested states, since in non-manifestation
there can be no question of any kind of real distinction, so that from the
standpoint of these non-manifested states what belongs to one being belongs
equally to all insofar as they have effectively realized these states. Now, if
one considers the totality of manifestation from this same standpoint, it
constitutes only a simple ‘accident’ in the proper sense of the word by reason
of its contingency, so that the importance of any one of its modalities
considered in itself and ‘distinctively’ is then strictly nil. Furthermore,
since in principle non-manifestation contains all that constitutes the profound
and essential reality of things existing in any mode of manifestation, i.e.,
that without which the manifested would have only a purely illusory existence,
one can say that the being that has effectively attained the state of
non-manifestation thereby possesses all other states ‘into the bargain’ in the
same way that it possesses all the intermediary states or degrees, even without
having specifically passed through them previously, as we said in the last
chapter.
This answer, which
considers only the being that has reached total realization, is fully
sufficient from the purely metaphysical point of view, and indeed is the only
answer that can really suffice, for if we did not view the being in this way,
that is, if we took any position other than this, there would no longer be
reason to speak of totality, and the objection itself would no longer apply. In
short, what needs to be said both here and in response to objections concerning
the existence of multiplicity, is that manifestation considered as such, that
is, under the aspect of the distinctions that condition it, is nothing with
respect to non-manifestation, for there can be no common measure between the
one and the other; what is absolutely real (all the rest being only illusory,
in the sense of a reality that is merely derivative and, as it were,
‘participated’), even for the possibilities comprising manifestation, is the
permanent and unconditioned state under which they belong principially and fundamentally
to the order of non-manifestation.
Although the above should
be sufficient, let us turn now to yet another aspect of the question, and
consider the being as having realized, not the totality of the unconditioned
Self, but only the integrality of a certain state. In this case, the preceding
objection must take a new form: how is it possible to envisage this integrality
for a single being, when the state in question constitutes a domain common to
an indefinitude of other beings insofar as the latter are equally subject to
the conditions that characterize and determine this state or mode of existence?
This objection is not the same but, with all due proportion being kept between
the two cases, only analogous, and so the answer must also be analogous; for
the being that is effectively placed at the central point of view of the state
under consideration (which is the only possible way of realizing the
integrality of the state), all other more or less particular points of view,
insofar as they are taken distinctively, are no longer important, since they
are then unified in this central point of view; thus they henceforth exist for
the being in the unity of the latter, and they no longer exist outside of this
unity, for the existence of multiplicity outside of unity is purely illusory.
The being that has realized the integrality of a state has itself become the
center of that state, and, this being the case, one may say that it fills this
state entirely with its
own irradiation;[113]
it assimilates to itself all that is contained therein, making of it so many,
secondary modalities of itself,[114]
as it were, comparable somewhat to the modalities that are realized in the
dream state, following what we said above. Consequently, the being is not in
the least affected in its extension by the existence that these modalities, or
at least some of them, can otherwise have outside of itself (and the expression
‘outside’ no longer has any meaning from the point of view of the being, but
only from that of other beings remaining in non-unified multiplicity) by reason
of the simultaneous existence of other beings in the same state; moreover, the
existence of these same modalities in and of itself in no way affects its
unity, even when it is still only a question of the relative unity realized at
the center of a particular state. The whole of that state is constituted only
by the irradiation of its center,[115]
and any being effectively positioned at this center by that very fact becomes
master of the state in its integrality; thus the principial indifferentiation
of the non-manifested is reflected in the manifested, it being clearly
understood that the reflection retains the relativity inherent in all
conditioned existence, since it is in the manifested realm.
Having established this
much, it is easy to understand that in various ways analogous considerations
can be applied to the modalities included in an even more relative unity, such
as that of a being that has only realized a certain state partially, and not
integrally. Such a being, the human individual for example, without having yet
achieved its full development in the sense of ‘amplitude’ (corresponding to
the degree of existence in which it is situated), has still however assimilated
more or less completely all of which it has truly become conscious within the
limits of its present extension; and the accessory modalities that it has thus
taken on, and that are obviously susceptible of constant and indefinite
growth, constitute a very important part of those prolongations of the
individuality to which we have already frequently alluded.
OF THE
BEING THROUGH
KNOWLEDGE
We have just
said that the being assimilates more or less completely
everything of which it is conscious; indeed, there is no true knowledge in any
domain whatsoever, other than that which enables us to penetrate into the
intimate nature of things, and the degrees of knowledge consist precisely in
the measure to which this penetration is more or less profound and results in a
more or less complete assimilation. In other words, the only genuine knowledge
is that which implies an identification of the subject with the object, or, if
one prefers to consider the relationship inversely, an assimilation of the
object by the subject,[116]
and consequently the measure to which such an identification or such an
assimilation is actually implied constitutes precisely the degrees of knowledge
themselves.[117]
We must therefore maintain, despite all the more or less idle philosophical
discussions that this point has given
rise to,[118]
that all true and effective knowledge is immediate, and that mediate knowledge
can have only a purely symbolic and representative value.[119]
As for the actual possibility of immediate knowledge, the whole theory of
multiple states makes it sufficiently comprehensible. Besides, to wish to cast
doubt upon it is merely to give proof of complete ignorance of the most
elementary metaphysical principles, since without this immediate knowledge,
metaphysics itself would be impossible.[120]
We have spoken of
identification or assimilation, and we can employ these two terms almost
indifferently here, although they do not arise from exactly the same point of
view; in the same way, one can regard knowledge as proceeding simultaneously
from the subject to the object of which it becomes conscious (or, more
generally, and in order not to limit ourselves to the conditions of certain
states, from which it makes a secondary modality of itself), and from the
object to the subject that assimilates it to itself; and in this context it is
worth recalling the Aristotelian definition of knowledge in the sensible domain
as ‘the common act of perceiver and perceived,’ which in effect implies such a
reciprocity of relationship.[121]
Where the sensible and corporeal domain is concerned, the sense organs
are thus the ‘entryways’ of knowledge for the individual being;[122]
but from another point of view they are also precisely the ‘outlets’ in that
all knowledge implies an act of identification starting from the knowing
subject and proceeding toward the known (or to be known) object, like the emission
of a sort of exterior prolongation of itself. And it is important to note that
such a prolongation
THE REALIZATION OF THE
BEING THROUGH KNOWLEDGE 79 is only exterior in
relation to the individuality envisaged in its most restricted sense, for it is
an integral part of the extended individuality; in extending itself thus by a
development of its own possibilities, the being has no need at all to go outside
of itself, which, in reality, would make no sense since under no conditions can
a being become other than itself. This is also a direct response to the
principal objection of modern Western philosophers against the possibility of
immediate knowledge, from which it is evident that this objection could only
arise from a pure and simple metaphysical incomprehension, in consequence of
which these philosophers have failed to recognize the possibilities of being,
even individual being, in its indefinite extension.
All this is true a
fortiori if, leaving behind the limits of the individuality, we apply it
to superior states; true knowledge of these states implies their effective
possession, and, inversely, it is by this very knowledge that the being takes
possession of them, for the two acts are inseparable one from another, and we
could even say that fundamentally they are but one. Naturally, this must be
understood only of immediate knowledge, which, when it extends to the totality
of states, includes in itself their realization, and which, consequently, is
‘the only means of obtaining complete and final Deliverance.’[123]
As for knowledge that has remained purely theoretical, it is obvious that it
could in no way be equivalent to such a realization, and that, not being an
immediate seizure of its object, it can only have an altogether symbolic value,
as we have already said; but it nonetheless constitutes an indispensable
preparation for the acquisition of that effective knowledge whereby, and
whereby alone, the realization of the total being takes place.
Whenever occasion arises,
we must insist particularly upon the realization of the being through
knowledge, because it is altogether foreign to modern Western conceptions,
which do not go beyond theoretical knowledge, or, more exactly, beyond a
slender portion of it, and which artificially oppose ‘knowledge’ to ‘being’ as
if they were not the two inseparable faces of one and the same reality.[124]
There can be no true metaphysics for
anyone who does not truly understand that the being realizes itself through
knowledge, and that it can only realize itself in this way. Pure metaphysical
doctrine does not need to trouble itself in the least with all the ‘theories of
knowledge’ that modern philosophy so laboriously elaborates; in these efforts
to substitute a ‘theory of knowledge’ for knowledge itself one can even see a
veritable admission of impotence, albeit certainly unconscious, on the part of
this philosophy, so completely ignorant is it of any possibility of effective
realization. What is more, true knowledge being immediate as we have said, can
be more or less complete, more or less profound, more or less adequate, but it
cannot be essentially ‘relative’, as this same philosophy would have it, or at
least it could be so only insofar as its objects are themselves relative. In
other words, relative knowledge, metaphysically speaking, is nothing but
knowledge of the relative or of the contingent, that is to say of what applies
only to the realm of manifestation; but the validity of this knowledge within
its own domain is only as great as the nature of the domain allows,[125]
which is not what is meant by those who speak of the ‘relativity of knowledge’.
Apart from consideration of the degrees of a more or less complete and profound
knowledge—degrees that change nothing of its essential nature—the only
legitimate distinction to be made as to the validity of knowledge is the
distinction we have already noted between immediate and mediate knowledge, that
is, between effective and symbolic knowledge.
16
AND
CONSCIOUSNESS
A very
important consequence of the foregoing is that knowledge, understood
absolutely and in all its universality, is in no way synonymous with or
equivalent to consciousness, whose domain is coextensive only with that of
certain determined states of being, so that it is only in those states to the
exclusion of all others, that knowledge is realized by means of what can
properly be called ‘becoming conscious’ of anything. Consciousness, as we have
understood the term until now, even in its most general sense and without
restricting it to its specifically human form, is only a contingent and
special mode of knowledge under certain conditions, a property inherent to a
being envisaged in certain states of manifestation; all the more reason, then,
to say that it is not applicable in any degree to unconditioned states, that
is, to all that goes beyond Being, since it is not even applicable to the whole
of Being. Knowledge, on the contrary, considered in itself and independently
of the conditions attaching to any particular state, can admit of no restriction,
and to be adequate to total truth must be coextensive not only with Being but
also with universal Possibility itself, and therefore it must be infinite, as
the latter necessarily is. This amounts to saying that knowledge and truth,
envisaged thus metaphysically, are basically nothing other than what we have
called rather inadequately ‘aspects of the Infinite’; this is something clearly
expressed in one of the fundamental formulations of the Vedanta: ''Brahma
is Truth, Knowledge, Infinity’ (Satyam Jnanam Anantam Brahma).[126]
When we say that 'knowing’ and 'being’ arc the two faces of a
single reality, the term ‘being’ should be taken only in its analogical and
symbolic sense, since knowledge goes further than Being; here, as when we speak
of the realization of the total being, realization, which essentially implies
total and absolute knowledge, is in no way distinct from that knowledge itself
(of course insofar as the knowledge is effective and not merely theoretical,
and representative). At this point we should also clarify somewhat how the
metaphysical identity of the possible and the real should be understood. Since
everything possible is realized by knowledge, this identity, taken universally,
properly constitutes truth in itself, for the latter can be conceived precisely
as the perfect adequation of knowledge to total Possibility.[127] It is easy to see
all the consequences that might be drawn from this last remark, the
implications of which are immensely greater in extent than those of a simply
logical definition of truth, for here we have all the difference between the
universal unconditioned intellect[128]
and human understanding with its individual conditions, and also, in another
respect, all the difference separating the point of view of realization from
that of a ‘theory of knowledge’. The very word ‘real’, usually so vague and
even equivocal, especially for the philosophers who maintain the so-called distinction
between the possible and the real, takes on an altogether different
metaphysical value when used in reference to realization,[129]
or, to be more precise, on becoming an expression of absolute permanence,
in the Universal, of all that of which a being attains effective possession by
the total realization of itself?
The intellect as universal principle could be conceived as the
container of total knowledge, but on condition that this be seen only as a
simple figure of speech, for here, where we are essentially at the level
of‘non-duality’, the container and the contained are absolutely identical, both
being of necessity equally infinite—a ‘plurality of infinities’, as we have
said before, being an impossibility. Universal Possibility, which contains all,
cannot be contained by anything, unless it be by itself, and it contains itself
‘without this containing existing in any way whatsoever.’[130]
Moreover, intellect and knowledge can only be spoken of correlatively in the
universal sense, in the way the Infinite and Possibility were discussed above,
that is to say viewed as one and the same thing, which we envisaged simultaneously
under an active and a passive aspect, but without there being any real
distinction. In the Universal we should not distinguish intellect from
knowledge, nor, in consequence, the intelligible from the knowable; true
knowledge being immediate, the intellect is strictly speaking but one with its
object; it is only in conditioned modes of knowledge, which are always indirect
and inadequate, that there is reason to establish a distinction, since this
relative knowledge then operates not by the intellect itself but by a
refraction of the intellect in the states of being concerned, and, as we have
seen, it is just such a refraction that constitutes individual consciousness;
but, directly or indirectly, there is always participation in the universal
intellect in the measure in which there is effective knowledge, whether in any
mode whatsoever or outside of every particular mode.
Since total knowledge is adequate to universal Possibility,
there is nothing that is unknowable,[131]
or, in other words, ‘there are no incomprehensible things, there are only
things incomprehensible at
present,’[132] things inconceivable,
not in themselves and absolutely, but only to us as conditioned beings, that
is, as beings limited in our present manifestation to the possibilities of a
determinate state. We thus set forth what could be called a principle
of‘universal intelligibility’, not as this is ordinarily understood, however,
but in a purely metaphysical sense, and hence beyond the logical domain in
which this principle, like all those of a properly universal order (which alone
truly deserve to be called ‘principles’), find only a particular and contingent
application. For us, of course, this postulates no ‘rationalism’, quite the
contrary, since reason, differing essentially from intellect, without whose
guarantee it could not in any case be valid, is nothing more than a specifically
human and individual faculty. There is thus necessarily, we do not say the
‘irrational’,[133] but the
‘supra-rational’, which, in fact, is a fundamental characteristic of everything
of a truly metaphysical order; and this ‘supra-rational’ does not for all that
cease to be intelligible in itself, even if it is not at present comprehensible
to the limited and relative faculties of human individuality.[134]
This suggests yet another observation well worth considering in
order to avoid any error: like the word ‘reason’, the word ‘consciousness’ can
sometimes be universalized by a purely analogical transposition, something we
ourselves have done elsewhere to render the meaning of the Sanskrit word Chit;[135]
but such a transposition is only possible when one restricts oneself to Being,
as was done when the ternary Satchidananda was under consideration. It
should be strictly understood, however, that even with this restriction, consciousness
thus transposed is no longer understood in its proper sense, such as we have
defined it above, and as we have generally taken it. In this usual sense, let
us repeat, consciousness is only the
special
mode of a contingent and relative knowledge, as relative and contingent as the
conditioned state of being to which it essentially belongs; and, if one can say
that it is a ‘raison d’ etre’ for such a state, it is so only insofar as it is
a participation by refraction in the nature of that universal and transcendent
intellect that is itself, finally and eminently, the supreme ‘raison d’ etre’
of all things, the true metaphysical ‘sufficient reason’ that determines
itself in all the orders of possibilities, without these determinations being
able to affect it in any way whatsoever. This conception of ‘sufficient
reason’, very different from the philosophical or theological conceptions in
which Western thought is imprisoned, immediately resolves many questions
before which the latter must confess itself impotent, by bringing about a
reconciliation between the point of view of necessity and that of contingency.
Here we are in fact well beyond the opposition of necessity and contingency
understood in their ordinary acceptation,[136]
and thus some complementary elucidation on this subject may perhaps not be
without value in our effort to understand why the question need not arise in
pure metaphysics.
17
AND
CONTINGENCY
We said EARLiEr that every possibility of manifestation must be
manifested for the very reason that it is what it is, namely, a possibility of
manifestation, so that manifestation is necessarily implied in principle by the
very nature of particular possibilities. Thus manifestation, which as such is
purely contingent, is nonetheless necessary in its principle, just as,
although transitory in itself, it nevertheless possesses an absolutely
permanent root in universal Possibility, this moreover being what constitutes
all its reality. If it were otherwise, manifestation could only have an
altogether illusory existence, which could even be regarded as strictly non-existent,
since, being without principle, it would retain only an essentially ‘privative’
character, like that of a negation or a limitation considered in itself; and
envisaged in this way, manifestation would in effect be nothing more than the
totality of all possible limiting conditions. However, from the moment these
conditions are possible, they are metaphysically real, and this reality, which
was only negative when the conditions were conceived as simple limitations, becomes
in a way positive when they are envisaged as possibilities. It is thus because
manifestation is implied in the order of possibilities that it has its proper
reality, though without this reality being in any way capable of existence
independent of the universal order, for it is there, and there alone, that it
has its true ‘sufficient reason’: to say that manifestation is necessary in
principle is basically nothing else than to say that it is contained in
universal Possibility.
There is no difficulty in conceiving that manifestation may thus
be at once necessary and contingent from different points of view, provided one
pays careful attention to the fundamental point that
the
principle cannot be affected by any determination whatsoever, since it is
essentially independent of them all, as the cause is independent of its
effects, so that manifestation, necessitated by its principle, cannot
inversely necessitate the latter in any way. It is therefore the
‘irreversibility’ or ‘irreciprocity’ of the relationship as here envisaged that
resolves the entire difficulty usually supposed to vex this question,[137] a difficulty that
really only exists when this ‘irreciprocity’ is lost sight of; and if one loses
sight of it (supposing one has ever had it in view to any degree), it is
because, being situated currently in manifestation, one is naturally led to
attribute to this an importance that it could never have from the universal
point of view. To make this more comprehensible, let us again take a spatial
symbol, and say that in its integrality manifestation is truly nil with respect
to the Infinite, just as, allowing for the reservations that the imperfection
of such comparisons always requires, a point situated in space is equal to
zero with respect to that space.[138]
This does not mean that the point is absolutely nothing, the more so as it necessarily
exists by the very fact that space exists, but rather that it is nothing in
relation to extension, as it is strictly a zero of extension; and in relation
to the universal All, manifestation is nothing more than what this point is in
relation to space envisaged in all the indefinitude of its extension, but with
the difference that space is something limited by its own nature, whereas the
universal All is the Infinite.
Here we should mention another difficulty, but one that consists
much more in the expression than in the conception itself: all that exists in a
transitory mode in manifestation must be transposed into a permanent mode in
the non-manifested; manifestation itself thus acquires the permanence that
constitutes all its principial reality, but it is then no longer manifestation
as such, but rather the ensemble of the possibilities of manifestation insofar
as they are not manifested, while nonetheless still implying manifestation in
their own
nature
(without which they would be other than what they are). The difficulty of this
transposition or this passage from the manifested to the non-manifested, and
the apparent obscurity that results, is the same as is encountered in trying to
express, in the measure that they are expressible, the relations between time
(or more generally duration in all its modes, that is to say, the whole
condition of successive existence) and eternity. This is essentially the same
question envisaged under two scarcely distinguishable aspects, of which the
second is simply more particular than the first since it refers only to one
determined condition among ail those comprised in the manifested. All of this,
we repeat, is perfectly conceivable, but one must be able to take the
inexpressible into consideration, as is required in all that pertains to the
metaphysical domain; as concerns the means of realization of an effective, as
opposed to a merely theoretical, conception that extends even to the
inexpressible, we obviously cannot speak of it in this study, considerations of
this order not entering into the framework of the task we have set ourselves
at present.
Returning to contingency, we may define it in a general way as
that which does not contain in itself its own sufficient reason; but even so it
is evident that every contingent thing is nonetheless necessary in the sense
that it is necessitated by its sufficient reason, which it must have in order
to exist, even if it does not lie within it, at least when envisaged under the
special conditions in which it has precisely this character of contingency; and
it would no longer have this character if envisaged in its principle, since it
would then be identified with its sufficient reason itself. Such is the case of
manifestation, which as such is contingent because its principle or its sufficient
reason is to be found in the non-manifested insofar as the latter includes what
we may call the ‘manifestable’, that is to say the possibilities of
manifestation as pure possibilities, and not, it goes without saying, insofar
as it includes the ‘non-manifestable’, or the possibilities of
non-manifestation. Principle and sufficient reason are thus fundamentally the
same thing, but if one wishes to understand the idea of contingency in its
metaphysical sense, it is particularly important to consider the principle
under this aspect of sufficient reason; and to avoid all confusion it should
again be made clear that the sufficient reason is exclusively the final raison
d’etre of
a
thing (final if one leaves the consideration of the thing in order to ascend to
the principle, but in reality, primary in the order of sequence, logical as
well as ontological, which leads from the principle to its consequences) and
not simply its immediate raison d’etre, for everything that is in any mode
whatsoever, even a contingent one, must have in itself its immediate raison
d’etre, understood in the sense employed previously when we said that
consciousness constitutes a raison d’etre for certain states of manifested
existence.
A most important consequence of this is that one can say that
every being bears its destiny within itself, whether in a relative fashion
(individual destiny), if it is merely a case of the being envisaged within a
certain conditioned state, or in an absolute fashion, if it is a case of the
being in its totality, since ‘the word “destiny” designates the true reason of
things.’[139] The conditioned or
relative being can only bear in itself an equally relative destiny, however,
relating exclusively to its special conditions of existence; if, considering a
being in this way, one wished to speak of its final or absolute destiny, this
latter would no longer be within it, but that is because it is in truth no
longer the destiny of this contingent being as such, since it refers in reality
to the total being. This observation should suffice to demonstrate the inanity
of all discussion on the topic of‘determinism’,[140]
this being another of those questions so numerous in modern Western philosophy
that only exist because they are wrongly posed; moreover there are so many
different conceptions of determinism, and just as many of freedom, most of
which have nothing at all metaphysical about them, that it is important to
define the true metaphysical notion of freedom, the subject with which we
propose to conclude this study.
18
NOTION
OF FREEDOM
To
prove freedom, metaphysically,
without encumbering oneself with all the usual philosophical arguments, it is
sufficient to establish that it is a possibility, since the possible and the
real are metaphysically identical. To this end we may first define freedom as
the absence of constraint, a definition negative in form but, here again,
fundamentally positive, for it is constraint that is a limitation, that is to
say a veritable negation. Now, as we said above, when one envisages universal
Possibility beyond Being, that is, as NonBeing, one cannot speak of unity,
since Non-Being is metaphysical Zero, but at least one can speak
of‘non-duality’ (advaita),[141]
to continue to use a negative form. Where there is no duality, there is necessarily
no constraint, and this suffices to prove that freedom is a possibility insofar
as it results immediately from non-duality’, which is obviously exempt from
every contradiction.
Now, one can add also that freedom is not only a possibility in
the most universal sense, but also a possibility of being or of manifestation;
here, in order to pass from Non-Being to Being, it suffices to pass from
‘non-duality’ to unity: Being is ‘one’ (the One being Zero affirmed), or,
rather, it is metaphysical Unity itself—the first affirmation, but also by that
very token the first determination.[142]
That which is one is manifestly exempt from all constraint, so that the
absence of constraint, that is, freedom, is again in the domain of Being, where
unity presents itself in a way as a specification of the
principial
‘non-duality’ of Non-Being; in other words, freedom also belongs to Being,
which amounts to saying that it is a possibility of being, or, following Our
previous explanations, a possibility of manifestation, since Being is
pre-eminently the principle of manifestation. Furthermore, to say that this
possibility is essentially inherent in Being as an immediate consequence of its
unity is to say that it will be manifested in some degree, in all that proceeds
from Being, that is to say in all particular beings insofar as they belong to
the domain of universal manifestation. However, as soon as there is
multiplicity, as is the case in the order of particular existences, it is
evident that there can no longer be a question of any but relative freedom; and
in this respect one may envisage either the multiplicity of particular beings
themselves or that of the elements constituting each one of them. As concerns
the multiplicity of beings, each is limited by the others in its states of
manifestation, and this limitation can be expressed as a restriction on its
freedom; but to say that some being is not free to any degree would be to say
that it is not itself, that it is ‘the others’, or that it does not bear even
its immediate raison d’etre within itself, which would amount to saying that
it is in no way a real being.[143] Furthermore, since
the unity of Being is the principle of freedom in particular beings as well as
in universal Being, a being will be free to the extent that it participates in
this unity; in other words, it will be the more free as it has more unity in
itself, or as it is more ‘one’;[144] but, as we have
already said, individual beings are never such except in a relative way.[145] In this regard moreover
it is important to note that it is not exactly the greater or lesser
complexity
of the constitution of the being that makes it more or less free, but it is
rather the character of that complexity that determines to what degree it is
more or less effectively unified, and this follows from what we have explained
previously regarding the relationships between unity and multiplicity.6
Freedom thus envisaged is then a possibility which, to varying
degrees, is an attribute of all beings, whatever they are and in whatever
state they are situated, and not only of man; thus human freedom, which is all
that is considered in philosophical discussions, no longer appears as anything
but the particular case that it really is.7 What matters most
metaphysically is not the relative freedom of manifested beings, any more than
the special and limited domains in which it may be exercised, but freedom
understood in the universal sense, which properly resides in the metaphysical
instant of passage from cause to effect, the causal relation moreover having
to be transposed analogically in such a way as to be applicable to all
6. It is necessary to distinguish between that complexity which
is only pure multiplicity and that which, on the contrary, is an expansion of
unity (cf. asrar rab- baniyyah in Islamic esoterism; Man and His
Becoming, chap. 9, and The Symbolism of the Cross, chap. 4); one
could say that in relation to the possibilities of Being, the former refers to
‘substance’ and the latter to ‘essence.5
One could similarly
envisage the relations of one being with others (relations which, considered in
the state where they occur, enter as elements into the complexity of its
nature, since they make up part of its attributes as so many secondarymodalities
of itself) under two apparently opposed but really complementary7 aspects,
according to whether in these relations the being in question assimilates the
others to itself or is assimilated by7 them, that assimilation
constituting ‘comprehension’ in the proper sense of the word. The relationship
existing between two beings is at one and the same time a modification of both;
but one can say that the determining cause of this modification lies in the one
of the two beings which acts upon the other, or which, assimilates it to itself
when the relation is taken in the sense of the preceding point of view, a point
of view which is no longer that of action but of knowledge insofar as it
implies an identification between its two terms.
7. It matters little that some prefer to call ‘spontaneity’ what
we here call freedom, in order to reserve the latter term especially7
for human freedom; but this usage of two different terms has the disadvantage
of leading all too easily to the notion that the latter is of a different
nature, whereas the difference is only7 one of degree, or that, at
the very least, human freedom constitutes a kind of‘privileged case’, which is
metaphysically7 untenable.
orders
of possibilities. Since this causal relation is not and cannot be one of
succession, its accomplishment must be viewed here essentially under the
extra-temporal aspect, and this all the more so in that the temporal point of
view, being particular to a determined state of manifested existence, or, even
more precisely, to certain modalities of that state, is in no way susceptible
of universalization.[146] Consequently,
this metaphysical instant, which seems so elusive because there is no break in
continuity between the cause and the effect, is in reality unlimited, and.
thus, as we established at the outset, surpasses Being and is coextensive with
total Possibility itself; it constitutes what one may call figuratively a
‘state of universal consciousness’,[147]
participating in the ‘permanent actuality’ inherent in the ‘first cause’
itself.[148]
In Non-Being, the absence of constraint can only lie in ‘nonaction’
(the wu-wei of the Far-Eastern tradition);[149]
in Being, or, more exactly, in manifestation, freedom operates in
differentiated activity, which in the individual human state takes the form of
action in the usual sense of this word. Moreover, in the domain of action, and
even in the whole of universal manifestation, the ‘freedom of indifference’ is
impossible, since it is the mode of freedom belonging properly to the
non-manifested (which, strictly speaking, is in no way a special mode),[150] that is to say, it
is not freedom as a possibility of being, nor yet the freedom that belongs to
Being (or to
God
conceived as Being in its relation to the world understood as the totality of
universal manifestation) and consequently, to the manifested beings that occupy
its domain and participate in its nature and attributes according to the
measure of their own respective possibilities. The realization of the
possibilities of manifestation which constitute all beings in all their
manifested states, including all the modifications, whether of action or
otherwise, that belong to these states, therefore cannot rest upon a pure
indifference (or upon an arbitrary decree of the divine Will, after the
well-known Cartesian theory that would moreover apply this conception of
indifference both to God and to man),[151]
but this realization is determined by the order of the universal possibility of
manifestation, which is Being itself, so that Being determines itself, not only
in itself (insofar as it is Being, the first of all determinations), but also
in all its modalities, which are all the particular possibilities of manifestation.
It is only in these latter, considered ‘distinctively’ and even under the
aspect of‘separativity’, that there can be determination by ‘another than
itself’; put another way, particular beings can both determine themselves (to
the extent that each one of them possesses a certain unity, hence a certain
freedom, as participating in Being) and be determined by other beings (by
reason of the multiplicity of particular beings, which, insofar as they are
envisaged from the point of view of the states of manifested existence, are not
brought together into a unity). Universal Being cannot be determined, but
determines itself; as for Non-Being, it can neither be determined nor determine
itself, since, being beyond all determination, it admits of none.
One sees from the preceding that absolute freedom can be realized
only through complete universalization; this will be ‘self-determination’
insofar as it is co-extensive with Being, and ‘indetermination’ beyond Being.
Whereas a relative freedom belongs to every being under any condition
whatsoever, this absolute freedom can only belong to the being that, liberated
from the conditions of manifested existence, whether individual or even
supra-individual,
has
become absolutely "one’, at the degree of pure Being, or ‘without
duality’, if its realization surpasses Being.[152]
It is then, but then only, that one can speak of a being ‘that is a law unto
itself’,[153] because this being
is then entirely identical with its sufficient reason, which is both its
principial origin and its final destiny.
|
advaita 31, 90 |
Fiat Lux 68 |
|
agnosticism 83 117 |
|
|
ahankdra 42, 48 |
Greece 23 ns |
|
Akasha 23 |
Greek 24 n 8 |
|
Alexandrian Gnosticism 25 nio |
gunas 64 |
|
angelic states 49, 70 ni |
|
|
angels 49, 70 |
hallucination 38 n 7 |
|
Aristotle 67 n3, 77-78 |
Hindu doctrine 12 m3, 29
116, 31, |
|
Asuras 71 |
42, 95 ms |
|
atomist(s) 18, 23 |
symbolism 67 07 |
|
|
tradition 50 n4, 67 n8,
71 |
|
Being (defined) 20 |
Hiranyagarbha 67 117 |
|
Brahma 81 |
|
|
Brahma 12 m3 |
immanentism 87 n 1 |
|
Brahmanda
(‘World Egg’), 67 07 |
India 23 n 5, 51 n7 |
|
Buddhi 42,
50, 52, 82 03 |
Islamic esoterism 28, 57
ni, 72 |
|
|
n8, 92 n6, 95 ms |
|
Cartesian ‘animal machines’ 47 |
|
|
China 51 n 7 |
jivau-mukta 73, 95
ms |
|
Chuang Tzu 36-37, 89 113 |
jivan-mukti 71 |
|
darshana 51 |
Khien 12 |
|
Descartes 18, 40 nio, 56 ns |
Khouen 12 |
|
determinism 89 |
knowledge, Aristotelian |
|
Devas 70 |
definition of 78 |
|
Dragon, Far-Eastern symbolism |
|
|
of 68 nio |
Leibnitz 14,16-17, 38
n8, 91 n4 |
|
dream state 3 5-3 6, 3 9, 41, 44, 7
6 |
Logos, Platonic and
Alexandrian |
|
dualism 56, 65 |
50 |
|
duality 32, 51, 90, 95 |
|
|
|
man, Aristotelian and
Scholastic |
|
ens et unum convertuntur 91 04 |
definition of 48 |
|
ens rationis 11 nio |
manas 42, 48 |
|
ether 23 |
Manu 50 |
|
Euclidean geometry 14 n3 |
mayavi-rupa 36 |
metaphysics 17 117, 39, 42, 55, 69, 78,
80, 85
Moksha (Mukti) 71
Muhyi’d Din ibn al-‘Arabi 72 n8, 83 n 6
multorum in uno expressio 38 n8
Narayana 67 n8
Non-Being
20-27, 31-32, 34, 65,
90-91, 93-94
non-duality
31, 83, 90-91
ontogeny
44
ontology
34
pantheism
10 n 9, 87 ni
phylogeny
44
Pascal
32 ni
polypsychism
44
positivists
83 ny
psychologists
29 nio, 41-43, 52
psychology
18, 27, 41-42, 54 ni
rationalism
84
reincarnationist
hypothesis 44
Saint
Thomas Aquinas 70 n2, 82
n2
Satchidananda 84
Scholastic
doctrine 82 n 2
philosophers 11 n 10, 50 n5
Shakti
12 013
Shankaracharya
73 nio, 79 118
Spencer,
Herbert 83 n 7 subconscious 43 successive existences 44 superconscious 43 svechchhachdri
95
tamas
68
Tao
37 n 6
Taoist
text 36
theology
69, 82 115, 85 m2
transformism
44
transformist
theories 45
universal Possibility 7, 9,11-14, 17>
21,44, 81, 83, 86, 90,94
Upanishads
76 n2
Vaishvdnara 78
Vedanta 81 videha-mukti 71
Vishnu
67 n 8
Wahdat al-wujud 28 wu-wei 93
Yoga
71
Yogi
71, 95 ni5
Zero,
metaphysical 24, 31-33, 90
Rene Guenon The
Multiple States of the Being
SP
|
R |
ene Guenon (1886-1951) was one of the
great luminaries of the twentieth century, whose critique of the modern world
has stood fast against rhe shifting sands of intellectual fashion. t
His extensive writings, now finally available in English, are a providential
treasure-trove for rhe modern seeker; while pointing ceaselessly to the
perennial wisdom found in past cultures ranging from the Shamanistic to the
Indian and Chinese, the Hellenic and Judaic, the Christian and Islamic, and
including also Alchemy, Hermeticism, and other esoteric currents, they direct
the reader also to the deepest level of religious praxis, emphasizing the need
for affiliation with a revealed tradition even while acknowledging the final
identity of all spiritual paths as they approach the summit of spiritual
realization.
The Multiple States of the
Being is the companion to, and the
completion of, The Symbolism of the Cross, which, together with Man
awl His Becoming according to the Vedanta, constitute Rene Guenons great
trilogy of pure metaphysics. In this work. Guenon offers a masterful
explication of rhe metaphysical order and its multiple manifestations—of the
divine hierarchies and what has been called the Great Chain of Being—and in so
doing demonstrates howjnana, intellective or intrinsic knowledge of what is,
and of That which is Beyond what is, is a Way of Liberation. Guenon the
metaphysical social critic, master of arcane symbolism, comparative
religionist, researcher of ancient mysteries and secret histories, summoner to
spiritual renewal, herald of the end days, disappears here. Reality remains.
The Collected Works of
Rene Guenon brings together the writings of one
of the greatest prophets of our rime, whose voice is even more important today
than when he was alive.
Huston Smith. The
Worlds Religions
In the exercise of the central
function of restoring the great principles of traditional metaphysics to
Western awareness this true jnanin gave proof of a universality of
understanding that for centuries had had no parallel in the Western world.
Frithjof Schuon, Language
of the Self
SP
SOPHIA PERENNIS
5. On the use of negative terms of
which the real meaning, however, is essentially affirmative, see Introduction
to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines, pt. 2, chap. 8. and Man and His
Becoming, chap. 15.
7. Cf. Tao Te Ching, chap. 14.
6. It is this that Hindu doctrine
designates as the domain of‘gross’ manifestation. It is sometimes called
the‘physical world’, but this expression is equivocal, and even if it can be justified
by the modern sense of the word ‘physical’, which actually applies only to what
concerns sensible qualities, we think it better to preserve the ancient
etymological meaning (from (pwic, ‘nature’) for this word, because when
understood thus, ‘subtle’ manifestation is no less ‘physical’ than gross
manifestation, for ‘nature’, which is properly speaking the domain
of‘becoming’, is in reality identical to the whole of universal manifestation.
7. The Symbolism of the Cross,
chap. n.
8. Ibid., chap. 12.
9. See ibid., chap. 27.
question here is a
metaphysical or ‘transcendent’ unity, which applies to universal Being as a
‘coextensive’ attribute, to use the terminology of logicians (although the
notion of ‘extension’ and the
correlative one of ‘comprehension’ are not properly
applicable beyond the ‘categories’,
or the most general types, that is, when one
passes from the general to
the universal), and which, as such, differs essentially from the mathematical
or numerical unity which applies only to the quantitative domain; and it is the
same for multiplicity, as we have often remarked before. There
is only analogy; and not
identity, or even similarity, between the metaphysical ideas of which we speak
and the corresponding mathematical notions, the designation of the one and the
other by a common term expressing in reality7 no more than this
analogy.
notion can appear more
complex and obscure than the things themselves, as is the
case here.
7. Some psychologists have actually
used this term ‘superconscious’, by which, however, they mean nothing but the
normal clear and distinct state of consciousness as opposed to the
‘subconscious’, so that it is only a useless neologism. Our understanding of
the ‘superconscious’, on the contrary, is truly symmetrical with the
‘subconscious’, taking both in relation to the ordinary conscious state, and
thus the term is not a useless repetition of any other.
5. It should be clear moreover that
it is the negation of a condition, that is, of a determination or a limitation,
that has a positive character from the point of view of absolute reality, as we
have explained in connection with the use of terms of negative form.
9. See The Symbolism of
the Cross, chaps. 24 and 27.
5. It is this same permanence that
Western theology expresses in another way when it says that all possibles are
eternally in the divine understanding.
[1] In this connection it is worth noting in passing
that the fact that the philosophical point of view never has recourse to
symbolism suffices to show up the exclusively ‘profane’ and altogether external
character of its particular point of view, and of the mode of thought to which
it corresponds.
[2] See Man and Uis Becoming according to the
Vedanta [cited hereafter as Man and His Becoming], chap. 23.
[3] See The Symbolism of the Cross, chaps.
26-28.
[4] Ibid., chap. 15.
[5] Ibid., chap. i.
[6] It should be observed that we are careful to say
‘general7 and not ‘universal’, for here it is nothing more than a
question of the particular conditions of certain states of existence, which
should suffice to show that there is no question of infinity since these
conditions are obviously as limited as the states to which they apply, and
which they help to define.
[7] If we sometimes speak of a ‘metaphysical
Infinite’ in order to indicate more precisely that it is by no means a question
of the so-called mathematical infinite, or other ‘counterfeits of the Infinite’
(if we may put it so), such an expression in no way falls under the objection
just raised, because the metaphysical order is in fact unlimited, so that it
contains no determination, but is on the contrary the affirmation of that
which surpasses all determination, whereas one who says ‘mathematical’ thereby
restricts the conception in question to a particular and limited domain, that
of quantity.
[8] See The Symbolism of the Cross, chaps. 26
and 30.
[9] The absurd, in the logical and mathematical
sense, is that which implies contradiction; it is therefore identical with the
impossible, for it is the absence of internal contradiction that defines
possibility, logically as well as ontologically.
[10] We do not say‘defined’, for it would obviously
be contradictory to try to give a definition of the Infinite; and we have shown
elsewhere that the metaphysical point of viewr itself, by reason of
its universal and unlimited character, is not susceptible of definition either
(Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines, pt. 2, chap. 5).
[11] We must distinguish this logical necessity,
which is the impossibility of a thing’s not being or being other than it is—and
this independently of any particular condition—from what is called 'physical’
necessity or necessity of fact, which is simply the impossibility that beings
and things could fail to conform to the laws of the world to which they belong,
this latter kind of necessity consequently being subordinate to the conditions
by which that world is defined, and which are valid only within the special
domain concerned.
[12] Some philosophers, having rightly argued against
the so-called ‘mathematical infinite’, and having exposed all the
contradictions that this idea implies (contradictions that disappear moreover
as soon as one recognizes that here it is only a matter of the indefinite),
believe they have also proved thereby the impossibility of the metaphysical
Infinite, but all that is proved by this confusion is their total ignorance of
what the latter implies.
[13] In other words, the finite, even if capable of
indefinite extension, is always strictly nil with respect to the Infinite;
consequently, neither any thing nor any being can be considered a ‘part of the
Infinite’, this being one of the erroneous conceptions belonging properly to
‘pantheism’, for the very use of the word ‘part’ implies the existence of a
definite relationship with the whole.
1.0. Above all one must avoid conceiving of the universal Whole in
the fashion of an arithmetical sum obtained by tire addition of its parts taken
successively, one
[15] These are the Brahma and Shakti of
Hindu doctrine (see Man and His Becoming, chaps. 5 and 10).
[16] See The Symbolism of the Cross, chap. 24.
[17] It is indeed noteworthy that every philosophical
system presents itself as being essentially the work of one individual,
contrary to the case of the traditional doctrines, where individualities count
for nothing.
[18] See Introduction to the Study of the. Hindu
Doctrines, pt. 2, chap. 8; Man and His Becoming, chap. 1; and The
Symbolism of the Cross, chaps. 1 and 15.
[19] Similarly, to take an example of a more extended
order, Euclidean and non- Euclidean geometries obviously cannot be applied to
one and the same space, but that does not prevent the different modalities of
space to which they correspond from coexisting in the integrality' of spatial
possibility, where each must be realized after its fashion, in accordance with
what we will shortly explain about the effective identity of the possible and
the real.
[20] It must be clearly understood that we are not
taking the word ‘existence’ here in its rigorously etymological sense, which
strictly speaking applies only to conditioned and contingent being, that is,
to manifestation. As we said at the outset, we use the word only in a purely’
analogical and symbolic way, because in some measure it helps to make
understandable what is involved, despite the extreme inadequacy of the word in
this context; and we have done the same with the term ‘being’ itself (see The
Symbolism of the Cross, chaps. 1 and 2).
[21] This is then ‘existence’ in the proper and
strict sense of the word.
[22] Such an idea is metaphysically unjustifiable and
can only stem from the intrusion of the ‘moral’ point of view into a domain
with which it has nothing to do; thus the ‘principle of the best’, to which
Leibnitz appeals in this context, is properly speaking anti-metaphysical, as we
have already pointed out elsewhere (The Symbolism of the Cross, chap.
2).
[23] We mean to say that in metaphysics there is no
occasion to envisage the real as constituting an order different from that of
the possible, though we must keep in mind that this word ‘real’ is vague and
even equivocal, at least as used in ordinary language and in the sense given it
by most philosophers. We made use of it here only because it was necessary in
order to dismiss the distinction commonly made between the possible and the
real. In what follows we will however give it a much more precise meaning.
[24] It is important to note that the spatial condition
by itself does not suffice to define a body as such; every body is necessarily
extended, that is to say subject to space (and consequently susceptible of
indefinite division, which points up the absurdity of the atomist conception),
but contrary to what Descartes and other advocates of a ‘mechanistic’ physics
have claimed, extension in no way constitutes the whole nature or essence of
bodies.
[25] See The Symbolism of the Cross, chap. 30.
[26] Ibid., chap, 11; cf. Man and His Becoming,
chaps. 2 and 12-13.
[27] Cf. ibid., chap. 15.
[28] It should be clearly understood that in saying
‘transitory’ we do not have in view exclusively or even principally temporal
succession, which applies only to a special mode of manifestation.
[29] On the continuity of the states of the being see
The Symbolism of the. Cross, chaps. 15 and 19. What we have just said
should suffice to show that the so-called principles of the ‘conservation of
matter’ and ‘conservation of energy’, however they may be formulated, are in
reality no more than simple physical laws that are altogether relative and
approximate, and that, even within the special domain to which they are
applicable, they can only hold true under certain definite and restricted
conditions, conditions that would persist, mutatis mutandis, if one
w'ere to extend these laws by a suitable transposition to the whole domain of
manifestation. Moreover, physicists are obliged to recognize that in a way it
is a question of ‘borderline cases’ in the sense that such laws would be
rigorously applicable only for what they call a ‘closed system’, that is to say
for something that does not and cannot exist, for the reason that it is
impossible to realize, or even to conceive of, some whole within manifestation
that could be absolutely isolated from all the rest, without communication or
exchange of any sort with what is outside of it; such a break in continuity
would constitute a veritable gap in manifestation, since from the point of view
of everything else that whole would simply not exist.
[30] This is what atomists, in particular, claim.
[31] The conception of an ‘empty space’ is
contradictory, which, let it be noted, constitutes a sufficient proof of the
reality of the element'ether' (Akasha), contrary to the theory of
various schools in India and Greece, which admit of only four corporeal
elements.
[32] On the void and its relations with extension,
see also The Symbolism of the Cross, chap. 4.
[33] It is the inexpressible (and not, as is commonly
believed, the incomprehensible) that was originally designated by the word
‘mystery’, for the Greek gvcrrfipiov derives from gveiv, which signifies ‘to be
silent’, ‘to hold one’s peace’. Also connected with the same verbal root mu
(whence the Latin mums, ‘dumb’) is the word uvOoc, ‘myth’, which, before
being diverted from its meaning to the point where it merely designates a
fantastic story, signified that which, since it could not be expressed
directly, could therefore only be suggested by a symbolic representation,
whether verbal or figurative moreover.
[34] In the same way, one could envisage darkness in
a superior sense, as what is beyond luminous manifestation, whereas in the
inferior and more usual sense it would be simply the absence or lack of light
in the manifest, that is to say something purely negative, the symbolism of
the color black having moreover the same double signification.
[35] The two possibilities of non-manifestation that
we have envisaged here could be said to correspond to what in certain schools
of Alexandrian Gnosticism were designated as the Abyss’ (Bd96^ and the ‘Silence’ (Li/i), which are in effect aspects
of Non-Being.
[36] As we indicated at the outset, if one wishes to
speak of the total being, one must still speak analogically of‘a being’ for
lack of another more adequate term at our disposal, but this expression is not
strictly applicable.
[37] ‘Nothingness’ is then not opposed to Being,
despite what is commonly said; it is to Possibility that it would be opposed,
if it could really enter as a term into any opposition—but this is not the
case, since nothing can oppose itself to Possibility, something that should be
understood without any difficulty in view of the fact that Possibility is in
reality identical with the Infinite.
[38] Let us recall again that to ‘exist’, in the
etymological sense of the word (from Latin ex-stare), is properly
speaking to be dependent or conditioned; it is then,
finally, not to possess in oneself one’s own principle or sufficient
reason, which is indeed true of manifestation, as we shall explain further on
when we define contingency with more precision.
[39] The Symbolism of the Cross, chap. i.
[40] This restriction is necessary because, in its
non-manifested essence, the same possibility obviously cannot be subject to
such conditions.
[41] One might say that the ‘self’, with all the
prolongations of which it is susceptible, has incomparably less importance
than modern Western psychologists and philosophers attribute to it, although at
the same time it contains possibilities of an indefinitely greater extension
than they can even suspect (see Man and His Becoming, chap. 2, and also
what we have to say below on the possibilities of individual consciousness).
[42] These two, the indefinitely increasing and
decreasing, are what in reality correspond to what Pascal so improperly called
the ‘two infinities’ (see The Symbolism of the Cross, chap. 29); and it
must be stressed that neither of these can in anyway lead us out of the
quantitative domain.
[43] As it is a point that cannot be overstressed, we
reiterate that the unity in
[44] This is why we feel that one should avoid as far
as possible the use of a term such as ‘emanation’, which evokes the idea, or
rather the false image, of a ‘going out’ from the Principle.
[45] It goes without saying that this word
‘directions', borrowed from considerations of spatial possibilities, must be
understood symbolically, for in its literal sense it would apply only to a
minute portion of the possibilities of manifestation, the sense we give it here
conforming moreover to all that we have expounded in The Symbolism o f the
Cross.
[46] We do not say ‘individual’, because states of
non-formal manifestation, which are supra-individual, are included here.
[47] Strictly speaking, no example is in fact
possible where metaphysical truths are concerned, for these are universal in
essence and not susceptible of any particularization, whereas every example is
necessarily of a particular order, to one degree or another.
[48] See Man and His Becoming, chap. 12.
[49] The word ‘imagined’ should be understood here in
its most exact sense, since it is indeed the formation of images that is
essentially involved in a dream.
[50] See Man and His Becoming, chap. 10.
[51] See The Symbolism of the Cross, chap. 2.
[52] Chuang Tzu, chap. 2.
[53] The same can be said of cases of hallucination,
in which the error does not, as is usually maintained, consist in attributing
reality to the perceived object—it being obviously impossible to perceive
something that does not exist in any way— but in attributing to it a mode of
reality other than that which is truly its own, amounting in effect to a
confusion between the orders of subtle and corporeal manifestation.
[54] Leibnitz defined perception as ‘the expression
of multiplicity in unity’ (mul- torum in uno expression which is
correct, but only with the reservations we have already indicated on the unity
one can rightly attribute to the ‘individual substance' (cf. The Symbolism
of the Cross, chap. 3). .
[55] By this restriction we do not at all mean to
deny the exteriority of sensible objects, which is one consequence of their
spatiality, but only to indicate that we do not wish to enter just now upon the
question of what degree of reality’ one should assign to that exteriority.
[56] We allude here especially to the distinction
between ‘mind’ and ‘matter’, such as has been put forward in all Western
philosophy since Descartes, which seeks to absorb all reality in one or the
other, or in both, of these terms, above which it seems incapable of rising
(see Introduction to the Study o f the Hindu Doctrines, pt. 2, chap.
8).
[57] Taken literally, the relationship of container
to contained is a spatial relationship; but here it should be taken only
figuratively, for what is in question is neither extended nor situated in
space.
[58] From this it follows that psychology has exactly
the same character of relativity7 as any other special and
contingent science, whatever some people claim; nor does it have anything to do
with metaphysics; furthermore, one must not forget that it is an entirely
modern and ‘profane’ science, unconnected to any traditional knowledge
whatsoever.
[59] See Man and Uis Becoming, chap. 7. K
[60] Ibid., chap. 8.
[61] Sometimes definitions of things of -which everyone
has a sufficiently clear
[62] On this equivalence of all the states from the
point of view of the total being, see The Symbolism of the Cross, chap.
27.
[63] See Man and His Becoming, chap. 18.
[64] The Spiritist Fallacy, pt. 2, chap. 6;
cf. The Symbolism of the Cross, chap. 15.
[65] The success of this theory was due indarge part
to reasons having nothing ‘scientific’ about them, but which are directly
connected with its anti-traditional character; and for the same reasons we can
foresee that even when no serious biologist believes it any more, it will
nevertheless linger on for a long time in textbooks and popular writings.
[66] It must be strictly understood that the
impossibility of a change of species applies only to true species, which do not
necessarily always coincide with the classifications of zoologists and
botanists, who wrongly take for distinct species what are in reality only races
or varieties of one and the same species.
[67] This statement may seem somewhat paradoxical at
first sight, but it is sufficiently justified by a consideration of certain
plants and so-called lower animals, such as polyps and worms, where it is
almost impossible to determine whether one is dealing with one or with several
individuals, and to determine the degree to which individuals are really
distinct from one another, whereas the limits of the species, on the contrary,
are always clearly enough defined.
[68] Cf. The Spiritist Fallacy, pt. 2, chap.
8.
[69] See Man and Uis Becoming, chap. 8. We use
the term ‘mental’ in preference to any other because its root is the same as
that of the Sanskrit manas, which is found also in Latin mens,
English mind, and so forth; besides, the numerous linguistic comparisons
that one can easily make on the subject of this root man or men,
and the diverse significations of the words formed from it, show that an
element regarded as essentially characteristic of the human being is involved
here, since it is often used to designate the latter, implying that the being
is sufficiently defined by the presence of the element in question (cf. ibid.,
chap. i).
[70] We shall see further on that the ‘angelic’
states are properly the supra-indi- vidual states of manifestation, that is,
those pertaining to non-formal manifestation.
[71] We recall that the species is essentially of the
order of individual manifestation, that it is strictly immanent at a certain
definite degree of universal Existence, and that in consequence the being is
tied to it only in its state corresponding to that degree.
[72] In the cosmic order, the corresponding
refraction of the same principle has its expression in the Manu of the
Hindu tradition (see Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines,
pt. 3, chap. 5, and Man and His Becoming, chap. 4)
[73] According to the Scholastic philosophers, a transposition
of this kind must be effected whenever one passes from attributes of created
beings to divine attributes, so that it is only analogically that the same
terms can be applied to the one and the other, and then simply to indicate that
in God is the principle of all the qualities found in man or in any other
being—on condition of course that it is a matter of truly positive qualities,
and not of those that, being the consequence of privation or limitation, have
only a purely negative existence (whatever may be the appearances), and are
consequently devoid of principle.
[74] Discursive knowledge, as opposed to intuitive
knowledge, is fundamentally synonymous with indirect and mediate knowledge; it
is therefore only a very relative knowledge, gained in a way by reflection or
by participation. By reason of this
[75] As we have explained elsewhere, thisdntersection
is that of the ‘Celestial Ray’ with its plane of reflection (ibid., chap. 24).
[76] See Man and His Becoming, chaps. 7 and 8.
[77] This is the same observation that we made above
on the subject of the possibilities of the ‘self’ and of its place in the
total being.
[78] We use this expression deliberately, since there
are some who, instead of giving to psychology its legitimate place as a
specialized science, try to make it the point of departure for, and the
foundation of a whole pseudo-metaphysics, which, needless to say, is worthless.
[79] See The Symbolism of the Cross, chaps. 2
and 3.
[80] Ibid., chaps. 2 and 29.
[81] Man and His Becoming,
[82] See Introduction to the Study of the Hindu
Doctrines, pt. 2, chap. 8; and Man and His Becoming, chap. 5. As we
have already indicated, it is principally to Descartes that one must trace the
origin of and the responsibility for this dualism, although it must also be
recognized that his concepts owed their success to the fact that they were in
effect only the systematization of pre-existing tendencies, the very tendencies
that are properly characteristic of the modern spirit (cf. The Crisis of the
Modern World, chap. 4).
[83] On the significance of these terms borrowed from
Islamic esoterism, see The Symbolism of the Cross, chap. 3.
[84] This term is derived from the fact that a circle
whose radius increases indefinitely has for its limit a straight line; and in
analytical geometry the equation of this limit of the circle, which is the
locus of all points on any given plane that are indefinitely distant from the
center (that is, the origin of the coordinates), is effectively reduced to a
first-degree equation, like that of a straight line.
[85] See The Symbolism of the Cross, chap. 20.
[86] On the distinction between the ‘interior’ and
‘exterior’, and the limits within which it is valid, see The Symbolism of
the Cross, chap. 29.
[87] This should be compared with what we have said
elsewhere: that it is in the plenitude of expansion that perfect homogeneity is
achieved, just as, inversely, extreme distinction is only realizable in extreme
universality (ibid., chap. 20).
[88] Guenon commenced a study entitled ‘The
Conditions of Corporeal Existence’ in the January and February 1912 issues of
the journal La Gnose; unfortunately, this Journal then ceased publication,
and the study was not continued. The material that did appear is now contained
in Miscellanea, pt 2, chap. 4. Ed.
[89] Cf. Man and His Becoming, chap. 17. This
temporal symbolism, moreover, is constantly used in the theory of cycles,
whether the latter be applied to the totality of beings or to each being in
particular. Cosmic cycles are nothing other than the states or degrees of
universal Existence, or, in the case of subordinate or more restricted cycles,
their secondary modalities; moreover, by virtue of the analog}' of the part to
the whole, which we have already mentioned, the subordinate cycles represent
phases corresponding to those of the more extended cycles in which they are
integrated.
[90] This is true not only of time but even of
‘duration’, envisaged, according to certain conceptions, as comprehending,
besides time, all other possible modes of succession, that is to say all the
conditions that in other states of existence correspond analogically to what
is time in the human state (see The Symbolism of the Cross, chap. 30).
[91] Cf. Man and His Becoming, chap. 2.
[92] Thus it is, for example, that the straight line
is reducible to a circumference and the plane to a sphere, as their respective
limits, when their radii are taken as projected indefinitely.
[93] The Symbolism of the Cross, chap. 5.
[94] Man and His Becoming, chap. 2.
[95] Ibid., chap. 19, and also The Symbolism of
the Cross, chap. 1. ‘Form, geometrically speaking, is contour: it is the
appearance of the Limit’ (Matgioi, La. Voie Metaphysique [Paris:
Editions Traditionnelles, 1952] pzA It could be defined as an ensemble of
directional tendencies, by analogy with the tangential equation of a curve, and
it goes without saying that this geometrical conception can be transposed into
the qualitative order. Let us also point out that such considerations are also
relevant to the non-individuaiized elements (though not the supra-individual
ones) of the ‘intermediary world’, to which Far-Eastern tradition gives the
generic name of‘wandering influences’, and to their possibility of temporary
and transitory individualization, and of directional determination, by entry
into relationship with a human consciousness (cf. The Spiritist Fallacy,
pt. 1, chap. 7).
[96] It is doubtless in this way that we should
understand Aristotle when he says that 'man [as individual] never thinks
without images,’ that is, without forms.
[97] The separation of the Waters, from the
cosmogonic point of view, is described at the beginning of Genesis (1:6-7).
[98] See The Symbolism of the Cross, chap. 23.
[99] See Man and His Becoming, chap. 5.
[100] The Symbolism of the Cross, chap. 24. It
is also, in Hindu symbolism, the plane by which the Brahmanda or ‘World
Egg’, at the center of which lies Hiranya- garbha, is divided into
halves; this ‘World Egg’ is moreover often represented as floating on the
surface of the primordial Waters (see Man and His Becoming, chaps. .5
and 13).
[101] Narayana, which is one of the names of Vishnu
in the Hindu tradition, signifies literally ‘He who walks on the Waters,’ the
parallel with the Gospel tradition being self-evident. Naturally, the symbolic
significance here, as in all cases, does not
in any way infringe on the historical character of the latter
account, a fact that is the less contestable, moreover, since the event
concerned, corresponding to the attainment of a certain degree of effective
initiation, is far less rare than is ordinarily supposed.
[102] Cf. especially the Far-Eastern symbolism of the
Dragon, corresponding in a certain way to the Western theological conception of
the Word as the ‘locus of possibles’ (see Man and His Becoming, chap.
16).
[103] If the ‘angelic’ states are the supra-individual
states constituting non-formal manifestation, one cannot then attribute to the
angels any of the faculties that are properly of an individual order. For
example, as we have said above, one cannot suppose them endowed with reason,
which is the exclusive characteristic of the human individuality, for their
mode of intelligence can only be purely intuitive.
[104] Man and His Becoming, chap. io. The
treatise ‘De Angelis’ of Saint Thomas Aquinas is particularly characteristic in
this regard.
[105] The Esoterism of Dante, chaps. 1
and 7.
[106] The Symbolism of the Cross, chap. 25.
[107] Cf. ibid.., chap. 15.
[108] Man and His Becoming, chap. 23.
[109] Cf. ibid., chaps. 21 and 22.
[110] These ‘spiritual hierarchies’, insofar as the
various states they comprise are realized by the attainment of as many
effective initiatic degrees, correspond to what Islamic esoterism calls the
‘categories of initiation’ (Tarfib at-tasawwuf); on this subject we draw
attention especially to the treatise of the same name written by Muhyi !d-Din
ibn al-‘ArabI.
[111] See Man and His Becoming, chap. 20.
[112] From Shankaracharya, Atma-Bodha (see
ibid., Man and His Becoming, chap. 23).
[113] Cf. Man and His Becoming, chap. 16.
[114] The symbolism of nourishment (anna) is
frequently used in the Upanishads to designate this kind of assimilation.
[115] This has been explained amply in The
Symbolism of the Cross.
[116] It should be clearly understood that here we
take the terms ‘subject’ and ‘object’ in their usual sense, as designating
respectively ‘the one who knows’ and ‘that which is known’ (see Man and His
Becoming, chap. 15).
[117] We have already mentioned on various occasions
that in principle Aristotle posited identification by knowledge, but also that
this affirmation, in his works as in those of his Scholastic followers, seems
to have remained purely theoretical, for they seem never to have drawn any
conclusions from it as concerns metaphysical realization (see especially Introduction
to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines, pt. 2, chap. 10; and Man and His
Becoming, chap. 24).
[118] We allude here to the modern 'theories of
knowledge’, whose futility we have already explained elsewhere (Introduction
to the Study o f the Hindu Doctrines, pt. 2, chap. 10), a point to which we
shall shortly return.
[119] This difference is that between intuitive and
discursive knowledge, about which we have already spoken so often that we need
not linger over it here.
[120] See Introduction to the Study of the Hindu
Doctrines, pt. 2, chap. 5.
[121] One might note also that the act common to two
beings, following the sense which Aristotle gives to the word ‘act’, is that by
which, their natures coincide, and are thus identified, at least partially.
[122] See Man and His Becoming, chap. 12. The
symbolism of the ‘mouths’ of Vaishvdnara is related to the analogy of
cognitive with nutritive assimilation.
[123] Shankaracharya, Atma-Bodha (ibid., chap.
22).
[124] See also Introduction to the Study of the
Hindu Doctrines, pt. 2, chap. 10.
[125] This applies even to simple sensible knowledge,
which in its own inferior and limited order is also immediate, and thus
necessarily true.
[126] Taittiriya Upanishad, 11. i. i.
[127] This formula accords with the definition Saint
Thomas Aquinas gives of truth as adaequatio rei et intellects; but it is
a kind of transposition as it were, for it is necessary to take into account
the principal difference that Scholastic doctrine is limited exclusively to
Being, whereas what we have been saying here applies equally to all that is
beyond Being.
[128] Here the term ‘intellect’ is also transposed
beyond Being, and thus all the more so beyond Buddhi, which though of a
universal and non-formal order still belongs to the domain of manifestation,
and consequently cannot be called unconditioned.
[129] One will note moreover the far from fortuitous
close relation between the words ‘real’ and ‘realization’.
[130] Muhyi ’d-Din ibn aUArabi, Risalat-al-Ahadiya
(see Man and His Becoming, chap. 15).
[131] Therefore we reject formally and absolutely all
‘agnosticism’, of any degree whatsoever; besides, if one were to ask the
‘positivists’, as well as the partisans of Herbert Spencer’s famous theory of
the ‘unknowable’, by what authority they affirm that there are things which
cannot be known, the question would run a good risk of remaining unanswered,
the more so because some of them seem quite simply to confuse the ‘unknown’
(that is, what is unknown to themselves), with the ‘unknowable’ (see East
and West, pt. 1, chap. 1, and The Crisis of the Modern World, chap.
5).
[132] Matgioi, La Voie Metaphysique, third
edition, P73.
[133] That which surpasses reason is not by that fact
contrary to reason, which is what is generally understood by the word
‘irrational’.
[134] Let us recall in this connection that a
‘mystery’, even understood theologically, is not at all something unknowable
or unintelligible, but rather, taken in its etymological sense, something
inexpressible and so incommunicable, which is an altogether different matter.
[135] Man and His Becoming, chap. 14.
[136] Let us say, moreover, that theology, far
superior in this respect to philosophy, at least recognizes that this
opposition can and must be transcended, although here the resolution is not in
such clear evidence as when it is envisaged from the metaphysical point of
view. And it should be added that it is from the theological point of view
above all, and by reason of the religious conception of‘creation’, that this
question of the relationships between necessity and contingency from the
beginning took on the importance that it has henceforth retained
philosophically in Western thought.
[137] It is this very ‘irreciprocit/ that equally
excludes all ‘pantheism’ and all ‘immanentism’, as we have pointed out
elsewhere (Man and His Becoming, chap. 24)
[138] It is a case here, of course, of a point located
in space, and not the principial point, of which space itself is only an
expansion or a development. On the relations between point and extension see The
Symbolism of the Cross, chap. 16.
[139] Traditional commentary of Chuang Tzu on the 1
Ching (cf. The Symbolism of the Cross, chap. 22).
[140] One could say as much of the better part of the
discussions relating to finality, the distinction between ‘internal finality’
and ‘external finality’ being valid only insofar as one admits the
anti-metaphysical supposition that an individual being is a complete being and
constitutes a ‘closed system’, since otherwise that which is ‘external’ for the
individual can nonetheless be ‘internal’ for the true being, if indeed the
distinction presupposed by the word is still applicable (see The Symbolism
of the Cross, chap. 29); and it is easy to see that in the end finality and
destiny are identical.
[141] Cf. Man and His Becoming, chap. 22.
[142] Ibid., chap. 6.
[143] One might also add that, since multiplicity
proceeds from the unity in which it is implied or contained in principle, it
cannot in any way destroy either unity or any consequences of unity, such as
freedom.
[144] Every being, to truly be such, must have a
certain unity the principle of which it carries in itself; in this sense
Leibnitz was right in saying: ‘That which is not truly a being is not a being at all.’ But this adaptation of the Scholastic formula ens
et unum convertuntur loses for him its metaphysical
importance by its attribution of absolute and complete unity to ‘individual
substances’.
[145] It is moreover by reason of this relativity that
one may speak of degrees of unity, and hence of degrees of freedom, for there
are degrees only in the relative, the absolute not being susceptible of any
‘more’ or ‘less’ (taking these words here analogically, not merely in their
quantitative sense).
[146] Duration itself, understood in its most general
sense as conditioning all existence in successive mode, that is to say as
including every condition that in other states corresponds analogically to
time, also cannot be universalized, since in the Universal everything must be
envisaged in simultaneity.
[147] Here one should recall what was said above
concerning the reservations necessary when one wishes to universalize the
sense of the word ‘consciousness’ by an analogical transposition. The
expression used here is fundamentally a near equivalent to that of‘aspect of
the Infinite’, which also should not be taken literally.
[148] Cf. Matgioi, La Voie Metaphysique, third
edition, pp 73-74.
[149] The ‘Activity of Heaven’ in itself (in the
principial indifferent]'ation of NonBeing) is non-acting and non-manifested
(see The Symbolism of the Cross, chap. 23)
[150] It becomes so only in its ordinary philosophical
conception, which is not merely erroneous but truly absurd, for it supposes
that something could exist without having any raison d’etre.
[151] We include the translation into theological
terms here only to facilitate comparison with the customary points of view of
Western thought.
[152] See Man and His Becoming, chaps. 15 and
16.
[153] Concerning this expression, which belongs more
particularly to Islamic esoterism, and its equivalent svechchhachari in
Hindu doctrine, see The Symbolism of the Cross, chap. 9. See also what
has been said on the state of the Yogi or jivan- mukta in Man and His
Becoming, chaps. 23 and 24.