We bear witness to such division today. Disharmonies are everywhere: nation against nation, generation against generation, and neighbor against neighbor. Tried and true institutions and values seem to be falling apart. Some formerly life-sustaining scripture bends and even breaks, in relation to that never-ending, never-settled scientific revolution.
Many of us feel a little broken too.
Abounding threats, large and tiny, catch us quite off guard. We search our phones for answers, but there is not much to be found there except more bad news: a war declared; a suddenly ill dear friend; a neighbor’s texting snub.
But there abounds good news too, if we learn where and how to look for it. And it is ever-present, and perennial to boot. Last Century, a Philosopher and a Mythologist seemed to arrive, from different directions, at a single and very auspicious perspective.
The Philosopher took refuge in the library at Trabuco and dug in: reading, contemplating, writing. What emerged was a philosophia perennis, an account across time and philosophies and religions of a “Highest Common Factor”. Composed through the ages by saints, sages, and prophets, this perennial philosophy was everywhere to behold. It was transcendent and immanent, a divine ground. The Philosopher had discovered that beyond and within the many differences between wisdom traditions floated enduring pay dirt: tat tvam asi.
The Mythologist, at nearly the same time, recognized something quite universal from the perspective of journeys undertaken in myth, fairy tale, scripture and dreams. A monomyth. It was the heroes’ journey with legendary protagonists ranging from cave dwellers, to witch doctors, to Olympian gods and finally, to our very selves. Later, the Mythologist would write of the collapse of many myths and religions held literally. Science and Rationalism would dispel beliefs in a Flood, a Parted Sea, and an Exodus. So he urged the necessity to explore a new and ancient myth: “the old everlasting perennial mythology” that eternally exists along side the scientific method, with each illuminating the other. A perennial mythology that he identified more than once as tat tvam asi…that thou art. But what exactly does it mean?
The Chandogya Upanishad, created long ago (7th century BCE), conveys a Truth both Philosopher and Mythologist identified as perennial to the core. The story (in brief) goes something like this: An overly cocky twelve year old (imagine that) named Svetaketu, inquired of his father, Uddalaka, about the Knowledge whereby “we can know what cannot be known”. His father gave the boy a humbling task, to bring back a fruit from the nyagrodha tree and discover the tree’s inception. An experiment ensued as father directed son to break the fruit open; then, to break a seed held within the fruit open. Svetaketu searched but could not see the origin of the tree in the broken seed.
Similarly, the boy was instructed to put some salt in a cup of water. The next day father asked son about the salt and its whereabouts, but it had dissolved and he could not see it. Now taste the water instructed Uddalaka. It was, of course, salty…still present but invisible. Father explained that the hidden salt remained in the water even as the imperceptible Atman (Essence, Self) remains in all things, as invisible as it was perennial.
Uddalaka concluded, “you my dear Svetaketu are that Essence, that thou art”. Tat tvam asi.
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