"Many Paths, One Truth"?

"For by one Spirit
are we all baptized into one body,
whether we be Jews or Gentiles,
whether we be bond or free:
and have been all made to drink into one Spirit."
- I. Corinthians, Xll, 13

Many individuals throughout history describe experiences which seem to describe a direct, immediate, raw experience of fundamental understanding and shift of personal identity.

So if such a unique experience "happens to," or is "witnessed by"
very different people,
in very different cultures,
at very different times,
who are apparently unrelated,
yet is described in very similar and sometimes even identical ways . . .
could that lend one to see
that it might be real?

It's popular nowadays to talk about "de-construction" - taking any belief or worldview and tracing it back to it's origin, explaining it in terms of the influence of one's historical period, culture, gender bias, etc, etc.

But the question comes up: in regards to religion and spirituality, is there any aspect of it that can't be "deconstructed"?

Many folks speak of an ageless "Perennial Philosophy," a tradition of truth seekers (and finders) that survives, in one form or another, throughout practically all ages, times, and cultures, a system that practices a type of empirical theology - based not on theory, rumor, speculation, or imagination, but on direct experience.

In this sense, religions are not merely cultural institutions with holy laws and bake sales, but are the aftermath, codification, and institutionalization of a few individuals who had - for lack of better words - "spiritual experiences."

In other words, Christianity was initially based on the spiritual experience of Jesus. Buddhism was initially based on the spiritual experiences of Buddha. Islam was based on the spiritual experience of Mohammed. Taoism was based on the spiritual experiences of Lao-Tzu. And so on. And one single, core system underlies all of them, the way that a universal grammer underlies all the different languages, the way a single string "underlies" many different pearls.

But . . . is it true?

Well, it seems to us that it was a good idea is to look at the evidence . . .

(Editor's Note: if the following excerpts do not ring true,
or sounds merely like irrational rambling,
skip ahead to The Appendix at the bottom of the page.)

Talk about it:
info@livereal.com

The Upanishads (8th-5thC B.C.) (Central texts of Hinduism)

"Eye cannot see It, tongue cannot utter It, mind cannot grasp It. There is no way to learn or to teach It. It is different from the known, beyond the unknown. In this all the ancient Masters agree."
"That which makes the tongue speak but which cannot be spoken by the tongue - that alone is God, not what people worship.
That which makes the mind think but which cannot be thought by the mind - that alone is God, not what people worship.
That which makes the eye see but which cannot be seen by the eye - that alone is God, not what people worship.
That which makes the ear hear but which cannot be heard by the ear - that alone is God, not what people worship.
If you think that you know God, you know very little; all that you can know are ideas and images of God.
I do not know God, nor can I say that I don't know It. If you understand the meaning of "I neither know nor don't know," you understand God."

Lao-Tzu (571?-? B.C.)

"Eyes look but cannot see it
Ears listen but cannot hear it
Hands grasp but cannot touch it
Beyond the senses lies the great Unity -
Invisible, Inaudible, Intangible"
"This formless form,
This imageless image
cannot be grasped by mind or might
Try to face it
In what place will you stand?
Try to follow it
To what place will you go?"

Muhammad (570?-632 Arabia)

"Is He not closer than the vein of thy neck? Thou needest not raise thy voice, for he knoweth the secret whisper, and what is yet more hidden . . . He knows what is in the land and in the sea; no leaf falleth but He knoweth it; nor is there a grain in the darkness under the earth, nor a thing, green or sere but it is recorded." (vi: 12,59)
"He existed before all things, and will exist after all that is living has ceased."
"Thou art present everywhere . . ."

Siddhartha Gautama the Buddha (563-483 B.C. India)

"Though the sentient beings thus to be delivered by me are innumerable and without limit yet, in reality, there are no sentient beings to be delivered." (The Diamond Sutra, (3))
"The phenomena of the physical appearance is wholly illusion." (The Diamond Sutra)
"Yes . . . but as the Blessed One uses the words, it has no existence - the words have only a figurative meaning. Otherwise the words would imply a belief in the existence of matter as an independent and self-existent entity, which it is not." (The Diamond Sutra)
"Hence, the purpose of the Holy Life does not consist in acquiring alms, honor, or fame, nor in gaining morality, concentration, or the eye of knowledge. That unshakable deliverance of the heart: that, verily, is the object of the Holy Life, that is the essence that is its goal." (Tevigga Sutta, Rhys-Davids)

Parmenides (540-470)

"One path only is left for us to speak of, namely, that It is. In this path are very many tokens that what is is uncreated and indestructible; for it is complete, immovable, and without end. Nor was it ever, nor will it be; for now it is, all at once, a continuous one."

Heraclitus (6th-5th Century B.C. Greece)

"From all, one; and from one, all."
"It is in change that things find rest."
"To men, some things are good and some are bad. But to God, all things are good and beautiful and just."
"The one is made up of all things, and all things issue from the one."
"The way up and the way down are one and the same."
"The waking have one common world, but the sleeping turn aside each into a world of his own."

Bhagavad Gita (5th?-2nd?C B.C)

"In the idea of a work there is the knower, the knowing and the known. When the idea is work there is the doer, the thing done."
"I am the One source of all: the evolution of all comes from me. The wise think this and they worship me in adoration of love."
"He who knows I am beginningless, unborn, the Lord of all the worlds . . ."
"I am the object of all knowledge, father of the world, its mother, source of all things, of impure and pure, of holiness and horror. I am the goal, the root, the witness, home a refuge, dearest friend, creation and annihilation, everlasting seed and treasure."

The Secret Book of John (? 2 A.D. Egypt)

"It is the invisible Spirit. One should not think of it as a god, or like a god. For it is greater than a god, because it has nothing over it and no lord above it. It does not exist within anything that is inferior to it, since everything exists only within it. It is eternal, since it does not need anything. For it is absolutely complete: it has never lacked anything in order to be complete. Rather, it has always been absolutely complete in light.
It is illimitable, since there is nothing before it to limit it.
It is unfathomable, since there is nothing before it to fathom it.
It is immeasurable, since there was nothing before it to measure it.
It is unobservable, since nothing has observed it.
It is eternal, and exists eternally.It is unutterable, since nothing could comprehend it to utter it.
It is unnameable, since there is nothing before it to give it a name.
It is the immeasurable light, pure, holy, bright. It is unutterable, and is perfect in its imperishability."

Plotinus (204-274 Greece)

". . . This region of truth is not to be investigated as a thing external to us, and so only imperfectly known. It is within us. Here the objects we contemplate and that which contemplates are identical."

Chuang-tzu (369?-286? China)

"Some day comes the Great Awakening
when we realize
that this life
is no more than a dream.
Yet the foolish go on thinking
they are awake."
"I did not know whether I was Chuang Tzu dreaming I was a butterfly; or a butterfly dreaming I was Chuang Tzu."

Huang Po (?-850 China)

"This Mind, which is without beginning, is unborn and indestructible. It is not green nor yellow, and has neither form nor appearance. It does not belong to the categories of things which exist or do not exist, nor can it be thought of in terms of new or old. It is neither long nor short, big nor small, for it transcends all limits, measures, names, traces, comparisons. It is that which you see before you - begin to reason about it and you fall into error."

"If you students of the Way desire knowledge of this great mystery, only avoid attachment to any single thing beyond Mind."

"This spiritually enlightening nature is without beginning, as ancient as the Void, subject neither to birth nor to destruction, neither existing nor not existing, neither impure nor pure, neither clamorous nor silent, neither old nor young, occupying no space, having neither inside nor outside, size nor form, color nor sound. It cannot be looked for or sought, comprehended by wisdom or knowledge, explained in words, contacted materially, or reached by meritorious achievement."

"Follow it and, behold, it escapes you; run from it and it follows you close. You can neither possess it nor have done with it . . ."

Shankaracharya (686-718 India)

"The treasure I have found cannot be described in words,
the mind cannot conceive of it."
"It is beyond sense-knowledge. It is the source of all experience.
He who knows the Atman is free from every kind of bondage."
"He has no riches, yet he is always contented. He is helpless, yet of mighty power. He enjoys nothing, yet he is continually rejoicing. He has no equal, yet he sees all men as his equal.
He acts, yet is not bound by action. He reaps the fruit of past actions, yet is unaffected by them. He has a body, yet does not identify himself with it. He appears to be an individual, yet he is present in all things, everywhere."

Wei Wu Wei (?)

"The sought is the seeker,
The observed is the observer thereof,
That which is heard is the hearer of what is heard,
The odour is who inhales it,
The tasted is who savours what he tastes,
That which is touched is the feeler of it,
The thought is the thinker of the thought,
In brief, the sensorially perceived is the perceiver whose senses perceive."

Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022 Greece)

"The more a man enters the light of understanding, the more aware he is of his own ignorance. And when the light reveals itself fully and unites with him and draws him into itself, so that he finds himself alone in a sea of light, then he is emptied of all knowledge and immersed in absolute unknowing."
"Our mind is pure and simple. When it is emptied of thought, it enters the pure and simple light of God, and finds nothing but the light."

Dogen (1200-1273 Japan)

"To study Buddhism is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things. To be enlightened by all things is to drop off our own body and mind and to drop off the bodies and minds of others."
"When all things exist, there are enlightenment and delusion, practice, life and death, Buddhas and ordinary people. When all things are without self, there is no delusion, no enlightenment, no Buddhas, no ordinary people, no life and no death. Buddhism is beyond being and non-being; so there are life and death, delusion and enlightenment, ordinary people and Buddhas."
"To start from the self and try to understand all things is delusion. To let the self be awakened by all things is enlightenment. To be enlightened about delusion is to be a Buddha. To be deluded in the midst of enlightenment is to be an ordinary person. Then there are those who are enlightened beyond enlightenment, and those who are deluded by delusion. When Buddhas are truly Buddhas, they don't need to be aware of themselves as Buddhas. But they are enlightened ones."

Jelaluddin Rumi (1207-1273 Afghanistan)

"If you want to expound on love,
take your intellect out and lie it down in the mud. It's no help.
You want proof that the sun exists, so you stay up
all night talking about it. Finally you sleep
as the sun comes up.
Look at it!"
"Oneness,
which is the reality, cannot be understood
with lamp and sun images. The blurring
of a plural into a unity is wrong.
Not image can describe what of our fathers and mothers,
our grandfathers and grandmothers, remains.
Language does not touch the one
who lives in each of us."

Meister Eckhart (1260-1327 Germany, Catholic Priest)

"Simple people conceive that we are to see God as if He stood on that side and we on this. It is not so. God and I are one in the act of my perceiving Him."
"Scripture says, 'No one knows the Father but the Son.' Therefore, is you want to know God, you must not only be like the Son, you must be the Son."
"And why do you prate of God? Whatever you say of God is untrue."
"If it is true that God became man, it is also true that man became God."
"To get at the core of God at his greatest, one must first get into the core of himself at his least, for no one can know God who has not first known himself. Go to the depths of the soul, the secret place of the Most High, to the roots, to the heights; for all that God can do is focused there."
"Thou shalt know God without image, without semblance, and without means. So long as this he and this I, to wit, God and the soul, are not one single here, one single now, the I cannot work with nor be one with that he."
"The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love."

St. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274)

"All that I have written is like chaff to me." (On his deathbed)

The Cloud Of Unknowing (14thC? England)

"For I tell you truly that I would rather be nowhere bodily, wrestling with that blind nothing, than to be so great a lord that I might when I wanted be everywhere bodily, merrily playing with all this something as a lord with his own.
"Let go of this everywhere and this something, in exchange for this nowhere and this nothing. Do not worry if your senses cannot understand this nothing, for this is why I love it much the better. It is so worthy a thing in itself that they cannot understand it."

John Yepes (St. John of the Cross) (1542-1591, Avila)

"For the soul courageously resolved on passing, interiorly and exteriorly, beyond the limits of its own nature, enters illimitably within the supernatural, which has no measure, but contains all measure imminently within itself. . . For the soul that attains to this state has no ways or methods of its own, neither does it nor can it lean upon anything of the kind. I mean ways of understanding, perceiving, or feeling, though it has all ways at the same time, as one who possessing nothing, yet possesseth everything."
"Do not take less nor rest with the crumbs which fall from the table of thy father."
"This sovereign wisdom is of an excellence so high that no faculty nor science can ever unto it attain. He who shall overcome himself by the knowledge which knows nothing will always rise, all science transcending."
"Keep in mind, my dear reader, that these matters are beyond all worlds."

Jacob Behmen (1575-1624, Germany)

"The gate was opened to me that in one quarter of an hour I saw and knew more than if I had been many years together at a university . . . For I saw and knew the being of all beings, the byss and abyss and the eternal generation of the Holy Trinity, the descent and original of the world and of all creatures through the divine wisdom: I knew and saw in myself all the three worlds . . . So that I did not only greatly wonder at it but did also exceedingly rejoice."

William Law (?)

"Though God is everywhere present, yet He is only present to thee in the deepest and most central part of thy soul. The natural senses cannot possess God or unite thee to Him; nay, thy inward faculties of understanding, will and memory can only reach after God, but cannot be the place of his habituation in thee . . . it is so infinite that nothing can satisfy it or give it rest but the infinity of God."

William Blake (1757-1827 England)

"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is: infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern."
"Jesus was all virtue, and acted from impulse, not from rules."
"The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sward, are portions of eternity, too great for the eye of man."

George I. Gurdjieff (?-1945 Armenia)

"At the beginning of every religion we find an affirmation of the existence of God the Word and the Word-God. One teaching says that when the world was still nothing, there were emanations, there was God the Word. God the Word is the world."
"Knowledge is always the same. Only the form in which this knowledge was expressed and transmitted changed, depending on the place and the epoch. For instance, now we speak in a language which two hundred years hence will no longer be the same, and two hundred years ago the language was different. In the same way, the form in which the Great Knowledge is expressed is barely comprehensible to subsequent generations and is mostly taken literally. In this way the inner content becomes lost for most people."

Sri Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950, India)

"There is neither creation nor destruction, neither destiny nor free will; Neither path nor achievement; this is the final truth."
"The first and foremost of all the thoughts that arise in the mind is the primal 'I'-thought. It is only after the rise or origin of the 'I'-thought that innumerable other thoughts arise."

"By inquiring into the nature of the I, the I perishes. With it you and he (objects) also perish. The resultant state, which shines as Absolute Being, is one's own natural state, the Self . . . The only inquiry leading to Self-realization is seeking the source of the 'I' with in-turned mind and without uttering the word 'I' . . . If one inquires 'Who am I?' within the mind, the individual 'I' falls down abashed . . . and immediately Reality manifests itself spontaneously as 'I-I'"

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy

"There is thus an incessant multiplication of the inexhaustible One and unification of the indefinitely Many. Such are the beginnings and endings of worlds and of individual beings: expanded from a point without position or dimensions and a now without date or duration."

D.T. Suzuki (1869-? Japan)

"Consciousness is in its original nature, quiet, pure, and above the dualism of subject and object. But here appears the principle of particularization, and with the rise of this wind of action, the waves are agitated over the tranquil surface of Mind."

"In the beginning, which is really no beginning . . . the will wants to know itself, and consciousness is awakened, and with the awakening of consciousness the will is split in two. The one will, whole and complete in itself, in now at once actor and observer. Conflict is inevitable; for the actor now wants to be free from the limitations under which he has been obliged to put himself in his desire for consciousness. He has in one sense been enabled to see, but at the same time there is something which he, as observer, cannot see."

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955, France)

"We are one, after all, you and I, together we suffer, together exist. And forever will recreate each other."

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986, India)

"There can be no silence as long as there is a seeker. There is the silence of a still mind only when there is no seeker, when there is no desire. Without replying, put this question to yourself: Can the whole of your being be silent? Can the totality of the mind, the conscious as well as the unconscious, be still?"

Ramdasa (India)

"It fills the whole universe.
To its immaculateness, there is no comparison."
"It fills all this space at one. It touches all,
and abides in all.
It cannot be soiled by clay.
It cannot be carried away by flood.
Simultaneously, it is before us and behind us.
Simultaneously, it is to our right and to our left.
Simultaneously, it is above and below.
"As soon as we begin to be aware of it,
we forget it.
But as soon as we forget it,
it comes within the ken of our consciousness."
"When we try to realize it,
It cannot be realized.
When we try to leave it,
It cannot be left."

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1976 India)

"Awareness is primordial; it is the original state, beginningless, endless, uncaused, unsupported, without parts, without change . . . Awareness is absolute, consciousness is relative to its content; consciousness is always of something. Consciousness is partial and changeful, awareness is total, changeless, calm and silent. And it is the common matrix of every experience."

"Realization is but the opposite of ignorance. To take the world as real and one's self as unreal is ignorance, the cause of sorrow. To know the self as the only reality and all else as temporal and transient is freedom, peace and joy."

"When you can see everything as it is, you will also see yourself as you are."

Swami Muktananda (1908-1982 India)

"Love is our only reason for living and the only purpose of life . . . Yet the love we experience through other people is just a shadow of the love of the inner Self. There is a sublime place inside us where love dwells . . . The love that pulses in the cave of the heart does not depend on anything outside. It does not expect anything. It is completely independent."

The love of the Self is selfless and unconditional. It is not relative. It is completely free. It is self-generated and it never dies. This kind of love knows no distinction between high and low, between man and woman. Just as the earth remains the same no matter who comes and goes on it, so true love remains unchanging and independent. Love penetrates your entire being."

Thomas Stearn Eliot (1888-1965 England)

"At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time."

H. W. L. Poonja (1910- India)

"Only the Self everywhere! The not-Self doesn't exist. And the Self is not absent at all! So you will see Self everywhere. When I say everywhere, it is nowhere. Nowhere itself. Because no distance is involved. No here and somewhere. Self alone is total awareness of Self."

"The Self contains everything. There is nothing apart from it. This is why you call it emptiness. There is nothing beyond emptiness. All are empty. Nothing ever exists."

"And when you see something existing, it is not other than you. So wherever there is an idea or concept of duality, of something else, there is confusion there about this. There is no duality at all. Oneness and wholeness is all."

"Let me tell you again, there is only one thing that you lack. Enter into the guha, the cave of your heart, and there realize that you are!"

Franklin Merrill-Wolff (United States)

"I saw, at once, that if such Knowledge were an actuality it was of far greater importance than even the greatest intellectual achievement within the limits of the subject-object field . . . I resolved to make the search and pay what price might be demanded. In the years since, I have been more than once discouraged and have permitted lateral desires to lead me into side-excursions. But I always returned to the search. I tested various different routes, finding values and defects in all, and then at last by combining the best that India has to offer in the field of metaphysics with the best of western science and philosophy, and then adding thereto some modifications of my own, I found a road that has proved successful. While during the interim there have been partial Transformations and Recognitions, it has taken twenty-four years of search to attain a culminating point which I can recognize as definitely culminating . . .
My final word on this particular subject is: I sought a Goal the existence of which I had become convinced was highly probable. I succeeded in finding this Goal, and now I KNOW, and can also say to all others: "It is absolutely worth anything that it may cost, and immeasurably more."

"It may be that universal history
is the history of the different intonations
given a handful of metaphors."
- Jorge Luis Borges

Appendix

The above essentially amounts to attempts of verbal attempts to describe what some individuals have seemed to experience.

Yet, paradoxically, the difficulty and even impossibility they describe in attempting to communicate this (after all, can we really, really, completely and effectively communicate anything?) - is one of the things that is communicated by most of them very clearly.

It has been explained that it is somewhat similar to trying to describe, say, New York, or Hawaii, to someone who has never been there, or sight to a blind person, or Ben & Jerry's to a person who has never tasted it.

The only real way to know for sure, then, is to go there - and then, and only then, will it "make sense."

So, how do you "go there" yourself?

Well . . .

We've come across a few options to check out: some look-for-yourself Practical Experiments you can do on your own, an index of Modern Spiritual Giants: A User's Guide, and the LiveReal Discussion Board where we can talk about it . . .

 

 

Related Articles

Practical Experiments

Modern Spiritual Giants: A User's Guide

Common Denominators of World Religions

What is "God"?

What is "enlightenment"?