One Must Be Humble Before Obtaining
Wisdom, and Humbler After Acquiring It
N. C. Ramanujachary
What Is Learning?
Acquirement of new
knowledge, from time to time, is a basic urge with human beings. One is never
satisfied with what is known; there is always an inner urge to know the
unknown. While unknown factors are revealed in course of time, effort and
exploration there develops a feeling, rightly, that the things not known as yet
are knowable henceforward. To be informed and educated into this momentarily
unknown matters goes by the name Learning.
Learning is a
continuous process. It is also the culmination of one’s learning process, a
knowledge one gets by reading and studying. Grammar says Learning is a noun
made out of the verb ‘Learn’ which has various meanings:
1. To gain
knowledge or skill by studying, from experience, from being taught etc.;
2. To become aware
of a thing by hearing about it;
3. To study and
repeat in order to be able to remember and memorize;
4. Gradually
change one’s attitude towards someone or thing so that one behaves in a
different way.
Learner becomes
the Learned, at one stage, on a particular subject, as he absorbs what all that
could be, into his being.
The learner is
also a student. Student brings up a Master. Student-Master relationship is very
peculiar and unique in matters of Study and Learning. Study cannot stop with
the acquisition of a degree and an employment. Study needs observation,
patience, ability to assimilate and similar traits if it has to be meaningful
and purposeful.
Reading and
studying are different phases of one exercise. Study involves deep reflection,
contemplation, examination of ins and outs, inference, and ultimately adoption
or absorption. Study includes all ramifications of Life and Living. It is not
limited to book-study but is suggestive of all Nature around, Life patterns and
Relationships. It is common knowledge today that mere book-knowledge is
inadequate, and that what is needed is the application in the right way of what
one studies and observes in total.
A Civilization Exercise
Learning is a
civilizational exercise for humanity. The process of learning started long
back, perhaps in the third root-race, in distinct form. From gestures and
signs, humanity moved on to words, language, script and similar skills. These
are brought forward race after race, as we know visibly generation after
generation; and there is decided improvement towards perfection. This will go
on till the targeted perfection is achieved conveniently and comfortably. We
have accounts of Atlantic civilization which archeologists claim to be far
advanced and commendable compared to the present state of being. We have
scriptural texts of antiquity that are imprints of the earlier civilizations.
Passing on this valuable and utilitarian information to the onward
civilizations is what we call ‘Culture’.
Probing further
into the process, we could infer the transference of civilization or culture
could not be possible unless humanity has the inherent quality or capacity to
culture the Learning. This is added on to the assimilated culture what is
learned. We have the equipment for learning, assimilating and ultimately
carrying on the culture to its logical ends. Culturing the learning means the meditation
of the reflected factors of learning. The ultimate of all learning leads to the
acquirement of knowledge which Helena Blavatsky expresses in the following
terms:
“The radical unity
of the ultimate essence of each constituent part of compounds in Nature - from
Star to mineral Atom, from the highest Dhyan Chohan to the smallest infusoria,
in the fullest acceptation of the term, and whether applied to the spiritual,
intellectual or physical worlds - this is the one fundamental law in Occult
Science.” (“The Secret Doctrine”, vol.
I, p. 120)
We have presently
a verbal understanding of this statement. We feel the inadequacy of this when
we watch the many conflicts and confrontations in the inner world of enjoyment
as too the outer world of experience. We gradually come to an awakening that
unless this understanding rises to the level of ‘practical understanding’ and
becomes a part of our ‘being’, the process of learning will have to continue
unabated. The sooner we learn this, the better for humanity. The process moves
on simultaneously at the individual and collective level.
An Organized Whole
An organization is
an association of men and women who join together for a common purpose and
aspiration; and they sometimes explicitly and many times implicitly agree to
play their ‘individual role’ to the collective benefit of all. We can look at
the Earth Globe we live in, as an organization where besides the humanity, many
sub-human and super-human entities also exist. There is a long history of their
origin, evolution and continuance. The organizational behavior must tune itself
to this line and course. For purpose of administration the globe is subjected
to divisions in many ways, but culturally, psychically and spiritually it is
one organized whole. Here comes in an indication of meditative culture
concerning the reflected factors of learning. This culture has to culminate in
bringing to operation the sense of unity both in spirit and letter. A strong
and irrevocable conviction has to be established in one’s being. There should
be no wavering or hesitation whatsoever.
Unity and its
reality is the beginning and ending of all manifestation: the numerous phases
of modifications in human behavior, impelled and compelled by passions, wants
of the lower mind, characteristics of nature and suggestions from the awakening
intelligence.
Meditation which
is a replica of Wisdom is the process where the Truth of this Unity is first
established in the mind, then the mind’s ramifications are ‘let off’ and a
vacant mind becomes available. This now receives the blessings of
Enlightenment, ultimately to rest in Truth, without any equivocation or mental
reservation.
Light on the Path
The Path of one’s
choice and the light focused over that, which is this enlightenment, is
explained, annotated in classical texts of theosophical literature. We may look
to the small treatise under the name and style of “Light on the Path”, and to the document “Diagram of Meditation” provided by Helena Blavatsky.
“Light on the Path”
gives certain dos and don’ts in the conduct of human behavior.
It uses strong phrases such as ‘kill out’ and ‘desire’ in emphasizing the focus
needed. Knowledge of what is to be avoided is given out first. Without going
into the reasoning and illustrated arguments, let us look at these things:
Ambition
Desire of life
Desire of comfort
Sense of
separation
Desire for
sensation
Hunger for growth.
Prima facie, this appears to be propagating a pessimistic view of
life. It is decidedly not so when a meditative reflection on the comments
provided there under is seen.
On ‘killing out’
the above, or even concurrently, the following ‘Desires’ are advocated for
acquirement:
Which is within
you
Which is beyond
you
Which is
unattainable
Power (ardently)
Peace (fervently)
Possessions (above
all) of the pure soul.
This places before
the seeker or the aspirant an Impossible question to be answered, again through
reflective meditation.
Ambition is the
key word here which has to be very carefully pondered over. Prima facie we feel one should be
ambitious in life and without ambition the life is not worth living at all. The
quest for basic needs of life is not ambition, as far as the means adopted are
honest and in consonance with moral and social laws. Competition and Comparing oneself
with others, and the spirit to unduly excel others is ambition. The modern age
has given a sort of acceptance to this type of behavior, but considering from
the humanistic point of view and a concern for the sustenance of the planet,
Globe we inhabit, this is decidedly an avoidable course in life.
Ambition brings
restlessness to the person while the natural state of being is equilibrium or
serenity. It makes life tensional besides increasing the ‘self-importance’ or
ego which traits are extraneous to human character. It shifts the focus from ‘here’ to an
‘uncertain future’. A civilized person has always aims that are laudable and
noble.
Ambition is the
root that generates the other desires listed above. Without giving span further
on this, let us move to what Helena Blavatsky provides in her Diagram.
Diagram of Meditation
A close look at HPB’s Diagram of Meditation suggests the same
ideas and concepts, of course, in a different terminology. She points the
qualities that are to be discarded and those to be earned if the sense of
Unity, which happens to be the key-note or central focus of living, is to be
cultivated and absorbed.
She names the
groups as ‘Acquisitions’ and ‘Deprivations’.
First let us look
at deprivations:
Sensations
Personality
Possessions
Distinctions
Separations and
Meetings.
Senses are the
primary organs of perception. One has to be very discriminative in using the
knowledge provided by them. Each of the sense organs has its own pit fall. One
must be careful in avoiding them. Gluttony, lust etc. are the sensations
provided as illustrations. Personality and Possessions yield to characteristics
such as Vanity, Remorse, Greed, Selfishness and Ambition. The set of these
three make the content of physical and astral part of ‘lower self’, while
Distinction, Friend and Foe have a tinge of emotion and the lower mental
stature. Separations and Meetings, Association with Form. Time and Name create
Futile longings, Expectations, Sad memories, Broken heartedness are still the
segment of the lower nature. The note provided under the section of
deprivations indicates that all these traits create ‘bondage’ and are results
of ‘ambition’. The personality is to be deliberately and totally forgotten and
all self-delusion will die thereon. All these are qualities of the lower
personality or lower nature which are to be replaced or sublimated.
Understanding each of them and gradually depriving oneself of the traces of
their existence in his nature - is what is suggested for practice. In other words,
this is a way of cleansing oneself on the path of physical and psychic
(ethical) evolution.
The deprivation of
the qualities or traits of lower nature creates a ‘void’ and this is to be
filled in almost simultaneously with the positive attributes, which she
mentions as ‘acquisitions’, again categorized in three segments.
1. Perception in
all beings of their inherent ‘limitation’, and so not giving scope either for
criticism or praise or both.
2. Continued
attempt at mind to all existing things, which is neither love, hate nor
indifference. Different in external activity to each, because in each the
capacity alters. Mentally, the same to all. Equilibrium and constant care.
Greater ease in practicing the virtues which are really the outcome of wisdom,
for benevolence, sympathy, justice etc. also from the intuitive identification
of the individual with others, although unknown to the personality.
3. Perpetual
presence in imagination in all space and time, from this imagination a
substratum of memory which does not cause in dreaming or waking, its
manifestation is courage. With memory of universality all dread vanishes during
the dangers and trials of life. The note under acquisitions says: “Acquisition
is completed by the conception ‘I am all
Space and Time’.”
The exercise deals
with the contact of the different states of consciousness. This has to be
dispassionate (without any passion) and Constant in practice. Abhyasa and Vairagya are indicated here. They are the primary requisites for
awakening the Intelligence and approaching the arena of Intuition. A statement
coming from a Master of the Wisdom: “Leave your world
and come to ours” can be remembered here. Compare it with the elements suggested under “Desire” in
the “Light on the Path”. You will see the perfect identity. The ‘killing out’
and ‘desire’ are replaced here with the terms ‘deprivation’ and ‘acquisition’.
The mental drill or exercise is the same.
Original Stature
The “Being of Human” is entirely “Divine” in its pure and pristine
nature (suddha satwa). That was the
stature at the point of emanation and, in the course of manifestation and
sequential evolution it had gathered round itself all sorts of extraneous
things.
These are to be got ridden of so that he successfully moves on to Perfection.
Caught up in various non-essentials, habituated and conditioned by them, one
has to liberate oneself from the seeming clutches. This is the process for the
end result, which is termed as Liberation, Mukti,
Freedom or Perfection.
The terms employed were to suit the level of understanding and
expression of the times, but they indicate the same total state of Being. It
was also poetically illustrated as the ‘Paradise lost and regained’. This can
also be equated to the state of Remembrance (Plato) and srmitih labdha (Bhagavad-gita). We knew everything in the beginning
but lost touch with that in the course of our travel in the world, which is
therefore termed Illusory or Maya,
and eventually regain that. In the Vedantic terminology it is indicated as
Pravritti (marga) and Nivritti (marga) but the point to be reckoned is that the
two ways are not one after the other, they are rather concurrent. We cast off
certain things and add on certain other things in our layers of Being.
Trans-form-action means the same thing, going beyond the name and form and
attempting to catch the ‘permanent’ and the ‘eternal’.
These are the psychological factors incidental to the philosophic
thought. The mental structure or set-up is not a matter ‘settled once for all’.
It can be structured and restructures every time a serious thinking, reflective
contemplation is undertaken. The effort is to terminate the excretions that are
needlessly added and the restoration of the original, pure and pristine nature.
Oft-Repeated Truths
Learning is stored
in the manifestation itself. It is not separate from that.
Universe/Cosmos is
a vast storehouse of Wisdom, as also the Energy, Power, Motion, and so on. All
these names are used as synonymous to the Ultimate or Absolute Reality. The storehouse
has, naturally, some custodians. It
shall be their endeavor to see that those eligible all the time receive the
knowledge for their further advancement. They seek to give and do take certain
risks too in doing so.
“If, for generations we have ‘shut out the world from
the Knowledge of our Knowledge’, it is on account of its absolute unfitness;
and if, notwithstanding proofs given, it still refuses yielding to evidence,
then will we at the End of this cycle retire into solitude and our kingdom of
silence once more… We have offered to exhume the primeval strata of man’s
being, his basic nature, and lay bare the wonderful complications of his inner
Self - something never to be achieved by physiology or even psychology in its
ultimate expression - and demonstrate it scientifically. It matters not to
them, if the excavations be so deep, the rocks so rough and sharp, that in
diving into that, to them, fathomless ocean, most of us perish in the dangerous
exploration; for it is we who were the divers and the pioneers, and the men of
science have but to reap what we have sown.
It is our mission to plunge and bring the pearls of Truth to the
surface; theirs - to clean and set them into scientific jewels. And, if they
refuse to touch the ill-shapen oyster-shell, insisting that there is [not], nor
cannot be any precious pearl inside it, then shall we once more wash our hands
of any responsibility before human-kind. For countless generations hath the
adept builded a fane of imperishable rocks, a giant’s Tower of INFINITE
THOUGHT, wherein the Titan dwelt, and
will yet, if need be , dwell alone, emerging from it but at the end of every
cycle, to invite the elect of mankind to co-operate with him and helping his
turn enlighten superstitious man. And we will go on in our periodical work of
ours; we will not allow ourselves to be baffled in our philanthropic attempts
until that day when the foundations of new continent of thought are so firmly
built that no amount of opposition and ignorant malice guided by the Brethren
of the Shadow will be found to prevail.” [“The Mahatma Letters”, TPH Chronological
edition, p. 68; TUP edition, pp. 50-51.]
A seeker is
encouraged to the study of Comparative religion, Science and Philosophy, not
one against the other. These three happen to be the distinct categorizations
into which all human knowledge would ultimately fall and fit in. The experts of
these branches have to work together to bring about the needed enlightenment or
regeneration to the classes of humanity. The same truths are given out couched
in the language of the categorization.
We may touch upon
the ‘focal point’ of eligibility here. There is that injunction given by a
Master of the Wisdom to a student, and which we have seen above: “Leave your
world and come to our world.” This statement can be well or ill understood. It
may not mean abandoning the domestic environ, leaving the world and proceeding
to a forest or a riverbank. One can be in the world, but ‘not of the world’.
Human being has a duty to the world, the country he lives in and the family that
has nurtured. So also a duty towards the nature and divine. Both are to be well
balanced and brought into operation.
“The Voice of the
Silence” states in other words:
“Be humble if you
are to acquire Wisdom,
and Be humblest
after having acquired it.” [1]
The humblest is
the Wisest, according to what the history of Socrates depicts.
All this goes to
say that the sages and the custodians of Knowledge are ever ready to impart any
knowledge only to those who become eligible to receive that, by making the
needed amendments to their mode of living and being. The process of ‘deprivations’
and ‘acquisitions’ as indicated in the Diagram of Meditation (HPB) are to be
digested here.
The acquisition of
knowledge is empowerment. It has to be for its own sake, for the fulfillment of
the needs of manifestation and its evolution. The ethical base must totally
eradicate the ‘selfish’ needs and motives. Altruism must be the first and last
lesson of an aspirant and this is the Secret of Learning.
These factors are too often repeated to humanity in consonance with the
time, space and state of mental capacity in understanding. Repetition is not redundant
because of the ever-forgetfulness of the human being, his capacity for
retention of the immemorial things being short. The same idea or concept is
drilled into the human mind, so that it broods over that in application in
daily life and regenerates itself, paving the way for a new kind of mind and eventually a New
Humanity to emerge on earth.
This is brought to our attention, in these professed modern times,
through the theosophical literature. On and on, we are encouraged to give
attention to that and render proper concern too. That is what the second
explicit object of the Theosophical Movement stands for, viz., “To encourage
the Study of Comparative religion, Science and Philosophy”; for the reason, as
already mentioned earlier, that is leads us together to the Truth and the
Ultimate Reality, the Unity.
There is no mystification or occultism involved in this, but mere
common sense, which unfortunately has become uncommon because we have not given
due attention to that. The ground reality explored to its logical end leads us
to that Ultimate Reality which is again simplified in the term Unity. The Learning can be cultured
thus. That is the consummation of Learning.
NOTE:
[1] “The Voice of the Silence”, Helena P.
Blavatsky, Theosophy Co., Los Angeles, Fragment II, p. 41. The exact wording in the classical English of
“The Voice” is: “Be humble, if thou would’st attain to Wisdom. Be humbler
still, when Wisdom thou hast mastered.”
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On the role of the esoteric movement in the
ethical awakening of mankind during the 21st century, see the book “The Fire and Light of Theosophical Literature”, by
Carlos Cardoso Aveline.
Published in
2013 by The Aquarian Theosophist,
the volume has 255 pages and can be obtained through Amazon Books.
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