ON SIGHT AND SEEING - OEDIPUS REX: PART ONE

"Then let it break! I must know who I am!" - Oedipus Rex

Thanks to Freud, Sophocles' Oedipus Rex is probably the most misunderstood play in the West. Before Freud, Oedipus' story was seen as the classic expression of the horror of a Universe in which one was trapped by events which one could not change or effect, where one's destiny one's was in the hands of inexorable Fate, and where, instead of love or justice descending from the Gods to Man, there was only cold, heartless necessity. After Freud, it became about the Oedipus Complex, the psychological trap Freud believed every man was doomed to become trapped in, and out of which all of Western culture and morality had evolved: the realisation that one's first sexual instinct was towards one's mother and therefore one's first murderous instinct was towards one's rival, the father. Out of this primal experience coupled with the ancient societal taboo against incest and parricide came the endless guilts, paradoxes and moral evasions that human culture found itself in. For Freud, every man was doomed to experience this, just as every woman, as reflected in the Electra story, was doomed to experience the same thing in reverse - sexual feelings for the father and hatred for the mother. Sophocles was only the first to articulate it as a universal. Oedipus' howl of despair and rage at the end of the play was every man's howl of agony at recognising this terrible truth within himself. Freud's excitement on encountering the play for the first time was almost religious in its intensity. Suddenly, for him, everything fell into place, his whole system seemed corroborated. So Sophocles' play, identified by Aristotle as the quintessence of what tragic drama was all about, became locked in a Freudian nightmare forever.

Neither of these interpretations of the play are necessarily wrong. Both give our understanding of it texture. But at the same time neither is necessarily what Sophocles intended when he wrote it, or, even if we can't say what he intended for sure, neither exhausts its possibilities. There are other ways of encountering and understanding the play, one of which may unlock something vital and potent within it that liberates it from its apparently cruelly deterministic aura of doom: that the play is, on a very profound level, about Sight. And not just about physical sight, but the profoundest sight available to us - sight into the deepest part of our nature.

To understand what I am wittering about, its worth looking at the way in which eyes and sight have worked historically in cultures that predate our own. The eye - eyes themselves - has always been an image of something profoundly sacred all over the world. In the East, the sign of Buddha's 'Awakening' or 'Enlightenment' is the fact that his eyes are permanently closed, unseduced by sense perception, the entangling and tormenting constantly changing and transient phenomena of this world of Maya, Illusion, which distracts the mind from itself and causes so much pain. The Buddha is 'asleep' to this world and 'awake' to the inner world. If any part of him is 'awake' it is the famous Third Eye, the Ajna Chakra, which provides mystical and intuitive insight into Truth. Sometimes known as the 'Gyananakashu', or 'Eye of Knowledge', it is regarded as the seat of the Antar-Guru, or Inner Teacher, communicating with the deepest part of ourself. Thus although the Buddha's physical eyes are closed, his spiritual eye is open in the profoundest sense, seeing things as they truly are.

In Hinduism, Siva's eyes are similarly closed, especially when he is presented as the Nataraja, or Lord of the Dance, negotiating the Wheel of Fire, his eyes sealed, his gaze turned inwards, smiling as he dances. Tradition has it that when his eyes open, the whole Universe will end, as the Universe is no more than his own dream. His creative counterpart in the Trimurti, Brahma, is similarly in a state of deep meditation or sleep, blind, once again, to physical phenomena, emanating Reality from his dreams.


In the West, the Eye has equally powerful connotations. The All-Seeing Eye which conspiracy nuts get so uptight about is an ancient image of the all-seeing, all-pervading presence of God (and not Alien Illuminati Zionist Mind-controlling Puppet-masters, sorry). It appears in Kabbalah in exactly the same way as an image of God as Universal Consciousness aware of everything. Its oldest derived source is ancient Egypt, where it appears as the Eye of Horus or Wedjat, a symbol of Royalty and Protection against evil (and not evil itself, sorry you conspiracy guys!). The addition of the All-Seeing Eye on the summit of a pyramid which appears in Freemasonry echoes not only the Eye of Horus but the ancient Egyptian Benben stone, the primordial mound that emerged from the Waters at Creation out of which everything came. Thus the Masonic image combines the All-Seeing Eye of Kabbalah and the Judeo-Christian tradition with the Creation myth of ancient Egypt, the pyramid also being a symbol of the Soul. In ancient Greece, the Eye was often painted on the prow of ships to protect them as they travelled, a practise borrowed from the Egyptians and other cultures. When sculpting a statue, the statue was not 'finished' and did not truly take on the likeness of someone or 'come alive' until the eyes were painted on (anyone who has ever painted a figurine should try this. Notice the difference between one which has no eyes painted on and one which does). Even in somewhere as remote as Easter Island, it is believed that the great stone heads of the Ancestors that litter the shores were not 'active' unless their eyes were placed in their sockets.


Eyes, then, have massive significance all over the world as images of spiritual insight, cosmic power, protection, guidance and, simply 'doorways to the soul'. The great poets Homer and Milton were both blind and throughout literature physical blindness, as we shall see, is often seen as a sign of inner sight and understanding. Tiresias, the ancient Greek Seer who is never wrong is blind and in Shakespeare's King Lear, Gloucester only begins to grope towards a painful self-knowledge when he has his eyes torn out by Cornwall. As he himself says of his own moral blindness after he has lost his eyes:

"I have no way, and therefore want no eyes;
I stumbled when I saw."

Physical sight does not mean one has insight. Indeed, as the Tao Te Ching tells us, the physical senses can distract us from everything:

"The five colours blind the eye.
The five tones deafen the ear.
The five flavours cloy the palate.
Racing and hunting madden the mind.
Rare goods tempt men to do wrong.
Therefore, the Sage takes care of the belly, not the eye.
He prefers what is within to what is without."

"He prefers what is within to what is without" - what more powerful statement could there be about the journey Oedipus is forced to go on? In another Taoist text, the Secret of the Golden Flower, the eyes are seen to be the gates of the Chi or Life Force, with Chi draining out of them unless we learn to redirect their energies back in. This vision of the discrepancy between Inner and Outer sight reappears in the Upanishads, when the Sage is encouraged to trace the source of sight away from the external world and within themselves, to the Spirit, or Consciousness which is their actual being:

"Know that when the eye looks into space it is the Spirit of man that sees: the eye is only the organ of sight. When one says 'I feel this perfume,' it is the Spirit that feels: he uses the organ of smell. When one says 'I am speaking,' it is the Spirit that speaks: the voice is the organ of speech. When one says 'I am hearing,' it is the Spirit that hears: th eear is the organ of hearing. And when one says 'I think,' it is the Spirit that thinks: the mind is the organ of thought. It is because of the Spirit that the human mind can see, and can think, and enjoy the world."

It is a common trick of sensory perception to make us believe more powerfully in the thing we perceive externally to us than the thing within us which does the seeing. How less certain are we of who we are, what our ground of being is, what our identity is, than we are of the tree we are looking at, or the film we are watching? What is external to us always seems more real and tangible than what is internal. Such is the conjuring trick of life.



In Oedipus Rex, we have two figures for whom sight is key - Tiresias, the Blind Seer, mentioned above, who has no physical sight but has total understanding and knowledge of the future, and Oedipus himself, the conquering King, who has physical sight but understands nothing. By the end of the play, Oedipus has become like Tiresias, similarly blind, but not yet with the insight the Seer has (that begins to come later in Oedipus at Colonus). That the play is about the often agonising progress of the individual to some kind of self-knowledge should be obvious. But there is more to it than this - and the nature of self-knowledge Oedipus comes to - which lies hidden in the play which cannot be understood unless one reads it on a level which few commentators do: the level of Initiation. For Oedipus Rex is much more than just a play. It is also an enactment of a Mystery, not just in the sense that Oedipus is trying to uncover his own true nature, but in the sense of a Mystery which unlocks the workings of the Unseen, just as, say the Dionysiac or Eleusinian Mysteries may have worked. To understand this, one has to understand two things about Greek Drama: that it was not drama as we understand it ie a form of entertainment, but part of a profound communal religious festival and that the form and structure of a Greek Theatre was not just designed to put on a play, but to explore the complex, multi-layered nature of the human organism, the interplay not of Man and the Gods, but of the physical and soul-self, the temporal self and the eternal...

I'M A SOUL MAN: SOME THOUGHTS ON THE BODY, SOUL & SPIRIT: PART TWO

"It is the Soul, the Spirit, the Self that must be seen and be heard and have our thoughts and meditation, O Maitreya! When the Soul is seen and heard, is thought upon and is known, then all that is becomes known." - Upanishads

The Greeks identified the heart as being the seat of the Psyche/Soul and the head as that of the Pneuma/Spirit (see image in last post). This idea of the Nous, or Mind being the connection each of us has with the universal Pneuma continued into Eastern Christianity ie Greek, Russian, Byzantine etc which believes that each of us carries within him or her a spark of the Divine Nous or Consciousness. Unlike Western Christianity which holds to doctrines of Original Sin and, even worse, Utter Depravity (thank you Augustine and Calvin for those), Orthodox Christians hold that the Divine Consciousness within each of us, like a mirror, not only reflects God's light but can only be obscured, never destroyed. Thus for the Greeks the inherent dignity of humanity and its indestructible connection with the Eternal survived Plato and Constantine into the present day...

In fact the Greeks were a major source of thought on the Soul. From early on Radiant Bodies, Astral Bodies and Spirit Bodies were identified as being part of its make-up, some able to detach themselves from their physical forms and travel between worlds. Pythagoras, Plato and the later neo-Platonists all also explored the nature of the Soul, its relationship to the One and its existence in many lives through transmigration and reincarnation. Pythagoras was said to be able to recognise places and objects that had played a role in previous incarnations. Plato wrote in great detail about what the Buddhists would call the Bardo state, or intermediary state between death and rebirth. But it was the great neo-Platonist Plotinus who devoted his entire life to a study of the Soul, his monumental ENNEADS providing inspiration for all mystical writing in the West from Origen to Ibn Arabi to Isaac Luria. It was Plato and his successors who developed the idea of the Soul emanating from the One, the Godhead, incarnating in this body and seeking a return to its origin, an idea familiar to all the great traditions mentioned above. Indeed in Sufism this notion of the Descent and Ascent of the Soul is central to the whole idea of the Way. Here, the Soul incarnates and descends from the Godhead and exists in the flesh until the moment when it suddenly becomes aware of itself. At this moment of awakening, its situation becomes intolerable and, aware of its celestial origins, it begins to seek the means to return. It is at this moment that the Soul becomes suitable for embarking upon the Sufi Way, at which time the quest begins to be reunited with the Divine. I am sure most people reading this can remember the moment which 'woke' them up and began them on their own journey. Perhaps the Burning Bush before Moses or Paul's experience on the road to Damascus are dramatic images of this moment of self-discovery. Paul's awakening to the possibilities of the Soul is interesting in this context as it was from him that we derive the term 'Out of Body Experience', a concept found in the Merkavah Mystics of ancient Israel and the Prophet's Night Journey in Jerusalem:

"I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell, whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth) such an one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew such a man (whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell; God knoweth) how that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful to utter." - 2 Corinthians 12: 2-4


It is this unity and origin with the One, the Over-Soul as the Theosophists put it, which makes the idea or existence of the Soul so important - the idea that there is a Cosmic Oneness of which all human Souls are part. In fact, once again, the idea is universal. In India, there is the Atman, or World Soul and in the West, the Anima Mundi, of which each of us possesses the Scintillans, or Divine Spark within us. In all instances, the World Soul is synonymous with the Cosmic Man, be it Purusha in India or Adam Kadmon and Christ in the West. And in all instances the World Soul and the Cosmic Man are united with whatever term the culture wants to call God - Brahma, the Father, the Ain Sof. In our inner selves, if not in our physical selves, everything is One.

By far the most comprehensive analysis of this connection in the West is found in Kabbalah. Here the three levels of the Soul already mentioned give way to two more, Chayyah and Yechidah. These are said to be operating on such a high level that they barely impact on our conscious lives. Nevertheless it is at this level that we connect to the Godhead in the most profound way. It is here that we find what I mean by our having 'never being severed from the Divine'.

We saw how in Kabbalah the threefold nature of the Soul consisted of the Nefesh, the Ruach and the Neshemah. Above this are the fourth and fifth levels, Chayyah and Yechidah. Chayyah is linked etymologucally to the word for 'Life' in Hebrew: Chaim (as in 'L'chaim'). Chayyah is, in sense, the Cosmic Life Force emanating from God, pouring down and suffusing everything. Even higher than this is Yechidah, which means 'the Only One' or 'the Singular One'. Yechidah is so intimately interwoven with God that it is almost indistinguishable. Isaac Luria explained this fivefold nature of the Soul by taking a Glassblower as an analogy. If Nefesh is the part of the Soul which, like the breath of the Glassblower, forms the shape of the glass object being created, Chayyah is the breath emerging from the lungs through the mouth while Yechidah is the idea of the breath in the mind. Thus on the most profound level (or the highest, depending on your perspective), we are at One with God. Needless to say, awareness of this can only usually be conceptual. Its almost impossible to actually directly experience this condition. And yet for the Kabbalist it is absolutely true. We are 100% one with God, even as we move in this world under the impression that we are an isolated part of Creation. Hence we are in a real sense 'never severed from the Divine'. This, presumably, is what Christ meant when he said 'I and the Father are One', suggesting that in this relationship lies the secret of what John says is our 'power to become all the Sons of God'.

And this is where the revolutionary aspect of the Soul comes in, for what is it that causes the most pain in this world we live? The sense of loneliness, of isolation, of meaninglessness, of being in a chaotic, fragmented universe in which at any moment someone or something could be out to get you? Fear, the belief that one is utterly alone, that the planet is a jungle where death and pain is just around the corner, where you cannot trust anyone - these are the causes of so much of our suffering and conflict. The Gnostics believed that this world of Matter was ruled over by a mad and blind God who sought to keep us from an awareness of the Soul. I have always thought that this was a perfect metaphor for life in which all access to the Spirit was snuffed out. A condition of fearful darkness in which even our material existence cannot be enjoyed. In the rediscovery of the Soul, that thing in us which connects us to everything - ourselves, each other, the Cosmos - is perhaps the means out of the situation we are in now.


So how do we begin to do this? Well to start with we have to believe in the existence of the Soul again. Easier said than done, as some people simply do not acknowledge such a thing, whether as a 'phsyical' reality or even a metaphorical one. This is a problem, as inherent in the idea of the Soul however one defines it is the dignity of the individual and his or her inner life. If this isn't acknowledged we don't have a chance. We will go on seeing each other as lumps of meat, economic units, expendable assets, things to be exploited and not sentient beings with an inherent value connected to each other. The only way of believing in the Soul's existence is to experience it.

Secondly, we have to rescue the Soul from religions and give it back to humanity. This is also tricky, as traditionally the world's religions have been how we have understood the Soul. All the wisdom I have cited here came from the very faith systems we are now so keen to reject. Outside them, discourse on the Soul is pretty hard to find, particularly in the market place where Matter is king. But if there is something to be learnt about the way the different religions speak about the Soul it is that the reality of the Soul is not only Universal, but NOT religion-dependent. The Soul came first, religious discussion of the Soul came second. Indeed all faiths came OUT of a new understanding of the Soul and its relationship with God or the One. If the problem with religion today can be defined it would be in terms of a reversal of this relationship. Instead of being a means to put people in touch with the Soul and set it free, religion has too often in our modern world been a way of binding it, obsessing more about what we do with our Bodies and with whom than how we might make contact with our own deeper selves. Intolerance, jihads, crusades, Inquisitions, suppression of women and destruction of cultures are not good ways of helping people discover their inner lives, although ironically the tyranny of religion is an inverse proof of the power of that inner life. If we didn't have one, it wouldn't be such a potent means of control.

The Soul, although an expression of the One, is not a herd animal. It needs to tread an individual path and it needs an environment to do so. When religion has facilitated the Soul, when it has served as a seed-bed for the Soul to flourish, when it has been Soul-inspired as it were, we have prospered. Historically, this has been the function of religion, to explore en masse what the Soul might mean. Every piece of information I have used in these posts has come from Christian, Muslim, Judaic or Hellenic sources - ie religious ones. The exoteric expressions of these religions enabled this esoteric discovery to happen. But religion, like everything else, is cyclic. What was once liberating is now largely lagging behind. The Soul needs to be freed. But as I mentioned earlier, how do we do so when all the terminology stemmed from those religions we need to move beyond? The answer is simple - we need to know where we came from. We owe a massive debt to these religions, they gave us a crucial framework for discussion of our spiritual natures. Like it or not, they are like our parents. However, if they are to survive, children need to leave their parents and become adults themselves which must inevitably involve rebellion and rejection. But perhaps once those parents cease to have power over us we can come to some terms with them, recognise what they have given us, pay hommage but move on into our own lives with that wisdom understood in a new way. Thus to reject the last 2000 years of spiritual development out of hand is foolish. This is why I refuse to take the fashionable 'all religion is crap' POV. We need to release the divinely-inspired beauty of what they have to offer from the man-made ugliness that has sought to subject us and find a way of speaking of the Soul without the connotations of guilt, punishment and misery that have made it such an undesirable thing to have for so long. The Soul needs rehabilitation! But if the environment is not given for it to thrive it will have to make its own. Thus religions - along with a few other things most likely! - will have to decide whether they will reembrace the Soul and nourish it or face going to the wall.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, we have to understand the relationship between the Body and the Soul in a new way. If there is one thing all the different 'systems' of the Soul I have mentioned have in common it is that Body and Soul on all its levels are inescapably One. For too long we have allowed them to war with each other. The Soul gives us a gateway onto Eternity, but the ecstasy of that is entirely dependent upon us having a Body to experience it. The Finite defines the Infinite and vice versa. We need to stop seeing the Body as a prison for the Soul (a mistake even some of the greatest Mystics made) and instead see it as a tremendous OPPORTUNITY for its expression. We are here to experience life in the flesh in every way. There are things that the Soul cannot do without a Body. We are incarnate because the Soul wants it. Without it, it cannot experience Love, it cannot make love or properly understand its place in the Universe. What distinguishes us from the Angels is our combination of a physical body with a divine essence. That should be a joy rather than a curse. At the same time, the Body can become deeply impoverished without the Soul. Without it, the Body becomes utterly subject to the illusions of Time and Space and begins to fear for its own safety, becoming subject to the blind and mad God at which point the suffering of the Soul becomes so intense. Most importantly, sexuality must be restored to its rightful place at the heart of our experience of our Divine Nature. The greatest Mystics of all the ages knew this and couched their highest experiences in terms which were as much erotic as spiritual...

Greek Christianity speaks of the 'ensouled body' and the 'embodied soul', suggesting, perhaps, the real relationship between the two. Perhaps this is what we need to learn anew, setting the Soul free to fly again and allowing it kiss and be kissed by the Body once more. We have spent a long time going outwards with our behaviour. Its time to go inwards again and once we have discovered the treasure within, to inform everything we do without with that gold... It is a liberation and offers the possibility of a connection not only with the deepest things within us but the whole human race and, potentially, the Universe... Perhaps such a hope is naive. Perhaps the time is not available to us. But what more exciting horizon of opportunity could there be? A true understanding of the phrase 'the Kingdom of God is within you' each in our own individual way...

"Nothing under heaven can arrest the progress of the human soul on its long pilgrimage from darkness to light, from the unreal to the real, from death to immortality, and from ignorance to wisdom." Djwhal Khul, the Tibetan

THE UPANISHADS

Here we go with another extract for the planned book... Here is something about the Hindu Scriptures known as the Upanishads (literally 'the Sitting-At-The-Feet-Of"). These are ancient Hindu texts that predate Christianity etc. For me, they are the simplest and most beautiful expression of Man's relationship to the Universe I know.

The idea is to lay the foundations for an understanding of Western spirituality. Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Hinduism are all Indo-European in nature culturally, so share a common experience... Thus the Upanishads shed light on how we are perhaps supposed to read Western Scripture...

THE UPANISHADS

The oldest and perhaps the simplest and most direct of religious visions of the Divine are the Vedas and Upanishads. Ancient, anonymous texts written by early Indian priests and various unknown mystic respectively, these works predate all later efforts to understand Man's position in the Universe. They deal with Creation, the workings of the Soul and Mind, the nature of reality and the relationship between God and Man.

In the Upanishads, God is known by the name Brahman, meaning 'the Supreme'. It is interesting that no-one has ever looked into the etymological link between Brahman of India and Abraham of the Western religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Abraham, whose original name, Abram, became Abraham after his relationship with God was established has a special status as one of the first great Patriarchs of God in the West. Just as Krishna may be linked to the name Christ, perhaps Abraham's knowledge of God is reflected in his name as an echo of Brahman.

Brahman for Hinduism is a universal deity who is found everywhere and in everything:

"Exalted in songs has been Brahman. In him are God and the world and the soul, and he is the imperishable supporter of all. When the seers of Brahman see him in all creation, they find peace in Brahman and are free from all sorrow.

God upholds the oneness of this universe: the seen and the unseen, the transient and the eternal. The soul of man is bound by pleasure and pain; but when he sees God she is free from all fetters."

Significantly for Hinduism, Brahman is never personified. Instead Brahman is experienced in all created things, but also beyond all created things. Knowledge of this awareness of the Divine within and without everything gives transcendence adn bliss. As the famous Isa Upanishad says:

"Behold the universe in the glory of God: and all that lives and moves on earth. Leaving the transient, find joy in the Eternal: set not your heart on another's possession.... He moves and he moves not. He is far, and he is near. He is within all, and he outside all. Who sees all beings in his own Self, and his own Self in all beings, loses fear. When a sage sees this great Unity and his Self has become all things, what delusion and what sorrow can ever be near him?"

Brahman is even above all the Gods. In fact all the Gods are emanations of Brahman, a fact easily forgotten by those studying Hindu culture (and indeed by many Hindus themselves). Brahmanic Hinduism sees all the Gods from Siva, Vishnu and Krishna to Parvati, Shakti and Kali as avatars, or Divine Incarnations of Brahman. Thus the sometimes bewildering array of Hindu deities all unite into one, leading the mind back to Brahman. As an expression of the universal idea of the Many and the One, the One and the Many, it is very simple but infinitely easy to forget. Just as with the ancient Egyptian Gods, who were also regarded as emanations or offspring of the Creator God Atum-Ra, it is easy to become lost in the forest of deities between us and the One. Judging by Akehnaten's unpopular attempt to clear away the confusion and focus on the One God, nor does everyone want to do anything other than get lost in that forest.

Nonetheless, in the Upanishads the focus is exclusively on this Divine Entity known as Brahman. A closer look at the quotes above reveal that Brahman is even above God ("In him are God and the world and the soul, and he is the imperishable supporter of all'). Just as the Buddha spoke of a Greater Consciousness above even the Gods, so do the Upanishads describe Brahman as an energy which is beyond everything.:

"There is a Spirit who is amongst the things of this world and yet he is above the things of this world. He is clear and pure, in the peace of a void of vastness. He is beyond the life of the body and the mind, never-born, never-dying, everlasting, ever ONE in his own greatness. He is the Spirit whose power gives consciousness to the body: he is the driver of the chariot."

As we shall see, there are concepts here - the Chariot, the Spirit that gives Consciousness - which will reverberate through our own studies of the Western Tradition. Suffice it to say here that Brahman of the Upanishads is both within and without everything, including us, and thus, just as we are the smallest part of Creation, nonetheless we are intimately part of Brahman and find his Consciousness in our own:

"WHo is the God to whom we shall offer adoration? The God of gods, in whose glory the worlds are, whoe rules this world of man and all living beings. He is the God of forms infinite in whose glory all things are, smaller than the smallest atoms, and yet the Creator of all, ever living in the mystery of his creation. In the vision of this God of love there is everlasting peace. He is the Lord of all who, hidden in the heart of things, watches over the world of time. The gods and seers of Brahman are one with him; and when a man knows him he cuts the bonds of death. When one knows God who is hidden in the heart of all things, even as cream is hidden from milk, and in whose glory all things are, he is free from all bondage. This is the God whose work is all the worlds, the supreme Soul who dwells forever in the hearts of men. Those who know him through their hearts and their minds become immortal."

What is crucially significant here is the image of a Divinity 'forever in the hearts of men.' Far from the vision of a humanity sunk in sin or separated by a gulf from God we have come to understand from the Western religions, the Upanishads find God everywhere. Humanity, far from being the corrupt result of disobedience or filled with 'utter depravity', is part of Brahman, contains Brahman within itself, most importantly, as we shall see, 'in the heart'. Just as the ancients of the West located the Heart as the seat of the Soul, so the writers of the Upanishads found God in the Heart and not in the head. The Heart, the chakra which unites the three earthly with the three celestial chakras in one, is where God resides. With this knowledge in mind, the images of the Sacred Heart of both Christ and the Virgin take on a new meaning.

Equally important in these extracts is the distinction and unity between 'God, the world and the Soul', all of which are enfolded, like the Christian Trinity, in the Oneness of Brahman:

"There is the soul of man with wisdom and unwisdom, power and powerlessness; there is nature, Prakriti, which is creation for the sake of the soul; and there is God, infinite, omnipresent, who watches the work of creation. When a man knows the three he knows Brahman."

This passage repays closer study, particularly for when we come to discussion of the Trinity. This Upanishad clearly describes the three elements of Brahman - the Soul, Creation (Prakriti) and God who watches over the other two. In Hinduism, the Soul of Man is known as the Atman, or the Universal Soul. Another name for it is Purusha, the Cosmic or Universal Man. This is a Soul of which all humanity, whether male or female is part of. It is the Human Spirit, the energy which is our eternal Self, which gives us Consciousness and Spirituality ad is the root of that sense, which, at moments of great insight, gives us the sensation of being part of a humanity which is far greater than our individual selves. In the passage this Soul of Man is described as being possessed of 'wisdom and unwisdom, power and powerlessness'. In other words, it is dualistic, double-natured. In its Cosmic Form, it is transcendent, above all, and understands everything. In its earthly form, it feels helpless, is blind and confused. It is ourselves, in fact, possessed of the ability to reach great heights of spiritual understanding but also capable of complete confusion, despair and blindness. If there is a message of the Upanishads, it is that by understanding the presence of Brahman within us, the 'unwisdom' and 'powerlessness' humanity feels is transcended.

The second element of this Upanishadic Trinity is Prakriti, All Created Things. If Atman/Purusha is masculine, Prakriti is feminine. Here referred to, she is 'Creation for the sake of the Soul'. In other words, she is the feminine principle of Creation, the Great Mother, who brings the material world into being for our delight. In Hindu thinking, Purusha is Spirit, Prakriti Matter, the marriage of which is the source of all things.

Above these two principles - the male and the female - is God. Crucially, this is not Brahman, but the energetic principle which unites Spirit and Matter, watching over both. Brahman is the Union of all three of these principles. It is something within and above them all. Thus focus on one at the exclusion of the others leads to an imbalance. The Upanishads lead to a holistic goal. Apparent division must give way to a union. Brahman cannot be understood without understanding the relationship of these three energies.



So the Upanishads present a symphonic vision of the Cosmos, one in which Man and God and Creation are all one in Brahman. A striking feature of much of the Upanishads is the apparent effortlessness of this vision. There is little discussion of Sin or the corrupt nature of humanity, only of the need for this perception of Brahman within all. Suffering comes from a faulty relationship with the three energies which point to Brahman. Too much focus on the material leads to pain and injustice. As with the Buddhist conception of things, it is through this mistake that the Wheel of Karma continues to turn and man, rather than discovering his immortal nature, confines himself in pain and confusion. But the Upanishads do not see this in terms of punishment or sin. It is just a simple fact of life. Brahman is available to us everywhere:

"Beyond the senses are their object, and beyond the objects is the mind. Beyond the mind is pure reason, and beyond reason is the Spirit of man. Beyond the Spirit in man is the Spirit of the universe, and beyond is Purusha, the Spirit Supreme. Nothing is beyond Purisha: he is the End of the path. The light of the Atman, the Spirit is invisible, concealed in all beings. It is seen by the seer of the subtle, when the vision is keen and is clear. The wise should surrender speech in mind, mind in the knowing self, the knowing self in the Spirit of the universe, and the Spirit of the universe in the Spirit of peace."

Fascinatingly here, the way to Brahman starts with the senses and ends with a full understanding of Purusha/Atman, the World Soul. Thus Prakriti and Purusha play their part. The World Soul, the Cosmic Man, is the end point, the Cosmic Man being one with God and Brahman. Thus the Upanishads set out their vision of humanity, all humanity, and the Divine. Turning inwards is the key, as is being guided by 'all beings' in which the Atman is 'concealed'. What is extraordinary is that there seems to be no stress or pain in this process. There is no self-laceration, only a turning inwards which is simultaneously a turning outwards, leading to a Unity with all Humanity which is at the same time a Unity with God and what is beyond God...