Quest Magazine

Printed in the  Winter 2021  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Hebert, Barbara, "The Journey to Enlightenment" Quest 109:1, pg 10-11

Barbara Hebert
National President

The theme for this issue is Enlightenment, a pertinent topic for our times.

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines to enlighten as “to furnish knowledge; give spiritual insight to.” The prefix en- means in or into. Combining it with light, we come up with the definition of leading into the light. 

According to some traditions, the Buddha gained enlightenment overnight. It is unlikely that most of us will reach it in this way, so it makes sense to talk about enlightenment as a journey, a process of increasing awareness and understanding of the reality of the world around us.

Enlightenment implies moving from darkness into the light. Much of humanity seems to be living in darkness, unaware of the Ultimate Reality and the unity of all beings. This state of nonknowing is called avidya. Living in this state, many experience fear and uncertainty. These feelings are then overlaid by anger. At this time in history, much of humanity seems to be experiencing anger, which is evident in divisive behavior and on occasion even erupts into violence. Therefore exploring the process that leads from avidya to enlightenment may provide understanding for us during difficult times.

A child who falls asleep may wake up in the night with the room shrouded in darkness. In this darkness, the child may see shadows and perceive scary things. The child cries out in distress. The parent enters the room and turns on the light. The light allows the child to see clearly and understand that those scary things were simply toys or stuffed animals. 

As we move into the light, we also gain perspective about what we originally perceived as frightening or overwhelming. As Paramahansa Yogananda says: “If you are in a dark room, don’t beat at the darkness with a stick, but rather try to turn on the light.” The example is simple, the statement is simple, and they make the entire process sound simple, but of course it’s not.

When we talk about enlightenment from a spiritual perspective, it is helpful to read the words of the Filipino Theosophist Vic Hao Chin on the website theosophy.world. He says that enlightenment is “the experience of illumination of the consciousness, accompanied by transcendent insights or realization. The experience of enlightenment is universally recognized in all major religious traditions, and in non-religious literature as well.”

A transcendent insight or realization does not mean that we have attained complete enlightenment such as was attained by the Buddha, but it does indicate that we are increasing our awareness and understanding. We are moving into the light.

Chin goes on to say:

 All the spiritual traditions are unanimous regarding the need for preliminary preparations before such a state of enlightenment can be attained. It requires the initial awakening of one’s intuition which leads to what in Christian literature is called the “divine discontent.” Then one goes through a process of search for the wisdom and the Path. When the Path is found, there is a need for purification or purgation of the lower self or personality which has been the subject of conditioning from the past and from society. Only after these are successfully done can the aspirant hope to enter into the gates of illumination and union. 

This journey will likely be somewhat different for each one of us. Clarifying and expanding upon our belief system is one way of turning on the light. This expansion brings about personal transformation. In his article in this issue, Ravi Ravindra writes about this work of moving toward the light, saying: “One common lesson of all the scriptures and teachings of the sages is that if I remain the way I am, I cannot come to the Truth or the Real or God. A radical transformation of the whole of my being is required.” 

Many people begin this transformative process through open-minded inquiry, exploration, and study, which provide a basis for expanding our awareness and understanding. We begin to look beyond what we think we know. This portion of our journey toward enlightenment is an exciting and stimulating time. We can almost feel our minds expand as we strive to grasp amazing new concepts and ideas.

The Voice of the Silence tells us that this portion of our journey encompasses movement through the Second Hall, the Hall of Learning. It is an essential part of our movement toward enlightenment; however, it is only part of the journey—not the end! Voice of the Silence warns us not to spend too much time in the Hall of Learning. “In it thy Soul will find the blossoms of life, but under every flower a serpent coiled . . . stop not the fragrance of its stupefying blossoms to inhale.” 

The Buddha shared the following parable about dependence upon structured ways of learning. He talked to his disciples about using a boat to cross a river. The boat is a metaphor for the learning that we believe will bring us to enlightenment. He reminds us that, like the boat, learning is a tool. It helps us for a portion of our journey, but once we have reached the other side of the river, it is no longer useful. We must leave the boat on the shore: this tool has taken us as far as it can. If we continue to carry it once we reach shore, it becomes an obstacle. It slows us down and becomes a burden as we continue on our journey. 

Learning is essential, but it can only take us so far. We study with an open mind. Through our study, the change begins. Not only do we purposefully begin to change the ways in which we live, think, and interact with others, but we also unconsciously change as our intuitive understanding grows. We begin to grasp the difference between the temporal and the permanent, between the Real and the unreal. Transformation begins to take place as we make these changes. 

What specific changes occur? They are probably different for each one of us and are likely to change through time. Some people may change the way they care for their physical bodies, making conscious decisions about eating, exercise, and so on. Others may realize that their emotions have been in charge for too long, while others may begin to recognize the conditioning that has affected their thought processes. We may realize that we have been acting, feeling, and thinking from a place of conditioning. We may begin to listen to the intuitive aspect of ourselves, relying on the inner voice from within. In other words, we are transforming all of the various aspects of ourselves. 

We are becoming aware that there is no need to seek the light, because we carry the light within us. We are becoming aware that each one of us is rooted in the All, the ground of being. From this perspective, we are never alone, never trapped, never shrouded in darkness. These are all aspects of avidya, the state of nonknowing, which is not a part of the Real.

We must travel from the state of avidya to an understanding and awareness that we are the light. This movement is a journey into ourselves. 

As Rumi said, “Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open? Move outside the tangle of fear thinking. The entrance door to the sanctuary is inside you.”

Printed in the  Winter 2021  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Goldsberry, Clare, "Members’ Forum: Enlightenment: Beyond Knowing" Quest 109:1, pg 12-13

By Clare Goldsberry

There is on the path a state or  of knowing in which enlightenment or cosmic consciousness often occurs. In this state, one moves from knowing everything that one believes to be true to a state of not knowing, or knowing nothing.

Zen master Shunryu Suzuki coined the term “beginner’s mind” for that state in which all possibilities exist and we are freed from the rigid bonds of knowing, which can be an obstacle to enlightenment. This state is beyond knowing in an intellectual sense, so that we suddenly know that we do not know.

In speaking of knowledge, many teachers refer to conventional knowledge: knowing about the world we live in and the objects that can be apprehended by our physical senses. The Hindu philosopher Sri Aurobindo says that this is only “a higher Ignorance,” since it stops short of the knowledge of absolute Reality. Conventional knowledge teaches that objects exist by their form and function. True knowledge—what Buddhists would call ultimate truth—is accessible only by those who have gone beyond the conventional knowledge of knowing about phenomena to the knowledge of how all phenomena truly exist.           

Philosopher Karl Jaspers, commenting on Immanuel Kant’s philosophy, said that “knowledge can be deceptive. Knowledge inflates (if it is delusion) but knowledge which reaches to the very limits of knowledge makes for humility.” This is similar to Aurobindo’s teaching that knowledge is inflated ignorance.

The limit of knowledge is knowing that we do not know; going beyond knowledge and knowing to not knowing opens the path to freedom of experiencing any and all possibilities. Knowing makes us responsible because once one “knows,” one is beholden to that knowledge. In religion, it becomes a belief system. One who knows then becomes a slave to this knowledge. One who does not know is the master of Truth.

There’s a story of the African tribal chief who said to the Christian missionary, “Is it true that if I did not know about Jesus, I would not go to hell?”

“Yes, that is true,” the Christian missionary replied.

The chief looked at the missionary and asked, “Then why did you tell me?”

Knowledge is useful until it becomes an obstacle to the seeker. Lao Tzu said, “The farther you go, the less you know.” That is the way of the spiritual path. Zen Buddhist teacher Joan Tollifson said, “openness of non-knowing—the heart of how science works—is the heart of spiritual awakening”; it is “when the grasping mind relaxes” that we can be open to whatever comes.     

The spiritual search is pointless unless we unknow all we think we know about God, about the self, about Brahman, even about reality. As long as we cling to what we believe or know, we are never freed for the unknowing that leads to that higher gnostic experience. In his book about Meister Eckhart, Joel F. Harrington explained that Eckhart’s philosophy about achieving “direct experience of the divine” was not focused on any particular practice. Indeed the “pursuit was doomed until one abandoned all preconceptions about God Himself . . . To know the uncreated Creator directly required first unknowing the human-created God, a process known to theologians as the via negativa, or the negative way.”

Jaspers notes that knowledge can only be experienced in this world—in this “field of knowledge.” But that is not knowledge of being, which Kant says is impossible in this world. Aurobindo refers to this knowledge of being as gnosis. It is that which brings us to gnostic being, enabling us to live and act from the higher Mind.

The lower state of knowing is typically called intellectual knowledge; in Buddhism, it is called “conceptual” or “conditioned” knowledge, because it is the knowledge that we gain of the concepts of the physical universe that we have been conditioned to know since we were infants. Aurobindo calls this lower state of knowing “the Ignorance.” Typically, knowing involves thinking; our thoughts create the things we know and how we know them. But as the Buddhist teacher Christmas Humphreys said, “thought can never know, in the sense of immediate, direct awareness. Thinking must reach the end of thought before the next faculty takes over.”

Alexandra David-Neel, while studying in Tibet with Buddhist monks, learned of the doctrine of “going beyond” based on the Buddhist teaching of the Prajnaparamita. According to David-Neel, Prajnaparamita means something different to the Tibetans and Chinese than it did to the Hindus, from whom it was adopted. Tibetans translate that term as “excellent wisdom” or “highest wisdom.” For the Chinese it is “wisdom which has ‘gone beyond,’” according to the Prajnaparamita mantra:

            O Wisdom which has gone beyond,
            Gone beyond the beyond, to Thee homage.

Enlightenment enables us to see beyond duality in order to have truly gone beyond—beyond pairs of opposites, such as virtues and vices, good and bad. For it is in duality that we experience wrong seeing, delusions of samsara that keep us trapped. Going beyond also involves going beyond striving. David-Neel says that no one virtue, or even the practice of many virtues together, can bring liberation. All practices—particularly striving to be virtuous—are of the ego and therefore negate the goal. Ultimately there is no goal per se. By setting goals for our liberation and enlightenment, we are defining the path, and the path cannot be defined. The path is created as we walk it, step by step.

Knowing often disguises itself as truth, but it can become a trap that keeps the seeker locked into specific ideas about what is true and what is false. Many people who learn about the Buddhist Noble Eightfold Path often mistake one of its precepts—“right view”—as meaning there is only one view, and that is the right one! The Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh tells us that right view is no view. Right view is not belief, nor is it part of a belief system. Right view is key to enlightenment because it is open and spacious, not closed off and exclusive. Right view is seeing beyond the delusion of concepts, ideas, and opinions and moving beyond them to no-view.

The Buddha told the parable of crossing the river in a raft. The raft represents intellectual trainings, belief systems, or moral disciplines that promise to bring the seeker to the other shore— enlightenment. However, the raft is only a vehicle—an instrument or tool of knowledge—to get us to the other shore. Once we have reached that other shore, of liberation and enlightenment, we need to put the raft down and walk on. If we do not, it will become a burden to us and hinder our path. Even enlightenment is only the beginning.

The other shore, writes David-Neel, is “nowhere and everywhere; that which is beyond all our conceptions. Even transcendent wisdom—enlightenment—is a concept, so that to achieve enlightenment means we must drop our concepts of what enlightenment is or how we will experience it.”

The doctrine of nonaction—wuwei in Chinese (Chan) Buddhism—literally means “do nothing” or “nothing to be done.” According to David-Neel, the Tibetans consider nonaction to “be absolutely necessary for the production of the state of liberation” or “the annihilation of false views, ignorance of how things exist.” As long as we are locked into our concept of what enlightenment is and into a belief in doing all the right things, such as performing the proper rituals and saying the exact mantras, we will never experience enlightenment, because these concepts become obstacles to it.

Ultimately it doesn’t matter how many virtues we practice, classes we attend, or books we read. These practices and studies are preparation on the path to realizing enlightenment, but are not enlightenment in themselves.

The seeker prepares by being open to the possibilities that not knowing presents; looking with wisdom eyes, seeing all life—the entire physical world—differently; looking beyond concepts, opinions, and beliefs. The preparation is not of an exoteric form, but a preparing of the inner self—preparing the mind to see beyond the obstacles of what we think we know. It is a difficult path, because it involves leaving certainty behind. It requires that leap of faith that we must each take as seekers as we go from the delusions of knowing to not knowing.

Clare Goldsberry, a professional freelance writer and author for the past forty years, is a life-long student of religion and spiritual traditions including Christianity, Gnosticism, and philosophy. Her next book, Living Fearlessly, Dying Joyfully, will be published in 2021 by Monkfish.

Printed in the  Winter 2021  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Smoley, Richard, "From the Editor’s Desk" Quest 109:1, pg 2

Full disclosure up front: I know nothing about the topic of this issue.

The theme is Enlightenment, and although I’ve read and heard a good deal about it over the years, I realize it is a subject about which I am entirely ignorant.

In his article in this issue, John Cianciosi quotes the Buddhist monk Ajahn Brahm, who says there are nine things that an enlightened being cannot do: “store up possessions, intentionally kill any form of life, steal, perform sexual intercourse, tell a deliberate lie, and act improperly out of desire, out of ill will, out of delusion, or out of fear.”

This settles the matter. I am nowhere near this level, and I have never met anyone who was. Moreover, according to the literature, full enlightenment—if there is such a thing—is a radically different state of consciousness from any we are familiar with.

All these things suggest that what I think I know about enlightenment has little to do with the actuality. Moreover, what I think I may know about enlightenment may be an impediment to realizing it.

I write this a month before the elections, so polls are thick in the atmosphere. Every poll shows a sizable group of people who answer, “Don’t know,” to whatever question is asked.

Once I used to think that these people were ignorant not to have opinions about the most vital topics of our times.

At this point I’m not so sure. I remember too many times over the years when I was upset about some major issue. In the long run, I often learned that my opinions were based on supposed facts that had nothing to do with reality. As a result I have become much more consciously agnostic about many of the great concerns of our times, no matter how obvious the “right” answer may appear to be.

Clare Goldsberry, in her Members’ Forum piece, discusses not knowing. How could not knowing be an approach to enlightenment? After all, avidya—usually translated as ignorance but perhaps better translated as nescience or even obliviousness—is, according to Buddhist teaching, the primordial cause of suffering.

Clearly we are dealing with something different here than ignorance, say, of historical facts or the laws of physics. The classic answer to this problem appears in a story about Socrates, recounted in Plato’s Apology. Someone sent to the oracle at Delphi—then held in the greatest esteem, consulted even on matters of high state—and asked whether there was anyone wiser than Socrates. The oracle replied that there was not. Socrates was puzzled by this reply: he could not understand what it meant, yet he was convinced that the god could not lie. Finally, he concluded, “None of us happens to know anything beautiful and good, but they think they know, knowing not; but I do not know, and don’t think I do. So by this little bit I might appear to be wiser.” Yet Socrates was so wise that all the philosophers that came before him are lumped together as the pre-Socratics.

On a more homely note, the nineteenth-century American humorist Josh Billings wrote, “I honestly believe it iz better tew know nothing than two know what ain’t so” (a quote often attributed to Will Rogers).

Of course there is a more active nescience—not knowing and actively refusing to know. Often it is a matter of knowing “what ain’t so” and refusing to let that be challenged. The difference is that the not knowing of Socrates and Josh Billings admits the possibility of knowing and an openness to it.

Say you come across an unfamiliar word. Your insecurity may lead you to claim that you don’t need to know it and that big words are pretentious. Or you can simply look the word up, and then you know it. Such is the difference between plain ignorance and nescience (a word that to me connotes an active resistance to knowledge).

How does this relate to enlightenment? From what I have already said, it’s clear that I don’t know. But it may go something like this: I look out at the world and assume that my opinion about it is correct. I see the tables, chairs, trees, and flowers and assume that I know what they are. But in reality I see only the past—my past experiences and preconceptions about them.

One way out of this ignorance is to set aside this collection of data in my mind and see the world as it is in its immediacy—what some philosophers have called its “just-so-ness.” At that point the world opens up some of its inscrutable richness.

It would be exaggerating to call this sense of greater richness enlightenment. But it may not be totally wrong to say that it is closer to enlightenment than the whirligig of thoughts, feelings, and preconceptions in which we customarily live.

To conclude with yet another thing I don’t know: is enlightenment permanent, stable, and irrevocable, as certain sacred texts seem to indicate? Or is it just another in an endless series of steps toward greater opening, knowing, and fulfillment?

In short, is there someplace where you stop, or is there always further to go?

Richard Smoley

Printed in the  Winter 2021  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Sorkhabi, Rasoul, "Ancient Wisdom in the Persian Tradition" Quest 109:1, pg 34-38

By Rasoul Sorkhabi

Perhaps the most important contribution that H.P. Blavatsky made to the intellectual and spiritual discourse of the late nineteenth century was her emphasis on a single “Wisdom-Religion” found in various cultures and religious traditions. Indeed the word theosophy in her view referred to this “Wisdom-Religion.” In her 1889 book The Key to Theosophy, she traced the origin of this word (theosophia, “Divine Wisdom”) to Ammonius Saccas, an Alexandrian philosopher of the third century AD, and equated it with the Sanskrit word brahm-vidya. The idea that this “Wisdom-Religion” is found in all cultures motivates us to explore the jewels of various spiritual traditions. This article shares some little-known aspects of “Wisdom-Religion” literature in ancient Persia. (All translations quoted here were made by the author, unless otherwise mentioned.)

Treasured Books in the Royal Court

It is well known that the religion of Zoroaster was the main religion of ancient pre-Islamic Persia (also called Iran). Today this religion is a minority in Iran, and many Zoroastrians live in India, where they are called Parsis (literally “Persians”; Contractor, 2003). However, it would be incorrect to assume that Zoroastrianism was the only religious or spiritual tradition in the ancient Persian empire, which spanned a vast region between the Roman Empire on the west and the Chinese kingdom on the east. Even the Persian courts were open to diverse ideas. Writing in the fifth century BC, during the Persian Achaemenid dynasty, Herodotus in The Histories remarks that “no race is so ready to adopt foreign ways as the Persian” (Herodotus, 63).

The Persian kings seem to have possessed a treasured book, which was read to them for counsel or consolation. The oldest reference to this book is found in Old Testament book of Esther. According to the Bible, Esther was the Jewish queen of the Achaemenid king Ahasuerus (Xerxes) who ruled “from India to Ethiopia” from 486 BC until his death in 465 BC. (The version of Esther in the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament, refers to this king as Artaxerxes, the youngest son of Xerxes.) The book of Esther says that “during one night, the king could not sleep, so he gave an order to bring the book of records, the chronicles, and they were read before the king” (Esther 6:1, New Revised Standard Version). We also have independent evidence for this book in the work of a Greek scholar of the same time. In his Persica, Ctesias of Caria, who was a court physician to Artaxerxes II (who ruled from 404 to 358 BC), refers as one of his sources to the “royal parchments” or “royal leather record books” in the court (Schmitt).

This book (or books) is not extant, but we can speculate about its contents with a reasonable degree of confidence. It seems that the royal book had two versions or parts: creation myths and histories of kings on the one hand and wisdom teachings and ethics on the other.

The mythological and historical parts provided records and lessons of history, especially for kings. The biblical book of Ezra, which documents how Cyrus the Great (founder of the Achaemenid dynasty) liberated the Jews from their captivity in Babylon and sent them back to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple in 538 BC, also mentions that this history was recorded in a Persian court book (Ezra 6:1).

The ethical and contemplative portion of this book offered practical wisdom and spiritual philosophy for living, not only for the royal court but also for common people. In his Histories, Herodotus devotes a few pages to “certain Persian customs and manners.” For instance, he writes:

The erection of statues, temples, and altars is not an accepted practice amongst them, and anyone who does such a thing is considered a fool, because, presumably, the Persian religion is not anthropomorphic like the Greek. Zeus, in their system, is the whole circle of the heavens, and they sacrifice to him from the tops of the mountains. They also worship the sun, moon, and earth, fire, water, and winds . . . The actual worshipper is not permitted to pray for any personal or private blessing, but only for the king and for the general good of the community, of which he is himself a part . . .

The period of a boy’s education is between the ages of five and twenty, and they are taught three things only; to ride, to use the bow, and to speak the truth . . . They consider telling lies more disgraceful than anything else. (Herodotus, 61–64)

	A page from the 1430 illustrated manuscript of the Shahnameh (“The Book of Kings”) commissioned by Prince Baysonghor in Iran.

Herodotus also refers to the “magus,” the Zoroastrian priest. This word is the origin of the present-day word magic; it is also related to the story of the three magi from the East who visited the newborn Jesus in Bethlehem, according to Matthew 2:1–12.

These two strands of the ancient Persian court book were mentioned in other documents, which surfaced and survived in Iran even after the coming of Islam in the seventh century AD. Here, for reasons described below, I will call these two strands “Big History” and “perennial wisdom.”

Big History and Its Lessons

Over the past two decades, Big History has become a popular term and field of learning—thanks to the efforts of historian David Christian. According to the International Big History Association, “Big History seeks to understand the integrated history of the Cosmos, Earth, Life, and Humanity, using the best available empirical evidence and scholarly methods.” This learning, indeed, helps us to place our cultural and intellectual development in the larger context of the natural history of the world. However, attempts at Big History are not new; they date back to some of the classical mythologies and scriptures in the world, which of course used the knowledge and thinking of their own time.

The Shahnameh (or “Book of Kings”), composed by the poet Ferdowsi, is an epic work. Ferdowsi, who died in 1020 at age eighty, spent the last four decades of his life on this book. With 50,000 rhyming couplets, it is the largest epic work ever composed by a single person. Unlike the Greek epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, or the Indian epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, which revolve around a certain period, war, or hero, the Shahnameh presents a vast expanse of time and space (Davis, xiii). It begins with the appearance of the first man—Kayumars, the first king, who lived in a cave and wore animal skins—and ends with the death of the last king of the Sassanian dynasty during the invasion of the Muslim Arabs in the seventh century AD. All in all, the book chronicles a period of 3,962 years, partly myth and partly history (Robinson, 153–54).

Kayumars’s son is killed by Ahriman (the devil), and thus begins the cosmic conflict between good and evil—a Zoroastrian motif that becomes the common thread running through the entire Shahnameh. Humans, in this perspective, must strive to be on the side of Divine Light (Ahura Mazda), which is characterized by “good thought, good words, and good deeds.”

Geographically, the Shahnameh covers the entire habitable world known to the ancients: China, Central Asia (Turan), India, Iran, the Greco-Roman world, and the Arabian Peninsula.

The Shahnameh did not appear in a vacuum. The book was based on pre-Islamic Persian records, especially the Khotay Namak (“Royal Book”), compiled during the reign of the Sassanian king Khosrow I, who ruled from AD 531 to 579. This book was a popular work of Big History in classical times. The Greek poet and historian Agathias, serving in the court of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I in the sixth century, compiled his Histories partly based on the Khotay Namak. After the emergence of Islam, the Khotay Namak was translated by various persons into Arabic and formed a major source of information for general histories (tawarikh) written in Arabic.

What is most interesting in the Shahnameh, as far as the wisdom religion is concerned, is the manner in which Ferdowsi composes the stories. To use Aristotle’s terms, he divides the story into three stages: theos (or logos: the story itself), pathos (emotion), and ethos (ethics). Each major story begins with the remembrance and praise of the one God, who is the source of everything—the heavens, the earth, life, and wisdom (kherad). Even when Ferdowsi refers to letters written by the kings and heroes, these letters also often begin with theology.

The main part of the story proceeds with the “acts and duties” of courage, hard work, justice, and goodness—all qualities of chivalry. Toward the end of the story, Ferdowsi comments on the perishable nature of life and this world: nothing has a fixed or lasting existence; everything passes; this world is like a guesthouse built in the wilderness; enjoy life and let others enjoy it as well; do your best and plant seeds of goodness. Here are two quotes:

This is the way of the world:
It raises us up from the dust and then scatters us on the wind.
Live in joy with your beloved now,
and contemplate on how this world turns and moves:
It lifts a man to the heights of pleasure,
and then throws him underneath the soil.
The world has no shame in doing this.

This contemplation of the passing nature of life and the belief that it is best to cherish this hour was later developed in the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, a set of Persian quatrains immortalized in English by the verse translation of Edward FitzGerald in 1855. Here is FitzGerald singing Omar Khayyam’s lines: 

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend.
Before we too into the Dust descend:
Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Songs, sans Singer, and—sans End!

The Perennial Philosophy

It is the turn of the ninth century AD. The Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid, who established the legendary “House of Wisdom” (Bayt al-Hikma) in his capital, Baghdad, has just passed away. One of his sons, Amin, has succeeded him. His other son, Ma’mun, is the governor of the vast province of Khorasan in northeast Iran. Ma’mun’s mother and tutor are Persians. The Persians are supporting Prince Ma’mun for the throne against his brother in the capital. Local governors are sending precious gifts to Ma’mun. The governor of Kabulstan (Kabul in Afghanistan), instead of sending material gifts, dispatches an old man by the name of Zooban.

“What valuable service can this old man offer?” the prince asks.

Zooban replies, “My wisdom.”

Zooban stays in Ma’mun’s court and encourages the prince to march on and capture Baghdad. In 813, Ma’mun triumphantly enters the capital, and his rule marks the beginning of the golden age of learning, translation, and science in Islamic civilization. Ma’mun wishes to reward Zooban and offers him money, but Zooban says, “I want something far more valuable than money.”

Ma’mun asks him, “What?”

Zooban answers, “There is a book hidden in the ruins of the palace of Persian kings at Mada’en, near Baghdad.”

The caliph gives orders to dig and search for the book, and indeed sheets of writings are found in a sealed box. “What book is this?” they ask.

Zooban says, “This book is called Javidan Kherad [‘Perennial Philosophy’; also Khirad]. It was written by Ganjur, son of Ispandiyar, who was the prime minister (vizir) of the king Iranshahr.”

The expression perennial philosophy was popularized in our time by Aldous Huxley’s book of the same name. The first line in Huxley’s book says that the phrase philosophia perennis was coined by the seventeenth-century German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. But it seems that this term, as well as a book of that genre, dates back to the courts of ancient Persian kings.

Scholars have not been able to identify Ganjur, the minister of Iranshahr. But this seems to be a generic name, for Ganjur means treasure, and Iranshahr was the name of Iran during the Sassanian period (AD 224–651).

Back to Zooban in the ninth century. The old man takes his desired book home, but Ma’mun’s prime minister, Hassan ibn Fazl, becomes curious about its content, and requests Zooban to have the book translated into Arabic. A scholar who knows the Persian language of the Sassanian era is hired, and Zooban gives the first chapter (“thirty leaves” of the book) for the Arabic translation. This chapter included the sayings of the king Hooshang (the grandson of Kayumars, the primordial man). As for the rest of the book, Zooban says, “the remaining leaves contain some secrets which must not be made known.” 

Even this partial Arabic translation is said to have impressed Ma’mun so much that when he first opened the manuscript to read, he delayed his prayer because he could not concentrate on it without finishing the book. The Arabic translation found its way into the hands of the Persian scholar and court librarian Ibn Miskawayh (AD 932–1030), who added several chapters on the wisdom sayings of the early Muslim, Indian, and Greek thinkers. Ibn Miskawayh also wrote an introduction to the book (the above story actually comes from his introduction). Ibn Miskawayah’s Arabic work, still keeping the original Persian title Javidan Kherad, is extant and was printed in Egypt in 1952. (Abul Rahman Badawi, the editor of the modern Arabic edition, entitled it Al-Hikma al-Khalidah in Arabic, and subtitled Javidan Kherad—both meaning perennial philosophy.)

The book has been translated into the modern Persian three times: first by Sharaf al-din Qazwini in thirteenth-century Iran; second by Taqi al-Din Shushtrari during the reign of the Indian Mogul king Jahangir (1605–37), and third by Shams al-Din Husayn Hakim during the reign of Aurangzeb in India (1652–1707). All these Persian translations are extant and have been printed in Iran and India.

The Javidan Kherad has not been translated into English. Only its first chapter—the maxims of Hooshang—was translated by Edward Henry Palmer (1840–82), a fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge (Palmer, 1869). Palmer used the third Persian translation and compared it with an Arabic manuscript at the library of St. Augustine’s College at Canterbury.

Over the years, as I have read passages from the Javidan Kherad, I have also thought of the governor of Kabul and why he dispatched Zooban to the court of the caliph. I wish Zooban had been generous enough to share the entire book, but he probably had his own reasons.

Hooshang was the third king of the Pishdadian dynasty, the mythical first dynasty of Persia. The word pishdad means foremost justice or earliest order, and is described in the Shahnameh as the first kingdom. Obviously what is recorded in the Javidan Kherad was not really written by Hooshang, but his name indicates the antiquity of these wisdom teachings in Persia, as Hooshang was also believed to be the person who discovered fire and invented writing. The following are the first lines from his sayings:

The source of all things lies in God, who is also the end of all.
Success and grace come from God, who is the worthy one to be praised.
Whoever knows his humble beginning becomes grateful.
And whoever knows his end becomes sincere and humble.
Whoever understands what success is does not become arrogant, and
Whoever understands what grace is accepts, trusts, and does not cause conflict.
The highest thing bestowed upon humans in this world is wisdom,
as forgiveness is for the hereafter.

Blavatsky and the Javidan Kherad

In her major works, Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine, Mme. Blavatsky discusses the Zoroastrian religion but does not refer to the Javidan Kherad. Apparently she was most exposed to Zoroastrianism when she and Colonel Henry Steel Olcott went to India in 1879, arriving in Bombay (Mumbai), where many Indian Parsis live. The third Persian edition of Javidan Khirad was printed in 1876 in Bombay by Maneckji Limji Hataria (1813–90), an Indian Parsi, and he presented a copy of this edition to Mme. Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott upon their arrival in Bombay.  

Blavatsky launched The Theosophist magazine in Bombay (which later moved to Adyar). Thanks to Maneckji Hataria, Blavatsky learned about this book and wrote a review in the April 1882 issue of The Theosophist. (The review is unsigned, but according to Boris de Zirkoff, editor of HPB’s Collective Writings, it can be plausibly attributed to her. See his note to Blavatsky, Collected Writings, 3:463–64n.) She also referred to the Javidan Kherad in an 1882 article on Zoroaster: “There exists among the Persian Parsees a volume older than the Zoroastrian present writings. The title is Javidan Kherad, or Eternal Wisdom, a work on practical philosophy of magic with natural explanations. Thos. Hyde speaks of it in his Preface to Historia Religionis Veterum Persarum” (“The History of the Religion of the Ancient Persians,” 1700: Blavatsky, “Zoroaster,” 463–64). Later, in her 1890 book Gems from the East, Blavatsky extensively quoted from Palmer’s translation, including the following: “Four things increase by use:—Health, wealth, perseverance, and credulity.”

The Shahnameh and the Javidan Khirad are two shining examples of ancient Persian literature, which has much to offer for our enlightenment and well-being in modern times. It deserves more study and even artistic attention, because as Henry Corbin, the eminent French scholar, once remarked: “Persian mysticism can help restore our sense of a beauty which is under attack in the world of today, by a veritable rage of negation and destruction” (Corbin, 236). 

 Sources

Badawi, A.R., ed. Al-Hikmah al-Khâlidah, Jâvidân Khirad, of Abu Ali Ahmad ibn Muhammad Muskawayh. Cairo: Maktab al-Najdh al-Misriyyah, 1952.

Blavatsky, H.P. Gems from the East: A Birthday Book of Precepts and Axioms. London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1890.

 [——.] “The Javidan Kherad, or ‘Eternal Wisdom’.” The Theosophist 3, April 1882: 180–81.

——. “Zoroaster in ‘History’ and Zarathushtra in the Secret Records.” In Boris de Zirkoff, ed. H.P. Blavatsky: Collected Writings, Volume 3: 1881–82. Wheaton: Theosophical Publishing House, 1982: 449–68.

Contractor, Dinshaw, and Hutoxy Contractor. “Zoroastrianism: History, Beliefs, and Practices.” In Quest 91, no. 1 (Jan.-Feb. 2003): 4–9.

Corbin, Henry. The Voyage and the Messenger: Iran and Philosophy. Translated by Joseph H. Rowe. Berkeley, Calif.: North Atlantic Books, 1998.

Davis, D., trans. Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings by Abolqasem Ferdowsi. New York: Penguin, 2006.

Herodotus. The Histories. Translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt, London: Penguin, 1996.

Palmer, E.H. “The Javidan Khirad; or, the Proverbial Philosophy of Ancient Persia.” In The Student and Intellectual Observer of Science, Literature, and Art 2 (1869): 168–80.

Robinson, B.W. The Persian Book of Kings: An Epitome of the Shahnama of Firdawsi. London: Routledge-Curzon, 2002.

Schmitt, R., “Ctesias.” In Encyclopedia Iranica, 6:441–46: https://iranicaonline.org/articles/ctesias-; last updated Nov. 2, 2011.

Rasoul Sorkhabi, PhD, is a professor of geology at the University of Utah. His life spans both East and West, as he has lived and studied in Iran, India, Japan, and the U.S. His previous articles for Quest are “Garden of Secrets: The Real Rumi” (summer 2010) and “The Priest and the Biologist” (winter 2020).