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From Cosmos to Chaos

6. The Gold Age. The Hyperboreans

    The Gold Age. The Hyperboreans

    There is a “Holy Land” par excellence, which is the prototype for any other. That spiritual centre, to which the other sacred lands are subject, is the seat of the Primeval Tradition, or Sanātana Dharma, from which all the other Traditions, in dhārmika or religious shape, have derived adapting themselves to a time, to a place and to a mankind.
    This primordial “Holy Land” is the “Supreme Country” according to the saṃskṛta term Paramadeśa, warped by the Chaldeans in Pardes and by the Latins in Paradisum, Paradise. The site of the Primordial Tradition, source of all the others, is located northward or, more exactly, at the North Pole, as mentioned in the Vedas and in several Sacred Books of other Traditions1.
    During the rule of Kronos2, during the Gold Age, the Satya yuga of the Hindūs, the Supreme Country, where day and night lasted each for six months3, was located very close to the Pole or at the Pole itself.
    We will call Hyperborea that land, as the ancient Greeks did, even if this term shows that they had already lost the knowledge of its true location. Indeed, if Borea means North, Hyperborea (beyond the North) appears as a nonsense. In this way, Borea is the exact equivalent of the saṃskṛta term varāha. The root var for the name of the wild swine is found in the Anglo-Saxon languages in the form of bor-boar4. Since Hyperborea was a land or an island, one should call it in the feminine form Vārāhī, i.e. the “Country of the boar”. Later, in the next Silver Age (Treta yuga), it was known as the Country of the Bear. That second Era coincided with the kṣatriya rule on the world, which Paraśurāma5 concluded. Ancient Greeks symbolized the kṣatriya rebellion against the brāhmāṇas with the myth of the hunting of the Calydonian wild boar. The killing of the Calydonian boar by Warriors and Kings represented the defeat of the priestly caste. Athenæus of Naucratis6 relates that the Calydonian boar was white-haired, as well as the śveta Varāha of Hindū Tradition. Also in Celtic Tradition boar and bear respectively were the symbols of Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power, that is to say the two Celtic castes of Druids and Knights.
    During Greek-Roman antiquity, the island of Hyperborea was called in two other forms: Thule and Syria. With regards to Thule7, there is a short text by Pytheas of Marseille8 on the journey in search of such land all the way up to the polar icepack.
    The Greek name Thule is obviously the equivalent of the saṃskṛta Tula, meaning scale or libra. Libra is one of the zodiacal signs; however, according to another traditional interpretation, in the primordial times Tula was the name of the polar constellation. The two weighing plates of the scale were represented by the two Bears, Ursa major and Ursa minor, the two Saptaṛkṣas. The bear, as we have seen, is the symbol of kṣatriya usurpation. Nevertheless Libra, as polar constellation, is also the mansion of the seven ṛṣis, and in this case is called Saptarṣi. This name is surely more ancient than Saptaṛkṣa, and leads us back to the Hyperborean Arctic Tradition. Homer in his poem Odyssey9 refers the Supreme Land as Syria (Συρία, read Süria). This name means Home of the Sun (sskr. Sūrya). It is described as an island located beyond Ortygia (the ancient name of Delos), another island faraway in the Atlantic Ocean. Being farther than Delos, Syria can be easily identified as Hyperborea10.
    We will now add some other information about Hyperborea from Greek and Roman literature. Diodorus Siculus affirms11:

    “Their land was in the Ocean and was similar in size to Sicily: Leto, mother of the God Apollo, was born there. This explains the very close tie linking Apollo with these people, and the presence in that land of a magnificent spherical temple dedicated to the God. Hyperboreans lived in perfect happiness ignoring sorrow, illness and death.”

    Pliny12 adds some more details:

    “In that country is located one of the Poles around which the cosmos revolves. This is a sunny, temperate land, free from any harmful air; here Hyperboreans live in woodland and forests and they do not know any struggle or disease.”

    In that blessed age the Gods mingled with human beings and it was difficult to tell them apart. In fact, men were so long-lived to appear almost immortal. They were born directly from earth and the earth spontaneously provided them with all kinds of food. From the foregoing information we can say that the Hyperboreans were closely related with the Haṃsas of Hindū Tradition, the primordial mankind not yet divided into social castes (ativarṇa).
    In the Homeric Hymn dedicated to God Dionysus we read:

    “You cannot find the wonderful road to Hyperborea”13 

    Pindar also states:

    “Neither by land nor by sea anyone could find the wonderful road leading to the Hyperborean feasts”14.

    With the beginning of the Silver Age, the road towards Hyperborea was disrupted. The new fallen humanity could no longer reach that blessed Land in life. However from their inaccessible home, the Hyperboreans continued to protect the weakened humanity intervening any time was necessary in order to correct the deviations arising in other branches of humanity. Now one can easily recognize the identification between Hyperborea and Uttarakuru of Hindū Tradition. The access to the common original Home being obstructed15, Tradition took two different directions in East and West. In Asia the Sanātana Dharma continued in its correct Vedic form, whereas in Western countries it developed deviant tendencies manifested in the subsequent Atlantean Tradition.
    Since then, the Hyperborean Home was protected by the griffins, mythical animals with eagle head and wings and lion body. They were the God Apollo’s mount (vāhana)16, and they pulled his chariot. The griffins were protecting the Hyperborean frontiers against the Arymaspes, one-eyed barbarians dedicated to blacksmithing, looking like the monocle Cyclops17. In Greek mythology, Cyclops18 were the assistant of Hephaestus19, God of blacksmiths. From this we can infer that Arymaspes, the Hyperboreans enemies, were connected with dark underground powers. As we will see further, Atlanteans also were devoted to metallurgy.
    Now we will examine the character of Apollo20, the supreme Hyperborean God. Apollo was born from Zeus and Leto. Seeking Leto a place to deliver her children, she was welcomed in Delos island21, in the Hyperborean domain. Here she gave birth to the divine twins Apollo and Artemis, the Goddess of the moon. At the age of four, Apollo built his spherical temple in Delos. Then he arrived in Greece carried by swans (haṃsas), the Hyperborean sacred birds. In that Silver Age period, Greece was devastated by Python, a monstrous titanic she-snake (asurī)22. In Delphi, Apollo killed Python with the arrows of his infallible bow, arrows that are the sun rays23. Apollo, then, built an oracular shrine over the asurī corpse. In this Sanctuary the God established a priestess, Pythia, who gave oracles when possessed by the God. There, Apollo was called Pythagoras, the “one who possesses the Pythia”. Thereafter, Delphi became the most important temple in Greece.
    In conclusion, we would like to mention a passage from Iamblichus demonstrating that the initiatory organization (sampradāya) founded by Pythagoras was indeed the continuation of a primordial Hyperborean paramparā: “A certain Abaris, priest of Apollo, was original from the Hyperborean land. He was a wise old man, very knowledgeable in sacred subjects. During his travelling he gathered gold for the Temple of his God. Coming back from Greece he passed through Italy24, where he met Pythagoras. In his opinion Pythagoras looked like the God, so Abaris recognized him to be Apollo himself. Then, he gave him the arrow used as defense during his long journey. Pythagoras took the arrow without any surprise, without asking the reason of that gift, just as if he were the Hyperborean God himself. He, then, privately showed his golden thigh25 to Abaris. That was the ultimate evidence that the stranger priest’s intuition was not wrong. Moreover, Pythagoras enumerated, one by one, the votive gifts kept in the Hyperborean Temple, convincing him that he was right. Finally Pythagoras explained that he had come there with the purpose of healing and benefiting mankind; he had assumed that human appearance so that men would not fear his divinity and shy away from his teaching”26.

    Gaṇapati

    1. B.G. Tilak in his The Arctic Home in the Vedas (III ed. Poone, Tilak Bros, 1971; I ed. 1903) offers the exhaustive list of all the different literary sources.[↩]
    2. The God of Time, called Saturn by Romans, father of Zeus (Lat. Jupiter, read Iùpiter). Zeus, the deity armed with lightning, became King of Gods in the Silver Age. When Zeus usurped his throne, Saturn hid himself in Italian Latium region, where later Rome would be founded. Here the Gold Age covertly kept on for many centuries. Latium means “hidden”, “covered”.[↩]
    3. In the Vedas the year was similarly divided in uttarāyaṇa and dakṣiṇāyana, day and night of Gods.[↩]
    4. In Latin the boar was called verrus from a similar root.[↩]
    5. The kṣatriya revolt, viz. the degeneration of the Atlanteans, will be the subject of next article.[↩]
    6. A Greek rhetorician and grammarian of 2nd century A:D:.[↩]
    7. Maybe from the Etruscan word tular, extreme border. In Central America the ancient Toltec nation proclaimed to come from a northern island called Tula. This demonstrates their Hyperborean origin, while the Aztecs claimed to come from the eastern island of Aztlan, i.e. Atlantis. See next article.[↩]
    8. A Greek geographer and explorer of 4th century B.C.[↩]
    9. Homer, the most celebrated Greek poet (10th century B.C.), Odyssey, XV, 502.[↩]
    10. The present Syria also designates a “Solar Country” but referred to a much more recent era.[↩]
    11. Diodorus Siculus, Roman historian (1st century B.C.), Bibliotheca Historica: II.47.1-2.[↩]
    12. Pliny the Elder, Roman admiral, writer and naturalist (23-79 A.D.), Naturalis historia: IV. 89-91.[↩]
    13. Homer, Hymn VII: 28-29.[↩]
    14. Pindar, Greek lyric poet (522–443 B.C.), Pythia: X.30.[↩]
    15. “Then, Zeus transformed the golden mankind in protector geniuses; they dwell underground and are the guardians of the mortals. They verify their good and bad deeds and, dressed with air, they invisibily wander over the earth spreading blessings. In this way they are surrounded by a halo of majesty.” Hesiod, Greek poet (8th Century B. C.), Works and Days: 110-131.[↩]
    16. In the Bible the guardian of the threshold of the lost Paradise was a six winged Cherub angel armed with a flaming sword. In Hindū mythology the Himavat blocks access to Uttarakuru.[↩]
    17. The solar God Apollo is very similar to Lord Viṣṇu and the griffin, his vāhana, to Garuḍa. Being the griffin composed of eagle and lion, he is the symbol of sovereignty on sky and earth. Nevertheless he does not have the lordship of the underworld. This reminds the antagonism between Garuḍa and the nāgas. Moreover griffins are the keepers of Apollo’s treasure, as Garuḍa is of amṛta.[↩]
    18. Homer, Odyssey, IX. Cyclops means “with just a round eye”[↩]
    19. Called Vulcan (Vulcanus) by Romans.[↩]
    20. Pythagoras interpreted the name of the God as a-pòllon (A-πόλλων), not-multiple, in the Vedāntic a-dvaita sense.[↩]
    21. Not to be mistaken with the homonymous Greek island. The primitive Delos (Ortygia) was part of the Hyperborean archipelago.[↩]
    22. As said before, it is an allusion to a Hyperborean intervention to correct some deviation of Greek Tradition.[↩]
    23. As in the Hindū myth of Vṛtra killed by Indra, even Apollo had to purify himself for the spilled blood.[↩]
    24. Pythagoras lived and taught in Italy.[↩]
    25. In Greek Tradition there was another symbolic tale regarding the “thigh”. Indeed, Dyonisos was born from the thigh of Zeus. Thigh in Greek language is expressed by the word méros (μέρος), which sounds like Meru, the polar mountain of Hindū Tradition. The golden thigh corresponds to the saṃskrita Sumeru, the golden Meru. See René Guénon, Le Roi du monde, Paris, Ch. Bosse, 1927: p. 45. For this reason the ancient Greeks regarded Pythagoras as an avatāra of Apollo.[↩]
    26. Iamblichus, Syrian neo-platonic author (2nd century A.D.), Life of Pythagoras: XIX.91-92.[↩]

    5. The Historical Approach

      The Historical Approach

      With the previous short articles we intended to provide the traditional hindū readers with the first critical tools to understand the general situation of Western Civilization.
      Further details will be provided with next contributions, in this case referred to a particular field or period. By gathering this information, our readers will be able to dissolve the intricate knots that make Western Civilization so difficult to understand1. The first noticed anomaly is that we must resort to History in order to describe Western Traditions.
      On the contrary Sanātana Dharma doesn’t need any historical tool to be described. This is because metaphysical knowledge is the source, the centre and the end of Hinduism, which is by nature eternal, intuitive, comprehensible, and “atmic”2 (Italian adj. “attimale” from subs. “attimo”, i.e. “without time”).
      Such knowledge certainly existing at the beginning of Western Civilization, has only left some literary trace. Western people, having lost their metaphysical knowledge, have been imprisoned by the becoming, the action, the movement. Hence, their views confined to the cosmological spatial-temporal sphere have to be forcedly considered only in their historical development.
      The same sacred texts of Western Religions of the last millennia are nothing else than Tales. Indeed Greeks have considered the Iliad and the Odyssey Poems as sacred books, being respectively the story of Troy War and of the hero Odysseus travels3.
      The Sibylline Books, the Romans sacred texts, were only interpretive instruments for oracle purpose. For this reason, in the imperial era, Virgil’s Aeneid Poem practically assumed the function of sacred book. This epic as well as the Greek poems, were the tale of the exploits of Troyan hero Aeneas, whose descendants had been the founders of Rome4.
      Similarly, also in Semitic branch of Western Religions, sacred texts are predominantly of historical matter. The Bible Old Testament is the history of the Jewish people from the creation of Adam, the first man, to the 6th century B.C. The New Testament, the Gospel, is the story of Jesus Christ’s life and his mission among the Jews. The Qur’an is the story of prophets from Adam to Muhammad5. In all these sacred texts of the Semitic branch of Western Tradition, which Muslims define Abrahamic Religions, we can find a few lines on ritual, moral and law, where some symbolic components occasionally appear, but the narrative of their respective revelations throughout history is prevalent in them.
      With the passing of centuries, the importance attributed by Western people to historicism has become a real obsession. What it is not attested by written documents it is like it doesn’t exist.
      On the base of the scientific conception invented by Western people according to their beliefs, written documents are the indisputable proof of truth, as if the writing could not be manipulated reporting lies, attesting falsehood, transmitting ignorance.
      Indeed, as soon as historiography became a secular dogma, history has been increasingly and shamelessly falsified for the benefit of the dominant ideologies.
      A qualitative leap has been the discovery of the printing machine which has allowed to the capillary diffusion of historical falsification through mass media. At present this increasing trend systematically manipulates the general mentality with the use of new technologies.
      The historical method uses the philological science, created to attain the easiest manipulations from written texts. Everyone knows that when the philologists don’t understand a sentence due to misunderstanding, incompetence or disagreement, they declare it as an “interpolation”.
      Another instrument of historical falsification is to questioning the document paternity. When Tradition declares that a book has been written by a famous author, they often decreed questionable his authorship through philological instruments. To this purpose, the text is compared with other works written of the author pointing out all the unusual words and syntactic forms. On this base the text is declared apocryphal, and the author’s name is preceded by the prefix: “pseudo”. This is sufficient to discredit the text as false loosing in this way any credibility.
      Historians and philologists do not care at all if the text is consistent with the contents of the other compared books and with the thought of the author. But if indeed a text is truly consistent, what is the importance if it has been written by one or another person? In this way many important treatises of Śaṃkara and of other authors have been declared unreliable.
      Of course, philological investigation doesn’t allow us to inquire the previous history of humanity before the writing onset. For this reason archaeology has become the second alleged objective source of historical information.
      For the proto-historical times before the invention of any graphical system, alphabetical or not, the documentation of “material culture” is used. This formula declares the weakness of archaeology as historical research instrument. In fact, through the “material culture”, at most, it is possible to infer the technological level reached by ancient mankind but nothing concerning his intellectual knowledge.
      In Indian rural villages we could met many wise men of the most sublime knowledge, dwelling in sun-baked brick houses, with beaten earth floor and straw roofs, that archaeologists would consider houses of primitive, or of those brutish “hominids” invented by paleoanthropology.
      Finally, historiography is not even able to consider the most direct document of human intelligence: the oral transmission. This tradition conveyed from generation to generation cannot be affected by the woodworm or flooded by rivers. However, keeping the content intact, it is able to assume minimal adjustments in order to be adapted to the changing of time. This perennial transmission is the Sanātana Dharma itself which, for its conservation and adaptability, benefits of seer Veda Vyāsa’s function.
      Oral tradition cannot be replaced by the recordings offered by contemporary technologies, because the recipient of the transmission must be qualified. Moreover, the unconsciousness of technological tools, and the intellectual shortage of the profane interviewer do not allow any understandable passage of the message. See, for example, the publication of interviews to Śrī Rāmaṇa Maharṣi, as evidence of the impossibility of profane transmission.
      Back to our main subject, we suppose it will now be clear to our Indian readers why, from next chapter, we will explain Western Tradition, its decadence and corruption using historical means.
      This is because the West, since its emersion from prehistory, had already lost the sense of eternity and was already struggling in its self-imposed cobweb of becoming.6 It was inevitable that this mental attitude would have produced the theory of Darwinian evolutionism.7
      So we will begin illustrating the history of Western world from primordial ages, as the ancient Greeks and Romans, the Jews and the Celts regarded it, and then coming step by step to our time. In this way we will see the rise and fall of Empires, the splendour of disappeared Religions, the vicissitudes of ethnic and social upheavals. We will consider the birth and the decadence of civilizations, their corruption and overturning in a real devilish sense over millennia.
      We will mostly describe the increasingly difficult survival of initiatory organizations, some of them remaining till now, and the persecutions they had to suffer. Whenever the opportunity is presented, we will relate or compare similar situations to those of Hinduism.
      First we should like to inform our readers that even in the Greek-Roman primordial civilization, time was considered not developed in a rectilinear way, but in historical cycles chained one another.
      The poet Hesiod (7th century B.C.) in his book “Works and Days” tells that originally a Golden Age (satya yuga) had been. Then the Gods created a pure and perfect human race, difficult to be distinguished from them.
      Time, however, inexorably flowed downward and the second Silver Age (treta yuga) began. The men of that era did not have all the virtues of the golden generation. They began to feel equal to gods and to act arrogantly, refusing to perform sacrifices.
      Thus the Bronze Age (dvāpara yuga) began. Mankind divided into two races: Giants, violent and rebel against gods, and Heroes, pious men, but ready to fight against wicked people who had began to populate the earth. Giants were exterminated by Gods and Heroes. But at last also Heroes disappeared, dying in the great wars of the late Bronze Age. A deluge went down flooding the whole the earth and, then the present Iron Age (kali yuga) began; thereafter evil reigned and humanity became petty, vicious and weak.
      We begin now the narration of Western Tradition from Golden Age and the divine humanity of primordial Time.

      Devadatta Kīrtideva Aśvamitra

      1. At the end of our historical overview we will also treat of America as the Extreme West. However, these former colonies of the various European Kingdoms formerly hadn’t any autonomous traditional importance; on the contrary they assumed a decisive anti-traditional active and dissolving role since their independence from the European motherlands.[↩]
      2. We will use this neologism, in absence of a similar a term in English. The Italian “attimo” (from Greek ἀτμός, read atmòs) derives from the same etymology of ātman, and refers to a state free from time constraints. Instead, “instant” means “insistent” and “moment” is a syncopated form of “movement”: both these two synonyms represent a minimal fraction of time[↩]
      3. Also India has two epics (Itihāsa), Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata. However, they are not part of Vedic literature, the highest category of sacred texts or śruti. Moreover, being smṛtis, the Itihāsas are focussed on the doctrinal preparation of kṣatriyas and not of brāhmaṇas. Nonetheless, unlike Iliad and Odyssey, Itihāsas contain sections dedicated to wisdom, such as Bhagavad Gītā and Yogavāsiṣṭha. In the Greek Epics we can find only symbolic elements of some interest.[↩]
      4. However, in the sixth book of Aeneid, the descent of Aeneas to the dead Kingdom has important implications of initiatory-mysteric nature.[↩]
      5. Among the great civilizations only Hinduism has the vision of eternity and the consciousness that time is is inside the Cosmos[↩]
      6. In modern times, this obsession has literally invaded every field of study: no one learns art, thought, literature, philosophy, religion, etc., but only history of art, history of thought, history of literature, history of philosophy, history of religion, and so on.[↩]
      7. We will comment later on this contemporary dogmatic belief.[↩]

      4. Philosophy

        Philosophy

        In Archaic Greece anyone who was not satisfied of the narrow aims and means of religious exoterism, had to applay to a sanctuary of some Mysteries to be initiated. There, the mystagogue ritually prepared the aspirant to initiation, prescribing him purifications, fasts and other preliminary rituals. After initiation, lasting several days, the neophyte received the mantra of the deity to which he had been addressed. After that he received doctrinal instructions. Having the initiates maintained strict secrecy for centuries, little is known about these teachings. The doctrine was divided in two stages, Physic1 – i.e. cosmology – and Metaphysic, whose meaning is “beyond the Physic”2. Who was growing in knowledge and virtue reached wisdom, sophìa (σοφία), becoming a sophòs (σοφός), a vidvas. Who desired to reach wisdom but was not yet initiated, was defined philosopher (φιλόσοφος, read philòsophos): actually philosophy (Φιλοσοφία, read Philosophìa) means to love, to desire (φιλεῖν, read philèin) wisdom (σοφία, read sophìa).
        Unfortunately, during the 6th century B.C. Pythagoras was yet complaining that real wise men were disappearing, and that only philosophers remained. This great sophòs has been the first to define the philosophers in the modern sense of term. That is to say lovers of theoretical, bookish, mental speculation. No one wanted anymore to undergo the renunciations and austerities to become a sophòs.
        Therefore philosophy means an individual theory elaborated by a philosopher, expressing his personal ideas, hypothesis and speculations as explanations of his own view of world, man, and their destinies. Being only individual thoughts, every philosopher invariably refutes his predecessor’s theories.
        With the exception of Pythagorean school, which preserved its paramparā (through the Neoplatonics stream) until the 5th century A. D., the other Greek-Roman philosophical schools were reduced to mere academic institutions, without any guruśiṣyaparamparā, dīkṣā, rituals etc.
        Therefore it is wrong to declare that the hindū vidvas, gurus, paṇḍitas, jñānis, are philosophers and their doctrines philosophies.

        Devadatta Kīrtideva Aśvamitra

        1. In modern scientific thought Physics is only a part of cosmology. This is due to Aristotle, who reduced the physical dimension just to the sub-lunar world.[↩]
        2. In the Eleusinian Mysteries there were two levels of initiation: “little mysteries” and “Great Mysteries”. Probably at the dawn of Greek civilization “little mysteries” corresponded to Physics (karmakāṇḍa), and “Great Mysteries” to Metaphysycs (jñānakāṇḍa). However, on the base of written documents, we can affirm that in historical times both levels had become only ritualistic. This is a signal of the loss of the highest doctrines in ancient Greece.[↩]

        3. Initiation and Mysticism

          Initiation and Mysticism

          The meaning of the word “initiation” correctly expresses the saṃskṛta term dīkṣā. It derives from the Latin term initiatio, which described the ritual acceptation of a disciple in an initiatory organization, known as mysterium1. The sampradāyas giving initiation were several, located in different sanctuaries similar to the maṭhas and pīṭhas of Hinduism. In every sanctuary the initiation of a different deity was conferred by some sacerdotal masters, and in this way the local god or goddess became the iṣṭadevatā of the initiate2. The name of the Deity was recited as japa along with other sounds, as for instance “evoé” (εὐοῖ) or “iò” (ἰώ), without any literal meaning3, like the bīja mantras of Hinduism. The most famous sanctuaries were dedicated to the goddesses Demeter (Bhūdevī) and Persephone (the Moon Goddess) near the town of Eleusis not far from Athens. Those dedicated to Zeus (the King of the Gods) and his wife Dione at Dodona in Epirum, today’s Macedonia; other important mysteria were dedicated to the God Dyonisos (similar to the śaiva tāntrika sādhana), to the divine twins Kabyrians (gods of the subterranean fire) in Greece, the Pytagoras-Orpheus mysterium dedicated to the Sun God Apollo (corresponding to Sūrya) in southern Italy, those of the Magna Mater (Great Mother) and Bona Dea (Good Goddess) in Rome4.
          The Latin verb inire means “to go into, to get in”, expressing the sense of entering in a new condition of existence, in a different inner experience. Therefore initiatio was used also for defining the ritual which produced this deep change in the life of the individual and introduced him to the mysteric ambit. The guru was called initiator, in Latin, μυητής (read myetés) o μυσταγωγός (read mystagogòs) in Greek. He conferred the dīkṣā [initiatio; μύησις (read myesis)], transforming in this way a profane [prophanus; αμύητος (read amýetos)] in a dīkṣita [initiatus, μύστης (read mystes)]. All Greek terms derive from the verb μυέω – μύω (read myeo – myo)5, whose meaning is “to close himself” in a sacred space, and also “close” his own lips, in the sense of remaining in the sacred enclosure and, at the same time, of maintaining the incommunicable rahasya6 in oneself. The domain reserved to the dīkṣitas was called esoterism (interior doctrine and sādhana), whereas the domain open to ordinary mass of profane ones was called exoterism (exterior cult, religion).

          *
          *      *

          During the 4th century A. D., when the Roman Emperors converted to Christian religion along with their subjects, all these terms passed to Christian initiation. Actually, concealed in the exoteric Christian Church, many streams of initiation lines7 have continued, mostly in the monasteries, in the warrior brotherhoods and in craft guilds (śreṇi). In the latter Middle Age, with the decline of the Monastic Orders, and with the bloody destruction of the Temple Order Knights by the King of France with the approval of the Pope (1313-14 A. D.), the Christian initiations disappeared. Since that moment the terms “Mystic” and “Mystique” didn’t mean anymore dīkṣita and sādhana, but only have designated a new religious phenomenon, therefore exoteric. Mystique or Mysticism became a new exterior religious approach, an individual spontaneous experience emotionally intense8, without any connection with a regular guruśiṣyaparamparā, without any sādhana based on yantra, mantra, tantra. The mystics are more similar to the village mediums, sometimes spontaneously possessed by Gods, Goblins etc. that they regard as God, Jesus, Virgin Mary, other Saints and Devils. The Mystic has a natural predisposition towards psychic openings, remaining passive to influences coming from outside.
          Let us quote now how a contemporary Catholic theologian defines the “Mysticism”:

          ​What is then the Mysticism? It is “never” anything which can be acquired through ascetic exercises, techniques or initiation paths. It does not presuppose any moral perfection neither a spiritual evolution similar to the biological [Catholic darwinism!]. St. Theresa of Avila says: “Nobody rises: it is God who raises us”; so the mystical “experience” is the violent, sudden irruption of God in the soul, their union. The mystics speak about a “fire of love”, “enlightenment”, “deification” as a gift of grace, undeserved and unprecedented, undeniable and incomprehensible, at the same time sublime and brilliant, full of quivering transforming enjoyment. You must not write a treatise to explain what it means “grace.” Just to refer to an immediate term understanding: “gratis”. The Mysticism as “theological discipline” consists of studying the witnesses of those who in the history of religions9 have experienced what we have just said, and much more. Over the centuries, one has proposed many definitions of it. The most complete is certainly that coined by P. Albert Deblaere, S. J .: The mystique is “The direct and passive experience of God’s presence”.10​

          If we neglect the silly concessions to the profane science, we must admit that the theologian has correctly described the Mysticism. It will be clear now that one can never translate initiate, dīkṣita, with mystic, neither initiation path, sādhana mārga, with Mysticism. Indeed the Mysticism appears only where the initiation has been withdrawn. In fact out of Catholicism, Judaism and shi’ite Islam, Mysticism does not exist at all. If by chance the bhaktas can appear to somebody similar to the Catholic mystics because of their outpouring of love, one does not forget that the bhaktas have a guru, the paramparā, the sādhana based on yantra, mantra and other techniques, unlike the mystics.

          Devadatta Kīrtideva Aśvamitra

          1. In origin the mysteria were called in Latin initialia. Only after the 2nd century B.C., Romans used the term mysterium, under the influence of the Greek culture. In ancient Greek the word sounds μυστήριον (read mysterion). Mysterium means exactly “rahasya”.[↩]
          2. The recent initiated, the novice, was called neophyte (gr. νεόϕυτος, read neòphytos), new seedling, newly green, just spiritually reborn.[↩]
          3. But these mantras had a ritual vibratory efficacy.[↩]
          4. With the expansion of the Roman Empire other mysteria were included into the Roman Religion: those of Attis, of Cybeles, of Isis, of Mithra, proceedings from the Traditions of different conquered parts of the Empire.[↩]
          5. In saṃskṛta mauna, silence, and muni, the silent one, have the same etymological origin.[↩]
          6. We point out that he who encloses himself in a sacred space, or remains in silence, is really acting as opposed to a profane. The last one is “out of any sacred space”, according to a first etymology (pro-fanum, out of a sacred space), and, according to another possible one, “who is speaking to an audience” (pro-fans). Vulgus profanum, profane people, was a term comprehending not only the mass of ordinary men, but also the not initiated priests.[↩]
          7. As we will see later, the Greek language of the ancient Mysteries has remained almost unchanged until now in the esotericism of Greek and Russian Orthodox Church. The esoteric terminology in Latin remained in use in the area of the Roman Catholic Church until the 14th century A. D., when the Latin initiation has been almost completely eradicated from Western Europe.[↩]
          8. That is to say, produced by the manas. Sometimes, very rarely indeed, there have been some cases of intellectual Mysticism (improperly defined by the catholic theologians as “Contemplative Mysticism”), when instead of blissful visions, pleasant perfumes and sweet sounds, the mystic conceive some higher thoughts. In this case the producer of that kind of phenomena is evidently the buddhi.[↩]
          9. Notice how the Catholic theologian take support from the authority of an academic pseudo science![↩]
          10. Don Roberto Tarquini, www.mistica.it, 2 feb. 2006.[↩]

          2. Esoterism and Exoterism

            Esoterism and Exoterism

            In the article “Religion and Dharma” we have described the main points of difference between the two concepts. However there is another aspect that sharply divides the Western Religions and the Hindū Dharma.
            In Hindū Dharma at every social and intellectual level it is well known what is mokṣa, the fourth and supreme aim of human life (puruṣārtha). And no Hindū ignores that mokṣa means Liberation from the bondage of transmigration (saṃsāra).
            Nevertheless, during the life, everyone is free to stay in a less advanced puruṣārtha, choosing among kāma, artha and dharma.
            In this case Hindūs can spend a pleasant life on the earth and aspire to reach a loka after death enjoying the positive results of their good deeds (pūṇya); and, at the end of this process, they can obtain a good rebirth. To get these aims, one has simply to follow the rituals of his family tradition.
            If someone wants to act more effectively purifying his mind and his whole individuality, he will approach a Guru in order to obtain initiation (dīkṣā). From this moment the traditional family rituals acquire a greater effectiveness for him. Also the instruments of sādhana (yantra, mantra, upāsana) imparted by the Guru will act producing his inner progress. In this way his interior path can become a preparation for the search of mokṣa.
            This broad view of Hinduism has never been valid in western traditions. Even the ancient pre-Christian Religions, namely the Greek and Roman, in many aspects so similar to the Sanātana Dharma, were differently structured.
            Religion in Western Countries has always concerned only the familiar and social cult. Moreover the purpose of Religion is to give the ritual instruments to avoid hell and to reach the celestial abodes after death. Religion domain is limited to this.
            If someone wished to obtain initiation (dīkṣā), he had to overcome Religion boundaries and to enter into a different domain. This was defined esoterism, from the ancient Greek word ἐσώτερος (read esòteros) whose meaning is “facing inward”. The field of initiation is esoterism, the field of Religion is exoterism, whose meaning is “facing outward”, ἐξώτερος (read exòteros).
            Actually, in ancient Greece and Rome, there were famous sanctuaries (like maṭhas and āśramas in India) dedicated to the initiations called Mysteria, where it was possible to approach a guru (mystagogòs). The entrance in those sanctuaries was forbidden to any profane i.e. exoterist. From this atmosphere of secrecy and discretion derives the modern meaning of “mystery”1. Rituals, mantras and symbols of the ancient Mysteria were hidden, and nowadays we have rare literaly information only through some initiate who had violated the secret. In our next articles we will better explain the Mysteria.
            When Christianity supplanted ancient Greek-Roman Olympian Religion, the esoteric transmission (paramparā) continued under a new Christian religious form2. As we will see later, Christianity has been devided in Greek Orthodox Church and Latin Catholic Church. The first one maintained an attitude of respect and devotion towards esoterism. And till now Ortodox monasteries have preserved a sādhana whose name is Hesychasm, ἡσυχασμός (read hesychasmòs), “interior peace”.
            On the contrary, Catholic Church, after having respected the esoteric domain3 for many centuries, has changed her behavior. She forgot that the spiritual field of initiation is different, and begun to consider the esoterism as a rival sect. This lack of understanding of Catholic Church compelled the various initiatory organizations (sampradāya) to more secrecy in order to defend themselves from the suspicion of heresy4. In the late Middle Ages the Church began a real persecution against the initiates, considered as heretics, anti-Christians and even servants of Devil. In 1313 A. D. the King of France, with the consent of the Pope, Head of the Catholic Church, gave the order to arrest and burn alive the Templar Knights, the warrior caste defenders of Western sampradāyas. In a few decades almost all Western initiations disappeared. Since that period Roman Church remained only as an exoteric religious structure, like a fruit without seed, like a mask without face. This absence of dīkṣā and of its concept is an anomaly that Hindū authorities have to know in order to understand the reasons of Western Christian deviation.
            On this subject and its consequences we will return several times.

            Devadatta Kīrtideva Aśvamitra

            1. In India it is possible to find some similar conduct only in certain tantric circles of the left hand (vāmācāra mārga).[↩]
            2. Obviously, in this formal adaptation also other initiatory streams of esoteric domain continued: among them the most important has been the Jewish Essene Qabbalistic initiation, transmitted by Jesus Christ himself. But Christianized Roman Empire also preserved some paramparās proceeding from other traditions flourishing in the Imperial domains: as Hermetism, an initiatory path of Egyptian origin, and more intellectual initiations of Celtic origin. We will return to the subject in next articles.[↩]
            3. If Catholicism inherited the ancient Greek terms exoterism and esoterism, the other two Western Religions employ their own words: in Judaism datt is exoterism and qabbalah, esoterism; in Islam shari’a is exoterism and Sufism (tasawwuf), esoterism.[↩]
            4. Similarly in modern Islam, the unstoppable fundamentalism spread is provoking hard persecution of Sufism.[↩]

            1. Religion and Dharma

              Religion and Dharma

              This series of brief articles begins with the purpose of clarifying the ideas of the Hindū Authorities about some basic concept of Western Traditions.

              Usually the saṃskṛta term Dharma is translated with the English word “Religion”. This is because since their first arrival in India, Western people decided the equivalence between the two terms. After five centuries that use has been accepted also by the Indian dhārmika representatives.
              Now we will demonstrate that the two words have different meanings, and therfore it is wrong to use them as synonyms.
              The term Religion derives from the Latin Religio, and is composed by two different roots, res, i.e. “thing”, and the verb ligo, “to tie”1. In this context it is not clear the real meaning of res, thing. It seems that res has been used to define all the citizens and the public goods included in the State apparatus2. The State, in fact, was considered as a sacred entity, public ceremonies as rituals, public service as priesthood. The contacts with the Gods were mostly maintained trough the State, the public deeds and the state magistracies.
              The interpretation of Religio changed when Christianity became the Roman State Religion during the 4th century A.D. Christians gave the meaning of the Hebrew datt (Religion) to the Latin term. Thereafter Religio has been interpreted as the “thing” linking the believers to the unique God.
              Now we have to consider what is Religion for Semitic Monotheisms, Judaism, Christianity and Islam:

              • Religion is a social order revealed by God to a specific community of His believers. All other human beings not adhering to His faith live in a sinful condition and are excluded from the means of salvation.
              • Religion is a pact between God and His community of believers excluding all other beings, sentient or insentient.
              • The Religion highest purpose is to lead the deceased believer to salvation (the heavens).
              • All the believers have to accept the dogmas, that is to say some statements of faith: it is forbidden to investigate on them through the reason3. Who does not accept a dogma is excluded from the religious community.
              • All the believers must follow the same moral rules and conduct.
              • All the believers must follow the same ritual prescriptions, without exceptions.
              • Religion is an intervention of God in history trough a revelation of some message to a human personality4.

              At this point it is evident that Religion is completely different from Dharma. Dharma is not the fruit of a historical revelation, being free from time, and for this reason its true attribute is sanātana, permanent5. Dharma is also free from space condition, being the Order that rules the equilibrium of the whole Cosmos, in favor of every and each being, sentient and insentient. It harmonizes the needs of every being, family, caste and nation, establishing supple rules, behaviors and rituals adapted to everyone. It does not impose any blind belief; on the contrary, it encourages everyone to pursue knowledge. The Hindū Śāstra is not a revelation falling from Heaven to Earth on the whim of some God. This is the description of real experiences of the ancient muktas. Moreover, its highest ideal is not the permanence in some loka, but the identification with our Real Nature, the Brahman, to wit the Liberation from any saṃsāri bondage.

              D. K. Aśvamitra

              1. A similar term did not exist in ancient Greek. Romans regarded their concept of Religio as corresponding to the Greek term θρησκός (read threskòs), “Godfearing”.[↩]
              2. Indeed, Romans used the term Res Publica in order to define the State, regardless whether there was a monarchic, aristocratic or democratic regime.[↩]
              3. For Judaism is dogmatic to believe in the Unicity of its God, in His Revelation and in the perennial pact between God and the elect people, the Jews. The dogmas for Christians are: the belief that God is One and Trine and that His son Jesus descended on Earth to be killed in sacrifice for the salvation of the believers. Another dogma is the ritual power of priests to transform bread and wine in real flesh and blood of Jesus Christ; whoever eats and drinks them reaches the salvation. For Muslims dogmas are that: God is One, the revealed Qur’an is eternal and that Muhammad is the last and conclusive of the Prophets.[↩]
              4. There is a peculiar emphasis on this aspect, as if a historical fact would have some metaphysic relevance. Judaism was historically revealed by God to Moses. In the same way Christianity and Islam were founded respectively by Jesus Christ and Muhammad.[↩]
              5. Also Buddhism is defined as Ākālika Dharma, timeless Dharma. However, from here a difficulty arises, because Buddhism has a historical founder, and Jainism as well. Even Tantrism differs somehow from the concept of Dharma, as it is the result of a revelation. Indeed “in this case there is the repulsive error of mutual dependence, as the authority of the Āgama (Tantra) rely on the omniscience of the God who has revealed it, and the omniscience of the same God leans on the authority of the revealed Āgama (Brahma Sūtra Śaṃkara Bhāṣya, II.2.38). Svāmī Satcidānandendra Sarasvatī comments as follows: “It is obvious that Śaṃkara with this refers to the Bible, the Qur’an, the Zend Avesta and to the sacred books of all the religions because they all claim that their inspired nature depends o the weak argument of the vicious circle, as happens for the Āgamas of Hinduism” (Intuition of the Reality, Holenarsipur, APK, 1955, pp. 8-9). We will answer these questions in a future article on this website.[↩]

              Introduction

                Introduction

                Gururbrahmā, Gururviṣṇuḥu, Gururdevo Maheśvaraḥa,
                Guruhusākṣāt Param Brahma Tasmai, Śrigurave Namaḥa

                Glory to the Guru, whose teachings allow us to see the rope beyond the snake appearance; glory to the Guru who teaches us how to distinguish ourselves from the body, the mind, the ego; glory to the Guru who helps us to realize that we are the Absolute Non-dual Reality. What we are about to write could not be true without the previous instruction and approval of the Guru. Glory to the Guru, to the Paramguru1 and to the Parameṣṭhi Guru2, inexhaustible sources of unfailing knowledge.

                Three gurus of śaṃkarian Vedānta, on different occasions and in different locations in India, had asked us to write a series of articles on the traditions that had succeeded one another in the West. Above all, they wished us to explain to them the reasons why, by departing from all traditional attitudes, the West had become so aggressive towards the civilizations of others for several centuries. The purpose of military aggression of conquest and economic aggression of exploitation was sufficiently clear to them, being motivated by reasons of crude greed. What was incomprehensible to the initiatic authorities of Hinduism was the motive of missionary activity, especially that of the different Christian denominations. In fact, the similar Islamic proselytism was already known to them and more easily explained, since India had suffered such virulence for the long period of thirteen centuries. In India, Muslim missionaryism has the declared purpose of forcing those whom they consider “idolaters” to convert on pain of death. In its brutality, Islamic proselytism is at least brazenly clear in its means and aims. What instead remain unexplained are the motivations, the propaganda practice and the aims of the Christian missionaries3. Apparently the motivations are dictated by the desire to bring the “glad tidings” to the unfortunate populations that have not been benefited by the Christic revelation and therefore live in the “natural” state, deprived of any contact with the divine. Although they appear to be based on a disconcerting gullibility, they are nonetheless contradicted by the ends that are stubbornly pursued. The aims of Christian propaganda are reduced, in fact, to the divulgation of the material and technological superiority of the atheistic civilization coming from the West, which the missionaries validly represent, and the systematic demolition of tradition. The instruments, then, used for such a dissemination of profane conceptions, worsen the general picture of missionary activity: the deceptive conviction, the systematic lie, the philanthropic blackmail, the protean mimesis. The other point that the Svāmīs had declared incomprehensible to them was the active collaboration between missionary activity and the penetration of communism among the natives. Following all logic, Christian religious organizations and parties of various Marxist inspiration should have been on opposite sides. Instead, the collaboration seemed close and cordial, to the point that in those islands of India where conversions were rampant, communist parties invariably came to power. Evidently in the western civilization there was something that escaped them, a tumor hidden behind a flourishing appearance, which however spread from there like a metastasis to contaminate the bodies of other people’s traditions. In future developments of the From Cosmos to Chaos series we will deal with missionaryism and these related topics when we get to the modern and contemporary era. Lastly, they complained that they knew nothing real about the situation of traditions in the West. Some elementary information about ancient Greece and Rome had come to them as well, despite the fact that they had been trained in traditional Sanskrit knowledge in āśrama and gurukula. They had grasped that in those ancient civilizations there was a mythology, sacrificial rituals, a priesthood by birth, consecrated rulers, all of which echoed a similarity to the Vedic tradition. And they were surprised, regretful, that there were no longer worshippers of the ancient gods in any corner of the West. Why the drastic uprooting of ancestral traditions? One of the three gurus, particularly intrigued, had tried to learn more and had come to know Dante and Eckhart, and had recognized in them the traces of a metaphysical knowledge, not far from the Vedānta. However, they were aware that the sources they had access to were not reliable: most of the publications still circulating in India about classical antiquity or the Christian Middle Ages are those of the colonial era, which mainly magnify the “progress” of the West and the British “empire” in particular. In those books the presence of white, Anglo-Saxon, liberal and Protestant racial superiority according to nineteenth-century evolutionism is still central, leaving little room for Latin and Greek civilizations. At most, there is some reference to Athenian democracy and Roman law, largely filtered through romantic rhetoric. To browse more academic texts (i.e. richer in data, which does not mean that they are more reliable) one must draw from university or public libraries, where one must show a degree, better if a PhD, to access the consultation. So they are unobtainable for those who have studied with a paṇḍita, guru, or ācārya. The other Indian publications on the West are produced by vivekānandian, aurobindian, theosophist or Gandhian circles and publishing houses, of no doctrinal depth, but dripping with holistic love, equality between religions, universal peace. The other sources of information are missionary and Marxist. All three of these masters, who have never met each other personally, asked us to write a series of articles in order to have a fairly comprehensive overview of the ancient Western traditions, myths, sacrifices, cosmological and metaphysical doctrines, external and initiatory. They asked us to specify which details are similar or even identical to those of India, and which are the basic differences. And again: that we explain the advent of monotheism and the suppression of the Olympic religions and mysteries; to clarify what was the place of Christianity in the view of the Oriental traditions. But above all, they wanted to be made aware of the reasons that have made the West deviate from its traditional march to the point of becoming a true anomaly, a concrete danger for the existence of other traditions with its spread over the entire globe. We could not satisfy the first request4: those were the days when the computer was an object of science fiction movies, nor did we have any publishing house available to support that effort. The second incitament, on the other hand, came from a prestigious Pīṭha that gathered many saṃnyāsin and brahmacārin. The only practical difficulty was that the Svāmījī wanted us to publish the articles in the Hindī language; however, we had a number of people willing to cooperate, so the difficulty could have been overcome. In this case the human element became lacking. Commitments of ordinary life made collaborations fade, making everything more difficult. So at the stimulus of the third guru it was decided to break the delay and publish a series of articles in English on this site, with the indicative title of From Cosmos to Chaos. The contributors, this time, were taken with enthusiasm and in the short period of a year and a half the thirty-three chapters were published. After some initial work, warning the reader of the main differences between the European traditions and the Sanātana Dharma, these began to outline the history of the Primordial Tradition from its earliest traces in Greek literature, to cover the development of the mystery traditions, the origins of monotheisms, with particular attention to the birth of Christianity, to the establishment of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor. As can be easily seen from the above, the didactic setting chosen was designed for easy reading by the Hindū initiatic authorities and all those who, like them, having embraced a path of renunciation since adolescence, wish to have at their disposal, immediately, clear traditional data, regardless of the pedantic references required by academic studies. Moreover, the point of view deliberately assumed is one of an initiatic nature. For this reason, we do not worry at all about any erudite critics for the “unscientific” method we have adopted, nor will we take care of objections coming from dogmatic followers of monotheistic essoterisms.

                Gian Giuseppe Filippi

                1. The master of the guru, the penultimate in the initiatory chain (paramparā) [Editor’s note].[↩]
                2. The master of the paramaguru [Editor’s note].[↩]
                3. To be precise, the Catholic Church and the countless Reformed sects that originated from it. This excludes the Eastern Churches which, although open to proselytizing Christic teachings, ignore missionary aberration altogether.[↩]
                4. A few years later Tadātmānanda Sarasvatī Svāmījī left the body, and this finally dropped that demand.[↩]