CHAPTER
3
GRIFFITHS’
NEW VISION OF THE REALITY
According to Griffiths, " All religion derives from a
mystical experience, transcending thought, and seeks to express this
experience, to give it form, in language, ritual, and social organization. Myth
is the language of primitive religion: it is poetic expression of a mystical
experience. Myths can only be understood as poetry. They spring from the depths
where man encounters the ultimate Mystery of existence and interprets it in
poetic form."1
Griffiths had a very strong aspiration towards a new vision
of the Reality. Griffith’s new vision of the Reality is developed in the
context of new scientific developments. Griffiths begins by analysing the
Mechanistic understanding of the universe, which clearly distinguishes between
‘matter and mind’ at the philosophical level. With new scientific discoveries,
the universe is seen as an organism where every part is viewed in the
perspective of the whole. "Matter is considered only as field energy in
which all the parts are inter-related, and interdependent, a complicated web of
interdependent relationships."2 According to Bede Griffiths,
the ancient man had already discovered this vision thousands of years ago, in
all the major religions of the world. The Vedic seers saw the Reality as an
organic whole- the universe as Brahman, the one without a second.
Griffiths understanding of ancient man’s wisdom of reality
coupled with a brief analysis of the mechanistic model and finally a look at
the new vision of
1
reality based on the organic model will help us grasp
Griffiths’ attempts at new solutions to ancient problems regarding man’s
relationship with the universe and God.
3.1. Ancient Man’s Relationship With The Reality
Griffiths says;
The Ultimate Reality is beyond the grasp of man’s senses and
reason. It is to be experience in life. Ancient man experience the Reality in
its totality as an integrated whole. According to him there are three ‘worlds’-
the physical, the psychic and the spiritual- and all these are interdependent
as an integrated whole. Man himself is seen as a world in miniature, a microcosm
of the macrocosm. His physical body obeying the laws of matter is dependent on
the sol with its psychic powers and this in turns is dependent on the Spirit by
which man is related to the Source of his being. This creative synthesis, this
marvellous integration gave a harmonious unity in which each man was related to
nature, to his fellow men and to the divine in a wonderful way.3
"The ancient man was in harmony with God, with fellow
men, with nature and with his own innermost being. There was unity. Everything
was seen as interpenetrated in a cosmic whole. This primordial harmony and
cosmic unity comes from the view that everything is an explication of the One
Ultimate Reality. Reality is One and it is experience and expressed in many
ways."4 This One Reality is expressed as Brahman in Hinduism.
The Ultimate Reality, which is beyond all articulation and categorisation,
escapes all explanations. It is to be experienced in the depth of one’s being.
"The One Reality desired to become Many and it became the
Source of everything. It is beneath and beyond all multiplicity."5
Thus ancient man experienced the Reality as One and Many simultaneously.
Reality is One and
2
Many, that is, One in Many and Many in One at the same time.
Some would call it as pantheism. It is not pantheism. It could be called Pane
theism that is God is in everything, but nothing is God.
Ancient man’s experience of the Ultimate or Transcendent
Reality was first manifested in his worship of the universe. "He saw the
universe as Brahman the Absolute Reality. God is in everything but nothing is
God."6 So the whole universe for the Vedic man was pervaded by
a sense of the sacred. Ancient man lived in a world of imagination and was
guided and enlightened by intuitive wisdom. It was through intuition, myth and
poetry, and not through rational and abstract concepts, that he experienced
reality in its depth. Griffiths asserts:
There is no objective world outside us as opposed to a
subjective world within. There is one Reality which manifests itself
objectively outside us and subjectively within, but which itself is beyond the
distinction of subject and object, and is known when the human mind transcends
both sense (by which we perceive the outside world) and reason (by which we
conceive the mental world of science and philosophy) and discovers the Reality
itself, which is both being and consciousness in an indivisible unity.7
According to Griffiths, the Vedic vision discloses three
worlds: the physical, the psychological, and the spiritual. The Vedic men saw
them as three aspects of the one and the same Reality always interwoven and
interdependent. " The ancient men lived in harmony with the universe, and
in the rhythm of the universe."8
Ancient man perceived the Reality as centered on a hidden mystery
imparting to it its meaning and unity. He was always in close contact with the
3
Transcendent mystery. Griffiths says:
"It is within all things, above all things, beyond all
things but it cannot be identified with anything. Without it nothing could
exist, without it nothing can be known yet it is itself unknown. It is that by
which everything is known, yet which itself remains unknown."9
Griffiths suggests:
"Human beings can approach this mystery in two ways, as
he Vedic sages did. The first would be to look out on the world around us and
recognize behind the phenomenon an underlying mystery that sustains the whole
universe, which is Brahman. The other would be to look within ourselves and
ask: what is the source of my being? The Vedic sage called it the Atman or the
Self. The deepest mystery of the Upanishads, asserts Griffiths, is "tat
tvam asi (thou art That) or aham brahma asmi (I am Brahman)."10
The reading of Shelly, Keats, and Words Worth awakened
"Griffiths to find in nature the presence of a power which pervades both
the universe and the mind of man."11
3.2 Myths: Symbolic Expressions of the Ultimate reality
The ancient man was enlightened by the intuitive wisdom ant
he did not rationalize his experience of Reality. His experience was beyond
words and thoughts; he expressed it in symbolic, and poetic language using myth
as medium. Man gets experiential knowledge not by using analytical reason, but
by using the language of myth and poetry, which engages his imagination, sense,
feeling, will and reason. Myths engage all the powers of a person and they come
nearest to the truth. " All the Scriptures o the world, were all written
4
in poetic and mythical language which symbolically expresses
the Reality.
Ancient man, that is man from the earliest times until the
first millennium before Christ (and even after that in the greater part of the
world until the present day) lived in the world of the imagination, that is the
world of integral wholeness. Of this world of the imagination the supreme
expression was the Myth. Myth is a symbolic utterance, which arises from the
depths of the unconscious, or rather from the deep levels of consciousness,
which lie below the level of relational consciousness. The rational mind, with
its abstract concepts and logical constructions, is like the tip of an iceberg,
while below it are vast levels of consciousness which link our human nature
with the universe around us and with the archetypes or transcendent principles
which govern the Universe. The myth is the reflection in the human imagination
of these archetypal ideas, those cosmic principles and powers, which were known
in the ancient world as the gods or angels.12
The Vedas belong to myths because the Vedas are known as
‘Sruti’ that which is heard. They are not merely the product of human ingenuity
but of revelation that is an unveiling of the truth. They are called ‘Nitya’
that is eternal and signifying that they do not derive from this world of time
and change but are reflections of the eternal. Finally they are said to be
‘apauruseya’ without human authorship, they are expressions of the eternal
word, the ‘Vac’.
The myths became the total integration, of man with the
universe around him, with his own inner experience and with the transcendent
world of the spirit. He was not rational in his approach towards the Reality.
"His was an experience that went beyond words, thoughts, images, and
concepts. He was led by intuition and poetic imagination his experience or
reality and it was for this reason that he expressed his experience of reality
through symbols using myth as medium."13
5
It is through myth that man could truly express himself, his
imaginations sensations, feelings, will and reason. For Griffiths myths are the
language of primitive religion: it is the poetic expression of a mystical
experience Myths can only be understood as poetry. They spring from the depths
where man encounters the Ultimate mystery of existence and interprets it in
poetic form. Myths narrated a sacred history. It relates an event that took
place in primordial time. The Vedas were deeply rooted in world of myth but the
rational mind of man had already begun to draw out all the complex meaning f
words in Vedas. For many years their deeper meaning had been lost and they had
been interpreted with a crude literalism. The Vedic seers could find out the
physical psychological and spiritual dimensions of the Vedas. " The Vedic
religion in India is a living reality which is firmly rooted not merely in myth
land ritual bur also in profound philosophical reasoning."14
Hinduism according to Grtiffiths lives in this world of
myth. The Hindu Gods are mythological figure, which are symbols of the divine
Mystery. For the Vedic seers there is one reality. ‘One only without second,
which is indivisible being and consciousness (sat and cit) and this reality
when known in its origin, is experienced as the source of ineffable joy (ananda).
Myths and ritual are for freeing man from his isolation and helping him to find
a unity between himself and the universe, myths are the languages of
imaginative insight into ultimate Reality. The myth enables man to experience
the Ultimate
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Reality.
3.3 A Unified Vision of the Reality
From the world of the imagination and of the myth there
began the great passage into the world of reason this transition is evident:
both sages are represented and the new development is seen to emerge out of its
mythological background. In the first book of Rig Veda in fact the gods are
recognised to be he names and forms of the one Being (Ekam Sat), who has no
name and no form. The people of ancient Vedas never separated the three worlds-
the physical, the psychological and the spiritual. The whole universe was seen
to be one, but manifesting at three levels. The physical world was considered
to be merely material. This is what is known in Hindu tradition as Avidya
(ignorance) and Maya.
"The name given to the transcendent reality, which is
manifesting through the whole universe, was Brahman."15 Later
this Brahman came to be meaning that power which sustains the universe. In this
way there began the development of the concept of the universal power or
energy, originally conceived as fire, which pervades the whole universe, the
heaven and expresses itself in the word (vac) which contains within itself the
power of life. In this way ‘OM’ came to be conceived as the great word, the
Pranave, which expressed the whole meaning of reality.
The seers of Upanishads began to meditate and they made the
great discovery that this Brahman, this power in the universe, this power which
was
7
believed to be in the sacrifice which sustained the
universe, this power is within each person. "Brahman is
consciousness."16 Brahman was understood previously to be
manifesting in the entire universe, in the heaven and the earth, and in man:
Brahman is everywhere. But now came a new discovery of Brahman, that reality
without is one with one’s own inner consciousness. This is the awakening of the
inner self for the first time. Previously man had been living in the outer
universe and experiencing God. Brahman, the reality, in that outside universe
but not in himself. Now man discovered himself. "The word for self is
Atman so now it is said Ayam Ataman Brahmanasti."17 That self is
Brahman.
Brahman then is the ground in which the whole creation is
woven. Everything comes out from Brahman emerging as from a source. The text
says, "As the spider comes out with its thread or as small sparks come
forth from fire, thus do all the senses, all the world, all gods and all being
come forth from that Spirit."18 Brahman is the source, the
ground and the end of all human endeavours. It is the Supreme reality, which
embraces everything. The whole creation is pervaded by Brahman and contained
within it. This Brahman is the Supreme Reality the Unified Reality according to
Bede Griffiths.
The new findings in the fields of physics, biology, and
psychology propose anew vision of Reality, which come very close to ancient
man’s unitive vision of Reality. The western science and the eastern mysticism
are dawning with this new vision of Reality.
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END NOTES
1) Griffiths Bede, Return to the Centre (London:
Harper Collins Publishers, 1976), P.78.
2) Fernandes Albano, The Hindu Mystical Experience
(New Delhi: Inter cultural Publication, 2004), P. 116.
3) Rajan Jesu, Bede Griffiths and Sannyasa,
(Banglore: Asian Trading Corporation, 150 Brigade Road, 1989), P. 114.
4) Ibid., P.115.
5) Ibid.
6) Fernando Albano, The Hindu Mystical Experience, P.
7) Ibid., P.117.
8) Ibid., P.118.
9) Ibid.
10) Ibid.
11) Griffiths Bede, The Marriage of East and West
(Great Britain: William Collins Sons & Co Ltd, 1982), P.46.
12) Ibid., P.48.
13) Fernando Albano, Hindu Mystical Experience, P.
118.
14) Ibid., P.119.
15) Griffiths Bede, The New Vision of Reality (New
Delhi: Harper Collins Publishers India Pvt.Ltd, 1989), P.61.
16) Ibid., P. 64.
17) Ibid.
18) Ibid., P.67.
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