2-18-98 THE MIGHTY SHANKARA

If Vedanta is the most advanced system of Indian Philosophy and Advaita Vedanta its most respected school, then Shankara is the greatest exponent of both. Well after the time of Christ, the philosophies of the Buddhists, Jains, and Carvakas (materialists) swept over an India already weakened by external invasion and internal strife. The Vedic religion was, deservedly or not, in full retreat. Then A Vedic sage arose who, almost single handedly, routed his foes and restored the Veda to its pristine place. This sage was Adi Shankara.

Whether Shankara's influence was an entirely positive has been questioned by more than one sage. Sri Aurobindo, for example, places much of the blame for India's decline directly at the feet of Shankara. He suggests that Shankara's teaching did not give proper emphasis to the manifest, feminine values of existence and overemphasized the unmanifest, male aspects. This made the Indians too other-worldly and out of harmony with the life-affirming values of Krishna and other past Vedic avatars and rishis. Stated in Vedic language: Shiva was glorified at the expense of Shakti, that aspect of the Divine which enlivens and upholds manifest creation. The result is a philosophy which fails to do justice to the fullness of the original Vedic conception of life. Thus, among Aurobindo disciples, Shankara is generally not held in high esteem.

What perspective does The Art of Multi-Dimensional Living offer as regards this issue? As paradoxical as it may sound, I uphold Aurobindo's critique of Shankara while, at the same time, suggest that the essential spiritual impulse which supports The Art of Multi-Dimensional Living is directly related to Shankara.

Shankara was quite aware of his immediate task and that he only had a short time to complete it. He knew that his focus of attention needed to be: the restoration of the teaching of non-duality, which had been compromised through an overemphasis on rituals as a means of providing worldly happiness and through various distorted interpretations of the nature of ultimate truth by the Buddhists, Jains and Carvakas. He was also aware of the fact that the Shakti value of creation could only be effectively restored in spiritual teachings with the restoration of a true science of the stars, and that this would only be accomplished at a later time through the very Mercurial impulse which guided his own life and made him the most esteemed teacher of Gyana Yoga to have ever lived.

The actuality of this truth must be verified in consciousness. I teach from the same Mercurial stream of evolution as did Shankara, J.R. Krishnamurti, Rudolph Steiner, Paul Brunton and others. In this sense, all who have contributed to this stream are also contributors to The Art of Multi-Dimensional Living. However, Shankara holds a special place among all these great sages. He is the chief force which lies behind The Art of Multi-Dimensional Living even though my teaching is a considerable expansion of his own, because it includes not only the unmanifest and manifest values of creation, but also their intimate relationship. Shankara distinguished ultimate and conventional knowledge, but all of his commentaries were reserved for the nature and scope of the former. Conventional knowledge and its relationship to the non-dual teachings was left untouched.

Shankara, with full awareness of the capacity of The Art of Multi-Dimensional Living to restore the complete teachings of Gyana and Gyana Yoga, has lent support to this endeavor from the subtle spiritual worlds by strengthening the resolve of this writer to carry out this work to the end in complete freedom and independence from any prior teachings including his own. In this, and in possibly other ways of which I am totally unaware, Shankara, the embodiment of sat, chit, ananda, is to this day dispassionately addressing from the higher worlds the issues raised by Sri Aurobindo and seeking to influence world evolution through those still capable of responding to his presence. Normally I do not write about such personal matters, but since Shankara is the guiding force behind this teaching, I feel that I must give him homage while at the same time delineating the higher expressions of Gyana and Gyana Yoga through The Art of Multi-Dimensional Living -- tasks which Shankara left incomplete.

A figure as towering as Shankara is bound to be controversial. Some scholars feel that he was more of an ally of the Buddhists than their protagonist. One of the most puzzling questions about his life and teaching is why, if he sought to replace Buddhism with a revitalized Vedic civilization, he emulated Buddha's monastic tradition with the creation of his own four monastic centers? The answer suggested by The Art of Multi-Dimensional Living is the following: Shankara knew that the earlier Vedic civilization could only be recreated through enlightened, empowered Brahmins, the caste in India responsible for religious education and culture. He also knew that the strength of the Brahmins lay in both spiritual experience (absolute knowledge), and the true science of the stars (the key relative knowledge). Realizing that the astrological knowledge was already lost and could only be rediscovered through genuine spiritual experience, he decided to place his emphasis on the establishment of four key monastic centers throughout India. These centers would help re-enkindle the Mercurial stream of spiritual evolution and would lay the foundation for the later rebirth of a true science of the stars.

Shankara also knew that a sage like Sri Aurobindo would come to provide the theoretical framework for restorating the fullness of Vedic civilization through a rebalancing of the principles of Shiva and Shakti, but that this theory would have to be complimented by a practical discipline for enlivening the relative and its relationship to the Absolute value of creation. This discipline would be The Art of Multi-Dimensional Living, a new form of spiritual science and a new form of astrology. He also knew that initially only a few bright souls would have the capacity to grasp the significance of this new science, but that, in time, others would also begin to see that what was being offered was not the ravings of some self-deluded soul, but a new pristine knowledge which will eventually guide all of humanity. In the meantime, all I can due is uphold this precious knowledge even though the light of its Truth may remain largely unrecognized during these present dark times.